The Israel-Hamas ceasefire continues hanging by a thread, now about two-and-a-half weeks in, but there are new reports of airstrikes in Gaza by Israeli warplanes.

Israeli warplanes and tanks struck targets in eastern Gaza on Thursday, according to Palestinian residents and witnesses, cited in Reuters and other outlets. Over 100 Palestinians have died after on Tuesday Israel resumed airstrikes, citing the death of an IDF reserve soldier after Hamas gunmen opened fire in Rafah.

Wednesday saw Israel’s military proclaim that it was returning to observing the ceasefire, following pressure from the White House. But Thursday’s new airstrikes suggest fighting and bombardments have continued, and events on the ground have not aligned with the public-facing rhetoric.

Witnesses reported around ten airstrikes east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, alongside tank shelling near Gaza City in the north, Reuters has noted in its latest reporting.

But Israel is still claiming the ceasefire is on, calling the new operation “precise strikes” against “terrorist infrastructure posing a threat to troops” in areas still under Israeli control.

So it seems that the Israeli rationale is based on these new strikes only taking place where Israel’s military is fully deployed, and not in places like Gaza City where the IDF withdrew as part of the Phase 1 agreement called for in Trump’s peace plan.

Hamas has this week communicated its readiness and willingness to abide by the terms of the ceasefire, and says it is preparing to hand over more hostage bodies to Israel – amid a broader search for more remains.

Hamas officials have criticized “a systematic campaign of misinformation” by the Israeli side said to be aimed at concealing “crimes against civilians.”

Meanwhile there are separate reports that fighting in the West Bank has been heating up, which could also serve to threaten the truce deal in Gaza:

“The situation in the West Bank is absolutely horrifying,” says Palestinian politician @MustafaBarghou1.

In Gaza, he adds, “so far, more than 211 Palestinians have been killed during the ceasefire agreement and more than 600 have been injured.”

Israel’s strikes on Tuesday… pic.twitter.com/vFCLIFXeUl

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) October 29, 2025

Vice President J.D. Vance had said of the flare-up in fighting and resulting airstrikes Tuesday afternoon, “Despite the clashes today, the ceasefire agreement in Gaza will continue.” The Trump White House has been seeking to stabilize the ceasefire, with American delegations going back-and-forth frequently of late to Israel.

After years of relentless lawfare and debankings, it would have seemed unthinkable for Donald Trump Jr. to emerge as a venture capitalist backing some of the world’s most innovative startups. And yet, here we are.

At the onset of his father’s second term, Trump Jr. joined 1789 Capital as a partner. The firm, co-founded in 2022 by investment banker Omeed Malik, Republican megadonor Rebekah Mercer and American Greatness publisher Chris Buskirk, has staked out territory as an explicit alternative to the environmental, social and governance investing that dominated Wall Street in recent years. Its pitch: back American companies driving what it calls “IEG” – innovation, entrepreneurship and growth – while sidestepping the diversity mandates and climate commitments that became corporate orthodoxy.

At the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh on Wednesday, Malik and Trump Jr. detailed a portfolio heavy on artificial intelligence and defense technology, sectors experiencing a funding surge amid heightened geopolitical tensions and Pentagon modernization efforts, CAPITAL reports. The timing has proved fortuitous, as defense-tech startups raised a record $33 billion in 2024, according to PitchBook.

Among 1789 Capital’s holdings are Anduril Industries, the autonomous weapons maker valued at $30.5 billion that has positioned itself as a nimble alternative to traditional defense contractors; Hadrian, which manufactures precision parts for military applications; and a suite of Elon Musk’s companies, including SpaceX, xAI and Neuralink.

Additionally, 1789 Capital recently joined a funding round for Vulcan Elements, a rare-earths magnet producer that has secured Pentagon contracts. The investment reflects a broader push—echoed in administration policy—to rebuild domestic supply chains for critical minerals that China has long dominated, controlling roughly 70% of global rare-earth production. The firm also invested in Base, an Austin-based energy startup co-founded by Michael Dell’s son, Zach Dell, that focuses on residential battery storage and grid management solutions to Texas residents.

“We want to complement all the great work that the Trump administration is doing within the private sector,” Malik said, while Trump Jr. cast the effort in more political terms.

“What we want is a generational shift towards these America first policies both, in government and in the private sector, to unleash the freedom and prosperity that all Americans deserve,” the president’s son said.

