President Donald Trump has touted his $5 million “Gold Card” visa as a way to raise trillions of dollars for the U.S. But a new website launching the initiative doesn’t look or feel like a legitimate government site, experts say.
Among the red flags are the URL itself, unexpected links to the Department of Commerce rather than Homeland Security, and no disclaimer regarding usage of personal data. “This is a joke,” says immigration and investing expert Nuri Katz. “[The Trump Administration] is asking very wealthy individuals to trust a one-page website that feels like it was created in five minutes by a teenager in his bedroom.”
And while Trump told his social media followers that the waitlist for the Gold Card was open, it could take years for applications to be processed. Congress has yet to initiate any changes to immigration and tax law that the program would require.
Israel launched a series of major military strikes against Iran and its nuclear program late on Thursday, killing several top military officials and nuclear scientists in the country, a move that U.S. officials said was a “unilateral” action by Israel as they denied any involvement by U.S. forces. President Donald Trump urged Iran to make a nuclear deal or face “more brutal” attacks in the future. Global crude oil prices jumped sharply, while U.S. stock futures fell early Friday in the wake of the strikes, which marked a significant escalation of tensions in the Middle East.
A federal judge ruled Thursday that President Donald Trump must return control of the California National Guard troops deployed in Los Angeles back to the state’s Governor Gavin Newsom, but an appeals court later temporarily blocked the judge’s order. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said Trump’s deployment of the National Guard, which was done without Newsom’s approval, was illegal, “exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
Shares of Boeing fell 5% Thursday after a plane operated by Air India crashed shortly following takeoff, killing more than 260 people aboard as well as others on the ground, and adding to the safety concerns that the airplane maker has faced for years. Boeing said it was in contact with Air India, and the aircraft involved with the crash was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner delivered to Air India in 2014.
Digital bank Chime’s stock popped in its debut on the Nasdaq Thursday, rising 37% and bringing its valuation to $16 billion, the latest successful IPO in recent weeks. The 13-year-old bank grew rapidly during the pandemic, and while it maintained that expansion, it spent heavily to get there—making it critical for Chime to find cheaper ways to attract and retain customers.
Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison overtook Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg to become the second-richest person in the world Thursday, as shares of his cloud computing giant surged amid the AI arms race. Ellison enjoyed the largest daily fortune boost of any billionaire, with his net worth climbing by $25 billion to $242 billion, second only behind his longtime friend Elon Musk.
Two long-tenured partners at Y Combinator, which has incubated some of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley—from Airbnb to Dropbox—are leaving the firm to start their own fund, Forbes has learned. While the size of the fund, intended to nurture early stage companies, hasn’t been announced, one source said it will be substantially north of $250 million.
Major platforms like Google Cloud and Spotify experienced technical issues on Thursday amid a widespread internet outage, though social media platforms appeared to be largely spared. Cloudflare, which serves tens of millions of web requests per second, said in the afternoon that a number of services suffering “intermittent failures” were being investigated, but later in the day, said services were fully restored.
Despite his real estate empire, a majority of President Donald Trump’s fortune—$3.3 billion of his total $5.5 billion—is now tied to crypto, which the president has tapped for cash and worked to promote. The latest shift was when Trump Media and Technology Group purchased crypto to bolster its balance sheet, transforming Trump’s company from a social-media play to a Bitcoin bet.
FBI officers physically removed Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., from a press conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles on Thursday as he attempted to shout questions at Noem, an incident that drew bipartisan backlash. Noem falsely claimed in a Fox News interview after the incident that Padilla “started launching towards the podium” and “did not identify himself.”
When Lionel Messi laces up his cleats to compete in the FIFA Club World Cup that begins Saturday, the Argentine soccer superstar will be the highest-paid player there, with $135 million in estimated earnings over the past 12 months. He’ll be joined by other top earners like Real Madrid forward Kylian Mbappé and Manchester City striker Erling Haaland, a confluence of top-earning talent that is a direct result of FIFA’s new format for the tournament.
The FAA is investigating a JetBlue flight that skidded off the runway at Boston Logan International Airport, and the airport was under a ground delay Thursday afternoon. The carrier said no one was injured in the incident, which occurred on a flight that originated from Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
DAILY COVER STORY
Scale AI’s shocking $15 billion deal to sell a 49% stake to Meta has raised the specter that the startup’s $14 billion-valued data labeling business could implode.
At play is the concern that Scale, which has been the dominant player in labeling data to help major tech companies and AI startups train their models, could share details about the types of data that leading AI players have used to build their most cutting edge tech with Meta.
OpenAI, one of its most prominent customers, has already been winding down its work with Scale, according to four sources with knowledge of its business. Scale AI spokesperson Joe Osborne denied that OpenAI has pulled back its spending.
Scale built its business on the back of a massive clickworker army, largely of workers based overseas who would teach AI models by providing context for masses of data. But this kind of work has become a commodity. “Anyone who puts up a team can compete with you, and it comes down to price really quickly,” said Kevin Guo, cofounder of a startup that got out of the data labeling business, in a 2023 interview.
WHY IT MATTERS Access to high quality human data is crucial for training powerful AI models, so much so that data has been considered a moat for AI juggernauts like OpenAI and Anthropic in the AI race. Scale AI, which booked $870 million in revenue in 2024, captured the data labeling market early by supplying troves of human-labeled data to companies like Cohere, OpenAI and Microsoft. But Meta owning almost half of Scale would change that equation.
MORE How Alexandr Wang Turned An Army Of Clickworkers Into A $7.3 Billion AI Unicorn
FACTS + COMMENTS
The House voted to claw back funding from NPR and PBS, in a move known as rescission, as the White House has sought to slash their funding. The legislation will also be considered in the Senate:
$9.4 billion: The total amount of the cuts the White House has proposed, including $8.3 billion in funding for USAID
September 2027: The date the funds had previously been approved through
15%: The share of PBS’ budget that comes from the federal government
STRATEGY + SUCCESS
Today’s job market is especially tough for entry-level roles, and AI could eliminate up to half of entry-level knowledge work in the next five years, according to Anthropic’s CEO. But rest assured that AI can’t automate creativity and human insight—abilities that haven’t been emphasized in formal training lately. It’s critical for young people to develop skills like storytelling, creative thinking and empathy, and focus on the humanities as core career infrastructure.
VIDEO
QUIZ
One of today’s biggest pop stars is getting backlash over the cover art for her upcoming album. Which artist is it?
A. Olivia Rodrigo
B. Charli XCX
C. Ariana Grande
D. Sabrina Carpenter
Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire and Chris Dobstaff.