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Greetings N2K reader!

The theme of this week's world famous News Haiku™ competition is that the FBI’s NBA probe has put sports betting firms in the spotlight. Rather than, you know…basketball. Which is a bit of a shame. Email me your entry by today at noon for a chance to be voted on by your Cheddar peers!

Now let’s talk about the news you need to know!

—Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor

News You Need2Know

• Nvidia has started the $5 trillion club

• Elon Musk launches own version of Wikipedia, 'Grok …

• Nvidia will buy $1 billion in Nokia shares

• Microsoft’s Azure cloud service got messed up

• Federal Reserve cuts key rate as shutdown clouds o …

What’s the stock market up to, eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.0% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.16% ) $NDX ( ▲ 0.55% )

Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter

$NVDA ( ▲ 2.99% )  $MSFT ( ▼ 0.1% )  $NOK ( ▼ 5.66% )  $AAPL ( ▲ 0.26% )  $COST ( ▼ 1.27% )  $SBUX ( ▼ 1.48% )  

Nvidia has started the $5 trillion club

I would like to hear your suggested captions for the image above. But Nvidia has officially made history, becoming the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The landmark achievement highlights its meteoric rise as a dominant force in the tech industry, fueled by surging global demand for its cutting-edge AI chips. As of Wednesday, Nvidia’s market cap hit $5.054 trillion—solidifying its spot as the most valuable company on the S&P 500 and placing it ahead of tech giants Microsoft $MSFT ( ▼ 0.1% ) (a lowly $4.04 trillion), Apple $AAPL ( ▲ 0.26% ) ($3.99 trillion: pathetic!), and even, believe it or not, Xerox $XRX ( ▼ 3.92% ) ($449 million). The leap in valuation comes during a streak of massive growth; the company’s value jumped from $3 trillion last May to $5 trillion in just 92 trading days.

Nvidia’s influence extends beyond stock market dominance — it contributed an astounding 18.6% to the S&P 500’s gains through September this year. CEO Jensen Huang has seen his personal net worth rise to $178.9 billion, earning him a spot as the eighth richest person on Forbes' Billionaires List. To top it off, Nvidia returned $24.2 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks in the first half of fiscal 2026, which you’ve got to like. Right? And now, guess what? They’re investing a billion dollars in Nokia. What, what!? (See 👇🏻)

Song of the day: Lily Allen, ‘West End Girl’

On “West End Girl,” Lily Allen provides a lurid, linear, and detail-filled account of the dissolution of a marriage — widely believed to be her own recently failed union with the actor David Harbour. I enjoyed the heck of it. The New York Times did a reasonably high-quality review.

Elon Musk launches own version of Wikipedia, 'Grokipedia'

Elon Musk has launched “Grokipedia,” his AI-powered alternative to Wikipedia, aiming to create what he calls a “more unbiased encyclopedia,” which presumably means it’ll be more flattering toward him and his companies.

Developed by his AI company, xAI, Grokipedia promises to “purge out the propaganda” Musk believes is present in Wikipedia. “Since legacy media propaganda is considered a ‘valid’ source by Wikipedia, it naturally simply becomes an extension of legacy media propaganda!” Musk argued earlier this year, calling for donors to stop funding the site.

Grokipedia debuted with over 800,000 AI-generated entries, far fewer than Wikipedia’s eight million human-created articles. The site has already sparked debate, with critics highlighting biased entries that appear to align with Musk's views. An entry on gender transition, for instance, described supporting medical evidence as “limited” and “of low quality,” deviating from Wikipedia’s perspective, which cites decades of scientific understanding. Ryan McGrady, a research fellow at UMass Amherst, told the AP: “The impulse to control knowledge is as old as knowledge itself. Controlling what gets written is a way to gain or keep power.”

Wikipedia’s co-founder Jimmy Wales pushed back on the idea that AI could replace human curation. “It’s digging in and doing the work,” Wales said, adding that Wikipedia is working to address bias and adapt to challenges posed by AI tools such as Grokipedia, which increasingly scrape and clone its data.

