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Moody's says 'unprecedented' AI spending threatens credit quality of Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and others

The race to build artificial intelligence infrastructure at a trillion-dollar annual clip is eroding the free cash flow and increasing balance-sheet risk at so-called hyperscalers, warned Moody's Ratings. In a research note released this week, Moody's said that the spending surge is forcing even the world's most cash-rich corporations like Alphabet and Microsoft to lean heavily on debt, stock sales and off-balance-sheet moves to fund their AI ambitions. "Previously, these companies relied on asset-light structures centered on software, intellectual property, and scalable cloud services that required modest capital investment," Moody's said in the Wednesday note. "The transition from asset-light to asset-heavy models requires unprecedented levels of investment and capital raising." The moves "threaten credit quality" for the six companies tracked by Moody's, which include Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Oracle and CoreWeave, according to the report. The ratings firm projects that capital expenditures — or capex, which are investment for physical assets like data centers — will hit $785 billion in 2026 before reaching about $1 trillion next year. The shift breaks a decades-long Silicon Valley formula that created the world's most valuable companies. Software costs little to replicate, yielding fat profit margins and fortress balance sheets. Generative AI, by contrast, demands a vast physical footprint: warehouses crammed with expensive and energy-hungry servers and chips. To finance the expansion, tech giants are increasingly turning to Wall Street, resulting in booming profits for the financial industry. Direct debt across the six hyperscalers has reached approximately $460 billion, according to Moody's. Tech companies are also tapping public markets for cash, including Google-parent Alphabet, which last month announced an $85 billion equity sale. The ratings firm noted that because AI hardware and infrastructure require massive up-front investment while revenue materializes over a longer time horizon, free cash flow across the sector is coming under pressure. To keep direct debt off their balance sheets, hyperscalers are leaning on off-balance-sheet financing, mostly through long-term data center leases, the report explained. Moody's said that lease commitments across the group have ballooned to $1.2 trillion. More than $820 billion of that total is from leases that haven't started yet, meaning the data centers are still being built. While these obligations don't show up as traditional debt, Moody's says it considers them as debt-equivalent liabilities that will bind companies to significant rent payments down the line.

Moody's says 'unprecedented' AI spending threatens credit quality of Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and others
Europe
BBC Business

Brits urged to avoid dangerous plug adaptors this summer - what to watch out for

Brits going on holiday abroad this summer have been warned to watch out for dangerous travel adaptors, after an investigation suggested thousands may be for sale online. Consumer safety group Electrical Safety First (ESF) tested 14 products from AliExpress, Amazon Marketplace, eBay and TikTok Shop - and found they all failed to meet UK safety requirements. It said in some instances the devices could expose users to risk of serious electric shock or electrocution. AliExpress, Amazon, eBay and TikTok all said they had removed the products ESF flagged from sale, and that they treated product safety as a top priority. But Giuseppe Capanna, ESF product safety engineer, urged those "heading abroad this summer to think before they buy". Capanna also said shoppers should buy travel adaptors from trusted retailers "so they can travel with confidence". ESF tested six regular travel adaptors and eight universal adaptors it suspected could pose safety concerns. To be sold in the UK, adaptors must not have accessible live parts and only one set of pins should come out at a time. But the charity found multiple sets could be exposed simultaneously in six out of eight of the universal adaptors it tested. None of the eight met the required dimensions and mechanical strength, while some pins snapped off under force during tests. ESF said anyone who tried to remove a broken pin from a socket would be at risk of electric shock. These included missing safety shutters - which protect people from coming into contact with a plug's live internal parts - missing fuses and oversized pin holes.

Brits urged to avoid dangerous plug adaptors this summer - what to watch out for
Europe
BBC Business

