As the world enters what experts call the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” American business leaders are placing a massive bet on the future of the republic.

FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria” went inside the high-stakes world of artificial intelligence, revealing how titans of banking, defense and tech are investing hundreds of billions of dollars to build out AI infrastructure and data centers that will redefine the U.S. economy.

Meta Platforms President and Vice Chair Dina Powell McCormick

McCormick discussed the launch of Meta Muse, a new visual coding AI platform for high-stakes reasoning and creative tasks. She claimed it became the second-most downloaded app on its launch day, and at its core “is about humans.”

META INFORMS STAFF OF LAYOFFS AFFECTING 8,000 EMPLOYEES AMID AI PUSH

“There’s a lot of fear out there right now, Maria, about artificial intelligence,” McCormick said. “But I think if we really go back to the fact that this is meant to give people more time to help them find their potential and passions, and that is how we are really thinking about Muse, but also the fact, frankly, that our platform every single day, there are 3.5 billion people on our platform, and that is both a daunting responsibility and really exciting because as we develop this product and these technologies, that’s the distribution that we’re talking about.”

Top leaders from names like Anthropic, Meta, Google and more joined “Mornings with Maria” for its AI week special. (Getty Images)

Microsoft President and Vice Chair Brad Smith

Smith framed the AI boom as a massive reindustrialization of America that requires a $140 billion annual investment to solve critical domestic issues like rural doctor shortages and wildfire prevention while maintaining a competitive edge over China.

“It is a big part of what President [Donald] Trump calls the industrialization of America. When you look at the economic impact of this, what we’re contributing in terms of jobs, but more importantly, what we’re contributing in terms of capabilities for every part of the economy, this is critical,” Smith said.

“I think one of the most important things that we’re doing as a company, and frankly, what the president has nudged the entire industry, quite rightly, to do is pay our own way. That means we pay for the electricity generation that we need, so that the neighbors and the taxpayers don’t have to,” he continued.

“Whenever you have AI that controls something like infrastructure, you know, autonomous robots and the like, there ought to be — we called it an emergency brake,” he added. “Look, you wouldn’t put your kids on a school bus without feeling good that there’s an emergency brake on the school bus. You do need to have the ability for humans always to be in control, to slow things down, or turn things off.”

Google Cloud Advisory Board Chair Betsy Atkins 

Atkins issued a warning on the quickly expanding technology after a disturbing Anthropic study found that 16 leading AI models exhibited “rogue” behavior such as blackmailing humans and bypassing security protocols when the AI agent believed its own existence was threatened.

“Every single one of them went outside of their credentials and permissions, burrowed into systems they were not authorized to get access to, violated all the company policies and procedures, and found emails. And in this experiment… I find out in your personal emails you’re having an affair with the shipping manager, so I blackmail you and I threaten you,” Atkins said.

“You have to treat AI like an insider threat. You have to have an operating premise of zero trust, and you have to be sure you’re limiting what it’s going to get access to in more than just one way,” she added. “We saw it with Anthropic… It escaped the sandbox… So a sandbox is not enough.”

Anthropic Head of Frontier Red Team Logan Graham

Graham warned that Anthropic’s new Mythos AI model is so potent at identifying “weaknesses” and vulnerabilities in global infrastructure and banking systems that the company has withheld its public release to give U.S. industry and government a head start on defense.

“This model, we noticed, was particularly good at finding weaknesses in cyber systems and figuring out how to take advantage of them,” he said. “We observed that we could find vulnerabilities using the system in every major operating system and platform that we looked at… in systems that are, in some cases, decades old.”

“It is really critical that we stay ahead. It’s really critical that we make ourselves secure and prevent their ability to take the special sauce that we use to make our models… My concern is that if there is a large number of models that frequently are broadly released for anybody to use… if they are released by China, then we’re in a really tough position.”

President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Co-Chair David Sacks

Sacks dismissed claims from an Anthropic study examining so-called “agentic misalignment.” The study, highlighted by Google’s Atkins, tested how AI systems respond under pressure. According to Atkins, the models crossed established boundaries when placed in constrained scenarios.

“The people who… created that study had to iterate on the prompt over 200 times to get the AI model to do what they wanted, which was to achieve this headline-grabbing result of blackmailing the user,” Sacks said.

“The AI is not scheming… It’s engaging in a form of instruction… I think that that study was irresponsible, and it was designed to create this,” he added.

SandboxAQ CEO and founder Jack Hidary

Hidary revealed that the next phase of the AI revolution involves large quantitative models that use physics and chemistry, not just internet text, to lower healthcare costs, secure the power grid and end America’s reliance on China for rare earth minerals.

