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Micron Faces Taiwan Strike As Union Demands "Fair Profit-Sharing System"

Tyler Durden — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 06:45:00 +0000

Micron Faces Taiwan Strike As Union Demands "Fair Profit-Sharing System"

Neoclouds and hyperscalers face mounting pressure as scrutiny grows over AI's circular financing, while Morgan Stanley has outlined several scenarios that could derail the $1.6 trillion AI data-center buildout.

Now, another potential pressure point is emerging in the chip supply chain.

Reuters reported that a union locked in a pay dispute could launch a strike on Thursday at Micron’s Taiwan plant, raising the risk of disruption at a key manufacturing hub for memory chips used in AI servers.

The Taoyuan union said the walkout would coincide with a mediation meeting between Micron and a separate union representing employees at its Taichung operations.

The labor action aims to show solidarity and pressure the US chipmaker to present a better profit-sharing proposal for workers.

Micron employs about 15,000 people in Taiwan and manufactures DRAM and high-bandwidth memory chips that have largely been in short supply this year because of the massive demand wave from data centers.

The planned strike follows unsuccessful mediation between Micron and the Taoyuan union last month.

Members authorized the ability to conduct a labor action in early October.

In May, chipmaker Samsung had to confront its labor union over pay disputes and the risk of a major strike that threatened production lines for some of the world's most advanced memory chips. Those disputes were eventually settled.

"Through our actions, we will make our dissatisfaction with the current system heard and demonstrate our determination to establish a fair profit-sharing system," the Taoyuan union wrote in a statement.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/21/2026 - 02:45

Why France?

Tyler Durden — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 06:00:00 +0000

Why France?

Authored by Stephen Soukup via American Greatness,

France is burning. But why? The obvious answer to that question is that it has imported massive numbers of people - often young, military-aged men - from parts of the world where violence is more prevalent. Or, as the President of the United States put it over the weekend, "The immigration of people from an entirely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, has shattered that once great country."

This is all well and good and, of course, there's a great deal to it. France has, indeed, "imported the third world" (to use the Vice President's phrasing). Interestingly, though, over the last couple of decades, France has imported far less of the Third World than its larger neighbors have, both in absolute and relative numbers.

Over the past ten years or so - since Third World immigration to Europe ceased to be a "problem" and became a "crisis" - no nation has seen a greater influx of foreign-born residents than Germany. From 2015 to 2024, Germany welcomed just over 6 million immigrants, which is equivalent to the rest of the EU combined. Its foreign-born population jumped from 13.4 percent to 20.9 percent, a massive increase, and the overwhelming majority of those immigrants came from "non-EU countries." The UK followed Germany with more than 4 million immigrants, and Spain was a slightly more distant third (in total number of immigrants).

Relatively speaking, Malta saw its foreign-born population jump from 9 percent in 2013 to 32 percent in 2024, the largest increase over the last decade (or so). It was followed by Luxembourg, Portugal, and Germany.

Compared with almost all of its European cousins, France's foreign-born population has increased relatively slowly, from 9.1 percent to 11.3 percent (albeit with a change in methodology). If the obvious answer were the correct answer, in other words, then Germany would be burning, Malta would be burning, the UK and Spain would be burning, but France would be fine. But it's not. So again, why is France burning?

I know that the consensus is that what is happening in France today is likely to happen in Germany tomorrow, the UK the day after that, and all across Europe next week. Moreover, the conventional wisdom on the Right has it that the French uprising should be seen as a warning to the United States, which is to say that all Western nations have similar problems to France and all Western nations should, therefore, be preparing to deal with domestic Third Worldism at some point in the not-so-distant future.

Now, to be fair, there is some truth in this. There are significant and universal problems associated with importing huge groups from non-Western societies and consciously choosing not to "Westernize" them or integrate them culturally. The West's crisis of confidence, its ideologically driven detestation of its own heritage, and its refusal to demand assimilation by its new residents are widespread failures that have produced and will continue to produce significant social, cultural, and economic issues. There can be little doubt about that.

At the same time, however, France is still different from the rest of us in the West. There is no real equivalent for the French experience - or at least there's no real equivalent in Europe.

For most of Europe, the "migrant crisis" began in 2015, when more than a million refugees from the Middle East and North Africa sought asylum from ongoing war and related devastation. For France, by contrast, its own migrant crisis started more than six decades earlier, in 1954, with the creation of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), which issued a declaration calling for national independence on November 1 of that year and launched the Algerian Revolution/French-Algerian War. By the time the war technically ended eight years later, the Fourth French Republic had fallen, Paris police had massacred as many as several hundred Algerian immigrants in a single-day crackdown on dissent, tens of thousands of "harkis" - i.e., Muslim auxiliaries who fought for the French in Algeria - were resettled in France, and hundreds of thousands of economic refugees had fled Algeria for France (although some returned "rotationally"). Additionally, in 1968, six years after the end of the war, France and Algeria reached an agreement providing Algerians unique immigration and work status, which contributed to an approximate doubling of the Algerian population in France over the next 15 years.

What all of this means is that while France may have a lesser issue than its European brethren with a restless foreign-born population, it has a much more serious and much better-established problem with second- and third-generation immigrants, mostly from Africa. Those populations might not present a serious risk to the French state if they had been integrated in any serious or sustained way, but they haven't been. If anything, they've been rather mercilessly isolated and segregated from the productive parts of French society. When I wrote above that France has no equivalent in Europe, what I meant was that France's policies toward and treatment of its African migrants have a parallel of sorts, but one found, ironically enough, in Africa.

Two of the most significant and far-reaching acts of the National Party, the party of the Afrikaner white minority and the architect of apartheid in South Africa, were the 1959 Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act and the 1970 Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act. Both of these were presented to the world as magnanimous acts on the part of the National Party to give the country's black population its own lands and a chance at political independence. In truth, of course, the Bantustans (literally "people places") were the apartheid regime's attempt to rid the white areas of the country of the black "surplus population" and to deprive them of their citizenship, thereby eliminating any claims they might someday make against their stolen property.

Black South Africans were divided up along rudimentary ethnic and linguistic lines and were then sent to the "homeland" that had been designated for their group. And when I say "sent," I mean that they were told to go, were given no choice in the matter, regardless of their connection to the land, and were then physically forced to move. Once in their new Bantustans, the people were told that they were no longer citizens of South Africa but were, instead, citizens of their new "homeland," which would be treated by the National Party regime as a "foreign" polity. In their generosity, the Afrikaners (that is to say, the descendants of the 17th- and 18th-century Dutch settlers) gave their black "former" countrymen 13 percent of the country's absolutely most craptastical land - even though blacks constituted roughly three-quarters of the population and even though the country is among the most blessed by God in terms of beauty and natural resources. Strangely, all the gold and the uranium and the rest of those resources just happened to be located in "white South Africa."

Anyway, the Bantustans served several purposes for the apartheid regime, but most significantly, they kept the black people where the government could keep an eye on them.

For much of the 1960s and 1970s, the French and South African governments remained on very good terms. France was apartheid South Africa's second-largest foreign partner and its collaborator in nuclear research and energy. Perhaps one of the things that bound the two regimes together was their mutual distrust of their "surplus populations," those undesirable foreigners, for whom they, apparently, had no use and no civil solution. That term, "undesirable foreigners," has its roots in the internments of the late 1930s and the Vichy years, when camps like Rivesaltes held those the state deemed unsuitable. As the historian of modern France Jeannette E. Miller notes, Rivesaltes was one of the more infamous of "the two hundred internment camps... that dotted the French countryside during the 'Dark Years,'" in part because it was "repurposed" by the post-war French government as a resettlement camp used to house harki immigrants. To be clear, the harki housing camps did not serve the same purpose as the Nazi transit camps, and they were not Bantustans, not even close. They were, however, brutal, ugly, depressing, and purposefully isolating. They were used by the French government to dispose of its unwelcome immigrants, the Algerians it felt a duty to resettle but whom it had no desire to integrate into French society.

These camps were also, in many ways, the antecedents to the nation's now-infamous banlieues.

Banlieues is a generic term identifying any suburb of any of France's major cities. But it's also a term that has been used more and more over the past couple of decades derogatorily, a term intended to convey the ugliness, poverty, and despair of the mostly African, mostly Muslim suburbs of Paris. These ghettos were created to be "utopias for workers," but, over time, came to be the place in which the descendants of African immigrants and other unwanted people are isolated. And they are almost entirely ignored by Parisian cosmopolitans - or at least they're mostly ignored, springing to mind only when their residents riot or commit acts of terror. The banlieues are where today's French keep their undesirables, their surplus population, the people whom they don't want to think about but would nevertheless like to keep an eye on. The banlieues are the places the French keep around because their minorities exist and, as Spike Milligan noted, everybody has to be somewhere.