The firm’s growth has accelerated since President Donald Trump returned to office in January. Securities and Exchange Commission filings from recent months showed assets under management approaching $900 million. PitchBook estimates place the figure closer to $1.25 billion, while the New York Times reports that assets now total roughly $2 billion—more than doubling in less than a year.

During the panel discussion, Malik and Trump Jr. appeared to confirm a Bloomberg report that 1789 Capital was seeking to raise a fund for investing in South Florida real estate.

“It’s actually part of a broader vision,” Malik began when asked about the plans. “1789 will be a multi-strategy asset manager and we have the growth equity fund, we have a small situations fund and the next thing we were going to do is real estate.”

“One is certainly a macro or political assessment of the situation that I referenced earlier, which is there will continue to be mass migration from the northeast to the sun belt, including Florida,” Malik said. “We want to be able to have a real estate development fund that’s going to take advantage of that migration as well as the fact that a lot of the sun belt has not been zoned or built properly. That’s a huge opportunity in that area. Chicago, LA, and New York which are on the decline.”

“The other is if you think about all the things we’re investing in, all the innovation, all the AI, all the tech, you can’t do that without infrastructure,” the 1789 Capital co-founder added. “The other aspect that’s very synergistic with our portfolio is making sure that you can do those data centers, the hyperscalers, and that’s a thing that we’re going to invest in in our own portfolio.”

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Think a 2-G, not a G-2 world

The Fed briefly made the market headline this morning after doing what was expected – cutting 25bps to 4%; and what markets had wanted – stopping QT; but also what markets hadn’t expected and didn’t want – calling into question how much further rates will fall. As such, markets, who netted a peak-to-trough $6.5 trillion in Fed balance sheet expansion in the ‘it’s just an asset swap that will be reversed’ QE > QT > (QE?) cycle, were not happy, though we see 25bps cuts in December (if not a done deal), and March, June, and September 2026: see here for more. While looking at that $6.5trn, consider the unironic Washington Post op-ed that ‘This Supreme Court decision [on the Fed’s Cook] could basically guarantee higher inflation’.

As some focus on how politics and central banks can fuse one way, Europe displayed another. ECB President Lagarde repeated a call for the EU to move to majority voting, following former ECB President then unelected Italian PM Draghi, and Bank of Italy Governor Panetta. Without taking a stance, is this in the ECB’s remit other than it indirectly involves the economy? What would markets think if Powell got involved over House redistricting? Regardless, it underlines the pressure for structural, market-moving change in Europe.

In the geopolitical world the EU is struggling to keep up with, Russia tested a nuclear torpedo that can flood cities with “radioactive tsunamis”; the US will undertake nuclear tests in response to those of others; Western intel said Iran is rearming despite UN sanctions, with China’s help; Venezuela’s “creaking military” is preparing for US strikes; Brazil saw dozens die in Rio in police-drug gang clashes, which included the Ukraine-war tactic of drone-dropped bombs; and the US plans a “show of force” against “Chinese aggression” in the South China Sea.

In related geoeconomics, Nvidia hit a $5trn market cap – as its CEO just said it doesn’t matter if the US or China wins the global AI race(!); the BOJ ignored US Treasury Secretary’s Bessent advice and left rates on hold again at 0.5% with no more dissenters than the previous two; Saudi Arabia will refocus its $925bn sovereign wealth fund from real estate towards critical minerals, logistics, and AI, which sounds US-linked; Trump said South Korea will build a nuclear submarine in the US, transferring its highest defense tech, as he struck a deal to lower auto tariffs to 15% from 25% in return for $150bn for US shipbuilding, $20bn annual FDI for a decade, and major energy purchases; and Oslo reported Chinese made EV buses can be disabled remotely via software updates, allowing direct access to their battery.

Yet the Atlantic notes as of now, ‘The US Is on Track to Lose a War With China’ as “modern warfare is decided by production capacity and technological mastery, not by individual valor”; new US rare earths processing tech may help it leapfrog China, as the quest for rare earth elements is sparking a Texas mining revival; Australia’s Lynas will build a heavy rare earth plant in Malaysia; but Malaysia, which just signed such a rare earths deal with the US, will only export processed products; as three Indian companies received the first set of licenses for importing rare earth magnets from China – which cannot be used for defence purposes.

