The creator economy is taking center stage.
Forbes unveiled its Top Creators 2026 list today, and for the first time, the 50 most powerful influencers collectively brought in over a billion dollars—an 80% surge from when the list debuted in 2022. At the top of the list is MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, whose earnings total $300 million.
These out-of-the-box entertainers continue to expand their brands and empires, like YouTuber Dhar Mann, who recently signed a deal with Fox Entertainment to produce vertical dramas. “The greatest thing that happened to me was that I had no traditional studio or filmmaking experience,” he says.
This is a published version of the Forbes Daily newsletter, you can sign-up to get Forbes Daily in your inbox here. First UpSpaceX’s selloff stretched into a third day Monday, wiping out all of its growth following a record-setting IPO and tanking Elon Musk’s fortune by more than $300 billion.President Donald Trump claimed that Iran agreed to resume allowing international nuclear inspectors into the country, but Iran denied making any new commitments.Global markets and U.S. futures slumped early on Tuesday, led by a major selloff in tech and chip stocks amid concerns about the recent AI-driven stock rally and potential high U.S. interest rates.Business + Finance
Getty Images inked a deal with OpenAI.
Getty Images
Shares of Getty Images surged 90% Monday after the company announced a deal with OpenAI to integrate its digital image libraries into ChatGPT, despite previously suing Stability AI for alleged copyright infringement. ChatGPT will be able to use Getty’s vast image archive to generate visual responses, though it’s unclear whether the chatbot will be able to alter its images in any way.
SpaceX received the lowest possible environmental, social and governance rating from research firm MSCI, which said the company lagged its industry because of its exposure to “significant” risks. The rocket maker earned the same score as Russia, and has faced scrutiny in recent years over workplace safety, labor disputes, and allegations of employee discrimination and retaliation.
Money + Politics
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from expanding the use of a database with Americans’ private information, including Social Security numbers, saying it “trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens.” The judge ruled that the administration must stop using the database to confirm people’s eligibility to vote with state governments, as it has caused eligible voters to be improperly removed from voter rolls ahead of the November midterm elections.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan housing bill Monday evening that includes restrictions on institutional investors that already own at least 350 homes from buying any more. The bill also includes a range of reforms aimed at making it easier to build new homes, and Politico reported that the House will try to fast-track approval beginning Tuesday.
Trends + Explainers
Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan speaks to students at Syracuse University in 1997.
Getty Images
Longtime Federal Reserve Chair and economist Alan Greenspan died on Monday at age 100, and Forbes has republished a piece from October 2005, just prior to the end of his term, from financial historian James Grant. Though Greenspan was revered among Wall Streeters at the time, Grant’s critical review of Greenspan’s legacy warned of the imbalances and bubbles that were forming in equities and debt—years before the Great Recession that was to come.
Daily Cover StoryAI Slop Is Transforming YouTube. Its CEO Wants To Keep It Human
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan
Youtube
YouTube is the indisputable king of online video. With 2.7 billion users, it’s also hooked into one of the biggest, most important AI companies in the world: Google.
That makes its arch-rival OpenAI’s decision to shut down Sora, the popular app for creating AI-generated video clips, something of a blessing for a business navigating the rapidly shifting AI landscape. One less rival—YouTube Shorts released its own version of Sora’s most viral feature in April, which lets users create digital avatars of themselves—but also a harbinger of how fraught it is to generate, host and share AI videos.
For more than a decade, YouTube has faced its fair share of scourges, including accusations of radicalizing users or harming their mental well-being. But AI is a radically different challenge. It has the power to transform the site completely, from how people make content to what they consume. CEO Neal Mohan doesn’t downplay it. “This is a profound paradigm shift, and the technology is going to dramatically change how things are done,” he says.
The AI explosion, first and foremost, means more content—and more money for YouTube’s $60 billion annual revenue business. At the same time, AI means spammers flooding the zone with unbelievable efficiency.
The company has a treacherous tightrope to balance—allowing AI to give it the glut of content that serves as its lifeblood, while preserving the human authenticity that’s made it one of the most popular sites in the world since it launched in 2005.
WHY IT MATTERS “As the world’s largest video site, how YouTube deals with AI will be an important litmus test for the industry,” says Forbes senior writer Richard Nieva. “Policing AI slop among the estimated 29 billion video in its corpus will be no easy task. Unlike some of its other rival tech platforms, YouTube has a trickier job because it has so many disparate stakeholders, including parent company Google, creators, publishers, studios and its 2.7 billion users.”
MORE The OpenAI Graveyard: All The Deals And Products That Haven’t Happened
Facts + Comments
A number of California gas station owners used an AI tool developed by a company called Kalibrate to artificially inflate prices, a new lawsuit alleges. The suit identifies gas stations maintained by companies like Walmart, Speedway and Albertsons:
As much as 30 cents: How much more gas prices could artificially rise per gallon in areas where a large number of gas stations use Kalibrate, according to the suit
1,732: The number of gas stations identified in the lawsuit
$5.52 per gallon: The average price for gasoline in California as of Monday, according to data from GasBuddy, the highest of any state in the U.S.
Strategy + Success
As workplace leaders focus on the skills that can’t be replaced by AI, Forbes’ staff writer Courtney Connley-Hampton decided to take a popular personality test called DISC. Rather than just your personality, it focuses on behavioral patterns, measuring your behavioral style across four dimensions: dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness. Though it’s a decades-old test, experts say it can help you better understand how you process information—and more importantly, any potential weaknesses to work on.
Quiz
Amazon abruptly dropped a reportedly unflattering biopic that had been in the works about a major tech executive, and other big-name distributors are said to have passed on it. Which executive is the movie about?
A. Sundar Pichai
B. Tim Cook
C. Sam Altman
D. Jensen Huang
Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire and Chris Dobstaff.