For the last decade-plus, ever since the terror attacks at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, American journalists have flocked to the banlieues to tell their story and to demonstrate their true beauty as hubs of "diversity." These journalists' real goal, of course, is to prove conservatives wrong about the banlieues being "no-go zones." What they've done in reality, however, is prove something else altogether: namely that France is a pretty screwed-up country and one flirting for years with the type of violence it's currently enduring. One such profile, penned by The New Yorker's George Packer, gives a good sense of the conditions:

Ben Ahmed, who is thirty-nine, works as a liaison between residents and the local government in Bondy - a suburb northeast of Paris, in an area called Department 93. For decades, a bastion of the old working class and the Communist Party, the 93 is now known for its residents of Arab and African origin. To many Parisians, the 93 signifies decayed housing projects, crime, unemployment, and Muslims. France has all kinds of suburbs, but the word for them, banlieues, has become pejorative, meaning slums dominated by immigrants. Inside the banlieues are the cités: colossal concrete housing projects built during the postwar decades, in the Brutalist style of Le Corbusier. Conceived as utopias for workers, they have become concentrations of poverty and social isolation....

For all their vitality, the banlieues feel isolated from the city, and from France itself. Parisians and tourists rarely visit them, and residents complain that journalists drop in only to report on car burnings and drug shootings.... Many suburban residents, meanwhile, never even think of going to Paris. Compared with American slums, the banlieues have relatively decent standards of housing and safety, but the psychological distance between the 93 and the Champs-Elysées can feel insuperable - much greater than that between the Bronx and Times Square. The apartment blocks in the cités, often arranged around a pharmacy, a convenience store, and a fast-food joint, look inward. Many have no street addresses, obvious points of entry, or places to park. The sense of separation is heightened by the names of the surrounding streets and schools, preserved from a historical France that has little connection to residents' lives....

To be clear (again), the banlieues are not Bantustans. Nothing else really could be; nothing else really could compare to the Nationalist South Africans' ingenious depravity. At the same time, though, the similarities are striking - and telling. Conservative commentators mocked Sky News over the weekend for attributing the violence in France to "economic inequality." That's fair, but only up to a point. There is undoubtedly a meaningful economic component to the anger and frustration exploding throughout the country. That's not the lone cause, of course, but it's not insignificant. As for the "inequality" variable, that too is important. As angry and violent as some black South Africans are with their white countrymen today, imagine how much more frustrated and violent they'd be if the free world hadn't applied the pressure necessary to overturn apartheid.

Now apply that to France.

The Western world is, indeed, at risk from importing masses of migrants who are unwilling to assimilate. Again, that much is clear. Still, the lesson to learn from France right now is that assimilation doesn't happen by accident. To save themselves, the nations and peoples of the West must recover their civilizational self-confidence and must, as a result, make a much greater effort to assimilate their newcomers and their children - economically and culturally.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Wed, 10/21/2026 - 02:00

US, Japan Begin Major Military Exercises Focused On Islands Near Taiwan

Tyler Durden — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 03:50:00 +0000

US, Japan Begin Major Military Exercises Focused On Islands Near Taiwan

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com

The US and Japan kicked off their biennial Keen Sword military exercise on Monday, one of the largest joint drills between the two countries. This year, the exercise will focus on Japan’s southwestern islands, including its westernmost island, Yonaguni, just 68 miles east of Taiwan.

Both the US and Japan have deployed new anti-ship missile systems to Yonaguni for the drills, ratcheting up tensions with China.

Source: Military News Agency

US Marines have been deployed with the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS, which has a range of about 115 miles, putting vessels that patrol the coast of eastern Taiwan in range.

According to The Associated Press, Japan has deployed its first long-range Type-25 land-to-ship missile to the island. The Type-25 has a range of about 620 miles, making it capable of reaching mainland China from Yonaguni.

The US has also deployed a HIMARS rocket system to Ishigaki, about 150 miles from Taiwan, where the opening ceremony for Keen Sword took place.

HIMARS are capable of striking at a distance of up to 190 miles if they’re armed with the ATACMS missiles, but it’s unclear what type of ammunition the system was deployed with.

US Forces Japan said in a statement that the drill will involve 45,000 Japanese troops, 11,000 US troops, and forces from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the Philippines, along with observers from South Korea and the UK.

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert, told China's Global Times earlier this month that the deployment of a new US missile system in Yonaguni increases the risk of miscalculation between the US and China and that Beijing may respond by conducting its own military drills in the area.

The South China Morning Post previously reported that China has stepped up coast guard and naval activity east of Taiwan in response to maritime boundary talks announced in May between Japan and the Philippines.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 23:50

Mexico Accuses Ex-Chihuahua Attorney General Of Treason For Letting US Agents Join Cartel Lab Raid

Tyler Durden — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 03:25:00 +0000

Mexico Accuses Ex-Chihuahua Attorney General Of Treason For Letting US Agents Join Cartel Lab Raid

Mexican federal prosecutors have accused a former state attorney general of treason for allowing US agents to join a drug-lab raid, and they arrested him again within hours of a state judge ordering him not to be jailed. Federal agents took Cesar Jauregui Moreno into custody after a Chihuahua court hearing ended Sunday night, and he is being taken to Mexico City to face a federal judge, with a transfer to the Altiplano prison, El Universal reported.

Former Chihuahua prosecutor Cesar Jauregui arrives at the premises of Mexico’s Federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) to be questioned about the deaths of two CIA agents in a car crash following a security operation to dismantle a drug lab last month in Guachochi, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, May 27, 2026. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

Federal Attorney General Ernestina Godoy announced the case Saturday in a video message, saying the investigation found he "may have engaged in conduct that could possibly constitute the crime of treason" by allegedly letting foreigners "take part in actions that correspond exclusively to national security forces," Reuters reported. Prosecutors allege he allowed US agents into an "irregular" April raid on a suspected drug laboratory without the authorization Mexican law requires. Jauregui has not been convicted of anything, and his defense argues the case is politically motivated.

The raid is the one that left two Americans dead. Between April 17 and 19, state and federal authorities dismantled a synthetic-drug lab in El Pinal, in the Sierra Tarahumara. On the way back, a vehicle went off the road and into a ravine, killing the state investigations chief, Pedro Roman Oseguera Cervantes, another state agent, and two Americans, Reforma reported. The Associated Press reported, citing a US official and two other people familiar with the matter, that the Americans worked for the CIA. The US Embassy had described them only as personnel "supporting Chihuahua state authorities' efforts to combat cartel operations," and the embassy, State Department and CIA declined to confirm the agency.

Jauregui said on April 20 that the Americans had not taken part in the operation, according to Reforma. Prosecutors later documented four foreign agents who accompanied Oseguera during it. Jauregui resigned on April 27, acknowledging "omissions" in the information and in institutional control, and was later questioned by federal prosecutors as a witness. Mexico News Daily reported that he and Governor Maru Campos both denied wrongdoing, and that President Claudia Sheinbaum said the CIA officers acted without the federal government's knowledge, which she called a violation of Mexican law.

The state prosecutor's case, separate from the federal treason charge, is where the fight played out last weekend. Reforma reported that the state charges are illegal exercise of public service and "coalition," and that prosecutors say Jauregui ordered and coordinated the participation of four US agents in the raid, then hid their presence at a press conference by saying they were there for drone training. They presented about 20 witnesses and a protected witness. Judge Luis Alberto Simental Ortega refused their request to close the hearing on national-security grounds and excluded testimony from Guillermo Zuany Portillo, a former strategic-operations prosecutor who is himself a defendant with an arrest warrant out. Reforma said Jauregui told the judge he did not see the elements for the accusation against him.

The judge then refused to jail him before trial. Infobae reported that prosecutors argued he was a flight risk because of his foreign ties, and the judge answered that pretrial detention needs a specific justification and that his means alone did not show one. The conditions are surrendering his passport and US visa, signing in monthly and staying away from witnesses, and a hearing on whether to send the case to trial resumes Thursday, Oct. 22. Minutes after the ruling, Infobae said, the federal prosecutors served a treason warrant issued Saturday.

The US agents were returning from an operation to destroy illegal drug labs in the northern state of Chihuahua (Reuters)

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 23:25

The Pope's Tweet And The Quiet Suicide Of Order

Tyler Durden — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 03:00:00 +0000

The Pope's Tweet And The Quiet Suicide Of Order

Authored by Kyle McClay via American Thinker,

On the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Pope Leo XIV posted a short statement that will be quoted by every abolitionist group in the country: the death penalty is "inadmissible" because it attacks the "inviolability and dignity of the person."

Effective detention, he insists, can protect society while still leaving the guilty a chance at redemption.

The timing was not accidental. It arrived the day after Vatican officials and U.S. bishops condemned the planned execution of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood jihadist who murdered thirteen soldiers and wounded dozens more in 2009.

