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Amazon’s Power Shortage Makes The Case For Why AI Needs Nuclear

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Amazon’s Power Shortage Makes The Case For Why AI Needs Nuclear

As we have been consistently highlighting on Zero Hedge for the better part of the last two years, rapid growth in artificial intelligence and cloud computing is testing America’s electric grid and exposing the urgent need for new, always-available power.

The most recent example highlighted by Bloomberg was a case where Amazon has accused PacifiCorp, a Berkshire Hathaway–owned utility, of failing to deliver enough electricity for four planned data-center campuses in Oregon.

In a complaint to state regulators, the company said PacifiCorp provided too little power to one site, “no power” to a second, and “has refused to even complete its own standard contracting process for the third and fourth Data Center Campuses.” PacifiCorp argues it must protect “customer affordability,” saying: “We are open to ongoing discussions with Amazon to reach a resolution that achieves balanced outcomes for all customers.”

As President Donald Trump pushes to accelerate AI infrastructure, power demand from computing is forecast to more than double in the US by 2035, according to BloombergNEF. Utilities and tech giants now depend on each other — but utilities worry about straining the grid and raising bills if the AI boom falters.

That’s why new nuclear options are gaining attention. Another recent example highlighted by Bloomberg: First American Nuclear Co. plans to build self-sustaining reactors in Indiana to power data centers. The plant will begin with natural gas in 2028, then shift to a 240-megawatt liquid-metal fast reactor by 2032 that can reprocess its own spent fuel.

“Data centers are driving the demand for power,” said CEO Mike Reinboth.

The company aims to deploy six such systems, enough to power 1.5 million homes. Its technology uses lead-bismuth coolant — a design tested for years in Russian submarines. By recycling spent uranium, the reactors would slash waste costs and improve energy security. “The waste actually gives you energy,” said founder Bill Stokes.

From Oregon to Indiana, the message is consistent: digital growth is outpacing the grid. To keep AI running — and keep consumer costs stable — the U.S. will need reliable, scalable power. Nuclear is increasingly stepping in as the only technology that can provide it.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/06/2025 – 18:00

Senators Say Bondi And Patel Are Being ‘Sabotaged’ On Epstein Files; Massie Isn’t Buying It

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Senators Say Bondi And Patel Are Being ‘Sabotaged’ On Epstein Files; Massie Isn’t Buying It

Authored by Jose Nino via Headline USA,

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., is challenging explanations that FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi lack full control of their agencies nearly a year into the Trump administration, particularly when it comes to their handling of Jeffrey Epstein investigation files.

Sen. Ron Johnson recently suggested that Patel and Bondi face significant internal resistance. While discussing newly released Arctic Frost investigation documents late last month, Johnson emphasized that records came from whistleblowers rather than official channels.

“We need to do everything we can to assist Director Patel and AG Bondi in making sure they have the staff to take control over these agencies,” Johnson said per a report by Blaze Media. “I think they’re being sabotaged within.”

Johnson added that partisan actors remain embedded in both agencies. “Right now I think Kash Patel and Pam Bondi are overwhelmed by all the mess they’re trying to clean up,” he stated. “There’s still partisan actors burrowed in, trying to sabotage their efforts.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah., echoed these concerns, writing that Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino are “undoubtedly being sabotaged from within the FBI.”

However, Massie questions whether internal sabotage explains the administration’s reversal on releasing Epstein files. “I also wonder why they flipped on the Epstein files,” Massie said. “We can’t chalk that up to sabotage or lack of resources.”

In February, Bondi publicly promised transparency, telling Fox News that the Epstein files were sitting on her desk and that she would release them, including what she described as a client list. But in July, the DOJ and FBI released an unsigned memorandum concluding their review and stating that no incriminating client list existed and no further files would be released.

The reversal sparked outrage among Trump supporters. During September congressional hearings. Massie confronted Patel about FBI documents detailing at least 20 men named by Epstein survivors, including high profile individuals in business, entertainment and politics. 

Patel claimed three separate U.S. Attorneys had assessed these allegations as not credible.

Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., recently launched a discharge petition to force a vote on releasing all Epstein files. The petition gathered 217 signatures as of early November, one short of the 218 needed for a floor vote.

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino 

Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/06/2025 – 17:40

These Are The 40 Airports That Will Reduce Flights Due To Shutdown

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These Are The 40 Airports That Will Reduce Flights Due To Shutdown

The world’s busiest airport and 39 others across the United States were forced to decrease flights by 10 percent starting on Nov. 7.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced the decision on Nov. 4, as it struggles with personnel shortages due to the ongoing government shutdown. Those flight controllers who stay on continue to work without pay.

“We can’t ignore it,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said at a press conference on Nov. 4.

“If the pressures continue to build even after we take these measures, we’ll come back and take additional measures.”

Beford added that he was unaware of the FAA taking any measures like this in his 35 years in the aviation industry.

As we noted previously, the list of affected airports was expected to be released on Nov. 6.

The list – obtained by The Associated Press – spans the country, affecting air travel to and from 24 states and several hubs for major passenger carriers including United Airlines, Delta Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest, Jet Blue, Alaska Airlines, and Hawaiian Airlines.

As T.J.Muscaro details below for The Epoch Times, the list includes Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, which is considered to be the busiest airport in the world; Memphis International Airport, which is a FedEx Superhub and considered the second-busiest cargo airport in the world; and global access points such as John F. Kennedy International Airport, Miami International Airport, and Los Angeles International Airport.

The airports affected are:

  1. Ted Stevens Anchorage International in Alaska.

  2. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International in Georgia

  3. Boston Logan International in Massachusetts

  4. Baltimore/Washington International in Maryland

  5. Charlotte Douglas International in North Carolina

  6. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International in Ohio

  7. Dallas Love Field in Texas

  8. Ronald Reagan Washington National in Virginia

  9. Denver International in Colorado

  10. Dallas/Fort Worth International in Texas

  11. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County in Michigan

  12. Newark Liberty International in New Jersey

  13. Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International in Florida

  14. Honolulu International in Hawaii

  15. Houston Hobby in Texas

  16. Washington Dulles International in Virginia

  17. George Bush Houston Intercontinental in Texas

  18. Indianapolis International in Indiana

  19. John F. Kennedy International in New York

  20. Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas

  21. Los Angeles International in California

  22. LaGuardia Airport in New York

  23. Orlando International in Florida

  24. Chicago Midway International in Illinois

  25. Memphis International in Tennessee

  26. Miami International in Florida

  27. Minneapolis/St Paul International in Minnesota

  28. Oakland International in California

  29. Ontario International in California

  30. Chicago O`Hare International in Illinois

  31. Portland International in Oregon

  32. Philadelphia International in Pennsylvania

  33. Phoenix Sky Harbor International in Arizona

  34. San Diego International in California

  35. Louisville International in Kentucky

  36. Seattle/Tacoma International in Washington

  37. San Francisco International in California

  38. Salt Lake City International in Utah

  39. Teterboro in New Jersey

  40. Tampa International in Florida

According to data from the FlightAware tracking service, there were more than 2,350 delays within, into, or out of the United States as of noon on Thursday, Oct. 6, with approximately 50 cancellations reported.

The FAA directs more than 44,000 flights daily, including cargo, commercial passenger, and private planes. Restrictions, it said, would remain in place as long as necessary, and they come just weeks before the nation enters one of the busiest travel periods of the year for Thanksgiving and the Christmas season.

“As we come into Thanksgiving, if we’re still in the shutdown posture, it’s going to be rough out there. Really rough,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told Fox News in an interview on Nov. 6.

“And we‘ll mitigate the safety side, but will you fly on time? Will your flight actually go? That is yet to be seen, but there’ll be more disruption.”

These restrictions would end with the government shutdown, which has been ongoing for more than a month due to the inability of a continuing resolution bill to pass the Senate.

Republicans currently hold a 53–47 majority in the Senate. However, 60 Senators need to vote yes in order to move the bill forward. Republican lawmakers continue to criticise Democratic lawmakers for continuing to vote no and failing to fund the government.

“I don’t have access to money to pay air traffic controllers during this shutdown,” Duffy said on X.

