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\nONE BIG THINGOpenAI CFO is reportedly at odds with Sam Altman over missed revenue target<\/p>\n
No wonder the market is defying the uncertainty of the war. By yesterday morning, 140 companies in the S&P 500 had reported Q1 earnings (about one-third of \u2019em) and of those, 73% beat analysts\u2019 expectations on earnings per share, according to Bank of America. <\/p>\n
\nONE BIG THINGOpenAI CFO is reportedly at odds with Sam Altman over missed revenue target<\/p>\n
OpenAI’s CFO Sarah Friar is worried that the company is spending too much money on data centers and may not be generating enough revenue to support the contracts it has entered into, according to a bombshell report from the Wall Street Journal<\/a>. She wants more discipline over spending, which has caused disagreement with CEO Sam Altman, the paper\u2019s sources said. Friar and Altman called the report \u201cridiculous\u201d in a joint statement.<\/p>\n These are poor optics for OpenAI today, which is ramping up toward an IPO later this year. But expect this mess to be tidied up nicely for the S-1.<\/p>\n ELSEWHERE IN AI \u2026Inside Meta\u2019s Manus fiasco: \u201cKilling the chicken to scare the monkeys\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n China\u2019s decision to block Meta\u2019s $2 billion acquisition of Chinese AI startup Manus<\/a> raises a number of unanswered questions, Fortune\u2019s Nicholas Gordon tells me:<\/p>\n The \u201cSingapore-washing\u201d strategy is well and truly dead. If you’re a Chinese founder and you reestablish as a Singaporean company, both the U.S. and China will continue to see you as Chinese, and thus subject to both Washington and Beijing’s regulatory scrutiny. Nvidia poached Intel’s Chief Accounting Officer<\/p>\n Scott Gawel, 55, corporate VP\/Chief Accounting Officer for Intel resigned his role<\/a> on April 24 “to pursue another career opportunity,” according to an SEC disclosure spotted by Fortune\u2019s Amanda Gerut. On the same day, Nvidia’s VP\/Chief Accounting Officer Donald Robertson notified his company of his decision to retire. Two days later, Nvidia appointed<\/a> Gawel as VP\/Chief Accounting Officer with a base salary of $800,000 and equity grants with a combined value of $12.9 million.<\/p>\n IRANTalks are still on, barely<\/p>\n President Trump is not satisfied with Iran\u2019s position in talks to end the war<\/a> and he will respond soon. Tehran has proposed reopening the Strait of Hormuz but doesn\u2019t want to give up its nuclear weapons program. Stopping the nukes is Trump\u2019s red line. Trump intends to respond to the Iranians \u201csoon,\u201d per Bloomberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s leaders are in disarray, the Financial Times writes in a must-read article<\/a> on the internal divisions within the regime. One faction sees the mere existence of negotiations as \u201cpure damage\u201d and thinks they should not be happening.<\/p>\n New Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has endorsed the talks but his relative silence and non-visibility have created space for Iran\u2019s various internal factions to disagree over the way forward.<\/p>\n Making a run for it?<\/p>\n One tanker has escaped the Strait of Hormuz and a bunch of others are clustering around the exit point, Bloomberg reports<\/a>. The Mubaraz\u2014sailing under a Liberian flag with cargo from Abu Dhabi\u2014switched off its tracking responder while in the Strait about a month ago and reappeared off the southern tip of India. Other Iranian ships are massing<\/a> just beyond the U.S. blockade line.<\/p>\n The war is grounding U.S. travelers<\/p>\n U.S. air travel has \u201cslowed substantially\u201d below levels in 2024 and 2025, according to Bank of America analyst Aditya Bhave. Air travel usually falls off a bit at the time of year but \u201cwe think the slowdown is likely due to the impact of the Iran war on not only airfares but also confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n Winners and losers in the impending jet fuel crisis<\/p>\n The U.K. and Australia import the most jet fuel. The U.S. and the Netherlands are net exporters, per data from Apollo Global Management\u2019s Torsten Sl\u00f8k.