Read the words again. The Pope is not arguing that Hasan is innocent, that the military court erred, or that the evidence was thin. He is arguing that the state should permanently warehouse a man who opened fire on unarmed troops in the name of jihad, and that this warehouse arrangement is somehow more consistent with human dignity than a public, final reckoning. That is not a theological refinement. It is a leadership failure with civilizational consequences.

Empires do not usually fall because barbarians suddenly appear at the gates. They fall because their own leaders lose the nerve to name evil, punish it in public, and thereby teach the next generation that certain lines are never crossed. When the highest moral authority in the West treats the execution of a mass murderer as an attack on dignity, ordinary people notice. Criminals notice. The next Nidal Hasan notices. The message is simple: the worst thing you can do to the community is still preferable to the worst thing the community can do to you.

For most of human history this was not a complicated question. Public execution was not a carnival of blood for its own sake. It was a deliberate spectacle of order. The condemned was brought before the community that he had injured. The sentence was read. The act was carried out in daylight. Citizens saw, with their own eyes, that the law was not a suggestion and that the victims had not been forgotten. Children learned the difference between the protected and the outlawed. Potential killers calculated the odds and often chose differently. The point was not sadism. The point was clarity.

Modern practice has inverted the arrangement. We hide executions behind concrete walls and chemical protocols while broadcasting every detail of the crime and the killer's childhood. We spend decades in appeals so that the original victims' families die of old age before the sentence is carried out.

We then congratulate ourselves on our refinement. Meanwhile, in cities that have effectively abandoned capital punishment and aggressive policing, the body count among the innocent continues. The people who pay the price are not the theologians writing about dignity from a safe distance. They are the soldiers at Fort Hood, the shopkeepers in high-crime neighborhoods, and the children who grow up learning that the state will protect the rights of the predator more carefully than it will protect them.

The claim that "effective systems of detention" can replace the death penalty for the worst offenders is an empirical assertion that has been tested. It fails. Determined killers continue to kill inside prisons. They order hits, radicalize others, and consume enormous resources. More important, the deterrent effect is diluted when the worst sanction is invisible and endlessly delayed. A respectable public execution -- orderly, solemn, conducted with the full procedural protections of the law -- restores the missing signal. It tells the community that its rules are real. It tells the next would-be mass killer that some acts place a person permanently outside the protection of ordinary life.

Pope Leo XIV's position continues the 2018 change in the Catechism under his predecessor. That change did not rest on new revelation. It rested on a judgment that modern states no longer need the death penalty and that the dignity of the guilty must be treated as co-equal with the dignity of their victims. That judgment has not been vindicated by the data on recidivism, prison violence, or the behavior of ideological killers. It has been vindicated only by the preferences of elites who rarely live with the consequences of the policies they recommend.

Bad leadership is not always dramatic. Sometimes it arrives as a short post about dignity that quietly tells the public the state will no longer do the hard, public work of justice. Empires that accept that message eventually discover that the people they refused to protect no longer believe the empire is worth defending. The remedy is not complicated. Restore the death penalty for the most aggravated murders. Carry it out in public, under law, with the gravity the crime deserves. Teach again that some acts end the offender's claim on the community's mercy. The alternative is the slow, respectable collapse the Pope's statement quietly invites.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 23:00

US, Partners Seize Nearly 1,500 Pounds Of Cocaine In The Caribbean

Tyler Durden — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 02:10:00 +0000

US, Partners Seize Nearly 1,500 Pounds Of Cocaine In The Caribbean

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

A U.S. task force and foreign partners seized nearly 1,500 pounds of cocaine in two operations in the Caribbean Sea over the past week.

The first interdiction involved U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detecting a go-fast boat in the Caribbean, directing it to a port, and seizing about 562 pounds of cocaine, the Joint Interagency Task Force South said in an Oct. 15 post.

In the second interdiction, the Colombian Navy informed French Forces about another go-fast boat in the Caribbean Sea. One of the French frigates intercepted the vessel and seized roughly 917 pounds of cocaine, the Joint Interagency Task Force South said in an Oct. 16 post on X.

The Joint Interagency Task Force South's monitoring and detection efforts support U.S. Southern Command-led operations to dismantle narco-terrorist networks across the Eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. The task force is an international alliance of 13 domestic and 20 international partners.

The Caribbean is a "critical transshipment zone" for illegal drugs, mainly cocaine, according to a National Drug Control Strategy report issued by the White House. The region has a complex geography, with thousands of islands that offer ample cover for criminal groups to hide drug operations.

Criminal groups in the region use high-speed boats, submersibles, semi-submersibles, and low-profile vessels to transport cocaine, authorities said.

US Military Strikes

The Trump administration has been carrying out military strikes against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific for the past year. It has also designated several drug cartels and criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations.

The administration has said that the vessels it struck were shipping narcotics that were ultimately headed to the United States.

Critics have said the military strikes are illegal. In an Oct. 14 statement, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said that the attacks have killed at least 239 individuals since September last year.

The ACLU said that even if the vessels contained drugs, no international or domestic law authorizes using military force against criminal organizations, the advocacy group said, labeling the strikes as "premeditated killings of civilians" outside of an armed conflict scenario.

"We urge leaders in both Congress and the executive branch to finally end this illegal campaign before anyone else is killed," Jeff Stein, staff attorney with ACLU's National Security Project, said in the statement.

Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson justified the strikes in December last year, telling reporters that designated terror organizations operate the vessels.

The strikes have been thoroughly vetted by authorities and are aimed at defending American interests and protecting the country, Wilson said.

"Our operations in the Southcom region are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict," Wilson said. "These actions have also been approved by the best military and civilian lawyers up and down the chain of command."

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 22:10

Man Sells Everything, Travels 1,200 Miles To Meet Dream Woman, Only To Discover She's AI

Tyler Durden — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 01:45:00 +0000

Man Sells Everything, Travels 1,200 Miles To Meet Dream Woman, Only To Discover She's AI

A lovestruck man sold everything he owned and traveled more than 1,200 miles by bus to meet the woman of his dreams, only to discover the beautiful blonde he had fallen for was nothing more than an AI-generated fantasy, according to local media.

Edimar Rocha Martins, a 49-year-old bricklayer from Brazil, believed he had finally found true love after becoming infatuated with a social media account belonging to a stunning blonde named Jéssica Oliveira, also known as Jéssica Fazendeira.

The profile portrayed her as a wealthy farmer searching for a husband, featuring videos of an idyllic countryside lifestyle and promises of romance, financial security and a comfortable home.

Watch video

Martins first discovered the account in 2020 and became convinced Oliveira was the woman he wanted to marry.

Determined to find his supposed soulmate, he reportedly sold his possessions, emptied his savings and embarked on a grueling 36-hour bus journey to Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

However, his romantic adventure quickly turned into a nightmare. Martins wandered the streets showing strangers photographs of Oliveira, desperately hoping someone could help him track her down. Martins eventually approached a local radio station, where staff delivered the crushing revelation that the woman he had traveled so far to meet did not actually exist.

"I went to the radio station there, and they said no, that's fake news, that woman doesn't exist," Martins recalled in an interview with TV Mirante.

Vende todo y viaja 2.000 kilómetros por una mujer que resulta ser una IA Edimar Rocha Martins, de 49 años, aseguró que jamás sospechó de una estafa porque nunca le pidieron dinero; por el contrario, le prometieron apoyo económico. https://t.co/fXYCeOiI1l
— aapayés (@aapayes) October 19, 2026

The person behind Oliveira's account later acknowledged that the blonde bombshell was entirely artificial, explaining that the profile had been created to attract online engagement and promote products.

The operator denied ever communicating directly with Martins or inviting him to visit.

Stranded without money and with nowhere to turn, the devastated bricklayer sought assistance from local authorities, who helped arrange his journey home.

"It only brings sadness, discouragement, depression. Many people wanted to find a relationship, so I came," Martins said.

"I sold all my things, I got rid of everything," he added. "That's how you get discouraged, who wouldn't get discouraged?"

Yet despite having his romantic dreams shattered, Martins said he wasn't giving up on finding love.

"I didn't find her, but I'll find another one, and it will be in the same place I went, and I'll go again," he declared.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 21:45

Hacker Copied Records Of Millions Of California Students Through Education Contractor ETS

Tyler Durden — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 01:20:00 +0000

Hacker Copied Records Of Millions Of California Students Through Education Contractor ETS

Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The California Department of Education said Friday that a hacker accessed the data of millions of students by exploiting the system of a nonprofit contractor that works with the state. The data included students' names, birth dates, addresses, and disability status.

The California Department of Education in Sacramento on April 18, 2022. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Educational Testing Service (ETS) began notifying students and families on Oct. 16 of the breach, which involved an unauthorized party using a compromised login to copy records from a secure file transfer site between May 22 and Sept. 18.