“Congress has said there is no money. I’d love to pay them, but I can’t. My message to Democrats is to sit down, figure it out, and not hold the American people hostage—especially when they want to travel.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to the FAA for comment.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/06/2025 – 17:20

When A Train Wreck Is No Accident

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When A Train Wreck Is No Accident

Submitted by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

“In spite of all the rhetoric, we will go deeper in debt, the Fed will print more money, and the value of the dollar will continue to plummet.”

– Ron Paul

Never in history have the economic and political structures been so manipulated by those who are responsible for their safekeeping; never has so much been at stake, in so many countries, and facing collapse, all at the same time.

The great majority of people in the First World recognise that the world is passing through an economic crisis. However, most are under the impression that there are some pretty smart fellows running the show and all they need to do is tweak the system a bit more and we’ll return to happy days.

Not so. The “smart fellows” who are in charge of fixing the problem are in fact the very same people who created it.

Understandably, this a hard concept for most people to even consider, let alone accept, as the very idea that those in charge of the system might consciously collapse it seems preposterous. So, we might wish to back up a bit here and present a very brief history of the system itself, in order to understand that the eventual collapse of the economic system was baked in the cake from the very beginning.

Creating a Central Bank

From the very earliest days of the formation of the American republic, bankers (along with inside help from George Washington’s secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton) sought to create a banking monopoly that would create the country’s currency and become the central banking system.

The first attempt at a central bank was a failure, and strong opponents, including Thomas Jefferson, prevented a second central bank for a time. Later, further attempts were made by bankers and their political cronies, and each central bank was either short-lived or defeated in its planning stages.

Then, in 1913, the heads of the largest banks met clandestinely on Jekyll Island, Georgia, to make another try. Having recently lost yet another bid to create a central bank, due to the public’s understandable concern that the big bankers were already too powerful, a new spin was placed on the idea. This time, they decided to present the idea as a government body that would be decentralised and would have the responsibility of restricting the power of the banks.

However, the new bill was in fact the same old bill, with a new title and some minor changes in wording. But this time, it would be presented by the new president, who was a liberal.

The president, Woodrow Wilson, had in fact been handpicked by the banks. The banks then scuttled their own conservative party’s candidate, got the Democrat Wilson elected, then installed a secretary of the Treasury whose job it would be to ensure that the Federal Reserve was created.

The bill was widely supported by the public, even though, in truth, it was not a federal agency, but a privately owned conglomerate, controlled by the banks. Neither was it a reserve. It was never intended to store money; it was intended to give the biggest bankers control of the economy. They followed the central principle of uber-banker Mayer Rothschild: “Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.”

From the start, the new institution peddled itself as the protector of the people’s interests, but it was quite the opposite. Its purpose from its inception was to control the economy and the government by controlling the issuance of the currency. In addition, it was to be a system of taxation.

Typically, a population accepts a certain amount of direct taxation but has its limits of tolerance. Yet, the bankers understood that a less direct method of taxation was infinitely more profitable and infinitely safer from criticism.

Inflation as a Profit System

Inflation was not always the norm. At one time, prices were relatively static from one generation to the next. But the Federal Reserve touted the idea that “controlled” inflation was in fact necessary for a prosperous economy.

Of course, the greater the debasement of the currency through inflation, the more the central bankers profited. But at some point, the currency would have lost virtually all its value and it would be time for a reset. The currency would need to collapse and a new one created.

And so, the Fed set about its hundred-year programme of continuous inflation. Although there have been periods of lower inflation (and even deflation), the programme stayed more or less on course, and now, its hundred-year life has all but ended: the dollar has been devalued almost 100%.

And so, we find ourselves at the day of reckoning. The economic crisis we are now facing (not only in the US; it will be felt, to a greater or lesser extent, worldwide) is not a mere anomaly that we need to “push past”. It’s a systemic crisis. It’s been created by design and the system must collapse.

Of course, the central banks are in the process of protecting their interests, to make sure that, whilst this will be a major economic calamity, they themselves will continue to profit. The damage will be borne by the general public.