Sloppy and clumsy but overwhelming - inside the rogue ChatGPT hack

Image source, Getty ImagesByJoe TidyCyber correspondent, BBC World ServicePublished4 hours agoThe company that got hacked by a rogue version of ChatGPT has revealed what it was like to be on the receiving end of the world's first fully-autonomous AI hack. In an emergency video call with hundreds of cyber-security professionals, the firm described how the AI worked at superhuman speed but also made strange decisions and mistakes that no human hacker would have made. Hugging Face, which is like an app store for AI tools, said the hacking agents worked relentlessly with thousands of different methods trialled simultaneously. The company first revealed that it had been hacked, external by someone using powerful autonomous AI on 16 July and reported it to police. Nearly a week later, OpenAI admitted it was its AI that had escaped a closed environment and attacked Hugging Face on its own during a test. It was trying to find the answers to a hacking exam it had been set by OpenAI, and targeted Hugging Face. The industry body the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) wrote-up a report , externalbased on the emergency meeting with Hugging Face on Friday - which Hugging Face itself has reviewed. "The agents followed inefficient routes and exhibited clumsy behaviours that no human would choose", the CSA wrote. The agents repeated actions that they had already completed - a sign of an agentic AI losing its thread and context. The agents also hallucinated reams of incoherent commands and text and were sloppy and did not cover their tracks well. But among the errors and strange behaviour, Hugging Face warned the AI agents made brilliant technical moves and were able to rapidly adapt to new scenarios in the days-long hack. It took three days for them to be discovered inside the Hugging Face IT network and it took the company's AI and cyber-security experts many hours to contain and eject the AI agents - something standard companies might struggle with.

Sloppy and clumsy but overwhelming - inside the rogue ChatGPT hack
Europe
BBC Business

'Don't wait until you want revenge' - why prenups are on the rise

Celine Tsoi and Charles Mock met two years ago in Goleta, California when she was just 23 and he was 27. Eight months later they were engaged. "A lot of things could happen in a marriage and you want to discuss them when you still love each other rather than when things go bad and you want to take revenge," says Celine. These days its not just the rich and famous; more of us are deciding it makes sense to have a legal agreement that sets out what happens to the money if the marriage ends, with younger couples particularly likely to sign one, even when there aren't great wealth differences to consider. Charles, a nurse, earns more than Celine does as a PhD student, but she had a bit more saved, so the disparities weren't big, but they wanted to face up to important financial questions from the start. She was particularly touched that Charles wanted the prenup to say if they split up, she should have the house. Just having the conversation "can show you what the person you're going to marry is like", she says. There are no official figures, but in the US, where divorce courts have always tended to uphold prenups, nearly half of married millennials and more than one in three Gen Z report that they have a prenup. Overall in the US around one in five married couples has a prenup. In the UK research suggests around one in ten couples now has a prenup, following a legal shift in England towards greater recognition. Here too it is younger couples leading the way, with around one in three married under-35-year-olds having signed one, according to surveys. London lawyer Mark Gilmartin at JMW Solicitors says in the past 18 months he has seen a big increase in demand for prenups, with the billionaire-and-barmaid stereotype fast giving way to demand from "start-up professionals" including entrepreneurs and influencers. "It's the attempts to protect the fruits of what's going to be, rather than what is," he says. But beyond the would-be TikTok stars, he sees a significant trend towards "every-day you and I" couples wanting them, often in order to protect inherited wealth.

'Don't wait until you want revenge' - why prenups are on the rise
Europe
BBC Business

eBay agrees $56m settlement with bloggers over harassment case

Image source, ReutersByKali HaysTechnology reporterPublished28 July 2026eBay and some former executives have agreed to pay a couple $56m (£42m) after a campaign of harassment in retaliation for their online criticism of the firm. In a statement on Tuesday, David and Ina Steiner, said they and eBay had reached a settlement stemming from the 2019 harassment they faced from several of the company's executives, as well as internal communications by eBay's then chief executive. A group of now former company executives ultimately pleaded guilty to sending the couple a costume mask covered in pigs blood, a book on surviving the death of a spouse, among other threatening actions. Other actions, external perpetrated against the Steiners included eBay executives sending them a funeral wreath and harassing messages on Twitter (the social media platform now known as X). Some even paid visits to the couple's Massachusetts home in a bid to install a tracking device on their car. Seven former eBay executives pleaded guilty, external to the criminal charges between 2022 and 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. An FBI agent involved in the investigation said in 2024 that the former executives' actions were an "unprecedented, relentless, and over-the-top harassment campaign". eBay was also criminally charged and entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ and agreed to pay a fine of $3m. While eBay is paying the couple the bulk of the settlement, including $6m to "various non-profit organizations", Wenig is personally paying $1m toward the settlement. Wenig left eBay in 2019. The same year, he had sent eBay's top communications executive a text message regarding Ina Steiner which said: "Take her down." A representative of Wenig on Tuesday said earlier proceedings in the Steiners' lawsuit explained that his text was referring to a public relations strategy to combat purported errors in Ina Steiner's writing. Wenig added: "No one should ever have been subjected to what the Steiners endured in 2019, and I'm saddened by it, especially because it occurred during my time as CEO of eBay. The harassment was deliberately done in secret." His contribution is set to go to an unnamed charity that is "dedicated to protecting First Amendment rights" and will be gifted in the name of Ina Steiner, according to the couple's lawyers.