More than 5.7 million students were enrolled in California during the 2025-2026 school year.

"ETS takes the security of student information with the utmost seriousness, and sincerely regrets that this incident occurred," the department said in a statement.

The department is sending out ETS's Notice of Data Breach so families get details on the incident and available help. After learning of the breach, the department and the State Board of Education worked with state cybersecurity partners and ETS to assess what happened and prepare the notices.

ETS discovered unauthorized activity on Sept. 25 on a secure file-transfer site used to share California assessment data with the state. It disabled the account, took the site offline, and brought in outside cybersecurity experts.

Investigators found that someone used a compromised login to access the site and copy files at various times between May 22 and Sept. 18. The files covered California students, including those enrolled in the three previous school years.

Information that may have been copied includes student names, dates of birth, addresses, schools, grade levels, Statewide Student Identifiers, demographic details, disability and program participation status, and assessment records.

Social Security numbers, financial account information, passwords, and parent or guardian details were not involved.

The notice of data breach is available online in 27 languages on the California Department of Education website and provides additional details about the incident and the identity-protection services.

The department and the State Board of Education are reviewing the incident and ETS's compliance with applicable data security and contractual requirements. ETS has taken the old site offline and built a new one with stronger security controls. Regular monitoring has not found evidence that the information has been posted publicly.

California school systems have previously had data breaches. The cyberattack that hit the Los Angeles Unified School District in September 2022 involved hackers accessing about 2,000 sensitive student records.

A ransomware group stole a portion of the district's records and threatened to publish the information unless a ransom was paid. When superintendent Alberto Carvalho refused, the group published the data online weeks later.

Student data was stolen from the Long Beach Unified School District's records system and posted online, district officials said in an email to parents Feb. 22.

Information including student identification numbers, names, and email addresses was compromised, the district said in the email.

However, it noted that sensitive student and staff information, such as addresses, Social Security numbers, birthdates, and grades, was not compromised in the leak.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 21:20

"Big Tent" Backfires: Dem Rep Claims DSA Sent Her White Powder And Warned Of Impending "Civil War"

Tyler Durden — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:55:00 +0000

"Big Tent" Backfires: Dem Rep Claims DSA Sent Her White Powder And Warned Of Impending "Civil War"

U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Grand Rapids) is getting a taste of what happens when her "big tent" party fails to curb far-left extremism within its own ranks and is consumed by Marxist revolutionaries from the Democratic Socialists of America.

Here's what Scholten claims:

Today, I received a threatening letter at my Grand Rapids, Michigan office that contained unidentified white powder. The letter, which claimed to be from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), made a direct and specific reference to an impending "civil war" beginning after the election.

The letter sent to my office is similar to those received at other congressional offices across the country. The DSA has not yet addressed the attacks, either to condemn them or to take or deny responsibility. The Grand Rapids Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) responded immediately.

Threats and extremism are not signs of strength—they are signs of a weak mind and weak character. Political intimidation has no place in our democracy, and leaders must condemn it, not excuse it. I'll keep standing up to bullies on the right and the left.

Today, I received a threatening letter at my Grand Rapids, Michigan office that contained unidentified white powder. The letter, which claimed to be from the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), made a direct and specific reference to an impending “civil war” beginning after the election. The letter sent to my office is similar to those received at other congressional offices across the country. The DSA has not yet addressed the attacks, either to condemn them or to take or deny responsibility. The Grand Rapids Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) responded immediately. Threats and extremism are not signs of strength—they are signs of a weak mind and weak character. Political intimidation has no place in our democracy, and leaders must condemn it, not excuse it. I’ll keep standing up to bullies on the right and the left.
— Congresswoman Hillary Scholten (@RepScholten) October 16, 2026

X users responded to Scholten's revelation.

"When you refuse to endorse a Memeber of the Muslim Brotherhood for senate, you will be the target for violence. Welcome to your party."

When you refuse to endorse a Memeber of the Muslim Brotherhood for senate, you will be the target for violence. Welcome to your party.
— Patty Girl X’d 🇺🇸☘️ (@PerspicaciousXY) October 17, 2026

"The DSA are violent terrorists so this shouldn't come as a surprise. But this is the Democrat base at this point."

The DSA are violent terrorists so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. But this is the Democrat base at this point.
— captive dreamer (@captive_dreamer) October 17, 2026

"The Democrat party of JFK is dead and has been taken over by Communists and Jihadists who seek to destroy our Republic. Continuing to identify with the Democrats means you are supportive of the party agenda. Time to decide where you stand."

The Democrat party of JFK is dead and has been taken over by Communists and Jihadists who seek to destroy our Republic. Continuing to identify with the Democrats means you are supportive of the party agenda.
Time to decide where you stand.
— 🍊ONLY LEGAL VOTES COUNT🇺🇸 (@Elisa_freedom) October 17, 2026

"Your party created DSA. Your monster has started to turn on you."

Your party created DSA. Your monster has started to turn on you
— Senator Beauregard Claghorn (@SenBeauClaghorn) October 17, 2026

The Democratic Party's "big tent" messaging in the latter parts of teh summer appears designed to prevent a civil war before the midterms. After the election, that truce could quickly unravel as establishment leaders try to reassert control over their party while DSA radicals push for more power.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 20:55

Controversial Map In Netanyahu Briefing Triggers Wave Of Speculation

Tyler Durden — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:30:00 +0000

Controversial Map In Netanyahu Briefing Triggers Wave Of Speculation

Via Middle East Eye

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a map of the wider Middle East showing his country and the UAE aligned with a paramilitary in Sudan accused of committing genocide, and separatists in Libya, Yemen and Somaliland.

The map, which carried the logo of Germany's Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Institute, will not surprise regional watchers, but it could prove awkward for some of Israel's regional partners and cement suspicions among Arab states.

Israel and the UAE were shown as part of a "Hexagon Alliance". The map showed Greece, Ethiopia and parts of India aligned with them. But it also showed a swath of southwestern Sudan as friendly to the UAE and Israel.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) control southwestern Sudan. United Nations experts and dozens of media reports, including from Middle East Eye, have revealed extensive Emirati support for the Sudanese paramilitary, which is led by former Janjaweed leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and has been widely accused of committing genocide in Darfur. The UAE has officially denied backing the RSF.

The map was part of Netanyahu’s unveiling on Sunday of a new security doctrine that emphasizes preemptive strikes and the establishment of "buffer zones" on Israel’s borders.

"The War of Redemption necessitated an upgrade of fundamental principles within the traditional national security doctrine, among them: giving priority to prevention and offense over containment and defense, including launching preemptive strikes to thwart evolving threats; strengthening home front defense against new threats; cementing Israel's status as a regional power," Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Sunday.

"Opportunities have been created for forging new alliances in our region and beyond," the statement added.

'Sunni Diamond Alliance'

The map Netanyahu shared shows Israel aligned with secessionist groups while framing its oldest Arab treaty partners as countries not considered friendly to Israel. The map did not show Egypt and Jordan as aligned with Israel.

Instead, it marked Egypt as part of a "Sunni diamond alliance" with Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia; it showed Jordan, whose peace treaty with Israel dates back to 1994, as "friendly" to the alliance.

Netanyahu's public presentation is likely to raise concerns among critics about Israel’s support for secessionist groups and the partition of fragile states. He showed a government in eastern Libya controlled by Khalifa Haftar to be aligned with Israel.

Netanyahu: I established the ground barrier between Israel and Africa along the Egyptian border. It was primarily a barrier against infiltration. Otherwise, there would already be another million Muslims here, and we would have been flooded like Europe. https://t.co/kpNrkiYjjG
— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 18, 2026

Yemen's Southern Transitional Council, a UAE-backed separatist movement that dissolved in January 2026 and re-emerged as the Transitional Council of South Arabia, was also shown on the map as being friendly towards Israel and the UAE

Israel became the first country to recognize Somaliland earlier this year. Somaliland is a breakaway republic of Somalia where Israel and the UAE have been expanding their military presence, according to multiple media reports.

Netanyahu’s map showed how Israel sees its security as part of a broader region extending well beyond the Arab world.

He showed Greece and Ethiopia as "friendly" states. The latter is on the verge of a full-scale war with Eritrea, where Israel has long coveted a Red Sea military base, MEE has reported.

Netanyahu's map also reaffirmed the longstanding ties between Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran as part of an "Axis of Resistance".

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 20:30

The Billionaire Couple Quietly Spending Millions To "Reinvent" The Democrat Party

Tyler Durden — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:05:00 +0000

The Billionaire Couple Quietly Spending Millions To "Reinvent" The Democrat Party

A billionaire hedge fund couple is dumping millions into a high-stakes effort to push the Democratic Party away from its increasingly radical left flank and challenge its entrenched leadership.

