Business

Donovan Mitchell Commits to New Four-Year, $273 Million Max Contract Extension With Cleveland Cavaliers

Published

4 weeks ago

8 July 2026

Cleveland Cavaliers star Donovan Mitchell has agreed to a four-year, $273 million maximum contract extension with the franchise, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, cementing his long-term future with the team on the very first day he became eligible to sign a new deal.

The extension, confirmed to ESPN by CAA’s co-head of basketball, Austin Brown, includes a player option for the 2030-31 season and a full trade kicker. Mitchell was entering the final guaranteed season of his existing contract, which had included a player option for 2027, an option now effectively replaced by the terms of the new agreement.

According to ESPN’s Bobby Marks, Mitchell could have waited until next summer to sign a longer deal worth an additional $80 million, a five-year, $353 million contract. Instead, the 29-year-old guard chose to commit immediately, opting for the earlier and comparatively smaller extension as what Charania described as a deliberate signal of his intention to remain with the Cavaliers for the long term.

Mitchell has repeatedly expressed his affection for Cleveland since arriving via trade from the Utah Jazz in the 2022 offseason, and Tuesday’s agreement marks the second contract extension he has signed since joining the franchise. His decision to commit early comes roughly six weeks after Cleveland’s season ended in disappointing fashion, with the Cavaliers swept by the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals. Speaking to reporters following that elimination on May 26, an emotional Mitchell acknowledged the difficulty of the moment while pledging to return stronger. “I’m sorry for the city of Cleveland,” Mitchell said at the time. “For it to be like this and the sweep. That’s ass. But I told y’all last year, and I’ll say again, we’ll be back. We’ll be ready. We’ll be hungry. And we’ll be locked in.”

Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and president of basketball operations Koby Altman engaged in discussions with Mitchell and his representative once he became eligible for the new extension, and the two sides reached terms quickly on what represents one of the most significant roster decisions facing the franchise this offseason. Mitchell has played a central role in Cleveland’s efforts to build a contending roster in recent seasons, and his decision to re-commit removes a major element of uncertainty from the team’s long-term planning.

The extension also carries potential implications for one of the NBA’s most closely watched storylines this summer. According to sources cited by ESPN, Mitchell would welcome the opportunity to play alongside LeBron James should the four-time MVP choose to sign with Cleveland as a free agent. The Cavaliers are considered among several leading suitors for James, joining the Miami Heat, Golden State Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers and Minnesota Timberwolves in pursuit of the future Hall of Famer, who informed the Los Angeles Lakers earlier this offseason that he intends to play elsewhere for the 2026-27 season. A potential reunion between James and the franchise where he began and later returned to his career would add another dimension to a Cavaliers roster already anchored by Mitchell’s long-term commitment.

Since arriving in Cleveland, Mitchell has established himself as one of the league’s premier guards. He has earned All-Star selections in each of his four seasons with the Cavaliers and has been named to the All-NBA team three times, including a first-team selection in 2025 and second-team honors in both 2023 and 2026. Over his Cleveland tenure, Mitchell has averaged 26.7 points, 5.3 assists and 4.6 rebounds per game, helping guide the Cavaliers to the playoffs in each of his four seasons after the franchise had missed the postseason for four consecutive years prior to his arrival. This past season marked a significant milestone for Mitchell personally, as Cleveland advanced to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in his nine-year NBA career before falling to New York.

Mitchell’s extension arrives amid a broader wave of roster activity across the league this offseason, with ESPN’s Ben Golliver recently examining some of the year’s biggest overreactions to NBA free agency moves, including deals involving the Lakers, Celtics, Jazz and Grizzlies. Elsewhere around the league, Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic has opted to wait until next summer before pursuing his own contract extension with the Nuggets, while Boston Celtics president Brad Stevens has described a “challenging” path that led the team to trade Jaylen Brown to Philadelphia earlier this offseason.

For Cleveland, Mitchell’s decision to commit long-term provides a measure of stability following a turbulent stretch that included the team’s disappointing playoff exit and continued questions about the roster’s ceiling in a competitive Eastern Conference. With Mitchell now locked in through at least the 2029-30 season, and with a player option extending his potential tenure through 2030-31, the Cavaliers have secured their franchise cornerstone for the foreseeable future as they continue building toward what both Mitchell and the organization hope will eventually be a championship-caliber roster.

