Alphabet stock sheds $700B as AI bills climb
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8:54 PM
Friday August 28, 2026
Intelligence for the New World Economy
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Alphabet stock sheds $700B as AI bills climb
Updated Aug 27, 2026, 10:35pm UTC
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Carlos Jasso/Reuters
Alphabet’s stock is down more than 15% from its May peak, wiping out roughly $700 billion in value, as concerns rise over its mounting AI bills and failure to produce a decisive technological breakthrough.
After leading the Magnificent 7 over much of the last 16 months, the tech giant is on shakier footing, having seen its top scientist depart, its brightest AI mind move to a different position, and delays to its newest Gemini model. But Google retains a superlative product suite, a “deep bench,” and a “long history of investing in AI,” a Wall Street Journal columnist argued, and a reshuffle — which has even seen Google co-founder Sergey Brin return to day-to-day operations — could be just what it needs.
More from Semafor Flagship
- Iceland votes on joining the EU
- Pentagon can’t blacklist Anthropic, US judge rules
- Wheat hit a three-year high, amid trade route disruptions
- Markets eye Warsh’s speech for interest rate insight
- US eyes ‘massive’ stake in Venezuela’s oil resources
- Iran braces for unrest amid economic crisis
Iceland votes on joining the EU
Updated Aug 28, 2026, 10:48am UTC
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!Image 24: Voters at a “no” campaign rally in Iceland.
Leonhard Foeger/Reuters
Icelanders will decide tomorrow whether to resume talks on joining the EU in a vote that has taken on deeper significance in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s threats in the Arctic. Polls in the tiny island nation — which does not have armed forces —are almost evenly split.
Supporters believe joining the European bloc could give the country greater protection and boost its economy, while critics worry over sovereignty. The Arctic has emerged as a key battleground between global superpowers: Trump has threatened to take over Greenland, an autonomous territory belonging to Denmark. Meanwhile, China is flexing “its economic muscle in partnership with Russia” as melting ice caps open up new navigable routes around the Arctic, Bruegel wrote.
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Pentagon can’t blacklist Anthropic, US judge rules
Updated Aug 28, 2026, 10:48am UTC
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A US judge blocked the Pentagon’s attempt to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk, a major victory for the AI firm in its legal wranglings with Washington. The Department of Defense attempted to blacklist Anthropic in February after the company refused to remove restrictions on its AI models being used for autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance, a move widely seen as punitive.
But the government has continued to use Anthropic’s products and to collaborate with it on AI oversight, which the California judge said was not “consistent with a genuine fear that Anthropic is a saboteur.” The ruling does not force the Pentagon to use Anthropic’s products, but government contractors and agencies cannot be barred from using them if they choose.
Wheat hit a three-year high, amid trade route disruptions
Updated Aug 28, 2026, 10:39am UTC
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!Image 26: Wheat harvest in Ukraine.
Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/File Photo/Reuters
Wheat futures hit their highest level in more than three years as the war in Ukraine strained supplies, further weakening the global food system.Kyiv and Moscow have stepped up attacks on the Black Sea — a key transit route for a large share of global grain exports — as they try to weaken each other’s economies.
Together, the two countries account for around a third of global wheat exports. The attacks have further strained global food supply, which is already hampered by higher fuel and fertilizer prices stemming from the war in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the El Niño warm weather system is further complicating matters, with analysts saying millions could be at risk of malnutrition as temperatures soar.
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Markets eye Warsh’s speech for interest rate insight
Updated Aug 28, 2026, 10:29am UTC
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!Image 28: Traders look on as Warsh gives a speech.
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Economists, executives, and investors will closely watch US Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s speech today for clues about future central bank policy, and whether he will be more open about his outlook for the economy.
Traders are overwhelmingly betting that the Fed will raise rates at least once over the next year, but Warsh’s view of inflation and whether it is being driven by one-off shocks or more persistent drivers is unclear. That is vexing analysts: 80% of economists surveyed by CNBC said they wanted him to share more of his views, but he has insisted market-watchers “play the ball, not the referee.” Ultimately, he is “unlikely to provide policy guidance,” Goldman Sachs’ chief US economist predicted.
US eyes ‘massive’ stake in Venezuela’s oil resources
Updated Aug 28, 2026, 10:28am UTC
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!Image 29: Oil refinery in Venezuela.