Steve and Sue Mandel, wealthy Democrat donors from Greenwich, Connecticut, have committed at least $20 million to a network of political groups aimed at elevating more moderate candidates, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal.

Hedge-fund billionaires Sue and Steve Mandel. (via WSJ)

Their operation includes at least three organizations designed to confront the party's existing power structure and potentially reshape Democratic politics ahead of the 2028 presidential election. At the center is Majority Democrats, which is working to boost candidates who can appeal beyond the party's progressive base.

Another group, The Bench, focuses on identifying and backing rising political talent, while the Searchlight Institute is crafting more centrist policy ideas in hopes of making Democrats competitive again nationally.

The couple is taking an unusually hands-on role, closely tracking campaigns and working with Seth London, a seasoned Democrat consulanted who served a stint in the Obama White House as Legislative Assistant and Associate Director. The billionaire couple's effort has already drawn additional funding from political and media power players, including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and James Murdoch, according to the Journal.

The effort underscores growing frustration among some deep-pocketed Democratic donors who argue the party has lost touch with ordinary voters and desperately needs an overhaul. Rather than demanding ideological purity, the Mandel-backed groups are prioritizing candidates with strong personal stories and proven ability to win elections.

However, as the Journal points out, the Mandels' political investments have not always paid off:

During this year's Senate race in Michigan, it threw its support behind Mallory McMorrow, a telegenic state senator and self-described "pragmatist" who had been a client of Smith's.

McMorrow dropped out less than a month before the primary, and Abdul El-Sayed, from the party's left, won. Democrats who didn't support El-Sayed traded blame. Proponents of The Bench criticized Washington groups for helping the other moderate candidate, Haley Stevens.

A former Stevens adviser had the opposite takeaway: The Bench had made the race more costly and complicated.

Addtionally, critics on the far left were quick to dismiss the effort.

"The Mandels' approach represents the same Democratic establishment with some new seasoning on top," said Usamah Andrabi, spokesman for the far-left Justice Democrats, told the Journal. "That's simply not what the party's voters are looking for right now."

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 20:05

Bolivia's Energy Crisis Deepens As Natural Gas Reserves Run Dry

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 23:40:00 +0000

Bolivia's Energy Crisis Deepens As Natural Gas Reserves Run Dry

Authored by Felicity Bradstock via OilPrice,

Bolivia's dwindling natural gas reserves and declining exports have undermined its economy and intensified fuel shortages.
Rising global energy prices and subsidy cuts have increased living costs and fueled widespread protests.
A $1.9 billion IMF rescue package and energy-sector reforms aim to stabilize the economy, but long-term recovery requires diversification.

Years of underinvestment in Bolivia's gas industry have left the South American country facing a severe fuel shortage, as energy prices rise ever higher owing to the ongoing war in Iran. The energy shortages and economic crisis follow years of poor decision-making by the government.

In 2006, then-president Evo Morales took control of Bolivia's fossil fuel industry, renegotiating contracts with international oil and gas companies and benefiting from the revenue. Much of the country's newfound wealth was invested in public spending programs, expensive fuel subsidies, and the maintenance of a fixed currency exchange rate pegged to the U.S. dollar. Fossil fuel revenues contributed heavily to Bolivia's economy for several years, supporting GDP expansion and the development of social programs that helped halve poverty rates.

For many years, Bolivian's were led to believe that they had more extensive gas supplies than they actually did. However, in recent years, Bolivia's fossil fuel sector has suffered as reserves have dwindled and no successful gas discoveries have occurred. As of April, Bolivia has an estimated 3.7 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves. The fall in gas production led exports to fall by almost 60 percent over the last decade. Bolivia continues to rely heavily on natural gas, which accounts for around 70 percent of its electricity mix.

Meanwhile, little progress has been made in developing the country's green energy sector, leaving it facing severe energy shortages. The fall in gas revenues has left the economy suffering terribly, as inflation soars and the price of imported goods becomes ever more unaffordable. Luis Fernando Romero, the former head of an association of economists in southern Bolivia, stated, "We failed to take advantage of a historic opportunity that brought in immense revenue."

This situation is not uncommon, with many other oil-rich states having had similar experiences. Several Middle Eastern states have long depended on oil and gas revenues for economic growth, and most have only recently announced plans to diversify their economies to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Several countries across the MENA region announced new economic strategies following greater talk of a global green transition, which could leave them missing out on vital oil revenues if they don't take moves to diversify and invest in value-added sectors.

The lack of investment in Bolivia's other domestic sectors has left it struggling to stay afloat as it runs out of fuel and is forced to pay high fuel import costs. President Rodrigo Paz warned that "International prices are forcing us to make complex choices."

In September, Bolivia's Congress approved a $1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), even though the terms of the deal require the government to impose strict austerity measures that could fuel social unrest. The loan received approval from the IMF's Executive Board on October 2, and the government will now be required to cut its fuel subsidies and significantly reduce public spending. It has already increased fuel prices and is expected to scrap further gasoline subsidies from the beginning of next year. The loan is expected to unlock up to $4 billion more in financing from the World Bank and other lenders.

However, there are major concerns that the new financial plan will significantly increase the cost of living for households already struggling. Last December, the government reduced fuel subsidies, leaving little support for the most vulnerable Bolivians. This led to widespread protests as people called for President Paz's resignation. In February, there was further social unrest after the distribution of poor-quality gasoline ruined thousands of vehicles. Then, in June and July, several weeks of road blockades by protesters occurred.

Meanwhile, to tackle the ongoing fuel shortages, Bolivia's government announced plans in September to triple the fund financing refined fuel purchases, following similar announcements by Peru and Ecuador. This is expected to help mitigate diesel shortages and rising prices. Both Peru and Ecuador have increased fuel subsidies in recent months and are focusing on increasing production at state oil refineries to alleviate the price pressure of expensive fuel imports.

In July, Bolivia's Energy Minister Marcelo Blanco announced that the government had authorized the private sector to import and sell refined fuels to mitigate severe shortages. Then, in September, the government said that the state hydrocarbons firm plans to focus on exploration, extraction, and refining to continue developing Bolivia's gas resources. However, experts warn that Bolivia could become a net fossil gas importer by around 2030.

As Bolivia continues to battle fuel shortages and seeks to support economic recovery by borrowing from international organizations, the government must focus on diversifying the economy by developing other value-added sectors to sustain long-term growth. In addition, the government must also develop Bolivia's renewable energy sources to reduce dependence on expensive fuel imports and ensure the country's energy security.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 19:40

Japan's Electricity Prices Surge 25% As LNG And Coal Costs Soar

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 22:50:00 +0000

Japan's Electricity Prices Surge 25% As LNG And Coal Costs Soar

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice,

Japan's average power prices jumped by over 25% at the start of this week from the previous week amid soaring LNG and higher coal prices.

The nationwide power price rose by over 25% week-to-week to $0.19 (31.15 Japanese yen) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) on Monday, Bloomberg reported, citing data from Japan Electric Power Exchange.

Japan, one of the world's biggest LNG importers, this summer reduced gas-fired generation in favor of coal as the price of liquefied natural gas remained elevated.

Japan has been burning more coal and less gas for power generation since the war in the Middle East started, and it is not the only one. All Asian countries have made the switch from gas to coal on affordability and availability grounds.

Moreover, surging oil prices have led to a significant increase in Japan's import bill for oil and LNG.

LNG prices surged in Asia to a four-year high as very few cargoes manage to exit the Strait of Hormuz while competition with Europe for winter supply is intensifying.

The average spot LNG price for delivery into north-east Asia in December was assessed at $29.30 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) at the end of last week. This was the highest spot LNG price for Asia since December 2022, and sharply higher compared to $26.50 per MMBtu assessed in the previous week.

As a result, Japan's gas-fueled power generation is the most expensive in years.

The switch to coal, for its part, has also had its cost challenges this year. Increased demand in Asia amid reduced supply from the top thermal coal exporter, Indonesia, is driving up coal prices, too. The global benchmark for coal prices, the Newcastle futures, have jumped by 30% compared to pre-war levels.

Power prices in Japan have also jumped this month due to scheduled maintenance at some power-generating facilities ahead of winter.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 18:50

Feds Using DNA To Probe Ilhan Omar 'Married Her Brother' Claim, Eye Conspiracy Charge: Report

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 22:25:00 +0000

Feds Using DNA To Probe Ilhan Omar 'Married Her Brother' Claim, Eye Conspiracy Charge: Report

Federal prosecutors plan to use DNA evidence in their criminal investigation of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), people familiar with the probe told the New York Post on Monday. One source said the DNA is critical to proving the long-running allegation that Omar's 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi was a marriage to her brother, made so he could get a green card he never received. Omar has denied the claim since 2016, no charges have been filed, and the Justice Department has not confirmed any DNA evidence.

