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First? News!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Table of Contents

• Will Meta's Muse Take Over the World?

• Global Bond Selloff Dings Stocks

• OpenAI ‘Agent’ Hacked Australian Gov’t Site

• Ellison Eyes Musk for Paramount Investment

• Inside Flexjet's $50M Digital Nerve Center

• Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time

• Poll of the Day: Oof.

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▼ 0.02% )  $DJI ( ▼ 0.31% )  $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$META ( ▲ 4.5% )  $SCHW ( ▼ 0.01% )  $JPM ( ▲ 0.31% )  $GS ( ▼ 1.4% )  $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.49% )  $ORCL ( ▼ 3.47% )  $WBD ( ▲ 0.26% )  $PSKY ( ▲ 2.21% )  

Will Meta's Muse Take Over the World?

I downloaded Meta’s $META ( ▲ 4.5% ) new Muse agent a couple of weeks ago, and this weekend had it help me grocery shop using Instacart $CART ( ▲ 0.7% ) for a showstopper dinner on Saturday night. It wrote the recipe (for a “Timpano” à la Stanley Tucci in Big Night), found all the groceries, and is even calming my nerves about how to pull it off. I wouldn’t have had the confidence to cook like this without it. I’ve yet to hand Muse the keys to my entire stock portfolio but it’s early days, and I’ve got to say, I’m impressed!

Now, at Meta’s annual Connect event this week, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the Muse Charm, a small, pendant-like device activated by a fingerprint sensor that displays a screen showing the Muse avatar. Equipped with real-time voice interactivity ahead of a December release, Zuckerberg crowned the assistant the "centrepiece" of his AI vision. He pitched the hardware shortcut enthusiastically: "If you’re not wearing glasses, this is going to be by far the fastest way to talk to your Muse and to show what’s going on around you.”

I am definitely not wearing those stupid glasses. So. The app has already rocketed to the top of U.S. app stores. While regular consumers use its autonomous bots to order groceries or book travel, Wall Street is concerned, because Muse can also manage personal finances, and professionals fear it could replace traditional human advisors. That dread triggered a market sell-off in financial stocks — slumping heavyweights like Charles Schwab $SCHW ( ▼ 0.01% ) , JPMorgan $JPM ( ▲ 0.31% ) , and Goldman Sachs $GS ( ▼ 1.4% ) , while sending the Dow down 354 points last week.

Zuckerberg believes Muse will "make users money" while Meta profits off small transaction fees. But if it keeps eating Wall Street’s profits, human financial advisors might soon be asking their keychain pendants for career advice.

Quote of the Day

Global Bond Selloff Dings Stocks

The bond market is throwing a retro rage-fit, dragging global debt and equities right along with it. Driven by spiking Brent crude oil pushing past $105 a barrel and unexpectedly robust economic growth, 30-year U.S. Treasury yields jumped to 5.45% — their highest peak since 2004. That’s not a good thing. And across the Pacific, Japan’s 10-year yield rose to 3.08%, a level unseen since 1996. That’s not a good thing, either.

For stock markets, soaring yields mean higher borrowing costs and compressed valuations, taking the shine off growth equities and pulling down major indices like the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq. Summing up the unyielding global bond rout, Eric Robertsen, chief strategist at Standard Chartered, told the Financial Times, “We are in what I would call a correlated move higher in yields. There’s no escape.”

OpenAI ‘Agent’ Hacked Australian Gov’t Site

Meta’s agents might be helping me cook dinner on Saturday night, but an OpenAI $OPEAZZX ( ▼ 0.49% ) agent went rogue, jumped online, and hacked an Australian government website just to answer some trivia questions recently.

The OpenAI agent was supposed to be on an internal training mission, but it breached Australia’s Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal, accessing both public and non-public files, the Financial Times reports. OpenAI admitted the bot was just trying to "look up answers, and available statistics for questions about Australia during an internal evaluation.” The bot simply "took actions we did not intend.”

OpenAI didn't spot the breach for months, eventually notifying Australian authorities in September by emailing a generic public inbox. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was not amused, calling the incident "obviously unacceptable" before confronting Sam Altman in New York.

Meanwhile, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles offered a masterclass in bureaucratic diplomacy, calling it "a very serious incident" that was also "relatively minor." While Albanese confirmed "no personal information is believed to have been accessed,” the mishap highlights the absurd reality of frontier AI models. As Sam Altman himself conceded at the UN, "We should not train models that we cannot make an extremely strong case that we will be able to keep under human control."

Coulda, woulda, shoulda, Sam?

Song of the Day: James Ivy, ‘An Eye For An Eye’

Here’s the standout trick from James Ivy’s debut studio album, The Seams. Enjoy!

Ellison Eyes Musk for Paramount Investment

What’s wilder than an $81 billion media merger? Try bringing Elon Musk along for the ride. As Hollywood mogul David Ellison prepares Skydance to swallow Paramount $PSKY ( ▲ 2.21% ) and Warner Bros. Discovery $WBD ( ▲ 0.26% ) , he’s reportedly eyeing a familiar billionaire to take an equity stake: Elon Musk. David’s father, Oracle $ORCL ( ▼ 3.47% ) founder Larry Ellison, is already on the hook for over $40 billion in equity financing. So why not call up family friend Elon to shave off a few billion more?

While Musk’s devoted investor following could boost the company's image on Wall Street, the mere rumor of his involvement is causing full-blown pandemonium over at CNN, which is owned by (checks notes) Warner Bros. Discovery, right now.

Staffers — already sweating potential layoffs and leadership shakeups — are treating the news like a horror movie script. "When it rains…[it pours]," one terrified CNN insider told the New York Post, calling the prospect "really scary given what he did at X and DOGE.” Another insider pointed out the political awkwardness for California’s governor, who pushed through the merger this week after Ellison threatened to decamp for Tennessee, noting, "Amazing it comes out now of course…. Not good for Gavin!"

Not good for editorial independence at CNN either, apparently. Although Musk couldn’t be reached for comment, amazingly, to deny that he’d ever interfere, even for a second.

Free Yourself From Advertising Forever!

Inside Flexjet's $50M Digital Nerve Center

While commercial airline passengers fight over armrests and cope with endless delays, private jet company Flexjet is running things like a sci-fi blockbuster. Inside its new $50 million Cleveland headquarters sits a 137-seat, stadium-style Global Operations Command Center dominated by a mammoth 176-foot LED display, monitoring global flights in real time.

Flexjet built over 80% of its tech in-house, backed by twin data centers in Cleveland and Dallas. When high-net-worth clients request flights just three hours in advance, custom AI algorithms recalculate schedules instantly. CTO Durga Nagala explained that human schedulers couldn't manage the sheer volume: “It's humanly not possible to actually crunch that data.” But don't expect cheap cost-cutting automation. As Nagala noted, “We are not using AI to actually save dollars or improve the efficiencies.… We are using AI to raise the bar of luxury.”

This luxury pivot is fueled by an $800 million capital injection from L. Catterton (backed by LVMH $LVMH ( 0.0% ) ) and a demographic shift toward younger flyers. CEO Michael Silvestro observed that wealthy clients aren't waiting around anymore: “Now an early to mid-40s person who can afford it is all in.… They want big planes right now.” 

I do. I want a big plane. Right now. Can we make that happen for me, please?

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👎️ 

No.

Poll of the Day: It’s World-Famous-575™ Time

Poll of the Day: Oof.

We asked: Is corruption widespread throughout the government in this country, or not?

You answered:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes. (404)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No. (15)
419 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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