The latter underlines Europe may not be able to rearm either, whatever funds it allocates to it, unless it develops alternative supply, with a parallel issue threatening the chips need for auto production. For chips, that will take time to ramp up; for rare earths, far more so given Europe lacks key resources, which the FT just noticed in ‘Europe and the curse of geography.

Meanwhile, Beijing is lobbying Europe not to side with the US as France’s parliament voted to raise their tech tax, potentially setting up a clash with Trump, and Macron called for social media that won’t declare its bias to be banned, perhaps setting up a clash with VP Vance.

Summarising the zeitgeist, the Economist pens ‘A letter to investors from the White House Opportunities Fund’, on “How the shift to state capitalism is panning out for America LLC.” It’s rather early to be making that call – but the description of the new (geo)political economy is not, as we called as imminent immediately that Trump was re-elected. Indeed, underlining how wrongly that is still being read by some, @Eurobriefing notes: “Remember the investment flows from the US to Europe – after Trump’s tariffs and the election of Merz? It’s all reversing now. US investors are slowing waking up to a political reality of political perma-gridlock in Europe. And Europeans investors are starting to realise the macroeconomic gains from AI are far more likely to arise in the US and China than in Europe.”

Of course, all the preceding news was just a warm-up for today’s critical Trump – Xi meeting, before which Trump posted, “THE G2 WILL BE CONVENING SHORTLY!”, worrying the other 193. The early words in front of the media in Busan were win-win: Xi stated China’s development does not contradict the vison of “Make America Great Again.” However, as China expert Matt Pottinger asks, ‘Is Trump Getting Played by Xi?’, and “If so, America’s agrarian past may be its future” –something I pointed out was the trend in relative import-export rations by sector in 2017’s The Great Game of Global Trade– tariffs, fentanyl, AI chips – where the Chair of the House Select Committee on China states selling Nvidia Blackwell chips to China would be “akin to giving Iran weapons grade uranium”, rare earths, soybeans, Taiwan, and even Russia-Ukraine were all rumored to be in the mix – if you aren’t at the table, you are likely on it.

Trump said it was “amazing” and “outstanding” meeting, and agreed a rolling one-year deal that can be extended where: “tremendous” US soybean purchases will “start immediately”; China “agreed to work to stop fentanyl,” so a 10% US tariff reduction has gone into effect, but “many other tariffs remain”; USTR Greer said China will not be imposing rare earth controls – but does that only apply to the US?; Blackwell AI chips were not discussed, though China is going to talk about others with Nvidia; US nuclear tests are aimed at others; Taiwan was not discussed; and Trump will visit China in April. We are still waiting for official readouts, but this seems a short-term ceasefire, not any long-term settlement – and no TACOs were on the menu.

So, ‘stability’ until April on one front – unless China doesn’t keep its end of the bargain, in which case tariffs go up (110%?). Meanwhile, the US will target onshoring and rare earths while China targets high-end chips. That, and other developments, still say that rather than a US-China G-2 CoDominium, we are drifting to a 2-G world, one US-centric, another Chinese.

In what would otherwise be major news today, Trump conceded that it’s “pretty clear” that he can’t tun for a third term, which would be actual news to Steve Bannon.

UK Chancellor Reeves is reportedly considering a 2% increase in income tax in the upcoming budget, as she joins the list of government ministers having to alert the official ethics adviser after an “inadvertent mistake” with a London property licence and the rental of her family home; and

The liberal D66 party looks to have won the same number of seats as the right wing PVV in the Dutch election with 97.7% of the vote counted, and D66 leader Jettens looks in pole position to be the next Prime Minister; he will inherit the Nexperia, rare earths, Russia-Ukraine, and EU-US issues as he looks to build closer cooperation with Europe – just as the EU may be set for major changes(?)

To conclude, the Fed cut as expected but could now see a pause; the Trump-Xi meeting also saw a tactical pause. Both were welcome, but neither mean much in the bigger picture

Oil stocks remain some of the cheapest relative to the broader market so we figured its time to discuss why.

In last night’s ZH Debate, we pulled together top energy analysts representing three different views, hosted by friend of zerohedge and former energy trader Erik Townsend, a true expert in the field and the host of the Macro Voices podcast.

