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Hello, my most beloved subscribers!

My dad bought our house in South London with money he earned working in Saudi Arabia between 1973 and 1976, so I’m hardly one to get on my high horse when it comes to taking the kingdom’s dollars. On the other hand, is $600 billion enough to salve Saudi Arabia’s conscience when it comes to documented human rights abuses in the country? What do you think? Also: Robots are replacing people at Microsoft!

Today's news you Need2Know

• Possible Medicaid cuts spark tensions in the GOP o …

• White House unveils $600B Saudi investment

• British Bank of America analyst jailed in Saudi Ar …

• More than 1,000 Starbucks baristas go on strike to …

• Robots replace people as Microsoft lays off about …

• From swindled to CEO: How Tinder Swindler star lau …

Have a great Thursday!

—Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor

P.S. Did you know we offer paid subscriptions that mean you never have to see an ad in this newsletter?

Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter

$GOOGL ( ▲ 1.32% )  $ORCL ( ▲ 0.68% )  $CRM ( ▲ 0.13% ) $AMD ( ▲ 1.89% )  $UBER ( ▲ 1.66% )  $SBUX ( ▼ 1.22% )  $MSFT ( ▲ 0.17% )  

FROM OUR D.C. CORRESPONDENT

Possible Medicaid cuts spark tensions in the GOP over who is the 'party of the American worker'

Many in the Republican Party, including President Trump, talk about becoming the “party of the American worker.” It’s a shift toward populism at odds with the pro-business approach that ruled the GOP before Trump. But the push to be the party of the little guy is becoming a source of tension on Capitol Hill.

House Republicans are working on a massive domestic policy bill that will carry much of Trump’s agenda, including extending his 2017 tax cuts. But to make sure it doesn’t add too much to the national debt, the package includes big spending cuts.

That includes Medicaid, the health care program for low-income Americans that is used heavily in both red and blue states. The House bill would cut $715 billion from health care programs, mostly Medicaid, and would result in 8.6 million Americans losing their health insurance.

Supporters say the bill is improving Medicaid by adding common sense policies like work requirements. Its GOP foes are calling it plain dumb. “If Republicans want to be a working-class party — if we want to be a majority party — we must ignore calls to cut Medicaid and start delivering on America’s promise for America’s working people,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) wrote in a recent op-ed for the New York Times. Some of his Republican colleagues agree, some don’t. We’ll see who wins out in the end.

—Margaret Chadbourn

White House unveils $600B Saudi investment

President Trump has once again proven that nothing brings people together quite like money. During his visit to Saudi Arabia, he unveiled a staggering $600 billion investment partnership between the kingdom and the U.S., ensuring America’s future will glisten almost as brightly as Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. At least, as brightly as its human rights record has glistened over the last six years.

For those of us with short memories Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia approved the assassination of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, according to a CIA report that the Biden administration released in 2021.

Saudi operatives cut Mr. Khashoggi up with a saw and then disposed of his dismembered body. Nobody disputes this.

Think of the money at stake here, though. There’s a $142 billion defense deal as part of it. America will provide the Saudis with “state-of-the-art warfighting equipment and services from over a dozen U.S. defense firms,” the White House said. That commitment is nearly double Saudi Arabia’s 2025 defense budget, which totaled $78 billion.

Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman (yes, him again!), who spoke before Trump at the investment conference, said the aim is to raise the U.S.-Saudi partnership to $1 trillion across the military, security, economic and technological sectors.

The total investment figure also includes a combined $80 billion in commitments from a host of U.S. companies — including DataVolt, Google $GOOGL ( ▲ 1.32% ) , Oracle $ORCL ( ▲ 0.68% ) , Salesforce $CRM ( ▲ 0.13% ) , AMD $AMD ( ▲ 1.89% ) and Uber $UBER ( ▲ 1.66% ) — to invest in both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, according to the White House. So that’s alright, then!

British Bank of America analyst jailed in Saudi Arabia for 10 years over ‘unknown tweet’

Scratch that about Saudi Arabia turning over a new leaf. In a disturbing case that highlights the kingdom's growing hostility toward free expression, Ahmed al-Doush, a 41-year-old British Bank of America $BAC ( ▲ 0.64% ) analyst, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison over an alleged social media post.

The exact content of the 2018 tweet — deleted long ago — is unknown, yet al-Doush's charges were severe enough to violate Saudi Arabian terrorism and cybercrime laws, which raises troubling questions about the kingdom’s justice system.

According to Amnesty International, al-Doush’s family believes his detention is linked to that Tweet, which referenced Sudan but made no mention of Saudi Arabia. His lawyer, Haydee Dijkstal, has called out the trial’s "fair trial and due process violations," urging the U.K. government to take a stronger stance. "The U.K. government should stand firmly against a British national’s imprisonment for allegedly exercising his free speech rights,” Dijkstal said on X.

Al-Doush’s arrest came in August 2024 while he was traveling with his family back to Manchester in the U.K., via Riyadh airport. He’s now struggling with health issues, including thyroid problems, according to his wife, Amaher Nour. “In the few snatched conversations we have managed, it is clear that Ahmed is struggling,” she said ahead of the sentencing. Heartbreakingly, al-Doush hasn’t even been able to meet his youngest child, born after his arrest.