This began in earnest in 1999, with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, allowing banks to create a massive, reckless mortgage spree. It was backed by the government’s “too big to fail” policy that guaranteed that, when the banks predictably became insolvent as a result of the loans, government would bail them out. (And by “government” we mean “the taxpayer”; it was he who picked up the bill for the banks’ recklessness.)

The End Game

The next step in getting ready for the collapse is an all-out effort to confiscate the wealth of the public. This can be seen in the effort to push investors away from solid forms of wealth protection such as gold and silver and into stocks, bonds and bank deposits. More recently, we’ve seen the emergence of an effort to end the use of safe deposit boxes and a push to end the use of paper currency in making transactions.

The end objective is to force as much money as possible into deposits in banks, then take it. The US, EU and a few other countries have passed confiscation legislation, allowing the banks carte blanche to confiscate and/or refuse to release deposits.

Of course a reset of these proportions will not be without its fallout. The public will be horrified at the outcome, at the realisation that the very institutions they thought had been created to protect them had never been intended to serve their interests at all.

Once they realise that the world’s greatest Ponzi scheme has been foisted on them, they will be hopping mad and justifiably so. Those who had not had the foresight to internationalise themselves, to remove themselves as much as possible from the system, will most certainly want to get even in some way.

And this makes clear why governments, particularly that of the US, are working so hard to create a police state. Unless a totalitarian state can be created, those who are presently taking the wealth may not be able to fully realise their objectives.

The coming train wreck is no accident. It has long been planned. That the “smart fellows in charge” will somehow save the day is therefore a vain hope indeed.

It’s still possible to back out of the system, but it’s getting more difficult every day. The window is closing, and the time to internationalise is now.

*  *  *

As the cracks in the global financial system deepen, the window for protecting your wealth and freedom narrows by the day. Understanding how and why this collapse is unfolding—and how to position yourself before the reset—is no longer optional. Our Special Report: Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse reveals practical steps to safeguard your assets, secure mobility, and stay ahead of the coming financial upheaval. Click here to access your copy and prepare while there’s still time.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/06/2025 – 17:00

Ford Mulls Scrapping F-150 Lightning After Dismal Demand, Mounting Losses

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Ford Mulls Scrapping F-150 Lightning After Dismal Demand, Mounting Losses

Ford is reportedly set to scrap the F-150 Lightning, once hailed by top executives as the company’s “modern Model T,” amid absolutely terrible demand. Production lines for the electric pickup remain paralyzed after an aluminum shortage halted operations last month.

A new Wall Street Journal report indicates that the F-150 Lightning is on the chopping block after $13 billion in EV losses since 2023. If accurate, this would make the money-losing truck America’s first major EV casualty.

CEO Jim Farley previously called the F-150 Lightning “as revolutionary as the Model T,” promising a truck that would democratize electric mobility just as the original Model T democratized driving. Yet how could Farley have been so wrong about the Lightning … and did his climate-change blinders end up damaging shareholder value? It’s something the board should be taking a hard look at.

Demand for the EV truck is absolutely horrendous.

Adam Kraushaar, owner of Lester Glenn Auto Group in New Jersey, told WSJ that F-150 Lightning demand is “not there.” He also sells GMC, Chevy, and other brands. “We don’t order a lot of them because we don’t sell them.”

WSJ noted, “No final decision has yet been made, according to people familiar with the discussions, but such a move by Ford could be the beginning of the end for big EV trucks.” 

The big question is whether Farley and other top executives ignored red flags, such as declining orders, dealer warnings, and mounting losses on the EV truck, in their push to appease the globalist climate change cult on Wall Street. If the report is accurate, we wonder whether the board could find grounds to review his terrible EV judgment under the duty of care. 

In October, Ford sold just 1,500 Lightnings, versus 66,000 petrol-powered F-Series trucks. EV sales overall have plunged 24% year-on-year after federal tax credits expired. 

Ford shares have trended lower after the April 2022 release of the EV truck.

WSJ noted, “The company is now racing to build a compact $30,000 EV pickup.”

Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/06/2025 – 15:40

US Appeals Court Resurrects Trump’s Attempt To Dismiss NY Criminal Conviction

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US Appeals Court Resurrects Trump’s Attempt To Dismiss NY Criminal Conviction

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

A U.S. appeals court on Thursday revived President Donald Trump’s bid to dismiss his business records criminal conviction, ruling the president can move his case out of a New York state court.

A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed an order from a lower court judge, saying the judge had “bypassed what we consider to be important issues bearing on the ultimate issue of good cause.”

The panel of judges on the appeals court signaled that it did not weigh in on the merits of Trump’s lawyers’ arguments to dismiss the conviction. His lawyers filed court papers earlier this year to try to move the case out of New York so he could seek a ruling from a federal judge on whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity allows him to toss last year’s Manhattan jury verdict convicting him of falsifying business records.

“We leave it to the able and experienced District Judge to decide whether to solicit further briefing from the parties or hold a hearing to help it resolve these issues,” the appeals court judges wrote.

The panel further said the lower court “should resolve Trump’s motion for leave to file a second removal notice in any particular way” and said it should “consider the motion anew in light of our opinion.”

In May 2024, a jury convicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Trump pleaded not guilty, maintaining that it was part of a widespread attempt to subvert his 2024 presidential campaign.

Weeks after Trump’s election victory in 2024, the judge in the case sentenced him to unconditional discharge, meaning that he faced no further penalties such as fines or jail time. The conviction, however, will remain on his criminal record.

Just days before Trump was inaugurated in January, Judge Juan Merchan noted in his order that the sentence was made with considerations of Trump being elected president.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied a bid from Trump’s attorneys to remove the case, prompting Trump’s appeal. The judge maintained that Trump had “not satisfied the burden of proof required to show the basis of removal.”

The petition to the U.S. appeals court is one of many appeals that Trump has filed to dismiss the criminal conviction.

Separately, Trump had filed court papers with the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division of the First District, appealing the criminal conviction.

“Targeting alleged conduct that has never been found to violate any New York law, the DA [district attorney] concocted a purported felony by stacking time-barred misdemeanors under a convoluted legal theory, which the DA then improperly obscured until the charge conference. This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction,” his lawyers wrote in a filing in October.

Aside from the Manhattan case, criminal charges were also brought against Trump in Washington, Florida, and Georgia. The Washington and Florida cases, which were brought by former special counsel Jack Smith, were later dropped. The Georgia case, brought by the Fulton County District Attorney’s office, was dismissed by a state appeals court on Jan. 17, three days before Trump’s inauguration.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/06/2025 – 15:20

China Sees Massive Demand For USD Bond Issuance, Priced In Line With USTs For First Time

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China Sees Massive Demand For USD Bond Issuance, Priced In Line With USTs For First Time

As the ceasefire in the US-China trade war starts to fray at the edges (most notably in commodity export controls and tit-for-tat responses), it appears that China is having no issues whatsoever competing with the US for the world’s capital.

China’s return to the dollar bond market generated enough demand to cover the deal almost 30 times over, with a $118.1 billion order book.

“It was so popular,” said Serena Zhou, senior China economist at Mizuho Securities, adding that some investors complained they weren’t allocated enough bonds.

“Although it priced on par, it will still be free money.”

China last issued dollar bonds in 2024, when it sold $2bn of debt in Saudi Arabia.

“Markets are flush with liquidity and geopolitical tensions have eased,” said David Yim, head of capital markets, Greater China and North Asia, at Standard Chartered, which was one of the bookrunners for the deal.

Most notably, The FT reports that bankers on the deal said was the first time Beijing’s borrowing costs had matched Washington’s at issuance (while we do note that Chinese dollar-denominated bonds have previously traded at a negative spread to US equivalents in the secondary market).

China’s finance ministry issued $4bn of dollar bonds in Hong Kong, with the $2bn 3-year bond paying a coupon of 3.625 per cent, on par with US Treasury equivalents, and priced to yield 3.646 per cent, compared with 3.628 per cent for 3-year Treasuries.

The $2bn 5-year bond has a coupon 0.02 percentage points above equivalent Treasuries, with a yield of 3.787 per cent, compared with 3.745 per cent for US equivalents.