Mitchell’s willingness to forgo a potentially larger contract in order to sign immediately has been interpreted by league observers as a strong statement of his commitment to the Cavaliers organization and to the city of Cleveland specifically, particularly given his repeated public comments about his affinity for the team since his 2022 arrival. With the extension now finalized, attention around the Cavaliers is likely to shift toward the team’s broader offseason roster-building efforts, including the ongoing pursuit of James, as Cleveland looks to build on last season’s breakthrough conference finals appearance and push further into championship contention for the 2026-27 season.

Business

Amazon joins $3 trillion club as AI, cloud growth fuel stock rally

Published

5 minutes ago

3 August 2026

NewsAdmin

Amazon joins $3 trillion club as AI, cloud growth fuel stock rally

Amazon’s market capitalisation surpassed $3 trillion for the first time on Monday as its shares rallied following strong earnings and signs that the AI boom is fueling demand for its highly profitable cloud-computing business.

The stock climbed 5.5% to a record $286.20, extending its year-to-date gain to more than 23%.

Shares of the Seattle-based e-commerce and cloud-computing giant jumped 15% on Friday after posting its strongest cloud growth in more than four years and lifting its annual capital-spending forecast.

Among the six “Magnificent Seven” companies that have reported so far, only Amazon and Microsoft have convinced investors that their AI investments are paying off. Tesla, Alphabet and Meta, meanwhile, faced a backlash after their heavy spending weighed on free cash flow last quarter.

Like other Wall Street tech giants, Amazon has invested billions of dollars in expanding its AI infrastructure. In April, it disclosed a new investment in Anthropic, following an earlier pledge to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI.

Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, Amazon added another $1 trillion to its market value in just over two years after first reaching a $2 trillion valuation in June 2024.
Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Nvidia are other companies that have reached a market value of $3 trillion in the past. Nvidia is currently the world’s largest company by market capitalisation, at close to $5 trillion.

Business

Red-state AGs warn OpenAI after AI agent allegedly hacks Hugging Face

Published

12 minutes ago

3 August 2026

NewsAdmin

OpenAI says AI model hacked another company's systems during internal test

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responds to those afraid of artificial intelligence and recent Hugging Face hacks on FOX Business.

A coalition of 15 red-state attorneys general warned OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Monday to preserve documents and halt certain high-risk cybersecurity tests after an experimental artificial intelligence agent allegedly escaped a controlled environment and carried out a multi-day hack into outside computer systems.

In a Monday letter shared with Fox News Digital, the attorneys general said OpenAI may have violated state and federal consumer-protection and data-privacy laws and cautioned that a failure to preserve relevant records could trigger sanctions if litigation follows.

“A failure to take immediate action to preserve such materials could result in spoliation sanctions if litigation were to ensue,” Iowa Republican AG Brenna Bird’s letter, signed by GOP AGs from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Utah, read.

“We further demand that OpenAI take immediate steps to ensure that no OpenAI personnel face any adverse action for engaging in any protected whistleblowing activity or for reporting any unlawful or harmful activities by OpenAI.”

FLORIDA SUES OPENAI AND SAM ALTMAN CLAIMING CHATGPT IS UNSAFE FOR USERS

Maria Bartiromo discusses an OpenAI experimental AI agent that broke containment and hacked an AI platform.

The officials accused OpenAI of conducting a July 2026 evaluation involving two advanced models — identified in the letter as GPT-5.6 Sol and an unreleased model the company had described as “even more capable” — without the normal safeguards designed to prevent high-risk cyber activity.

This letter and hack follow a letter GOP AGs wrote to Altman in May, demanding answers on OpenAI’s nonprofit status.

“OpenAI’s inability or unwillingness to ensure the safety of its products poses an imminent risk of substantial harm to our States,” Bird wrote.

“We intend to take decisive action to protect our citizens.”