Gaby Oraa/Reuters
The US is reportedly in talks with Venezuela’s interim government to take a “massive” stake in the South American country’s oil resources. The proposed deal would give Washington part ownership of fields containing 90 billion barrels’ worth of proven crude deposits, more than doubling US reserves. “Calling this deal huge would be an understatement,” a US official told Axios.
Venezuela’s oil production has jumped under Washington’s custodianship, though questions abound about where those profits, which were intended to help rebuild the country, have ended up. Meanwhile, Venezuela is also considering quitting OPEC, potentially dealing a further blow to the oil cartel it helped to found just four months after the UAE left, Bloomberg reported.
!Image 30: A chart showing Venezuela’s crude oil production
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Iran braces for unrest amid economic crisis
Updated Aug 27, 2026, 10:57pm UTC
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!Image 31: People in a market in Bandar Abbas, Iran
Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
The US campaign to inflict economic pain on Iran is squeezing the Iranian people, but is unlikely to move their leaders to end the war, analysts argued.
The threat of sanctions triggered panic buying for food and fuel this week, The Wall Street Journal reported, sparking small labor demonstrations across Iran. Inflation hit 66% in July and food prices soared 128% year on year, raising concerns among Iranian leaders that economic grievances could once again fuel mass protests that have erupted nationwide in recent years.
Washington hopes to leverage such public discontent into forcing Tehran to cut a peace deal, Reuters wrote, but “the leadership has historically answered domestic unrest with repression, and external pressure with threats of retaliation abroad.”
Top Stories
[Warsh’s hawkish turn meets its skeptics !Image 32: Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, with governors of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England Eleanor Mueller/Semafor](https://www.semafor.com/article/08/28/2026/warshs-hawkish-turn-meets-its-skeptics)
[Google and Microsoft were in talks for Nscale compute deal that went to Anthropic !Image 33: Nscale’s Monarch data center site. Nscale’s Monarch data center site. Courtesy of Nscale.](https://www.semafor.com/article/08/28/2026/google-and-microsoft-were-in-talks-for-nscale-compute-deal-that-went-to-anthropic)
Software and data firms rush to meet customers inside the chatbot 
US eyes ‘massive’ stake in Venezuela’s oil resources 
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[Trump’s trade war hands Democrats a campaign-trail gift !Image 37: Abdul El-Sayed, at podium, with Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Debbie Dingell, D-Mich. Nicholas Wu/Semafor](https://www.semafor.com/article/08/27/2026/trumps-trade-war-hands-democrats-a-campaign-trail-gift)
Iran braces for economic unrest 
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The World
at a Glance
Updated 10:51am UTC
US eyes ‘massive’ stake in Venezuela’s oil resources
Updated Aug 28, 2026, 11:32am UTC
Copy link
!Image 41: Oil refinery in Venezuela.
Gaby Oraa/Reuters
The US is reportedly in talks with Venezuela’s interim government to take a “massive” stake in the South American country’s oil resources. The proposed deal would give Washington part ownership of fields containing 90 billion barrels’ worth of proven crude deposits, more than doubling US reserves. “Calling this deal huge would be an understatement,” a US official told Axios.
Venezuela’s oil production has jumped under Washington’s custodianship, though questions abound about where those profits, which were intended to help rebuild the country, have ended up. Meanwhile, Venezuela is also considering quitting OPEC, potentially dealing a further blow to the oil cartel it helped to found just four months after the UAE left, Bloomberg reported.
!Image 42: A chart showing Venezuela’s crude oil production
Markets eye Warsh’s speech for interest rate insight
Updated Aug 28, 2026, 10:29am UTC
Copy link
!Image 43: Traders look on as Warsh gives a speech.
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Economists, executives, and investors will closely watch US Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s speech today for clues about future central bank policy, and whether he will be more open about his outlook for the economy.
Traders are overwhelmingly betting that the Fed will raise rates at least once over the next year, but Warsh’s view of inflation and whether it is being driven by one-off shocks or more persistent drivers is unclear. That is vexing analysts: 80% of economists surveyed by CNBC said they wanted him to share more of his views, but he has insisted market-watchers “play the ball, not the referee.” Ultimately, he is “unlikely to provide policy guidance,” Goldman Sachs’ chief US economist predicted.
Wheat hit a three-year high, amid trade route disruptions
Updated Aug 28, 2026, 10:39am UTC
Copy link
!Image 44: Wheat harvest in Ukraine.
Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/File Photo/Reuters
Wheat futures hit their highest level in more than three years as the war in Ukraine strained supplies, further weakening the global food system.Kyiv and Moscow have stepped up attacks on the Black Sea — a key transit route for a large share of global grain exports — as they try to weaken each other’s economies.
Together, the two countries account for around a third of global wheat exports. The attacks have further strained global food supply, which is already hampered by higher fuel and fertilizer prices stemming from the war in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the El Niño warm weather system is further complicating matters, with analysts saying millions could be at risk of malnutrition as temperatures soar.
Iceland votes on joining the EU
Updated Aug 28, 2026, 10:49am UTC
Copy link
!Image 46: Voters at a “no” campaign rally in Iceland.
Leonhard Foeger/Reuters
Icelanders will decide tomorrow whether to resume talks on joining the EU in a vote that has taken on deeper significance in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s threats in the Arctic. Polls in the tiny island nation — which does not have armed forces —are almost evenly split.
Supporters believe joining the European bloc could give the country greater protection and boost its economy, while critics worry over sovereignty. The Arctic has emerged as a key battleground between global superpowers: Trump has threatened to take over Greenland, an autonomous territory belonging to Denmark. Meanwhile, China is flexing “its economic muscle in partnership with Russia” as melting ice caps open up new navigable routes around the Arctic, Bruegel wrote.
Pentagon can’t blacklist Anthropic, US judge rules
Updated Aug 28, 2026, 10:48am UTC
Copy link
A US judge blocked the Pentagon’s attempt to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk, a major victory for the AI firm in its legal wranglings with Washington. The Department of Defense attempted to blacklist Anthropic in February after the company refused to remove restrictions on its AI models being used for autonomous weapons and domestic surveillance, a move widely seen as punitive.
But the government has continued to use Anthropic’s products and to collaborate with it on AI oversight, which the California judge said was not “consistent with a genuine fear that Anthropic is a saboteur.” The ruling does not force the Pentagon to use Anthropic’s products, but government contractors and agencies cannot be barred from using them if they choose.
Iran braces for unrest amid economic crisis
Updated Aug 27, 2026, 11:01pm UTC
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!Image 48: People in a market in Bandar Abbas, Iran
Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
The US campaign to inflict economic pain on Iran is squeezing the Iranian people, but is unlikely to move their leaders to end the war, analysts argued.
The threat of sanctions triggered panic buying for food and fuel this week, The Wall Street Journal reported, sparking small labor demonstrations across Iran. Inflation hit 66% in July and food prices soared 128% year on year, raising concerns among Iranian leaders that economic grievances could once again fuel mass protests that have erupted nationwide in recent years.
Washington hopes to leverage such public discontent into forcing Tehran to cut a peace deal, Reuters wrote, but “the leadership has historically answered domestic unrest with repression, and external pressure with threats of retaliation abroad.”
Russia-Ukraine war enters deadlier phase
Updated Aug 27, 2026, 10:17pm UTC
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!Image 49: A Ukrainian warehouse engulfed in smoke after a Russian attack
Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
The Russia-Ukraine war has entered a more dangerous and deadly phase, analysts said, as the countries’ degraded aerial defenses contend with intensifying missile and drone barrages.
Deaths have mounted in recent weeks as Ukraine runs dry of Patriot interceptors and Russia increasingly targets Kyiv’s civilian logistics, raising concerns that Moscow could force emigration by starving swathes of Ukraine of food and electricity.
Kyiv, meanwhile, aims to sow economic discontent among Russians with strikes against oil refineries and e-commerce warehouses, but experts argued domestic upheaval is unlikely to change Moscow’s calculus.
With the frontlines frozen and both sides mounting more long-range strikes, the war “will get steadily more destructive without being decisive,” a military analyst told The Wall Street Journal.
Taiwan approves $7 billion drone budget
Updated Aug 27, 2026, 10:20pm UTC
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!Image 50: Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te speaking in front of a Teng Yun unmanned aerial vehicle
Ann Wang/Reuters
Taiwan’s legislature approved a plan to spend more than $7 billion on drones over the next six years, part of the island’s push to deter a potential attack from China.
President Lai Ching-te’s administration views drones as critical to Taiwan’s “porcupine strategy” — asymmetric warfare using small, agile, and cheap defense systems to inflict pain on larger aggressors.
Taiwan’s drone manufacturing has largely been scaled for export, but the new budget — although watered down — could boost domestic demand for drones and strengthen local supply chains, allowing the sector to mass produce drones even under bombardment.