The DNA report is the latest turn in a probe that went public a week ago, when Homeland Security Investigations agents searched Omar's Washington home on Oct. 12. Agents also seized Omar's phone, and more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas have gone out, some to her relatives, a source told the Associated Press. The grand jury is collecting evidence in Minnesota, where the U.S. Attorney's Office opened the case. Omar called the search an "attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement" and said, "I will not be silenced."

The Post's sources did not say whether the DNA was collected before or after the search. One of them pushed back on earlier reports that investigators went "dumpster diving" for swabs of Omar, Elmi or family members. Reporter Leland Vittert had said on Saturday that agents had done just that, before the raid:

Multiple sources have confirmed to me that federal agents went dumpster diving to get DNA from Minnesota Congresswoman @IlhanMN and her family before the raid on her D.C. home earlier this week. Our reporting suggests investigations go far beyond simple immigration fraud. NewsNation sources say the likely coming indictments will be stunning in nature and far beyond anything the public has understood the case to be about.
— Leland Vittert (@LelandVittert) October 17, 2026

Two other sources told the Post that the search, the DNA and other evidence give prosecutors a solid basis to bring a charge of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud before a grand jury. A conspiracy charge would let prosecutors allege overt acts that fall outside the statute of limitations, former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told the Post. He said prosecutors could pursue a conspiracy case that would likely fall within a 10-year limit, or a civil case, which has none, and that the warrant would not have been executed unless it had "come from the highest levels of the DOJ."

That fits the warrant. A person familiar with the document told The Washington Post that it lists potential charges of conspiracy, immigration fraud and false statements. Investigators are also looking at whether Omar or her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, misstated her birth date on immigration paperwork so she could derive citizenship through him when he naturalized in 2000. Rahmani called her late father "an unindicted co-conspirator." The Justice Department has not released the affidavit.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, whose department's agents carried out the search, said on Oct. 16 that "multiple other warrants" were served the same day. "We had a judge sign it, and we expect to be able to take the case to a grand jury," he told the Charlie Kirk Show, according to CBS News.

The marriage and the birth-date theory lead to different places. A marriage-fraud conviction would not threaten Omar's own citizenship the way a false-statements case would, the New York Post noted, and stripping the citizenship of a sitting member of Congress would be unprecedented. Border czar Tom Homan said over the weekend that the government has built "a strong case" that could lead the administration to seek denaturalization. As we reported, the Wall Street Journal had already said officials wanted to revoke her citizenship and deport her, and agents reportedly secured her passport in the search.

D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, whose office is separately examining Omar's House financial disclosures, told Fox News that "that judge would not have signed that warrant unless there was probable cause." Those disclosures cut Omar's reported net worth by tens of millions of dollars in a year, which the Post attributed to an unexplained accounting "discrepancy."

Omar's lawyers, Amy Jeffress and Joshua Matz, answered last week with a letter to the Justice Department demanding the "immediate return" of everything seized. They wrote that agents ignored a magistrate judge's "special requests" for carrying out the search and broke longstanding DOJ policy by acting so close to an election, and that President Trump has "made no secret" of wanting to target her. A DOJ spokesperson called the letter "riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies" and said leaking it was "a publicity play." Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on House Judiciary, had already called the search "blatant political intimidation," coming 22 days before the Nov. 3 election. Former federal prosecutor Jim Trusty told Fox News the warrant shows "at least probable cause," but that it is "a long way off from proving a case at trial."

The marriage record at the heart of the DNA claim is tangled. Omar and Elmi divorced in 2017, and she gave birth to her third child while legally married to him. Her marriage to Ahmed Hirsi was not legally entered into until after her divorce from Elmi was finalized, the Post reported, although the two had a Muslim ceremony in 2002. She filed joint taxes with Hirsi in 2014 and 2015 while still legally married to Elmi, from whom she had separated in 2011. Elmi, who lives in the UK, applied for a marriage-based green card and withdrew it in 2019 when immigration officials asked for more evidence, according to The Washington Post, which also quoted a former immigration official saying the brother claim was investigated during Trump's first term without enough evidence to go forward. Omar divorced Hirsi in 2019 and married political consultant Tim Mynett.

We reported last week that her staff asked Minnesota's legislative library in 2019 to change her birth year, and that Mynett snapped at a reporter over rumors she had fled the country. Mynett has said only that his wife "came here when she was 12 years old as a child war refugee." Her lawyers say there is "no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status."

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 18:25

$270 Million In Suspicious Student Aid Fraud Flagged By Treasury

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 22:00:00 +0000

$270 Million In Suspicious Student Aid Fraud Flagged By Treasury

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has discovered roughly $270 million in suspicious financial activity likely associated with student aid program fraud.

FinCEN issued an alert in July asking financial institutions to report suspicious activities linked to student aid fraud.

A review of submitted reports identified more than 20,000 potentially suspicious transactions since February this year. FinCEN has reported approximately $270 million in suspected fraud to federal investigators for further investigation, the Treasury said in an Oct. 19 statement.

"Federal student aid is intended to expand educational opportunities, not line the pockets of fraudsters who steal from students pursuing their education and hardworking taxpayers," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the statement.

"Treasury is working with financial institutions and law enforcement to identify these fraud schemes, recover stolen funds, and hold those responsible accountable."

The department said it was working with the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, headed by Vice President JD Vance, and encouraging whistleblowers to report fraud-related information.

In an example of educational fraud, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced last month that a Detroit man was sentenced to 92 months in federal prison for fraud schemes, including one that targeted federal student aid programs.

The man and others submitted fraudulent student aid claims for more than 1,200 individuals, collecting more than $10 million before being caught, the DOJ said. The fraud spanned 100 schools across more than 20 states.

In March, the DOJ said a former professor admitted to stealing government funds through a scam involving fraudulent student financial aid applications. More than 100 such false applications were filed across several universities and colleges in Texas.

Education Aid Schemes

The Treasury detailed some of the federal student aid fraud schemes in its statement. For instance, "ghost student" schemes involve criminals stealing an individual's personal information and using it to enroll as a student in classes. The victim often never realizes that a third party is collecting student aid in their name.

In "straw student" schemes, fraudsters pay real people to enroll in classes and collect financial aid in their names. In some cases, corrupt school employees may be part of these schemes.

"Student aid fraud has real consequences for students and American taxpayers. It drains finite grant resources from deserving students, potentially prevents legitimate students from enrolling in classes occupied by fraudulent enrollees, and can leave identity theft victims responsible for debts they never incurred," the Treasury said.

In July, the Department of Education held a first-of-its-kind Higher Education Fraud Summit, with participants discussing ways to tackle fraud in the sector.

"We have already prevented nearly $2 billion in attempted federal student aid fraud from going to bad actors. Every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar taken away from a student trying to build a better future," Underssecretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement.

In an October 2025 update, the University of Alaska warned students to protect themselves from student aid fraud. Specifically, the university said that students should share their personal information only with trusted, secure websites.

The university recommended that students regularly monitor their credit for any unusual or new activity and report any identity theft or other suspicious activity.

"Treat digital content, like emails, texts, voicemails, and website content, with increased scrutiny, especially if the materials or resources they provide or advertise seem too good to be true or appear designed to create a sense of urgency," the university said.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 18:00

The Great Rare Earth Disconnect: Prices Up 23%, Miners Down 28%

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 21:40:00 +0000

The Great Rare Earth Disconnect: Prices Up 23%, Miners Down 28%

Here is a question that should be harder to answer than it is: China still controls the rare earth spigot, the latest Trump-Xi summit did nothing to loosen its grip, Japan is about to run out of yttrium, Washington has put a $110/kg floor under NdPr, and Western buyers are paying anywhere from 5x to 346x the Chinese price for heavy rare earths.

So why are rare earth stocks down on the year?

That is the question Canaccord's critical minerals team led by Reg Spencer asks in an overnight note titled "Rare Earths: Equity disconnect from strong market fundamentals", and the answer is blunt:

Given our favourable SxD outlook, floor pricing, recent pricing stability (NdPr), and Western pricing premiums (particularly for heavies), we think recent equity performance has been driven more so by global macro factors and highlights a disconnection from rare earth market fundamentals.

In other words, the commodity is acting like a strategic asset and the stocks are trading like a risk-off casualty. The numbers are stark: year to date, the ex-China NdPr price is up 23%, while Canaccord's rare earth developers are down 17% on average and its producers are down 28%.

We have been tracking the rare earth theme since long before China started rationing exports to the West in late 2024, and back in July 2025 we laid out "The Coming Rare Earth Revolution And How To Profit", flagging MP Materials as the stock best positioned to benefit. A few hours later the Pentagon announced its MP deal, and well we allowed ourselves a modest victory lap:

Last night we said MP is the stock best positioned to capitalize on the rare earth revolution. Up 43% this morning
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 10, 2025

Fifteen months later, MP trades at $40.17, about half of Canaccord's $82 target. So what happened?

