This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how a Silicon Valley start-up that released its first product just last week is drawing investment offers at a multibillion-dollar valuation, with promises that its AI tools are more efficient than OpenAI and Anthropic’s. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers.

Now? News!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Table of Contents

• Nvidia Bets $150 Billion on Share Buyback

• Starbucks Closes 250 More Underperforming Stores

• Residents Turn Down $10K ‘Bribes’ for AI Data Cent …

• Did Spam Filters Shortchange the GOP by $117M?

• Another Court Rules Kalshi Is Gambling

• Poll of the Day: Is Kalshi Gambling, Or What?

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.77% )  $DJI ( ▼ 0.67% )  $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$NVDA ( ▲ 1.68% )  $AAPL ( ▼ 0.78% )  $KALSZZX ( ▲ 1.83% )  $SBUX ( ▲ 0.43% )  $GOOGL ( ▼ 0.34% )  $MSFT ( ▼ 1.35% )  $YHOO ( 0.0% )  

Nvidia Bets $150 Billion on Share Buyback

What do you do when quarterly sales hit $96.2 billion and your company's market capitalization breaches $5.4 trillion? If you’re Nvidia, you launch the largest-ever stock buyback in U.S. history. Nvidia’s board has approved a jaw-dropping $150 billion boost to its share-repurchase program, bringing its total authorization to $235 billion. That effortlessly eclipses Apple’s $AAPL ( ▼ 0.78% ) previous record $110 billion, coming a mere four months after Nvidia tacked on another $80 billion to its own similar program.

Why pour GDP-sized mountains of cash back into its own stock? Chief Executive Jensen Huang framed it as a natural byproduct of the technological revolution: “Nvidia’s growth is being driven by a once-in-a-generation platform shift to AI and accelerated computing,” he said, noting that the firm's cash flow “gives us the capacity to invest in the technologies that advance this transformation and return capital to shareholders.”

In short: When you control the silicon powering the planet's AI frenzy, betting on yourself isn't a gamble. Or…is it?

Nvidia isn’t just buying its own shares; it’s bankrolling the entire AI landscape. The chip giant is partially guaranteeing up to $500 billion in data-center financing for clients, holding stakes in 242 public and private companies, and committing to $20 billion in long-term data-center leases. Addressing raised eyebrows over these circular-financing arrangements, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress bluntly noted, “Nvidia is needed to help power this flywheel.”

With 70% revenue growth projected for fiscal 2028, there’s no possible way the flywheel simply comes to a halt, now, is there? Because companies do sometimes do these as a way to mask stagnant growth, you know.…

Quote of the Day

Starbucks Closes 250 More Underperforming Stores

Starbucks is planning to close 1% of its North American cafes in the latest stage of its turnaround under remote-working CEO Brian Niccol.

Niccol has focused on improving the customer experience, including in-person interactions at the chain’s cafés. This is the second round of closures in North America during Niccol’s two-year tenure, and shares are up 14% since he took over — trailing the broader market but notably outperforming sector peers like McDonald’s and Chipotle.

The firm is now projecting net new openings of 440 cafes, most from international openings. The firm expects to pay about $300 million in restructuring costs from the closures.

Residents Turn Down $10K ‘Bribes’ for AI Data Center

A big AI data center developer has offered everyone living in a small town in Pennsylvania $10,000 to build the thing. But most of the residents are still against the move!

Northpoint Development sent letters to the 10,460 Pocono Hills residents in the Hazle Township this summer, offering to write a check to each household to spend on “whatever you want.”

The payouts compare positively to the average household income of $60,000. But most of the town’s residents are rejecting the payments. They feel the developer is trying to bribe them into signing off on a data center that could cause noise and light pollution. Or it could simply help the acceleration of AI, which they fear could eradicate broad swaths of jobs.

Ed Negra, a retired homeowner in Hazle Township who is helping organize opposition to the data center, told the Wall Street Journal that the $10,000 offer might end up backfiring.