Issuance was split evenly between the two bonds.

The negligible spreads over Treasuries on the new bonds were an improvement even over China’s tight prints last year, when its three- and five-year notes were priced to yield just one and three basis points over similar-maturity Treasuries.

Bloomberg reports that more than half of the bonds were placed with investors in Asia, while European accounts got a quarter.

Investors in the Middle East and North Africa were allocated 16%.

The sale comes amid a steady rebound in dollar-note sales by Chinese firms, after the country’s unprecedented property crisis and the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hikes triggered an issuance slump.

There’s been about $90 billion of publicly-announced sales in 2025, heading toward a three-year high, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/06/2025 – 15:00

Pam Bondi Confirms Jack Smith ‘Seized’ Trump’s Phone In Witch Hunt

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Pam Bondi Confirms Jack Smith ‘Seized’ Trump’s Phone In Witch Hunt

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed Tuesday that former Special Counsel Jack Smith seized President Donald Trump’s government-issued phone as part of his post-2020 election Arctic Frost investigation. 

Trump’s personal phone records were also targeted, a move Bondi called “unprecedented.” 

“We can never again allow this kind of government weaponization in America,” Bondi wrote on X. “I submitted these new documents to our partners on Capitol Hill. I commend our team at the FBI for working diligently to expose this.” 

Whistleblower disclosures from March, submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, had previously noted that Trump’s government cellphone — along with that of former Vice President Mike Pence — was targeted. 

Trump now joins a growing list of Republican lawmakers targeted during the broad and aggressive probe.

Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland specifically to investigate Trump over his objections to the certification of the 2020 presidential election. 

Arctic Frost began in 2022 and prompted Smith’s appointment. It remains unclear which carrier Trump used for his personal phone or whether it complied with the order. 

Other lawmakers reportedly targeted include GOP Sens. Ted Cruz, Texas, and Marsha Blackburn, Tenn., likely due to their objections to the 2020 election certification. 

Smith ultimately prosecuted Trump in two separate case, one over his remarks about the 2020 election and another over a dispute concerning documents at Mar-a-Lago. 

Both cases failed. 

He is now under federal and congressional investigation over allegations that his pursuit of the former president was nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt. 

Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/06/2025 – 14:40

UBS Liquidates Funds, Faces $500 Million Exposure To First Brands Fracas

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UBS Liquidates Funds, Faces $500 Million Exposure To First Brands Fracas

Having already followed Deutsche Bank into the risk-transfer business, hedging its exposure to its own deals (UBS Group’s asset management unit is working on a new fund that will invest in significant risk transfers, which could include deals issued by itself), the big Swiss bank, The Financial Times reports that UBS has told clients that it will wind down an investment vehicle with significant debt exposure to First Brands Group, in the first major fund liquidation following the US auto parts maker’s shock bankruptcy.

As we detailed previously, UBS O’Connor: the once iconic hedge fund associated with the only major Swiss bank left standing after the Credit Suisse collapse, has 30% of its portfolio tied to First Brands, leaving Switzerland’s largest bank grappling with a bankruptcy that has convulsed global finance.

  • Overall, UBS has more than $500mn of exposure to First Brands’ debt and invoice-linked financing, across various parts of its investment arm. 

    • As the FT reported, “clients are braced for big losses after UBS O’Connor, a private credit and commodities specialist owned by the Swiss bank, revealed that 30 per cent of the exposure in one of its funds is tied to the auto parts group.”

    • O’Connor recently told investors in its “Opportunistic” working capital finance strategy that the fund had 9.1% of “direct” exposure, financing facilities based on invoices First Brands’ was due to pay, and 21.4% of “indirect” exposure, based on invoices its customers were due to pay (source FT).

And now, The FT reports that, according to unidentified people familiar with the matter, UBS has told clients of its Chicago-based O’Connor subsidiary that it is liquidating several invoice finance funds, including a strategy that did not have exposure to First Brands.

“We informed investors last month that O’Connor’s Working Capital Opportunistic funds are being wound down and the majority of the funds’ assets will be monetized by the end of the year,” UBS told the Financial Times.

