Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Blackstone Inc. and Apollo Global Management Inc. had been working tirelessly for months to draw up debt deals that would help developers of artificial intelligence systems pay for chips from Nvidia Corp.

With slow progress on the complex deals, Nvidia’s chief executive officer, Jensen Huang, decided to change tack: He went public this week with the effort, saying the group is aiming to collectively finance AI computing deals totaling $500 billion — a round figure with no obvious provenance.

In doing so, he was seeking to assure Nvidia’s investors that there are plenty of deep-pocketed firms ready to finance his clients, particularly AI startups such as Anthropic PBC and OpenAI that are key to Nvidia’s future demand. While he’s bullish on AI spending overall, his company has been seeking to broaden its customer base beyond hyperscalers including Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc., many of which are trying to create their own components.

Huang wanted something else, too. After months of working with the trio of financiers, his $5.5 trillion firm called the original group up just days before the announcement to say that three other lenders — KKR & Co., BlackRock Inc. and Brookfield — were joining the pack and committing to financing a chunk of the debt.

With the partnership out in the open, some of the largest firms on Wall Street are standing by to arrange hundreds of billions of dollars in financing for chip deals, while Nvidia itself will backstop a portion of those deals with guarantees. No deals were signed by the time of the announcement, which was left deliberately vague, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private talks.

Investors have been concerned that Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia, whose chips are crucial in many of the data centers powering the global AI surge, and other companies have been stoking a bubble in the industry through circular financing. That’s been fueled by deals where Nvidia has invested in some of its clients such as CoreWeave Inc.
Initially, the financing venture’s framing unnerved debt investors, concerned about how exposed it left the chipmaker to more leverage. But that eased as Huang clarified that Nvidia’s support would be for as much as 25% of an opportunity and the firm would assess each project on a case-by-case basis.

“The announcement reflects the financing need as we look to build out digital and AI related infrastructure in the coming years,” Alan Synnott, global head of real assets at advisory firm Mercer, said in an interview. “With these partnerships, you’ll actually see a range of strategies developing likely across infrastructure, real estate credit, and maybe even private equity that will offer investors a lot more access paths.”

Representatives for Goldman, Apollo, Blackstone, KKR and BlackRock declined to comment. A Nvidia spokesperson had no immediate response, while a representative for Brookfield didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this week, when Huang appeared with executives from the six firms on CNBC to talk up the deal, the segment lasted more than 30 minutes and included few additional details. Goldman CEO David Solomon, Blackstone President Jon Gray, Apollo President Jim Zelter and Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt appeared in studio with Huang, while KKR’s Waldemar Szlezak, who leads its digital infrastructure business globally, also joined. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink was on video while traveling.

Now, those executives are turning to their clients, including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and insurance firms, to gauge their appetite for buying up the debt. Executives in the television discussion indicated that some of the money could come from retail investors.

The $500 billion commitment has no set time frame and is a combination of deals that have been discussed, as well as forecasts of demand in the near future, according to people familiar with the matter. Each lender will be able to vet individual customers for creditworthiness before committing.

While much of the total amount will be raised through private credit markets, the scale is so large that public markets will need to be tapped. That’s expected to come in the form of bonds — many set to be tens of billions of dollars each — issued by special vehicles that would lease chips to Nvidia clients.

One person involved in the announcement described Huang’s intention as setting up a debt shopfront as an advertisement to customers and concerned investors. If the deals don’t happen as announced or go awry, that could pose a risk to the reputation of the financing partners and Nvidia, the person said.

For some of the financing partners, the venture promises that the companies will be in line to collect fees from the deals. While Goldman is the only firm with a dedicated banking arm, Apollo could also unlock more fees as it expands its trading operation, selling larger chunks of the loans it originates to other investors and making markets for clients.

For Goldman, it’s the culmination of years of building up close ties to the chipmaker. Jung Min, who was named Goldman’s co-head of its technology, media and telecom practice last year after two decades at the firm, has covered Nvidia for years from his San Francisco base. Toshiya Hari, the former Goldman analyst who covered Nvidia, joined Nvidia last year to work in investor relations.