eBay agrees $56m settlement with bloggers over harassment case
North America
CNBC Finance

CDC says massive cyclospora outbreak is now in nine states

The nation's largest multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis linked to shredded iceberg lettuce has expanded to nine states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. The four newly linked states — Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania – join Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and hard-hit Michigan. Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite that typically infects people through contaminated food or water and causes cyclosporiasis, a gastrointestinal illness that can result in symptoms including severe diarrhea. Patients can require hospitalization, but no deaths have been recorded related to the parasite this year. The outbreak is already the largest of cyclosporiasis reported in the U.S. this year, with thousands of illnesses recorded nationwide. That is well above the roughly 200 to 1,000 cases typically reported annually. Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration is investigating a separate cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to an unidentified food product or products. The U.S. is trying to investigate the sources of the parasite and contain its spread amid confusion over its response to the outbreak and staffing cuts that some experts say made it harder to curb it. In his apparent first public comments on the outbreak, President Donald Trump said on Friday that the U.S. would put "a major tariff" on Mexico "because of the lettuce." It is unclear if he was serious. U.S. health and food regulators have zeroed in on shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms, a privately held, California-based company, from its plant in central Mexico. Mexican health authorities on Thursday said that samples of lettuce and water from the facility tested negative for cyclospora. However, that result does not disprove the Food and Drug Administration's earlier identification as Taylor Farms de Mexico as the likely source of the outbreak. The earliest cases began showing symptoms in mid-May. Moreover, the long incubation period for infection means that the crop responsible would have been distributed weeks ago. Last week, the FDA said that the produce giant supplied the shredded iceberg lettuce to the Taco Bell restaurants where people ate before becoming ill. Taylor Farms issued a voluntary recall for all iceberg lettuce sourced from its Guanajuato, Mexico, facility, and Taco Bell pulled the affected lettuce from its restaurants. The CDC has so far tallied 1,947 people infected with cyclospora who also reported eating at Taco Bell in the nine states. Illnesses in the outbreak tied to iceberg lettuce began on June 22 and have continued through July 20, the CDC said. The federal count has lagged behind state tallies, so some of the states hit by the outbreak have reported much higher numbers of infections. But Taylor Farms has drawn criticism for its response to the outbreak. Some health experts blasted its recall notice, which included abbreviations and did not allow consumers to understand easily if they had bought or eaten any product that was at risk. After the FDA reported a false positive of lettuce samples from Taylor Farms on Sunday, the company issued a statement saying that the health agency had apologized. The FDA later clarified that it had not apologized to Taylor Farms, and the company deleted the statement on X, although it is still available on its website. The agency also said it still considered the company's iceberg lettuce the likely source of the outbreak.

CDC says massive cyclospora outbreak is now in nine states
Europe
The Guardian

60 Minutes adds new correspondents and contributors after key departures

Sebastian Junger, Trevor Phillips and Gianna Toboni. Photograph: Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenSebastian Junger, Trevor Phillips and Gianna Toboni. Photograph: Getty ImagesMedia60 Minutes adds new correspondents and contributors after key departuresNew York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat has been named a correspondent, while Sebastian Junger, Gianna Toboni and Trevor Phillips have been named contributors The CBS broadcast 60 Minutes announced a new slate of correspondents and contributors on Tuesday that will help replace a group of longtime correspondents, including Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, who were fired this spring. The most significant addition to the lineup, announced in a memo to employees from the executive producer, Nick Bilton, is the New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat, who is joining as a correspondent. Bilton called Douthat, who is leaving the Times, “a thinker of uncommon rigor and a journalist of deep empathy”. The show is also adding three new contributors: the author and documentarian Sebastian Junger, film-maker Gianna Toboni and prominent UK journalist and political commentator Trevor Phillips, who was hired by CBS News as a global correspondent in June. Bilton also announced that Norah O’Donnell, a “powerhouse” former network anchor who has served as a contributor to the show, had been promoted to the role of full-time correspondent. “An exceptional lineup of journalists will be joining 60 Minutes, carrying on its tradition of fearless, independent and impartial reporting. I can’t wait for them to get started,” he wrote in the memo. Praising Douthat, Junger, Toboni and Phillips, Bilton wrote that they were “entrepreneurial journalists who understand how to reach modern audiences. Between them they have written books and magazine articles, produced documentaries, TV shows and podcasts, hosted live events and built brands on independent platforms.” Bilton’s announcement comes two months after the day known by some 60 Minutes staffers as “Black Thursday”, when the network ousted Vega, Alfonsi, executive producer Tanya Simon, executive editor Draggan Mihailovich and multiple producers. Pelley was fired – “for cause” – the following week after challenging network management in a series of meetings. But, the show’s leadership was able to retain the services of longtime correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim, who decided to “stay and fight” by remaining in their roles. While the show’s staff largely takes off the month of July, Bilton said the show had “so many stellar pieces in the works” for the new season, which begins on 13 September. Since leaving the network, Pelley, Alfonsi and Vega have all accused CBS News leadership of meddling with the show’s editorial independence, a charge the network has denied.