In the bullish corner, Arjun Murti, a partner at Veriten has over 30 years on the Street analyzing energy for firms like Goldman Sachs. For the bearish case, Bloomberg’s Mike McGlone is a commodity specialist with equal time doing high-level institutional research. Lastly, taking a middle-road outlook, Paul Sankey of Sankey Research remains bearish through winter, turning bullish by February. Sankey is former MD at Deutsche Bank.

Here are the key moments for those short on time but we highly recommend anyone with money in the market listen to the full debate:

Bearish Target: $40 per barrel

Blooberg’s McGlone opened with the bearish case: “WTI crude oil is down about 16% this year… every trend is lower prices.” He called it “an extreme bear market,” adding that stabilization “requires the stock market [to] stabilize and at least go up.”

Equities are, of course, making new all-time highs by the week, which McGlone worries makes them vulnerable to corrections. “If we get a normal 10 to 20% correction,” he warned, “that’ll easily get to my $40 a barrel.”

Oil is not alone compared to corn, soybeans, and wheat. But according to McGlone,“crude oil is more elastic than it was any time in the past,” referring to 

pic.twitter.com/B8bQYkOKGJ

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) October 30, 2025

Long-term Bull Case: Climate insanity is done

Murti dismissed the idea of a “delayed transition” away from fossil fuels as “absolute nonsense,” arguing that while new technologies could one day threaten oil demand, “we do not know what they are today.” 

He emphasized the global inequality of energy development—“one eighth of the world being rich and the other seven eighths” still striving to catch up—and said that the recent Bill Gates flip flop marked “the end of climate catastrophism as a mainstream thing.”

pic.twitter.com/zcCLYRuUhc

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) October 30, 2025

The “Horrendous Energy Intensive” AI Boom

Sankey warned that artificial intelligence could become an “energy black hole,” as it becomes ever more ubiquitous. “The more efficient AI becomes, the more you’re going to use AI and by extension, the more energy you’re going to have to use,” Sankey said.

This trend could continue “until the energy cost gets too high, potentially the environmental costs get too high, and you have to cease and desist.”

…while that may cause an energy crisis, it seems hard to deny it’s bullish for oil. 

pic.twitter.com/X1f3gxJlNA

— ZeroHedge Debates (@zerohedgeDebate) October 30, 2025
 

Watch the full debate below on your preferred platform:

https://t.co/AxKTcoWPoO

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 29, 2025

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Putin offered in late September to extend the New START, which is the last arms control pact between Russia and the US, for another year following its expiry in early February.

He then reaffirmed his proposal in early October, emphasizing that there’s still time to extend this crucial agreement if the US has the political will, which appears to be the case given Trump’s recent praise of it as “a good idea”. Regardless of whatever happens, Putin’s offer is a goodwill gesture to Trump, which will now be explained.

For background, Putin announced Russia’s suspension of the New START in February 2023 in response to NATO’s involvement in Ukraine’s drone attacks against his country’s strategic aviation bases several months prior, which was analyzed here as the right thing to do at the right time. Nearly a year later in January 2024, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov then declared that talks on this issue won’t resume till the Ukrainian Conflict ends, arguing that doing otherwise would put Russia at a disadvantage.

With that in mind, it was expected at the start of the year that “Mutual Interest In Resuming Arms Control Talks Can Speed Up The Ukrainian Peace Process”, yet that didn’t come to pass with Russian-US tensions escalating shortly after mid-August’s Anchorage Summit. Nevertheless, Putin still publicly praised Trump for working towards peace and proposed extending New START for another year, thus representing a change in Russia’s position as articulated by Lavrov over 18 months earlier.

Goodwill gestures are meant to make the recipient trust whoever does them with the expectation that they’ll then be reciprocated for improving their relations. That doesn’t always happen though as proven by Russia’s goodwill gesture of withdrawing from Kiev during spring 2022’s peace talks being seen as weakness by Ukraine, the UK, and Poland, the last two of which then convinced Ukraine to keep fighting. The possibility thus exists that Trump might perceive Putin’s latest goodwill gesture in the same way.

It’s crucial to mention that Putin reassured his people that Russia can ensure its national security even in the absence of extending New START and that any unilateral moves by the US to further upset the strategic balance between their countries would render this pact null and void. What he probably had in mind was Trump’s “Golden Dome” initiative, previously known as the “Iron Dome”, for reviving Reagan’s “Star Wars” plan for space-based interceptors and likely secret space-based offensive missiles too.