The splashy affair contrasts with a similar announcement from Broadcom Inc. just weeks earlier. The chipmaker tapped Apollo and Blackstone as anchor investors for plans to finance more than 20 gigawatts of compute capacity for frontier AI labs including Anthropic and OpenAI through 2028 — potentially requiring hundreds of billions of dollars.

Broadcom, however, already had $35 billion of financing in hand through a deal with Apollo and Blackstone when it unveiled the partnership.

Broadcom backstopped most of the debt on that first deal to help attract investors, while Apollo structured the deal to keep the borrowing off Broadcom’s balance sheet. Blackstone has already sounded out investors for another transaction of more than $30 billion, Bloomberg reported.

The Nvidia debt deals will vary according to the type of customer and the owner of the data centers that will house the chips. The collateral that backs the loans is expected to be some combination of the underlying chips and the offtake agreements, said some of the people.

If a deal goes awry and Nvidia clients can’t afford the chips, the chips can be rented by others, helping to reduce the risk of individual Nvidia customers defaulting on the debt, according to some of the people.

Skeptics say that valuations of the underlying chips is currently inflated by record demand, driven by the hype around AI. One of the worries is that the intense buildup of AI infrastructure might fuel an oversupply of computing power years in the future.

For all the questions, there’s no doubt other banks and investment firms still want in. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s asset management arm, for one, is discussing how it can be involved as well, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for the bank declined to comment.

And just minutes after Monday’s announcement, Morgan Stanley, long a significant lender to AI infrastructure, put out a release saying it was launching a framework to facilitate $1.5 trillion of funds in US innovation and national security. Top of its list: AI and advanced computing.

Operator

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to BIO-key International Second Quarter 2026 Conference call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, Friday, August 14, 2026. I will now turn the call over to Bill Jones of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

William Jones

Thank you, Chloe. Hosting today are BIO-key’s Chairman and CEO, Mike DePasquale; and its CFO, Ceci Welch. As a reminder, today’s call and webcast, as well as answers to investor questions, include forward-looking statements. These are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. Words such as anticipate, believe, expect, plan, or project, and similar words identify and express forward-looking statements. These statements are made based on beliefs, assumptions, and information currently available to management, pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.

For a more complete description of these risks and uncertainties that affect future performance, please see risk factors in the company’s annual report on Form 10-K and the current Form 10-Q with the SEC. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements made as of today, and the company makes no obligation to revise or disclose revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events occurring after this call.

Now I’ll turn the call over to Mike to begin. Mike?

Michael DePasquale
Chairman & CEO

Thanks, Bill, and thank you all for joining us this morning. After my remarks, Ceci will review the financials, and then we will take

AMC Theatres customers began reporting problems accessing the movie theater chain’s website and mobile app Friday afternoon, according to outage-tracking service Downdetector, in what appeared to be a developing disruption affecting the company’s digital ticketing platforms.

Downdetector said user reports indicating problems with AMC Theatres began climbing at 12:17 p.m. Eastern time. The tracking service posted about the rising number of reports on its official account on the social platform X, asking affected users to describe how the outage was impacting them and tagging the post with the hashtag “AmcTheatresDown.”

As of Friday afternoon, AMC had not issued a detailed public statement addressing the scope, cause or expected resolution timeline for the reported disruption. AMC maintains a dedicated maintenance page at maintenance.amctheatres.com, which the company has used during past outages to display a message informing customers that “AMCTheatres.com and the AMC Mobile app are currently experiencing technical difficulties,” though it remained unclear as of Friday whether that page had been activated in connection with the latest reported issue.

Friday’s disruption would not be the first time AMC’s digital platforms have experienced significant problems in recent months. In late July, AMC’s website and app suffered a similar outage, with Downdetector reports beginning to climb around 12:23 p.m. Eastern time that day. During that earlier incident, affected users reported a range of issues, including the website failing to load entirely, difficulty signing into existing accounts, and an inability to complete ticket purchases. One user affected by that outage described their frustration on social media at the time, saying, “I’ve been trying to book tickets for the past 20 minutes, but the app keeps” failing to complete the transaction.