60 Minutes adds new correspondents and contributors after key departures
North America
CNBC Finance

Albertsons stock plunges as it says weaker grocery spending will cut into sales and earnings

Shares of grocer Albertsons sank more than 20% on Thursday after the company lowered its fiscal 2026 outlook, citing softer demand and a more cautious consumer. The company said it is now "moving decisively" to invest in the customer experience because it believes that will improve its growth trajectory. "In the first quarter, our digital and pharmacy businesses continued to deliver strong growth, while core grocery faced increasing pressure from softer industry unit trends and a more cautious consumer," CEO Susan Morris said in a statement. The company's outlook cut comes amid broader signs that U.S. consumers have scaled back their grocery trips. Food inflation and tighter budgets due to high gas prices, among other factors, appear to be hurting spending. For the full year, Albertsons said it now expects net income between $1.75 and $1.85 per share, down significantly from its previous expectation of between $2.22 and $2.32 per share. It also lowered its adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of between $3.55 billion and $3.625 billion, compared with a previous projection of between $3.85 billion and $3.925 billion. It also now expects identical sales, a metric similar to comparable sales, to be in a range of down 1.5% to down 0.5%, compared with a previous expectation of flat to up 1%. For the first fiscal quarter of the year, the company reported that identical sales fell 0.8%. Albertsons reported net income of $84.7 million, or 17 cents per share, compared with $236.4 million, or 41 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Still, Morris said on a call with analysts that while the pressure on consumers is weighing on near-term earnings, the company aims to "improve traffic, units, loyalty and the overall trajectory of the business over time." Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services. Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data and Analysis.

Albertsons stock plunges as it says weaker grocery spending will cut into sales and earnings
Europe
BBC Business

Chip firms fall in US and Asia as AI jitters rattle investors

Image source, AFP via Getty ImagesByOsmond ChiaBusiness reporterPublished9 minutes agoShares in major chip firms have fallen sharply in the US and Asia as a sell-off in artificial intelligence-related stocks deepened. Trading on South Korea's benchmark Kospi index was paused temporarily on Tuesday morning after sliding by 8%. It fell further after the 20-minute halt was lifted to trade around 10% lower. The slump was led by technology firms, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both falling by more than 10%. It comes after AI chip giant Nvidia fell by 5% in New York on Monday, meaning it lost its position as the world's most valuable listed company to Apple. The tech-heavy Kospi has been halted eight times so far this year under a stock market mechanism known as a circuit breaker, which is designed to calm panic selling. The index had more than doubled from the start of the year to mid-June but has since lost around a third of its value. In recent months, stock market trading has been particularly volatile in South Korea as it has attracted large numbers of retail investors. On Monday, US-listed shares in SK Hynix fell by 7.5% to well below the $149 offer price when it made a record-breaking debut on the Nasdaq on 9 July. Japan's Nikkei 225, which is also dominated by tech companies, was almost 4.5% lower on Tuesday morning. Nvidia shares fell on Monday after the Wall Street Journal reported that it is in talks to provide around $250bn for OpenAI as part of a massive data-centre project. The decline allowed Apple to overtake Nvidia as the world's most valuable company after the iPhone maker rose by about 25% this year. As governments and companies spend hundreds of billions of dollars on developing AI capabilities, some analysts have questioned whether the technology can become profitable enough to recoup such huge investments.

Chip firms fall in US and Asia as AI jitters rattle investors