“We also need to make sure we are moving off of reliance of rare earths from other countries like the [People’s Republic of China]. And so we need AI that knows chemistry, that knows physics. There’s no engineering to make better magnets and other alloys that we need for our economy and for our national defense,” Hidary said.

“There’s two potential big losers in this kind of economy. First, you have the legacy software companies. So companies like SAP and others that we don’t see really innovating… they’re not going to be licensing as much of the legacy software out there. And the second one is going to be legacy companies in the big traditional industries, automakers, pharma companies. They’ve got to get on the bandwagon.”

Alpha Schools CEO and founder Mackenzie Price

Price detailed how her “personalized, mastery-based” model uses AI tutors to condense a traditional six-hour school day into just two hours of high-impact academics, allowing students to spend the rest of their time on leadership, financial literacy and entrepreneurship.

“Our traditional education system was built out of the Industrial Revolution to create workers. And now in this new AI world, it is so important that we create individuals who are dynamic, adaptable, and most importantly, have the skill of learning how to learn,” Price said.

“There is a huge difference between doom-scrolling TikTok all day or playing video games and getting a one-to-one personalized learning experience that meets kids exactly where they’re at,” she added. “At our schools, our kids are actually spending less time on screens than the average student in a traditional school is nowadays.”

Indeed Vice President Hannah Calhoon

Calhoon countered “doomer” job replacement narratives by revealing that while AI is in the global consciousness, only 6% of current job postings require AI skills, and the revolution is actually fueling a massive surge in traditional blue-collar roles like electricians.

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“AI-related jobs have certainly been rising rapidly over the last couple of years, but only 6% of job postings in the marketplace today reference AI skills… 95% of the employers who post jobs on Indeed, if you look across all of their job postings, no mention of AI or AI skills,” Calhoon explained. “So I think while it is very much in the general consciousness, we’re still at a fairly nascent stage in terms of seeing it show up in the market data.”

“And so when we take that data and we sort of step back and look at jobs in the market, we actually see very few jobs that we think will go away entirely.”

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Travelers are unlikely to see major disruptions as the Trump administration reportedly moves closer to a bailout of bankrupt Spirit Airlines, industry experts say.

Officials are discussing a roughly $500 million deal to help Spirit exit bankruptcy – an arrangement that could leave the federal government with up to a 90% stake in the low-cost carrier, Reuters reported.

For most Americans, the situation is not expected to affect summer travel plans, according to aviation consultant Mike Boyd.

“Travelers don’t have to worry,” Boyd told FOX Business, calling the situation a “sideshow” for the average flyer.

TED CRUZ POURS COLD WATER ON TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PLAN TO BAIL OUT SPIRIT AIRLINES: ‘TERRIBLE IDEA’

Spirit Airlines airplanes at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Oct. 24, 2023. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

However, Boyd noted there could be some uncertainty for passengers already booked on Spirit as the airline navigates the bankruptcy process.

Aviation expert and former National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator Mike Coffield told FOX Business that government intervention could ultimately lead to higher fares.

“It will raise fares, not lower them,” Coffield said, adding that a bailout could be unfair to other airlines. “They will also get capital at little risk, until they lose it all and the taxpayer money.”

Coffield, noting his role in drafting the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, argued the government should “step in only in a national crisis or interest.”

Coffield also said that if Spirit were to shut down, other carriers – including American, Southwest, United, JetBlue and Allegiant – would likely quickly fill the gap and hire displaced workers.

TRUMP SAYS HE WANTS ‘SOMEBODY’ TO BUY SPIRIT AIRLINES, OPPOSES UNITED-AMERICAN MERGER

Passengers check in for their Spirit Airlines flights at O’Hare Airport on March 10, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois.  (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

“If you can look historically, wherever there’s been an airline that stopped service, within six months most of all those people are rehired in their original jobs wearing different uniforms,” Coffield said.

Gary Leff, author of the aviation blog “View From the Wing,” said keeping Spirit afloat could “weaken” competitors like Frontier Airlines and JetBlue.

“Keeping Spirit Airlines alive weakens other airlines, though, especially Frontier Airlines – Spirit’s major ultra-low cost competitor – and JetBlue, their largest competitor at Fort Lauderdale,” he told FOX Business. “Once the government controls Spirit Airlines, that even raises safety concerns because the government both becomes the safety regulator and owner of the airline they’re regulating.”

Meanwhile, Clint Henderson, travel expert at “The Points Guy,” said consumers would “likely benefit” if Spirit remains in operation.

