Bloomberg News

Welcome to Bloomberg’s new Banking Industry Monitor, bringing to you the top news on the global banking industry with emerging trends, winners and losers and market opportunities. Sign up: bloom.bg/4e65HY2 From the first edition: The war for talent and coping with regulators were recurring themes this week, along with signs that the drought in deal-making is still a drag on profits. Read more: bloom.bg/3HwT1NE

In business as in politics, one of the worst things you can do is expose yourself as a flip-flopper. And this Pride Month is shaping up to reveal a record number of corporate wafflers. A long list of companies have all declined to renew or scaled back their corporate sponsorships of Pride events and marches this year. Management teams seem to think it’s a better business decision to risk upsetting LGBTQ customers and employees than potentially anger the right and the Trump administration. 🔗 Read my Bloomberg Opinion on how companies that jumped into Pride for good business reasons are exiting based on vibes rather than data. https://lnkd.in/eDTSsUSz 📽 Or watch the tl;dr video version:

Victoria's Secret's CEO Hillary Super is in the hot seat -- but the retailer's board is backing her. After only nine months in the role, investors have criticized her leadership and board oversight at the retailer. Victoria's Secret has struggled since it spun off from L Brands in 2021 with shares of the company down by more than half. Investors have been calling for changes in company strategy and leadership. Read my latest: https://lnkd.in/eMk2iYUp

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Meta has offered his employees signing bonuses as high as $100 million, with even larger annual compensation packages, as it seeks to build a top artificial intelligence team.

Data centers, the technological backbone of popular digital services ranging from TikTok to ChatGPT and Google Maps, last year consumed more electricity than Poland, Belgium, and Norway combined, according to an April report by the International Energy Agency. That figure is set to more than double by 2030 unless something is done. As much as 40% of data centers’ energy use goes towards cooling computing hardware, making it a ripe space for innovation. My latest for Bloomberg News Bloomberg Green looks into how a startup plunges servers into a specialized liquid for more energy-efficient cooling. Read on for free ( 🎁 link valid for 7️⃣ days only) https://lnkd.in/ePkGzJQd #datacenters #energy #immersioncooling #climatetech #energyefficiency

Nippon Steel closed its $14.1 billion takeover of US Steel, bringing to an end an 18-month effort to combine the American and Japanese steelmakers

South Africa will resume trade talks with the Trump administration on the sidelines of the US-Africa Business Summit next week, with less than a month to go before Washington’s reciprocal tariffs are set to come into effect.

With the world watching the Middle East and USA so closely, Europe’s ability to defend itself can seem a side show and the continent’s ability to influence events can look limited. But it still matters and there are many open questions on the ability of European nations and industries to act and spend together. If you want to understand more, do register on the link below for an event at 1530 today, where Bloomberg journalists and our Intelligence analysts will be presenting and discussing the underlying facts. It will be streamed live on Bloomberg.com/UK but if you register on the link below then you’ll also be able to ask questions. https://lnkd.in/eAiMpUxS

Elon Musk’s xAI is spending $1 billion a month. Neither way of making money — selling access to a chatbot or charging other companies to build things using its AI models — seems to have blockbuster potential for the company, says Dave Lee. Read the column: https://bloom.bg/4l7kzr7

Republicans in Congress look set to gut clean energy credits to pay for their tax bill. Hopes that the Senate will dilute the zealotry of the House bill look misplaced, if the Finance Committee’s language is anything to go by. That leaves the project of decarbonizing the US grid more dependent on a sector that has made its peace with President Donald Trump’s agenda but also has other pressing considerations: Big Tech. Hyperscalers dominate when it comes to signing the corporate PPAs that get wind and solar projects built. Just four account for about three quarters of contracted capacity signed so far this year. Renewable energy doesn’t provide all the needs of datacenters. But such projects are quick to build and help meet decarbonization pledges, including offsetting emissions from the gas plants that are also benefiting from the AI race. Most importantly, electricity bills take less than 2% of the hyperscalers’ revenue, so the loss of tax credits represents a rounding error in extra costs. Those same deep pockets also make Big Tech crucial to another decarbonization effort: Nuclear power. Read about it here at Bloomberg Opinion https://lnkd.in/e-HU6tsD