A separate AMC outage, which appeared to occur on a Saturday in recent months, saw the company’s website display an error message reading, “This may end up in the outtakes,” when customers attempted to log on. According to reports from that incident, complaints began surfacing shortly after 12 p.m. Eastern time, with more than 150 reports of issues logged by 1 p.m. AMC’s website acknowledged at the time that the company was working on a fix, though no specific timeline for resolution was provided.

Not every outage-tracking service showed elevated activity around the same period Friday. Outage.report, a separate third-party monitoring tool, indicated that AMC Theatres appeared to be “working normally,” with report volume it described as within the typical range for the time of day, and listed the service’s last previously recorded incident as having occurred roughly 67 days earlier. That assessment stood in apparent tension with Downdetector’s report of rising complaints beginning at 12:17 p.m. Friday, illustrating the difficulty of pinning down the precise scope and timing of an outage using different third-party tracking tools, which can rely on varying methodologies and baseline comparisons.

AMC Theatres operates as one of the largest movie theater chains in the world, with locations across North America and additional international markets, offering a range of viewing formats including standard screenings, IMAX and Dolby Cinema. The company’s website and mobile app serve as the primary digital channels through which customers purchase tickets, manage AMC Stubs loyalty program accounts, and access concession pre-ordering and other digital features tied to the moviegoing experience.

For customers experiencing issues Friday, standard troubleshooting guidance compiled by outage-tracking services and past coverage of AMC disruptions generally recommends several basic steps: refreshing the web page, fully restarting the mobile app, switching between Wi-Fi and cellular data connections, clearing the app’s cache, or attempting to access the website from a different browser or device. Those steps, however, are unlikely to resolve the issue if the underlying problem originates on AMC’s own servers rather than with an individual user’s device or connection, in which case customers are typically advised to wait for the company to resolve the issue on its end.

Given that Friday’s reported disruption arrived during the middle of the day, a period that typically includes meaningful ticket-purchasing traffic for weekend movie showtimes, any outage affecting AMC’s digital ticketing systems could carry a more immediate practical impact on customers trying to secure seats for upcoming screenings compared with a disruption occurring during a lower-traffic overnight window.

This remains a developing situation, and additional details regarding the precise scope, underlying cause and expected resolution timeline of Friday’s reported AMC Theatres outage were not immediately available. The company had not issued an official public acknowledgment of the disruption as of Friday afternoon, leaving affected customers largely reliant on Downdetector, social media reports from other users, and AMC’s own maintenance page for updates on whether the issue was continuing to affect the broader customer base.

Why Most Research Peptide Companies Can’t Scale Their Advertising (And How the Right Strategy Changes Everything)

If you’re selling research peptides online, you’ve probably experienced it before.

Your ad gets approved… then rejected.

Your account gets flagged without warning.

A campaign you’ve been running for weeks suddenly stops delivering.

Or worse—you’ve spent thousands building a brand only to discover that getting traffic is far more difficult than creating a great product.

If any of that sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

Research peptide companies operate in one of the most challenging advertising environments on the internet. Every major advertising platform has policies surrounding healthcare, pharmaceuticals, laboratory products, and scientific claims. Automated review systems continue evolving, and advertisers often encounter inconsistent review outcomes or additional scrutiny.

The companies that grow consistently aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets.

They’re the ones that understand how to build compliant, trustworthy brands while developing diversified marketing strategies that don’t rely on a single traffic source.

At Blackhat Strategy, we’ve spent years helping businesses in highly regulated and restricted industries build scalable customer acquisition systems. Research peptides are one of the most complex categories we work with—and one of the most rewarding when approached strategically.

If you’re tired of wondering why your advertising isn’t working, this guide will walk you through the landscape, the common pitfalls, and the strategies successful brands use to grow.