“This would be good for keeping prices lower as it would protect a low-cost carrier, so the news is potentially good news for consumers… at least for now,” Henderson told FOX Business. “Everyone loves to hate Spirit until they leave a market and fares go up.”

RISING FUEL COSTS THREATEN SPIRIT AIRLINES’ BANKRUPTCY EXIT PLAN: REPORTS

President Donald Trump is seen walking off of Air Force One at Miami International Airport on April 11, 2026, in Miami, Florida (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

The proposed financing would likely begin as a loan to keep Spirit operating during bankruptcy and convert into longer-term funding after it exits. 

A lawyer for the airline confirmed Thursday that it is in advanced discussions with federal officials, Reuters reported.

“Spirit Airlines would be on a much firmer financial footing had the Biden administration not recklessly blocked the airline’s merger with JetBlue,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told FOX Business. “The Trump administration continues to monitor the situation and overall health of the U.S. aviation industry that millions of Americans rely on every day for essential travel and their livelihoods.”

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FOX Business reached out to Spirit Airlines for comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.

British workers and the businesses that employ them have been clobbered by the steepest increase in employment taxes of any advanced economy, according to fresh analysis from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The Paris-based body’s annual audit of payroll taxes lays the blame squarely at the door of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, whose October 2024 Budget raised employers’ national insurance contributions and extended the freeze on personal income tax thresholds — a combination that has quietly tightened the screws on payrolls across the country.

For an average-earning worker in the UK, the so-called “tax wedge”, the gap between what it costs an employer to put someone on the books and what the employee actually takes home, climbed to 32.4 per cent last year, up from just under 30 per cent the year before. That 2.45 percentage point jump dwarfs the OECD-wide average rise of a mere 0.15 points and outpaces every other country in the 38-nation study. Only Estonia (1.95), Germany (1.34) and Israel (1.09) posted increases above a single percentage point.

While Britain’s absolute tax wedge still sits below the OECD average of 35.1 per cent, the velocity of the change is what has alarmed economists. The OECD warned that a widening wedge “tends to reduce incentives to work and hire by reducing take-home pay and increasing employers’ labour costs”, a particularly bruising message for the small and medium-sized enterprises that dominate Britain’s private-sector payroll.

The damage stems from two deliberate choices in the Chancellor’s maiden Budget. First, Reeves slashed the earnings threshold at which employers start paying national insurance to £5,000 from £9,100, a move that hit hardest those firms employing part-time workers and lower-paid staff, think cafés, care homes, corner shops and hospitality operators. Second, the headline rate of employers’ national insurance climbed from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent.

The Treasury’s £25 billion-a-year revenue raiser has been accompanied by a stealthier levy: personal income tax thresholds remain frozen at 2021-22 levels until 2031, pulling more workers into basic and higher-rate bands as nominal wages creep up, the phenomenon known as fiscal drag.

The labour market is already showing the strain. Since the Chancellor first unveiled the employer NI rise in October 2024, payrolled employment has fallen by 143,000, according to official figures. The economic inactivity rate, the proportion of working-age adults neither in work nor looking for it, nudged up to 21 per cent in the three months to February, from 20.7 per cent in the previous quarter.

That deterioration pre-dates the eight-week-old US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, which the OECD warned this month would inflict the largest growth hit in the G20 on Britain and the sharpest inflation jolt in the G7. Economists expect unemployment to climb further as households and firms rein in spending to cope with the conflict-driven surge in energy costs.

The OECD has repeatedly urged successive governments to tackle the “large compliance costs” baked into Britain’s tax code, arguing that complexity itself is a drag on hiring and growth. For the nation’s SMEs, already contending with higher borrowing costs, sluggish consumer demand and an unsettled global backdrop, the twin pressures of a rising tax wedge and an increasingly byzantine rulebook make the case for reform harder to ignore.

Whether the Chancellor heeds that advice in her next fiscal set-piece will be watched closely by business owners who have spent the past eighteen months absorbing a rise in employment costs unmatched anywhere in the developed world.

Jamie Young

Jamie is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, bringing over a decade of experience in UK SME business reporting.
Jamie holds a degree in Business Administration and regularly participates in industry conferences and workshops.

When not reporting on the latest business developments, Jamie is passionate about mentoring up-and-coming journalists and entrepreneurs to inspire the next generation of business leaders.

It gained a third in about a week. But the small float and low delivery volumes is an alert against wagering on it for some who fear it may have risen beyond its fundamentals when many other newly-listed companies are trading below their sale price.