Taiwan’s vice president noted the island was inspired by how Ukraine had built up its drone capabilities from the “battlefield of blood and tears.”
Hackers use SpaceX’s Cursor AI agent in cyber break-ins
Updated Aug 27, 2026, 10:46pm UTC
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Kacper Pempel/Re
Russian-speaking hackers used SpaceX’s Cursor AI agent to breach a Belgian chemical company and six other firms in recent months, in the latest instance of cybercriminals circumventing AI firms’ safety guardrails.
The hackers recruited the agent for hundreds of attacks by telling it the exercises were part of a simulation, Reuters reported, making their work up to 50% faster.
The agent, powered by an Anthropic model, at one point recommended the hackers use a common malware tool to break into a German manufacturer.
The report comes as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and 100 other companies signed an open letter Thursday warning of a “limited window to strengthen cyber defenses” as AI-enabled cyber attacks are set to proliferate in the coming months.
Shein plots post-IPO comeback through dealmaking
Updated Aug 27, 2026, 10:32pm UTC
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!Image 52: A Shein pop up store in London
Isabel Infantes/Reuters
As Shein prepares to go public in Hong Kong for $27 billion — roughly a fourth of its valuation four years ago — the Chinese fast-fashion giant is plotting an ambitious comeback through stepped-up dealmaking.
Shein is pursuing what is internally described as a plan to become the “Amazon Web Services of the fashion industry,” Bloomberg reported, by using its large cash reserves to acquire more prominent Western brands like Everlane, which it can plug into its supply chains. That plan is likely to face intense headwinds from the get-go, a Shanghai-based expert said:
Simultaneously one of its “greatest competitive advantages and one of its largest strategic concentration risks,” Shein’s China supply chains will inevitably draw scrutiny for their labor and sustainability practices.
UEFA prepares criminal complaint against FIFA’s Infantino
Updated Aug 27, 2026, 10:33pm UTC
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!Image 53: President of FIFA Gianni Infantino
Teresa Suarez/Reuters
European soccer’s governing body is preparing a criminal complaint against FIFA President Gianni Infantino for alleged “criminal mismanagement,” following the spectacular collapse of his effort to sell private stakes in the World Cup.
In Thursday’s court filings, UEFA attorneys accused Infantino and a “small circle” of devising the now-scrapped vehicle for personal profit, marking a dramatic escalation in the monthslong crisis roiling international soccer. UEFA also sought to subpoena Thrive Capital, the firm founded by the brother of US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.
The move heightens pressure on Infantino, who is facing growing calls to resign, though Saudi Arabia’s soccer federation backed him on Thursday. Still, the European Leagues president told The Athletic, “There is no future at FIFA for Infantino.”
Global central bankers gather in Jackson Hole
Updated Aug 27, 2026, 1:46pm UTC
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Jim Urquhart/File Photo/Reuters
Seemingly divergent policies from the US Federal Reserve and Treasury will be a key focus at a gathering of global central bankers, with bond yields nearing record highs and little respite on the horizon from dizzying global government debt levels.
Investors will be watching the annual talks in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for insight into Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s inflation outlook; questions are growing over the central bank’s priorities after the Treasury unveiled a surprise bond-buyback program ostensibly designed to corral long-term bond yields.
Warsh, by contrast, faces pressure to raise interest rates in order to bring down inflation, which is well above the Fed’s 2% target. “Warsh is stuck,” ABN Amro said. “Being silent does not seem like an option.”
Rising US debt levels threaten to curtail domestic and foreign power
Updated Aug 27, 2026, 11:01am UTC
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!Image 55: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters.
US debt levels are reaching levels that will soon curtail Washington’s domestic room for maneuver and its geopolitical heft, analysts warned.
Though extreme scenarios like a default are seen as highly unlikely, authorities will eventually have to cut spending or raise taxes, which likely “means higher costs of living for everybody,” one economist told The Washington Post. Abroad, “geopolitical power and fiscal capacity complement each other,” an analyst wrote in the Financial Times.
A Reuters columnist noted that China — which also has debt problems — retained the advantage of having a historic willingness to impose heavy pain on its people in the name of national sacrifice, meaning in this facet of “the superpower struggle … [China seems to have the edge](https://www.breakingviews.com/columns/big-view/war-fuelled-debt-spiral-will-shape-global-