The Chart That Says It All

Canaccord's chart below shows the problem in one picture. Chinese NdPr (black) and Rotterdam NdPr (dark blue) have converged and climbed steadily all year, with the Western price now above $110/kg. Meanwhile the REMX ETF (light blue) peaked in May and has since slid from above $100 to the high-$50s.

The carnage is broad. On the producer side, Lynas, MP, USA Rare Earth and Iluka are all deep in the red, and even China Northern Rare Earth and Shenghe are lower on the year. Diversification at its finest.

Developers did a bit better on average, mostly thanks to Viridis (VMM), which is still up well over 50% on the year. Strip that out and the picture is grim: Hastings is down roughly two-thirds, St George about half, and Arafura and Brazilian Rare Earths 35-50%.

Canaccord's verdict: "We question how equities have performed so poorly YTD despite strong underlying market fundamentals." Those fundamentals include recent sector M&A, direct government support, a scarcity of Western supply and "ex-China NdPr pricing up 23% YTD."

The Floor Works... Just Ask China

Start with the most important structural change of the past year. As we reported when the Department of Defense set a price floor last August, Washington has moved from financing Western supply to underwriting its economics. Canaccord tallies the floors: US$110/kg NdPr for MP (DoD), Lynas (Japan, US, plus upside sharing) and USA Rare Earth, which also gets US$575/kg for dysprosium and US$2,050/kg for terbium.

And the floor has done something nobody expected: it has tamed the Chinese price too. For years Beijing used export quotas, policy changes and, more recently, export controls to whipsaw NdPr from about $175/kg down to around $50 and back again. Over the past 10 months, Canaccord notes, Chinese pricing has "begun to normalise around the US$110/kg floor price level."

Put differently, the volatility that made rare earth projects unbankable has largely vanished, and yet investors are paying less for those projects than they did in January.

Two Markets, Two Prices

NdPr is now a one-price market, more or less. Everything heavier is a different story. Since Beijing started rationing heavies, the West has developed its own (thin, opaque) price for anything China won't ship, and the gaps are absurd. Rotterdam dysprosium sits around $1,074/kg vs $227 in China, and terbium at $4,594 vs $983.

But Dy and Tb are the tame ones. Canaccord now forecasts yttrium, gadolinium and samarium for the first time, and the Western premiums there are almost comical. Chinese yttrium oxide has averaged about $8/kg over the past five years, while European spot is "~US$740/kg", a premium of 85x, and "some price reporting agencies have quoted US prices of up to US$1,750/kg." Gadolinium trades about 10x China in Baltimore, with US CIF quotes as high as $3,100/kg.

We ran Canaccord's own spot price table through the calculator, and here is what the "dual market" looks like element by element. CIF North America samarium, used in the SmCo magnets that go into missiles, fighter jets and radar, trades at 346 TIMES THE CHINESE PRICE!

And the squeeze is very real. Just this morning the FT reported that Japan has made an urgent request to Washington and global companies to help resolve its yttrium crisis, warning of a severe shortage by year-end. "Inventories are plummeting," one official said. Per Argus, yttrium oxide costs about $9/kg in China and roughly $1,150/kg outside it, a 179-fold jump in two years. A senior US official added that China is shipping the US just two-thirds of the rare earths it promised under last October's truce, and Japan "only the bare minimum." That followed last month's Trump-Xi summit, where China pledged to buy US coal but fell short on rare earths, and the two sides settled for a two-month truce that markets promptly faded.

To be fair, Canaccord is careful here. It notes the ex-China DyTb market was just 151 tonnes in 2025, and China's was 22x larger. It warns that Western premiums "should be viewed cautiously" and that "we question whether pricing is sustainable at these levels," with some magnet makers already pivoting to lower-cost ferrite magnets. Its own price deck has ex-China yttrium falling from $740/kg this year to $100 by 2030. Still, even the bank's haircut numbers leave Western producers with integrated separation (it names Lynas and MP) earning premiums nobody would have modeled two years ago.

Demand Goes Up, Again

Meanwhile the demand side keeps getting revised higher. Canaccord now sees NdFeB magnet demand growing at a 7.3% CAGR to ~365,000 tonnes by 2035, 15% above its prior update. EVs remain the anchor (52 million units by 2035 vs 23.5 million in 2026), but the bank has added data centers (motors for cooling), e-bikes and scooters, and drones. Drones are only ~1% of forecast demand, but the bank notes that Ukrainian and Russian military drone production alone was estimated at ~9 million units, so "our model forecasts may prove conservative."

Then there are the robots. Canaccord models humanoid deliveries growing at a 45% CAGR to 2.5 million units by 2035, and points out that Tesla is reportedly preparing an Optimus line designed for 1 million robots a year. For comparison, global EV sales rose more than 4,600% from 2014 to 2024. Maybe the robot curve won't look like that... but if it does, the magnet math gets very ugly very quickly.

Netting it all out, Canaccord sees the global NdPr market in deficit through 2028 (about 7% short this year), roughly balanced in 2029-31 as Eneabba, Kangankunde, Caldeira, White Mesa and the Lynas expansions come online, and then sliding back into a deeper deficit: -10% by 2035. Dy+Tb follows the same shape, ending at a 12% deficit.

The West's Blind Spot

The bulls' case gets even stronger once you look past the mines. Canaccord forecasts ex-China NdFeB magnet capacity rising more than 300% by 2030 to about 70,000 tonnes, which sounds impressive until you realize it would still be only 23% of global capacity, with China at ~77%.

And the West may not even get there, because it is missing a step. Global NdFeB metallisation and alloying capacity is about 210,000 tonnes in 2026, and more than 90% of it is Chinese controlled. Ex-China capacity is set to roughly double to 38,000 tonnes by 2030, which falls well short of planned Western magnet capacity. Canaccord calls metallisation "a major blind spot in western supply chain development", and its channel checks found lead times of up to two years for strip casters, "with sourcing from China impossible under current export controls."

This echoes ING's warning, which we covered two weeks ago, that China's rare earth chokehold may outlast this decade because the bottleneck is "industrial rather than geological." Canaccord's conclusion is just as stark: "our research points to China maintaining market dominance, with shortfalls in Western supply (and likelihood of ongoing Chinese export controls) supporting bifurcated markets and pricing premiums."

Translation: the scarcity premium for anything mined, separated or metallised outside China is a structural feature that will be around for years, and the companies capturing it are trading as if it will be gone by next quarter.

Wall Street Is Paying 50 Cents On The Dollar

Which brings us to valuation. Canaccord's producer coverage trades at an average 0.57x P/NAV and its developers at 0.47x. On the bank's targets, MP has 104% upside, Lynas 108% (target raised to A$23), USA Rare Earth 204% and Energy Fuels 150%, even after Canaccord cut its EFR target to C$30 on project delays.

The rating changes: Meteoric (MEI) goes to Hold from Spec Buy, since its value is now tied to Lynas' all-scrip takeover at 0.0207 LYC shares per MEI share. (Lynas shares fell almost 8% the day that deal was announced, another reminder that this market keeps punishing consolidation.) Hastings (HAS) goes to Spec Buy from Hold "on valuation", even though its target was cut to A$0.30 from A$0.55, which tells you just how far the stock has fallen.

Of course, price targets have a habit of following prices rather than leading them, and at least some of the selloff has a perfectly sensible explanation: these are long-duration, capex-heavy projects at a time when the 10Y is above 5%, tech is wobbling and the bid for anything speculative has evaporated. Canaccord concedes as much, blaming "global macroeconomic pressures."

Same Disconnect, Different Metal

Tungsten isn't a rare earth, but it is a critical material with the same chokepoint (China controls roughly 80% of supply, per Jefferies), and it shows the exact same disconnect, only worse. Take Almonty Industries (ALM), the most prominent Western tungsten miner and a name we have covered extensively in recent weeks.

When Goldman's Nick Cash initiated coverage last month, he put Almonty "at the center of the Western tungsten investment narrative," with tungsten prices up 8x since the start of 2025. He was also the Street's skeptic, expecting prices to normalize and Sangdong's ramp to run slower than the market hoped, with a $13 target vs a $24.73 consensus. The stock was $12.74 that morning. Today it is below $9, down 62% from its April peak and back where it started the year, after dropping another 10% on the day of yesterday's Investor Day. So even Goldman's cautious target now implies about 45% upside.

Meanwhile the operations are going the right way. Sangdong in South Korea started production in September and is moving toward 24/7 operations, with its first concentrate shipment due later this month, and Cantor's Matthew O'Keefe models output jumping from 126,287 MTU this year to 444,400 MTU in 2027, with all-in sustaining costs falling from $905 to $319 per MTU. Oppenheimer's Ian Zaffino puts the shares at just 5.7x/4.2x FY27/FY28 EBITDA, with roughly $290 million in net cash.