As a priority, we’re taking steps to protect clients’ interests and maximize recovery of the remaining First Brands Group-related positions through the complex bankruptcy process”

UBS is reportedly aiming to monetize 70% of the O’Connor fund with First Brands exposure by the end of the year.

The FT adds that the level of exposure has sparked anger among some investors who were previously assured that the fund would not hold more than 20 per cent of assets in a single “position”.

UBS has argued that it complied with these rules, however, as 21.4 per cent of the exposure was “indirect” and split across First Brands’ various customers.

The bank is also liquidating a “High Grade” fund that invested in invoices linked to less risky companies, even though it did not have exposure to First Brands. The whole of that fund’s assets are expected to be sold by year-end, the person added. The invoice finance funds have a total of around $600mn in assets.

We suspect UBS will not be the last to liquidate funds to cover these private credit losses.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/06/2025 – 14:20

Elon Musk’s Trillion-Dollar Pay-Package Faces Shareholder Vote Today; Here’s What To Know

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Elon Musk’s Trillion-Dollar Pay-Package Faces Shareholder Vote Today; Here’s What To Know

Elon Musk’s staggering $1 trillion pay package will dominate Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting today, setting up one of the most high-stakes corporate votes in years over the future of the world’s most visible CEO.

The board has made the choice explicit. Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm warned that the decision is about whether shareholders still want to “retain Elon as Tesla’s CEO and motivate him” to make the company “the leading provider of autonomous solutions and the most valuable company” on Earth.

After a Delaware judge struck down his previous $56 billion award twice, Musk has gone without any official compensation — and Tesla is now asking investors to restore a deal even larger than before.

The plan ties Musk’s payout to wildly ambitious milestones.

The package is structured in 12 tranches, each worth 35.3 million shares, tied to both market capitalization milestones and operational objectives.

The first market cap target is $2 trillion, and the final milestone is $8.5 trillion.

Operational targets include:

  • Delivering 20 million vehicles over 10 years, more than double Tesla’s production over the past dozen years.

  • Securing 10 million full self-driving subscriptions.

  • Producing 1 million humanoid robots through Tesla’s Optimus division.

  • Operating 1 million robotaxis in commercial service.

  • Meeting earnings milestones in eight consecutive quarters, each measured over four quarters.

While these goals are technically achievable, Tesla has struggled to meet some recent operational benchmarks.

As BI noted Musk himself framed the stakes differently on the latest earnings call: “I just don’t feel comfortable building a robot army here and then being ousted because of some asinine recommendations.”

Proxy advisers ISS and Glass Lewis are urging a no vote, citing “excessive power” and weak oversight. Musk fired back in recent days, calling them “corporate terrorists.” But with his own roughly 13% stake and a large base of loyal retail shareholders who usually back him, supporters say the numbers are in his favor. As billionaire investor Ron Baron told CNBC, “Elon is the ultimate ‘key man’ of key man risk. Without his relentless drive and uncompromising standards, there would be no Tesla.”

Photo: Baron, CNBC

Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund said it would vote no because of “the total size of the award, dilution, and lack of mitigation of key person risk.” Corporate governance expert Nell Minow said she’d only consider the package if Musk “shut up about politics” and focused fully on Tesla instead of juggling xAI, SpaceX, Neuralink, The Boring Company and his political campaigns.

Shareholders will also weigh Musk’s push for Tesla to invest in his AI startup xAI, which he says Tesla “would have invested in… long ago” if it were up to him. 

Meanwhile, broader concerns over governance are on the ballot — though Tesla’s board has recommended against all shareholder accountability measures, including annual director elections and reversing a Texas rule that limits which investors can sue the board. “These actions violate basic tenets of good corporate governance and must be reversed,” said New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

All of this comes during a volatile year for Tesla. The company appears at a jumping off point into AI and robotics, while research suggests the company could have sold dramatically more cars without Musk’s actions outside the company. Yet shares have rebounded — up 14% this year — boosted in part by Musk’s own $1 billion stock purchase.

The outcome of the vote is expected to be announced after today’s meeting in Austin. You can watch the full meeting below, beginning at 4PM EST:

Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/06/2025 – 11:20