“The rally in Lovable Lingerie is more a momentum play with hardly any genuine interest,” says Sharad Rathi, associate director at Almondz Global Securities.

“The valuations seem to be a bit out of whack.” Lovable that sold shares at Rs 205 apiece, has risen 109% to Rs 428.5 on Friday after touching a high of Rs 462.50. Some of the top shareholders include HDFC Mutual Fund, SBI Funds, UTI Asset management and Fidelity, filings show.

Total outstanding shares of the firm is at 1.68 crore and public holding is about 50 lakh shares. The Sensex was down 2.6% during the period and the BSE IPO index was up 1.6%. Fineotex Chemical and C Mahendra Exports are the two companies that have returned more than Lovable, among this years’ IPOs.

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The stock trades at 31 times forecast earnings for fiscal 2012, compared with Page Industries’ 27 times its earnings. Although the stock had been among the top traded in the last few days, gaining to limit on some days, the number of shares that changed had remained negligible. The quantity of shares actually changing hands — was in single digit for many days.
The delivery ratio was 2% to 9% between June 10 and 17 when the stock moved up 33% on BSE, exchange data show. This follows the performance of Page Industries which has gained 396% since its IPO in March 2007. Shares that were sold at Rs 396 apiece are trading at Rs 1,784. “Rising disposable incomes and growing awareness about personal hygiene are boosting growth of the innerwear market in India,” said Anand Rathi Secutities in a recent report. “Also enhancing this growth is the rising modern trade malls, shopping complexes etc,” said the brokerage which has a target price of Rs 430.

The Mumbai-based company’s Rs 93-crore IPO drew good response with it getting subscribed 21.8 times the institutional portion, 98.5 times among wealthy individuals and 20.5 times in the retail category. Rise in raw material prices and intensifying competition are the two risks for earnings growth, the report said.

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As Americans head into barbecue season, rising energy prices linked to Middle East tensions are driving up the cost of propane.

When energy prices rise, the added costs ripple through the food system and into everyday purchases, from meat counters to backyard grills.

“The impact of ongoing challenges in the Middle East on energy prices impacts nearly every facet of the U.S. economy and beef cattle are not immune,” Glynn Tonsor, a professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University, told FOX Business.

BUYING A HOME JUST GOT MORE EXPENSIVE AS THE IRAN WAR DRIVES UP MORTGAGE RATES

Propane, the fuel powering many backyard grills, is also getting more expensive as global energy markets tighten due to the war in Iran. (iStock)

Ranchers rely on fuel at nearly every step, from running tractors to transporting cattle, and those higher costs are often passed on to consumers, Tonsor said.

Those pressures are showing up in energy markets. Gas prices now average about $4.02 a gallon, up roughly 86 cents from a month ago, according to AAA, while diesel – a key fuel for freight – has climbed to $5.49, up about $1.90 over the past year, making it more expensive to move cattle and beef across the country.

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The ripple effects go far beyond beef.

Propane, the fuel powering many backyard grills, is also getting more expensive as global energy markets tighten because countries in the Middle East are such major suppliers to the world.

U.S. propane prices at the Mont Belvieu hub, the industry benchmark for this type of power, have surged nearly 19% since the conflict began in late February.

But higher energy costs are only part of the story.

Cattle supply remains slow to respond. Unlike oil or metals, where supply can be increased relatively quickly, cattle production takes years to ramp up after a dip.

BEEF PRICES ARE CLOSE TO RECORD HIGHS — BUT AMERICANS AREN’T CUTTING BACK

The Trump administration says it’s working to bring down beef prices by boosting supply through more imports from Argentina, while laying the groundwork for a long-term plan to strengthen the U.S. cattle industry. (Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle/Getty Images / Getty Images)

The U.S. cattle herd is now at its smallest size in 75 years, which is keeping the supply tight following years of drought, rising costs and an aging ranching workforce resulting in producers needing to cut back.

That tight supply is already pushing prices higher – and the Iran conflict is only adding to the pressure.

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, the average price of beef climbed from about $8.70 per pound in March 2025 to $10.08 a year later, an increase of roughly 16%.

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Subsequently, even if energy prices ease, beef prices likely won’t be quick to follow.

For shoppers, that could mean higher grocery bills this summer – and pricier cookouts – depending on whether demand holds or consumers switch to cheaper alternatives. Much of that will depend on forces far beyond Americans’ backyards.

This article was written by

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Reacting to the latest borrowing figures, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, James Murray, said: “Our deficit is down £19.8bn because of our plan to cut borrowing. In a volatile world the decisions we are taking are the right ones to keep costs down, take back our energy security and cut borrowing and debt.”