Taking his trade deals as precedent, he always wants the US to maintain the dominant position in any “compromise”, so he might either insist on continuing to build the “Golden Dome” despite this ruining any New START extension or secretly continuing to do so even if he says he won’t. If the CIA assesses that Russia might transfer cutting-edge nuclear weapons technology to China and/or North Korea in that case, and that this would in turn jeopardize US national security interests, then he might reconsider.

Putin’s goodwill gesture to Trump of offering to extend New START is therefore a pivotal moment in their ties since it’ll allow Russia to learn whether the US is serious about compromising. If Trump doesn’t ditch the “Golden Dome” or dupes Putin about freezing work on it, then even though the new Burevestnik missile could still piece through it, Russia might still opt to transfer this tech to its nuclear-armed allies in order to raise the costs to the US of rejecting Russia’s proposal so that it doesn’t reject future ones too.

EBay shares plunged as much as 16% on Thursday, the biggest intraday drop since January 2005, after the company issued disappointing fourth-quarter guidance. The outlook for adjusted earnings and operating margins came in below Bloomberg Consensus estimates, overshadowing what had been solid third-quarter earnings. 

EBay delivered a strong third quarter, beating estimates across the board. However, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts said investors were focused on the disappointing fourth-quarter adjusted earnings-per-share forecast, which could “reflect consumer and tariff uncertainty.” 

Snapshot of Third-Quarter Results (via Bloomberg): 

Adjusted EPS: $1.36, up from $1.19 a year ago and above the $1.34 estimate.

Net Revenue: $2.82 billion, a 9.5% year-over-year increase, topping the $2.73 billion consensus.

Active Buyers: 134 million, up 0.8% year-over-year, slightly below expectations of 135.1 million.

Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV): $20.11 billion, up 9.8% year-over-year, beating the $19.37 billion estimate.

• U.S. GMV: $9.87 billion, up 13% year-over-year, versus $9.36 billion expected.

• International GMV: $10.23 billion, up 7% year-over-year, compared with $10.06 billion estimated.

Free Cash Flow: $803 million, up 24% year-over-year, exceeding the $688.3 million estimate.

The spotlight was on eBay’s fourth-quarter forecast, which guided adjusted EPS between $1.31 and $1.36, missing the Bloomberg Consensus of $1.39 and signaling margin pressure ahead. The online auction platform projected net revenue between $2.83 billion and $2.89 billion, roughly in line with the $2.8 billion estimate, pointing to modest top-line growth but a softer profit outlook ahead of Black Friday and Christmas holiday shopping season. 

Full-Year Forecast:

• Sees adjusted EPS from continuing operations $5.42 to $5.47, estimate $5.46

• Sees net revenue $10.97 billion to $11.03 billion, estimate $10.85 billion

“Given solid 3Q trends, we think eBay’s 4Q guidance appears to be set too low to reflect consumer and tariff uncertainty,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts wrote in a note, adding that the outlook for fourth quarter adjusted operating margin “missed consensus as its strategic investments may weigh on results.”

Stifel analyst said earnings were solid but this report was “overshadowed by 4Q guidance of GMV growth decelerating to +4-6% y/y (FXN), citing tough comps and the full impact of the de minimis changes.” 

The dismal outlook sent shares crashing – the most in an intraday session since January 20, 2005 – down 14% by early afternoon in New York. 

$100 handle has been rejected for the second time. 

Double top?

There was a massive explosion of unknown cause earlier this month at a military factory in central Russia’s Chelyabinsk region resulting in a high casualty rate. After many days of a search and rescue operation the death toll has risen to 23 at the Plastmass plant, Russian media has indicated in a fresh update on casualties.

The plant produces explosives and artillery ammo for the military, so the resulting disaster was extensive and significant. It ranks as among the highest death tolls in terms of a single blast incident at a military factory in Russia throughout the course of the Ukraine war.

An entire building at the plant was completely leveled in the blast, resulting in people being buried under the rubble, and making rescue efforts extremely difficult.

“The final list of victims of the tragedy includes 23 people,” the regional government confirmed on Telegram, revising their earlier toll of 13 dead and 10 missing. Rescue efforts lasted a week, which involved painstaking efforts of combing through rubble.