Table of Contents

1. Why Research Peptide Advertising Is Different
2. Why Ads Get Rejected So Often
3. The Biggest Mistakes Peptide Brands Make
4. Building a Brand Platforms Can Trust
5. Creating High-Converting Creative
6. Landing Pages That Support Better Outcomes
7. Why SEO Is Your Secret Weapon
8. Email Marketing Is More Valuable Than Ever
9. Scaling Without Depending on One Traffic Source
10. Why Specialized Agencies Matter
11. Frequently Asked Questions
12. Final Thoughts

Why Research Peptide Advertising Is Different

Unlike traditional ecommerce brands, research peptide companies operate in a category that receives heightened attention from advertising platforms due to the nature of the products involved.

Review systems often examine not only the advertisement itself, but also factors such as:

• Website content
• Product descriptions
• Images
• Claims
• Business transparency
• Landing page experience
• Overall brand presentation

Even companies with legitimate business practices can find themselves navigating repeated reviews or changing policy interpretations.

That means success isn’t simply about writing a better headline.

It’s about creating an entire advertising ecosystem that demonstrates professionalism, credibility, and consistency.

Why Research Peptide Ads Get Rejected So Often

One of the biggest misconceptions is that ad disapprovals happen only because of a single word or image.

In reality, advertising platforms evaluate many signals together.

Some common reasons campaigns may face additional review include:

Health-Related Language

References that imply medical outcomes, treatment, prevention, or other health claims can trigger policy reviews.

Landing Page Issues

The destination page is often evaluated alongside the ad itself. Clarity, transparency, and user experience all matter.

Inconsistent Messaging

Differences between the ad and the landing page can create friction during review.

Business Trust Signals

Clear contact information, professional branding, customer service information, and transparent business details all contribute to overall credibility.

The Hidden Cost of Constant Ad Problems

Most business owners think the biggest cost is losing one campaign.

It’s much larger than that.

Every delayed launch means:

• Lost revenue
• Higher customer acquisition costs
• Delayed product releases
• Reduced momentum
• More time spent troubleshooting instead of growing

For businesses planning aggressive growth, advertising interruptions can have a significant impact on long-term performance.

The Biggest Mistakes Research Peptide Brands Make

Mistake #1: Treating Advertising Like a Quick Fix

Paid advertising works best when it’s part of a broader marketing strategy.

The strongest brands combine advertising with:

• Search engine optimization
• Educational content
• Email marketing
• Customer retention
• Community building

When these channels work together, businesses are less vulnerable to changes affecting any one platform.

Mistake #2: Ignoring Brand Authority

Consumers purchasing research products often spend considerable time evaluating suppliers.

Professional branding matters.

That includes:

• Consistent visual identity
• Clear educational resources
• Transparent policies
• Strong customer support
• Easy-to-navigate website

Trust compounds over time.

Mistake #3: Expecting Immediate Scale

Even well-prepared campaigns benefit from testing, optimization, and refinement.

Successful growth is typically built through:

• Creative testing
• Audience refinement
• Landing page improvements
• Continuous optimization
• Long-term measurement

Patience and iteration often outperform constant reinvention.

Building a Brand That Inspires Confidence

The strongest-performing research peptide companies have one thing in common.

They don’t look like companies chasing quick sales.

They look like established businesses invested in educating their audience and providing a professional customer experience.

Ask yourself:

• Does your website immediately communicate credibility?
• Is your branding consistent?
• Are visitors able to find important information easily?
• Does your educational content answer real customer questions?

These details influence customer trust—and can also support stronger marketing performance overall.

Creative That Connects With Your Audience

Many peptide companies focus almost exclusively on product images.

But effective creative often goes beyond showcasing the product itself.

Educational visuals, professional branding, and clear messaging can all help communicate value without relying solely on product photography.

Great creative also tells a story.

Why should someone trust your company?

What makes your customer experience different?

How do you educate your audience?

These are the questions strong creative helps answer.

Your Website Is Part of Your Marketing

Many advertisers spend weeks perfecting ad copy while overlooking the destination page.

Your website should make it easy for visitors to:

• Understand your company
• Learn about your products
• Find policies
• Contact your team
• Continue exploring educational resources

A polished, informative website supports customer confidence long before a purchase decision is made.

Why SEO Might Be Your Biggest Growth Opportunity

Advertising is important.