Today on the ‘gram: But I like folding laundry!

Post of the day: Oops

Quote of the Day

Nvidia will buy $1 billion in Nokia shares

Nvidia has announced a $1 billion investment for a 2.9% stake in Nokia $NOK ( ▼ 5.66% ) , marking a major partnership aimed at developing AI networking solutions and advancing data center technology. Following the announcement, Nokia's shares soared by 20.86%, reaching their highest levels in nearly a decade. The collaboration is expected to play a pivotal role in shaping next-generation networks, blending Nokia’s telecommunications prowess with Nvidia’s cutting-edge AI technology.

“This is a strong endorsement of Nokia’s capabilities,” said PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore, emphasizing how networks like 6G will be essential for enabling AI-driven innovations. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang underscored the partnership’s significance by stating, “Thank you for helping the United States bring telecommunication technology back to America.”

He described the agreement as critical for positioning the U.S. at the forefront of the global 6G revolution. Nokia CEO Justin Hotard echoed the enthusiasm, saying, “I love the pace at which Nvidia moves. It’s a pace that I aspire for us to move at Nokia.”

Hotard revealed that new equipment stemming from this partnership would begin contributing revenue by 2027, initially through 5G and later 6G deployment.

It will all make this noise, I hope.

Should you check your 401(k) today?

👎️ 

No.

Microsoft’s Azure cloud service got messed up

Microsoft faced a significant outage that disrupted its Azure cloud platform yesterday, impacting a wide range of services such as Office 365, Minecraft, Xbox Live, and more. The outage occurred due to a configuration change in Azure’s infrastructure.

The outage had wide-reaching effects due to Azure's significance in supporting various platforms and businesses. As highlighted by Alaska Airlines on its social media account, “The outage is at the heart of problems affecting our systems, including check-in services.” Critical services such as gaming, productivity tools, and even operations for companies like Costco $COST ( ▼ 1.27% ) and Starbucks $SBUX ( ▼ 1.48% ) experienced disruptions throughout the day. The horror.

This incident came at an important time for the cloud giant, just hours before its quarterly earnings report. It also follows closely on the heels of a massive outage at Amazon Web Services $AMZN ( ▲ 0.46% ) earlier this month that took down platforms across industries including social media, food delivery, and finance.

Federal Reserve cuts key rate as shutdown clouds outlook

The Federal Reserve announced a second interest rate cut this year, lowering its key rate to 3.9% from 4.1%, in an effort to support a slowing job market and navigate ongoing inflation challenges. The decision reflects the Fed’s attempts to strike a delicate balance between encouraging economic growth and keeping inflation under control. “Job gains have slowed this year, and the unemployment rate has edged up but remained low through August,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said.

Without critical monthly economic reports on jobs, inflation, and consumer spending — key tools for the Fed’s decision-making — the central bank is relying on alternate private-sector data. Powell acknowledged the murky environment: “If there were a significant or material change in the economy, I think we’d pick that up. But the limited data could make sense to proceed more cautiously,” he said.

The rate cut aims to alleviate borrowing costs on mortgages, credit cards, and business loans, but internal disagreements persist. Some Fed officials opposed the move due to concerns about ongoing elevated inflation. Realizing the uncertainty ahead, Powell admitted: “There’s a possibility it would make sense to be more cautious about moving on rates.”

That’s called having your cake and eating it. Stocks slid a bit in the wake of the move, hoping for more concrete promises of another cut later in the year.

Poll of the day: Grok it? Or knock it?

Poll of the day result: Nobody’s indispensable

We asked: “Do you think Tesla shareholders should vote to approve Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package?”

You answered:

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes. It's a lot of money, but he's worth it. (53)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 No. It's an obscene amount of money, and he's bullying them into it. (744 votes)

797 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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