A formal investigation has opened into potential industrial safety violations. Given the ongoing large-scale drone attacks out Ukraine, there was initial speculation the plant was hit by drones; however, authorities have pushed back that this was caused by a drone attack.

Authorities have pushed back on it being a drone attack, but this remains a possibility: 

Reports about Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian town of Kopyesk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, located over 1,600km from the border with Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/OWY3LhQ7Lf

— Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (@Archer83Able) October 22, 2025

The plant is all the way east in the Urals, which does make a drone attack at that range unlikely – though not impossible. A drone would have to have traverse at least half the land mass of Russia to make it there.

Western media sources have authenticated some of the video which emerged in the aftermath. “BBC Verify has located two videos of the explosion. One is CCTV showing the moment of the blast, captured around 3km (1.9 miles) from the sitem” BBC documented. “The other shows the fireball filmed from a car driving down an adjacent road.” But there doesn’t seem to have emerged any close-up footage of the moment of the explosion.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

Lawyers for President Donald Trump asked an appeals court in New York state this week to throw out Trump’s criminal conviction for falsifying business records.

Evidence in the case was insufficient to convict Trump, his lawyers told the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division in a brief. They also said the court had wrongly ruled against the theory that presidential immunity means that official acts cannot be used against a president.

“In addition to all this overwhelming error, the trial was conducted by a judge who refused to recuse himself despite having made political contributions to President Trump’s electoral opponents and despite having disqualifying family conflicts,” the lawyers wrote.

“For each of these independent reasons, President Trump’s conviction must be set aside.”

Trump, at the time a candidate for president, was convicted in 2024 of falsifying business records.

After Trump won the 2024 election, Justice Juan Merchan of the New York State Supreme Court handed down a sentence with no jail time or fines, citing “legal protections afforded to the office of the president of the United States.”

Merchan, who was overseeing the case, had previously turned away Trump’s arguments against evidence in the case and assertions that the president was protected by presidential immunity.

Lawyers for Trump wrote in the new brief that jurors had improperly heard testimony about official acts by Trump, including official statements that he made on social media and alleged discussions between Trump and the attorney general about enforcing federal campaign regulations.

They pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2024, in which justices ruled that presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.

The ruling states, “If official conduct for which the President is immune may be scrutinized to help secure his conviction, even on charges that purport to be based only on his unofficial conduct, the ‘intended effect’ of immunity would be defeated.”

A spokesperson for Trump told news outlets in a statement on Oct. 28: “The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately overturned and dismissed.

“President Trump will keep defeating Democrat weaponization at every turn as he focuses on his singular mission to Make America Great Again.”

Earlier this week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the topic of taking the chatbot maker public during a livestream. He said that while there are no concrete plans or set timeline, “it’s fair to say an IPO is the most likely path for us.” 

After Altman’s comments, Reuters reported, citing three people familiar with the matter, that OpenAI is indeed preparing for an IPO, with a securities filing expected in late 2026 and a market debut in 2027 at a potential valuation of $1 trillion. 

Here’s more from the report:

OpenAI is considering filing with securities regulators as soon as the second half of 2026, some of the people said. In preliminary discussions, the company has looked at raising $60 billion at the low end and likely more, the people said. They cautioned that talks are early and plans – including the figures and timing – could change depending on business growth and market conditions.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has told some associates the company is aiming for a 2027 listing, the people said. But some advisers predict it could come even sooner, around late 2026.

While an OpenAI spokesperson maintains that “an IPO is not our focus,” this week’s restructuring news, which reduced the company’s dependence on Microsoft and shifted governance under the OpenAI Foundation, only suggests preparation for public markets, as it paves the way for OpenAI to use public stock for large-scale acquisitions and capital-intensive infrastructure projects to support Altman’s plan to invest trillions in AI development.

OpenAI has an annualized revenue run rate of approximately $20 billion, though losses are mounting. There was a report at the start of the week that said the Microsoft CFO internally warned about Altman’s data center spending, which could unleash data center overcapacity.

Related: 

• OpenAI-Microsoft Friction Grows As ChatGPT App Growth Slows, Data Center Buildout Risks Overcapacity

OpenAI was most recently valued at $500 billion, with major investors including Microsoft (27% stake), SoftBank, Thrive Capital, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX.

However, the potential IPO window for OpenAI comes at a time when Goldman analysts forecast data center peak occupancy will begin to weaken (read here), an indication that more supply will come online amid the massive wave of data center buildouts expected next year (read here).