But search engine optimization creates an asset that continues generating traffic over time.

Research peptide customers frequently search for:

• Product information
• Laboratory resources
• Educational articles
• Industry comparisons
• Brand reviews
• Scientific topics

By publishing high-quality content consistently, companies can build long-term visibility that complements paid marketing efforts.

SEO also helps diversify traffic, reducing dependence on any single acquisition channel.

Email Marketing: The Channel You Actually Own

Advertising platforms change.

Algorithms evolve.

Policies are updated.

Your email list remains one of the few marketing assets you truly control.

Every visitor who joins your email list becomes an opportunity for future education, announcements, and customer retention.

Successful peptide companies often treat email as a long-term relationship channel—not simply a promotional tool.

Why Experience Matters

Restricted industries require a different mindset.

Many traditional agencies have experience marketing clothing brands, furniture stores, or local restaurants.

Research peptides present a different set of challenges.

Understanding complex industries means understanding:

• Review processes
• Customer expectations
• Compliance considerations
• Creative strategy
• Long-term growth planning
• Diversified acquisition strategies

That’s why many research peptide brands choose to work with agencies that specialize in navigating these environments.

Why More Research Peptide Companies Are Choosing Blackhat Strategy

At Blackhat Strategy, restricted advertising isn’t a side service.

It’s what we’re known for.

Our team works with businesses across complex industries that require thoughtful strategy, strong creative, and deep experience navigating advertising challenges.

We understand that success isn’t about chasing shortcuts.

It’s about building scalable systems that combine:

• Paid advertising
• SEO
• Email marketing
• Landing page optimization
• Creative strategy
• Conversion optimization
• Long-term brand authority

Our goal is simple:

Help businesses spend less time fighting marketing obstacles and more time growing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can research peptide companies advertise online?

Many platforms have policies governing health-related products and scientific content. Requirements vary by platform, and advertisers should ensure their campaigns align with applicable policies and local laws.

Why are my peptide ads getting rejected?

Review outcomes can depend on many factors, including ad content, landing pages, business information, and platform policies.

Is SEO important for peptide companies?

Absolutely.

SEO helps companies build sustainable visibility through educational content, product information, and industry resources.

Should I rely only on paid advertising?

No.

The strongest businesses typically combine paid advertising with SEO, email marketing, content creation, and customer retention strategies.

Why work with a specialized agency?

Agencies experienced with complex industries often have a deeper understanding of the unique marketing challenges those businesses face and can help develop strategies tailored to those environments.

Final Thoughts

Research peptide advertising is challenging—but challenge doesn’t mean impossibility.

The brands that succeed are rarely the ones chasing the latest loophole or shortcut. They’re the companies investing in trust, education, strong branding, and a diversified marketing strategy that can adapt as platforms evolve.

If you’re building a research peptide company with long-term ambitions, your marketing should be designed for the same horizon.

Blackhat Strategy has become a trusted partner for businesses operating in complex advertising environments because we understand that sustainable growth comes from expertise, preparation, and consistent execution—not quick fixes.

Whether you’re launching your first campaign or looking to strengthen your existing marketing strategy, building a resilient foundation today will put your brand in a stronger position tomorrow.

This article was written by

Selena Gomez is being sued by five investors in her mental health company, Wondermind Global.

The Hollywood actress and pop star founded the company with her mother five years ago, but now investors are claiming her ‘abject dereliction of duties’ has left the company in a ‘state of financial difficulty’.

The lawsuit will try to recover $1.2m (£890,00) it claims it was invested as well as costs and damages.

The BBC has contacted Wondermind and Gomez’s representatives for comment.

Elon Musk‘s 2025 compensation package at Tesla reached a reported value of $158.3 billion, more than 2.5 million times the median pay of a Tesla employee, according to an annual analysis by the AFL-CIO released this week.

The labor federation’s Executive Paywatch report calculated the ratio at 2,522,203 to 1. That figure meant Musk’s package equaled the median Tesla worker’s annual earnings every 4.23 seconds. The median employee compensation used in the calculation was $57,243.