“I think it works the opposite way, because most people have the opinion that, ‘hey, are they trying to bribe us here?’”

Song of the Day: Leon Bridges, ‘Watch You Dance’

Here’s a sultry, groove-heavy track from Leon Bridges’ fifth studio album, Happiness Anytime, out this month. Enjoy!

Did Spam Filters Shortchange the GOP by $117M?

Have you ever wondered where those frantic political fundraising emails go when they vanish into the digital ether? According to a new study by researchers Cameron Ellis and Lars Powell, roughly 142,000 expected first-time donations to the GOP’s WinRed platform vanished straight into the junk folder, costing conservative fundraisers an estimated $117 million.

During key periods last year, spam filters across Gmail $GOOGL ( ▼ 0.34% ) , Outlook $MSFT ( ▼ 1.35% ) , and Yahoo $YHOO ( 0.0% ) triggered a massive drop in donor conversions, the report alleges. First-time donations on WinRed plummeted 75% during a Gmail filtering surge and 83% during an Outlook filter spike.

Co-author Lars Powell called the missing $117 million "a pretty big number," quipping, "You can really think of that as an in-kind gift to ActBlue recipients," referring to left-leaning emails

Conservative strategists are incensed. One GOP adviser labeled the findings a "smoking gun that conservatives are being systematically disenfranchised," while Bernadette Breslin told the New York Post that "Google’s biased algorithms sidelined Republican fundraising emails for years while boosting Democrats’ donor outreach.”

Google pushed back against the study's conclusions, asserting that the research "relies on deeply flawed methodology that fundamentally misunderstands how Gmail works." A Google spokesperson insisted, "Our spam protections apply equally to everyone, regardless of political affiliation.”

Free Yourself From Advertising Forever!

Another Court Rules Kalshi Is Gambling

Prediction market giant Kalshi $KALSZZX ( ▲ 1.83% ) has spent billions trying to convince everyone that taking a binary "yes" or "no" stance on sports isn't gambling, it's trading sophisticated financial "swaps" under federal Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversight. But the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals just delivered a harsh reality check.

Ruling in favor of state regulators in Ohio and Tennessee, the appeals court dismantled Kalshi's attempt to dodge local gaming authorities. The judges declared, “We hold that Kalshi has not shown that its sports-event contracts satisfy the statutory definition of a ‘swap’ so as to fall within the scope of the CFTC’s ‘exclusive jurisdiction’.” To drive the point home, the court added that even if they were swaps, federal law “neither expressly nor impliedly preempts Ohio’s or Tennessee’s gambling laws.”

For a startup that has raised $2.6 billion and courted a staggering $40 billion valuation, facing state-by-state regulation, or outright bans in major markets like California, is a devastating setback.

Legal scholars were equally unamused by the corporate euphemisms. Kathryn Rand, a University of Nevada Las Vegas law professor, noted that judges wouldn't fall for clever rebrandings, explaining, “These judges might be more persuaded by – this quacks like a duck, it looks like a duck, this is obviously a duck, and it ought to be regulated under state law. Period.”

Quack! The firm plans, amazingly, to appeal.

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️ 

No.

Poll of the Day: Is Kalshi Gambling, Or What?

Poll of the Day: You’re More of a 2025 Person

We asked: Which 2026 corporate flex represents peak human civilization?

You answered:

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Waiting 13 hours in line in Seoul just to eat a chicken burrito that tastes exactly like one from Ohio. (20)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Paying Goldman Sachs over $200 million in fees while losing $16 billion on debt-fueled AI trades. (34)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Hosting a corporate video call on a 42-inch touchscreen inside a $25 million jet flying at 40,000 feet. (77)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Eating chicken tenders in an art deco breezeway because "it's how Colonel Sanders would design a restaurant today." (16)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Offering a $10 billion valuation to a startup charging 4.2 cents per million tokens after someone made a homage site called AskJev. (21)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 On second thought, I think I might be more a kinda 2025 person, if you catch my drift. (152)
320 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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