<\/p>\n You should pick your credit card perks like Warren Buffett picks his stocks, TD Bank exec says<\/a> – Catherina Gioino<\/p>\n Former president of Costa Rica on de-risking fertilizer shocks: how $700 billion in subsidies can do more<\/a> – Carlos Alvarado Quesada<\/p>\n Bitcoin drives back toward $80K\u2014but one billionaire may be fueling much of the rally<\/a> – Jack Kubinec<\/p>\n Reed Hastings says AI will drive a return to humanities: \u2018I\u2019d be doubling down on emotional skills\u2019<\/a> – Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez<\/p>\n Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says AI won\u2019t kill entry-level jobs. He\u2019s hiring 1,000 new grads to prove it<\/a> – Jake Angelo<\/p>\n Incoming Apple CEO John Ternus tells Gen Z an early mistake taught him an important lesson: \u2018The care you put into your work really matters\u2019<\/a> – Emma Burleigh<\/p>\n CHART OF THE DAYFour companies will plow $660 billion into AI infrastructure this year<\/p>\n Corporate spending on AI data centers by the four big cloud service providers (CSPs), could hit as much as $660 billion this year, according to new research by J.P. Morgan. That would represent growth of 66% in capital expenditures for the year\u2014an additional $200 billion\u2014over 2025, Samik Chatterjee and his colleagues estimate.<\/p>\n It won\u2019t slow down in 2027, either, he told clients: \u201cFor 2027, we forecast cloud data center capex to increase 40%+ y\/y from the top 4 U.S. CSPs; even though the percentage rate might suggest a slowdown, the absolute increase in capex dollars is expected to track over $210 billion in 2027, representing yet another record by surpassing the robust $200 billion+ growth that we are forecasting for 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Upper estimate of AI data center capex spending in 2026, per JPM:<\/p>\n Google: up to $185 billion. NUMBER OF THE DAY26<\/p>\n The number of years it took for Intel\u2019s stock to finally overtake the all-time high it hit in the 2000 dot-com bubble. It closed at $82.54 at the end of last week. It was still down over 70% from its peak last year. But this year it is up 123.69% year-to-date.<\/p>\n THE FRONT PAGES TODAY<\/p>\n Elon Musk sits out Thomas Massie’s primary<\/a> – Axios<\/p>\n Novartis CEO warns reality of Trump\u2019s drug pricing policy will set in over \u2018the next 18 months\u2019<\/a> – CNBC<\/p>\n Coffee, fuel and houses: why Donald Trump has an inflation problem<\/a> – FT<\/p>\n Goldman Sachs fired 26-year-old exec who got up early to make baking videos on TikTok<\/a> – eFinancialCareers<\/p>\n The Nicest \u2018Jeopardy!\u2019 Champ Dissects His Losing Game<\/a> – WSJ<\/p>\n
\nWhat the heck is Meta supposed to do now? Meta already scooped up Manus\u2019s talent and tech; it’s going to be pretty hard to give that back. Manus investors have already gotten their money from the deal; do they have to pay Meta back?\u00a0
\nTo use a horribly overused Chinese idiom, this may be an example of \u201ckilling the chicken to scare the monkeys.” Given the pretty blatant way that Manus redomiciled in Singapore, Beijing probably had to act to stop other Chinese founders from doing the same thing.
\nIf Beijing starts looking more closely at tech transfer, it may not want companies like BYD and CATL to set up factories in the U.S.\u2014what if that strategic tech leaks out to the U.S. economy? China actually has IP and technology worth protecting now.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-28-at-111422.png\"\/)
\nMORE FROM FORTUNE<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-27-at-134625.png\"\/)
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\nMeta: up to $135 billion.
\nAmazon: $200 billion.
\nMicrosoft: $140 billion.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-27-at-141435.png\"\/)
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