Earlier we reported that the United States will begin conducting nuclear weapons testing again after decades of rejecting the practice, according to a fresh announcement by President Donald Trump Wednesday as he was on the tail end of his Asia tour. He seemed to be referencing Russia when he wrote on Truth Social, “Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” the president stated. “That process will begin immediately.”

Another adversary of note who has done high-profile nuclear tests in the modern era is North Korea. But clearly, Trump ordered the restart of nuclear weapons trials in response to Russia’s recent tests of a nuclear cruise missile as well as nuclear-powered underwater drones.

It was on Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin touted a successful test of his military’s new “invincible” nuclear-capable cruise missile, the Burevestnik. Trump quickly called it “not appropriate” and reminded Moscow that a US nuclear submarine is “right off their shores.”

The new Russian missile completed a multi-hour flight that covered 14,000km, and is touted as able to evade any modern anti-air defense system. While Russia first disclosed the test on Sunday, it actually took place on October 21 according to the Kremlin announcement.

But Trump’s warnings didn’t deter the Kremlin, as it was only on Tuesday that Russia’s military conducted yet a second nuclear-related test, this time of a long in development nuclear-capable state-of-the-art underwater drone named the ‘Poseidon’. 

“For the first time, we succeeded not only in launching it from a submarine using its booster engine, but also in starting its nuclear power unit, which provided energy to the vehicle for a certain period of time. This is a tremendous success,” Putin described Wednesday of that test. Western media sources even noted the weapon could potentially unleash radioactive tidal waves against coastal targets.

All of this meant that Russia conducted two significant ‘nuclear weapons tests’ in under a week; however, nowhere in Russian statements was it suggested there was a detonation of atomic warheads. But Trump’s order to his Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth to start resume nuclear [explosives?] tests could mark a first since 1992 (that last test was an underground detonation) and the end of the Cold War – and has clearly alarmed and rattled the Kremlin.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov is apparently seeking to de-escalate, by walking back the nuclear aspect to the recent Russian tests, describing that given these newly tested weapons only feature nuclear-propulsion systems – and that there was no warhead test.

“If [Trump] in some way refers to the Burevestnik tests as a nuclear test carried out by another country, that is in no way accurate. All nations continue to advance the development of their defense systems, but this does not constitute a nuclear test,” the Putin spokesman emphasized.

According to more of the official Russian explanation: 

Russia’s tests of the Burevestnik missile, which features a nuclear-powered propulsion system, do not fall under the category of nuclear weapons tests restricted by international treaties, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov clarified during a briefing, commenting on US President Donald Trump’s recent statements and his directive to the Pentagon to carry out American nuclear weapons tests.

Previously, US President Donald Trump announced that he had instructed the Pentagon to immediately resume nuclear weapons testing. However, he did not specify the nature of the tests or whether they would involve detonating nuclear warheads.

Russian state media has been busy trying to clarify as well…

🚨🇷🇺Kremlin comments on Trump’s remarks: Burevestnik tests are not nuclear

Trump’s claim about “other countries” testing nukes is inaccurate if it refers to Burevestnik, Kremlin Spox Dmitry Peskov says.

Russia reaffirmed that its moratorium on nuclear testing remains in force… pic.twitter.com/IadrzH4ShP

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) October 30, 2025

Needless to say, if each side began detonating nuclear warheads it would be a highly escalatory and dangerous step not seen since the height of the Cold War. Already plenty of nuclear rhetoric has accompanied the proxy war in Ukraine, but so far this has just been confined to words and occasional Telegram and Truth Social ‘threats’.

But it is also true that Trump’s wording in the fresh statement left things somewhat ambiguous, with the words “start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis…”. The wording doesn’t itself necessitate explosive testing.

Trump’s Truth Social statement claimed the US has a larger nuclear stockpile than Russia…

Nothing in here is correct. Russia’s stockpile is larger than ours, by a small margin. Trump did not create a larger stockpile by “updating” in his first term. No nation except North Korea has tested nuclear weapons since the 1990s. pic.twitter.com/siLp8ihXCY

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 30, 2025

But Trump in ordering the resumption of nuclear testing just upped the ante – and hopefully the two sides can find agreement to avoid taking this immense step of actually testing warheads and atomic explosions. This would be bad for all of humanity.