This case comes amid a wave of similar incidents in Saudi Arabia, where Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's government has cracked down on criticism. In one particularly egregious case, Saudi-American Saad Almadi — who is now 75 years old — was sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2021, for tweets made while he was living in the U.S. He has since been released.

Today on the ‘gram: United Healthcare in trouble

Post of the day: Paul Noth

Quote of the Day:

More than 1,000 Starbucks baristas go on strike to protest new dress code

Over 1,000 Starbucks baristas across 75 U.S. stores have gone on strike to protest the company’s new dress code, which they argue is unnecessarily restrictive and unfairly implemented. Starting this week, the updated policy requires employees to wear only solid black shirts with khaki, black, or blue denim bottoms. For workers who once had the flexibility to wear a range of dark colors and patterns, this shift feels more limiting than unifying.

“Starbucks has lost its way,” Paige Summers, a shift supervisor from Hanover, Maryland, said. “Instead of listening to baristas who make the Starbucks experience what it is, they are focused on all the wrong things, like implementing a restrictive new dress code. Customers don’t care what color our clothes are when they’re waiting 30 minutes for a latte.”

The union representing workers, Starbucks Workers United, argues that the dress code should be negotiated collectively and has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. Employees are also frustrated that Starbucks has been selling styles of Starbucks-branded clothing that are now banned under the new rules on an internal website.

In response, Starbucks defended the changes, claiming they improve the customer experience. However, many baristas see the move as out of touch. As Summers put it, “This isn’t about clothes. It’s about respect.”

But really, it’s about clothes, isn’t it? Have your say in the poll below! 👇🏻

Should you check your 401(k) today?

😐️ 

Meh. Go ahead. Stocks were basically flat yesterday, although they’re up a whopping four percent this week. “The furious rally in US assets sparked by the tariff détente between Washington and Beijing has caught big investors off guard, colliding with widespread bets against the dollar and Wall Street stocks,” reports the Financial Times. Good job you didn’t try to time the market, eh? Eh? #NotFinancialAdvice

Robots replace people as Microsoft lays off about 3% of its staff on ‘day with a lot of tears’

Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 0.17% ) announced layoffs affecting nearly 3% of its workforce — approximately 6,000 employees — in its largest round of cuts in over two years, this week. The decision, which impacts staff across various roles, was described as part of “organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace.”

In other words they’re plowing money into AI, and people are superfluous.

Hardest hit was Washington state, where Microsoft’s headquarters resides. Of the 6,000 layoffs, nearly 2,000 employees connected to Redmond offices were let go, many of them in software engineering and product management roles. Notices went out on Tuesday.

“This is a day with a lot of tears,” wrote Scott Hanselman, Microsoft’s vice president of developer community, in a LinkedIn post. “These are people with dreams and rent, and I love them and want them to be OK.”

Scott kept his job, of course. As did CFO Amy Hood, who framed the layoffs as a strategy to streamline management layers and build more agile, high-performing teams.

Meanwhile Microsoft is investing heavily in AI, spending $80 billion on infrastructure this year.

From swindled to CEO: How Tinder Swindler star launched an ID verification startup

Pernilla Sjöholm is known for her appearance in the Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler,” in which a group of women who were the victims of a dating app-based swindler join together in an attempt to hunt him down and recover the millions of dollars that were stolen from them.

She has since transformed her personal experience into advocacy. Instead of retreating from the spotlight, she co-founded IDFire, a digital ID verification platform aimed at combating online scams.

Pernilla believes her story resonates with many because fraud has a human aspect. She acknowledges the challenges of building a tech platform and staying ahead of evolving threats. “Of course, we had a lot of bumps on the road,” she said. “And especially now, we are not done. This is the first edition. We are coming out with more features that are coming along with the way. So we are not done yet.”

Pernilla wishes more people understood the sophistication of current scamming technology. “We can see the difference when we, for example, go into a video meeting with someone that we could have seen that this is fake or this is real, but that is not how it looks like today,” she said. “The future is going to be a little bit messy and especially where we're going to head in 10 years, and we need to adapt.”

She believes IDFire will become a necessity in the coming years. Let’s hope not. Although I do wish her success in running the business!

Poll of the Day: Starbucks on strike

Poll Results: Eggs-pensive, indeed

We asked: Is $5.12 a fair price for a dozen eggs?

You answered:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 No, they're still too expensive. (583 votes)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes! I'm pleased they came down 12% in a month. (73 votes)

656 Votes via @beehiiv polls

Coming soon: The Business of Beauty

Airing on Thursday, May 22nd at 8pm ET wherever you watch Cheddar, dive into our new show, "The Business of Beauty" where one celebrity dentist reveals the secrets behind Kylie Jenner and J.Lo's dazzling smiles, showcasing his unique, custom-made veneers process. Then, witness the revolutionary tech behind painless tattoo removal, promising a chance to erase at least some of your regrets. Finally, explore one firm’s bold claims about unlocking the "Fountain of Youth" through supplements, backed by scientific research. Discover how these innovations are reshaping beauty standards and empowering personal transformation!