The package, based on the grant-date fair value of restricted stock awards, was 14 times larger than the combined total compensation of all other S&P 500 chief executives, the report said. Including Musk’s award, the average S&P 500 CEO compensation rose to $340.1 million in 2025. Excluding it, the average still climbed 21 percent to $22.8 million from $18.9 million the prior year, the highest level since the AFL-CIO began tracking the data in the 1990s.

The average CEO-to-worker pay ratio across S&P 500 companies reached 5,387 to 1 when Musk’s package was included. Without it, the ratio stood at 312 to 1, up from 285 to 1 in 2024.

Brandon Rees, lead researcher for the AFL-CIO’s Executive Paywatch project, described the scale of the award as unprecedented. “Elon Musk’s gargantuan 2025 pay package at Tesla is unlike anything we have seen before,” he said. “Our economy is increasingly out of balance because billionaires like Elon Musk are taking a greater share of the economic pie while working people are struggling to make ends meet.”

Fred Redmond, the AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer, said the Tesla arrangement was already influencing other boards. Musk’s deal “changes the dynamic when other CEO compensation plans come up” and “boards use it as a reference,” he said in comments reported alongside the findings.

The compensation figure reflects accounting valuations of equity grants under Tesla’s 2025 CEO Performance Award and related awards, not cash paid out or shares vested during the year. Tesla has previously noted in regulatory filings that such reported totals can differ significantly from any value ultimately realized, as awards depend on meeting multi-year performance milestones including market capitalization, operational targets and product goals. In some prior periods, realized compensation for Musk has been reported as zero when awards remained unvested or were subject to legal and other adjustments.

Tesla’s median employee pay and the resulting ratio are calculated under Securities and Exchange Commission rules that require public companies to disclose the relationship between CEO compensation and that of a median worker. The company has said it remains committed to competitive pay for employees. Manufacturing was identified in the AFL-CIO report as the sector with the highest average CEO-to-worker ratio, driven in large part by the Tesla figures.

The report placed the Tesla numbers in a broader context of rising executive pay. A majority of S&P 500 CEOs earned more in a single day than the median U.S. worker made in a full year, according to the analysis. The federation also highlighted wider economic pressures, including limited retirement savings and difficulty covering unexpected expenses among many American households.

Musk’s package has drawn attention in part because of its size relative to Tesla’s workforce and to other corporate pay practices. Shareholders previously approved the structure of the performance-based awards, which are designed to vest only if ambitious financial and operational targets are met over a multi-year period. The awards have been the subject of ongoing legal and governance discussions, including court proceedings related to earlier compensation arrangements.

Analysts and labor groups have long debated the implications of large equity packages for alignment of interests between executives and shareholders, as well as for internal pay equity. Supporters of performance-based awards argue they incentivize long-term value creation and retain leadership during periods of high growth and risk. Critics, including the AFL-CIO, contend that such extreme disparities contribute to broader economic imbalance and set benchmarks that influence compensation decisions elsewhere.

The AFL-CIO has tracked executive pay trends for decades. This year’s findings show that even after removing the Tesla outlier, average CEO compensation and the ratio to worker pay continued to rise. The report is expected to fuel continued discussion among investors, policymakers and labor advocates about disclosure rules, say-on-pay votes and the structure of equity incentives at major public companies.

Tesla employs more than 100,000 people worldwide, with a substantial portion of its workforce outside the United States. Median pay figures under SEC methodology include a range of roles and locations and are not equivalent to average wages at specific factories or in particular job categories. The company has reported competitive hourly rates at some manufacturing sites in recent disclosures.

As of the report’s release, the accounting valuation of Musk’s 2025 awards stood as the largest single-year CEO compensation figure examined by the AFL-CIO. Whether and when any portion of the awards converts into realized value will depend on Tesla’s future performance against the specified milestones and on the final resolution of related legal and administrative matters.

The findings arrive amid ongoing public and investor scrutiny of executive compensation practices across the technology and automotive sectors. The AFL-CIO said the data underscore the need for continued attention to the distribution of economic gains between top executives and the broader workforce.