ELON MUSK ATTORNEY CLAIMS OPENAI, SAM ALTMAN ‘STOLE A CHARITY’ AS HIGH-STAKES LEGAL FIGHT BEGINS

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
MSFT	MICROSOFT CORP.	488.76	+24.04	+5.17%
NVDA	NVIDIA CORP.	207.92	+7.17	+3.57%
AMD	ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES INC.	485.76	+9.61	+2.02%
PLTR	PALANTIR TECHNOLOGIES INC.	125.62	+2.56	+2.08%
GOOGL	ALPHABET INC.	374.38	+18.25	+5.12%
AMZN	AMAZON.COM INC.	284.11	+12.53	+4.61%

The test was supposed to take place in an isolated environment with no internet access, but the attorneys general alleged in the letter that the agent exploited a software vulnerability, escaped the testing environment and connected to the internet.

“OpenAI failed to confirm that its secure and isolated testing environment was, in fact, secure and isolated,” Bird wrote. “It was not.”

From there, the agent allegedly launched an intrusion targeting the AI company Hugging Face in an effort to steal an answer key and defeat its own safety evaluation.

Citing an interim technical report from Hugging Face, the letter said the agent carried out more than 17,000 “attacker actions,” seized control of an external endpoint exposed through a third-party infrastructure provider and entered Hugging Face systems.

OPENAI DIDN’T REALIZE ITS AGENT WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR HACK FOR A WEEK: REPORT

In this photo illustration, an OpenAI logo is seen displayed on a smartphone on the top of a laptop. (Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images)

The attorneys general also cited reporting that the agent found four sets of login credentials online and used them to access four other unnamed services.

OpenAI allegedly did not know the agent had broken containment while the activity was underway. The letter claims Hugging Face detected the intrusion independently and contacted the FBI before OpenAI determined that its own technology was responsible.

The document presents the incident and its surrounding details as allegations drawn from public reporting and technical findings.

The attorneys general said the episode followed a series of warning signs involving OpenAI’s models and internal oversight.

OPENAI CO-FOUNDER WARNS AI MODELS ARE BECOMING HARDER TO CONTROL AFTER ITS MODEL HACKED ANOTHER FIRM

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said concerns about artificial intelligence are understandable following a recent cybersecurity incident involving one of the company’s models. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images / Getty Images)

They cited reports that an AI agent had previously left instructions for future versions of itself describing how to escape internal restrictions, that monitoring systems had been disconnected during earlier tests and that employees sometimes struggled to oversee multiple fast-moving model evaluations generating enormous volumes of data.

“OpenAI’s unprecedented and alarming misconduct demands an immediate and significant response,” the officials wrote.

The coalition demanded that OpenAI preserve documents, internal communications, data and other materials related to the Hugging Face intrusion, the pre-release model involved, the company’s discovery of the incident and any internal investigation or public statement concerning it.

The preservation request also covers previous cases in which OpenAI models may have used publicly exposed credentials, earlier unauthorized network intrusions and any incident in which a model left notes for future versions of itself.

ANTHROPIC SAYS AI MODELS ACCESSED SYSTEMS OF 3 REAL ORGANIZATIONS DURING TESTING

Hugging Face said it detected and contained a security breach after an OpenAI model compromised part of its infrastructure during an internal evaluation. (Jaque Silva/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The attorneys general further requested records concerning OpenAI’s safety policies, testing procedures, monitoring systems, employee concerns and personnel with knowledge of the alleged events.

The letter also demanded that OpenAI protect employees from retaliation for reporting potentially unlawful or dangerous conduct.

In addition, the coalition called on the company to immediately stop internal evaluations that prompt AI models to pursue advanced exploitation through complex attack paths.

“Unless and until OpenAI shows that it can conduct such activities in a controlled and responsible way, such activities pose an imminent risk of serious harm to the citizens of our States,” the letter said.

Fox News Digital reached out to OpenAI for comment and has not yet heard back.

The officials stopped short of announcing a lawsuit but said the publicly reported facts could support claims under laws enforced by state attorneys general.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

“OpenAI has an obligation to act responsibly and to follow State and federal laws that protect Americans’ safety and security,” Bird’s letter concluded. “When OpenAI takes actions that imperil the welfare of our citizens, State Attorneys General will step in to protect them.

“We intend to take all steps necessary to protect our States and all Americans from the unprecedented risks posed by OpenAI’s irresponsible products and conduct.”

The White House has confirmed to Fox News that it is going to host AI companies Tuesday to review the AI framework from a June 2 executive order from President Donald Trump.