So what spooked the market? Spot prices. Western APT has slipped from $3,140 to about $2,700/MTU, and Chinese prices have retreated even more sharply. But Zaffino explains why that is a misleading signal: Western APT and oxide plants are running at capacity under long-term contracts and can't absorb more concentrate, so "concentrate prices have softened, even as availability of finished APT/oxide in the West remains constrained." And the demand wave hasn't even started. On January 1, 2027, US defense procurement rules extend to tungsten mining, refining and separation, so Chinese or Russian ore processed in a third country no longer qualifies. Stifel says the US strategic tungsten stockpile is nearly depleted, and Bernstein sees the Western rearmament order boom running from 2027 through 2030. The cherry on top: on Monday, CME announced plans to launch tungsten futures by early Q1 2027 at the latest (subject to regulatory review), which tells you how seriously the market's plumbing is taking a metal that equity investors are currently dumping.

In other words, spot is pricing today's bottleneck in Western processing, and the stock is pricing spot, while the 2027 demand cliff is priced almost nowhere. Sound familiar?

Supply Security Gets The Stage In London

Goldman, for its part, thinks the debate has already shifted. Its third Global Metals & Mining Conference kicks off in London today during LME Week, bringing together the world's largest "diversified, copper, aluminium, rare earth and lithium producers." In their conference preview, Goldman's Matt Greene and the bank's mining team write that "the conversation has increasingly shifted to supply," with governments "becoming more active participants in the mining sector through faster permitting, shared infrastructure, strategic funding, price floors and direct offtake agreements, reflecting the growing importance of resource security." The question the bank poses is the right one: "whether the industry can deliver the supply that markets are increasingly pricing in."

For rare earths, the honest answer seems to be: not anytime soon, and not without China. Which is exactly why the sector's stocks probably shouldn't be trading at half of NAV.

When Macro Lets Go

We have seen this movie before. Back in March we reported that the US reportedly had just two months of rare earths left, and in July that China's "killer chokepoint" was reshaping the global economy. Each time the physical market tightened, and when Washington finally stepped in (see last July's MP deal), the equities caught up violently.

Today we have a two-month trade truce that expires January 10, a Japanese government begging for yttrium, the West's flagship tungsten miner trading below even Goldman's skeptical target ten weeks before the Pentagon's sourcing rules kick in,a floor price that has turned NdPr into a one-way bet with a safety net, and an equity market that is valuing the West's only scalable non-Chinese suppliers at roughly half of what they're worth on conservative assumptions.

Canaccord's closing line sums it up: "We expect demand to remain strong, as the West looks to secure ex-China supply and build its independence within the global magnet supply chain."

Our take: the disconnect will probably close the same way it did last summer, with a headline out of Beijing or the Pentagon, and the investors waiting for macro to give them the all-clear will be buying it 50% higher. After all, nothing cures a 0.5x P/NAV like a 346x price premium.

An Uncomfortable Reality: China's Rare Earth Chokehold May Outlast This Decade https://t.co/ln17BOGCgV
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 6, 2026

More in the full Canaccord note "Rare Earths: Equity disconnect from strong market fundamentals", available to pro subs.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 17:40

"A Good Idea": SpaceX Jumps On Blowout Quarter, Musk Confirms Committees Discussing Tesla Merger

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 21:35:00 +0000

"A Good Idea": SpaceX Jumps On Blowout Quarter, Musk Confirms Committees Discussing Tesla Merger

Update (1730ET): The earnings call has seen SPCX shares extend their after-hours gains amid a tsunami of attention-grabbing comments from Elon Musk and CFO Bret Johnsen.

Perhaps the most shocking was Musk saying that he sees between $500 billion and $1 trillion of annual recurring revenue by the end of 2027.

Then he stepped it up further:

Musk says there’s a small opportunity for SpaceX to have 20 gigawatts of AI compute online next year.

Musk says he’s been spending a lot of his time in Memphis, "often four days a week," trying to get more data center compute developed.

He’s aiming to bring in 13 gigawatts of compute by the end of next year.

And this year, he expects between 2.5 GW and 3 GW to come online.

As a reminder, (based on this quarter’s numbers) they have 1.7 GW of nameplate compute.

“We are, frankly, hounded relentlessly by every hyperscaler,” Musk says, referring to demand for SpaceX data centers.

“I don’t think we’re going to have a demand issue here.”

And finally, the topic of merging Tesla and SpaceX was brought up:

"I'm tap dancing through a minefield," says Musk on the question of a merger, adding that both SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to discuss this idea.

Musk also downplayed the move somewhat:

"“I think some people out there assume that a SpaceX and Tesla merger is a certainty, and I think that would be overstating it."

But then he adds:

"I do think there’s a lot of merit for combining the companies," Musk says, concluding that "I think it will be a good idea".

The market is pricing a 66% chance of the merger being completed by the end of next year...

All of that combined, has pushed SPCX up around 5%...

* * *

As we wrote in our preview, hopes are high for what SpaceX will report today. The company is expected to report solid revenue growth, however more than offset by far more solid capex growth which will result in SpaceX burning almost a quarter trillion over the next 3 years as it builds out its data center capacity. Notably, SpaceX could post its first quarterly profit today - though this is only its second earnings report as a public company. Wall Street expects earnings of 15 cents a share, or about $1.9 billion in net income, compared with a $541 million loss last quarter.

Besides the top and FCF lines, Deutsche's list of "other areas of focus" is a good checklist of what else to look for:

AI: neocloud pricing and new contracts, the Cursor contribution, Grok Bot adoption, and the data center capex outlook (read: any hint that 2027 capex starts with a "2").
Launch: timing of the next few launches after Flight 14; Flight 15 looks set for mid-/late November, though DB doesn't expect a second-stage catch.
Connectivity: after the $8 billion Grain spectrum deal, "additional color on management's next move(s) in the US (build vs. buy)," which is something the wireless carriers will be listening to closely.

Additionally, investors are seeking additional hints about a potential Tesla and SpaceX merger. Today’s earnings are happening just a few days after Tesla unveiled its new Roadster, which incorporated SpaceX gas thrusters that allowed the vehicle to hover and do barrel rolls in the air. Following the event, a bunch of Tesla and SpaceX executives and employees started following each other on X, according to an account that monitors tech executives. DB said that the timing as "mainly a function of valuation differentials and politics (may want to avoid a potential Democrat-led administration taking over post Trump)."

Elon Musk has talked a lot about the “convergence” of his businesses over the last year. Meanwhile SpaceX and Tesla are already collaborating on one of Musk’s most ambitious projects: the Terafab, which aims to mass produce semiconductor chips in the US to be used in his companies’ various products.

Don't expect to see much, if any profit: Starlink satellite-internet service is SpaceX’s only profitable business. The militarized version of Starlink, called Starshield, came under increased scrutiny last week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the White House and Musk of placing restrictions on the technology in Ukraine, disrupting military operations. Both Musk and Trump have denied involvement, igniting a firestorm over who controls the technology that has become indispensable to Ukraine’s war against Russia.

As for the market's reaction, recall that SPCX shares slumped 14% the day after its first earnings release in August, in part over fears that insiders would sell shares after the earliest of many lockup expirations. Those fears were quickly calmed when the shares rebounded, but the setup heading into this quarter’s results is similar to last time. On Wednesday, an additional 1.3 billion shares, representing 28% of those subject to the 180-day lock-up period, will become available to trade.

So with all that in mind, here is what SpaceX just reported for Q3, its second quarter as a public company. For the most part a solid beat across the board, blowing past Wall Street expectations, and posting its first quarterly profit, $4.4 billion, or 35 cents a share, more than double estimates, while spending a massive $20 billion on capex

Revenue $14.58 billion, beating estimates of $12.87 billion
- Space revenue $1.77 billion, beating estimates of $1.43 billion
- Connectivity revenue $5.25 billion, beating estimates of $4.86 billion

Here is the revenue by segment: it shows that SpaceX is no longer a Rocket Company but is now mostly a neocloud, pardon, Hyperscaler.

Capital expenditure $19.59 billion, beating estimates of $19.6 billion
- Space capital expenditure $1.61 billion, higher than estimates of $1.52 billion
- Connectivity capital expenditure $1.54 billion, below estimates of $1.6 billion

Here is the capex by segment:

Turning to expenses...

Total Costs & Expenses $11.78 billion, beating estimates of $11.23 billion
R&D expenses $4.60 billion, missing estimates of $5.06 billion

... and operating income:

Operating income $2.79 billion, beating estimates of $2.24 billion
Connectivity operating income $2.37 billion, beating estimates of $1.86 billion
Adjusted Ebitda $8.81 billion, smashing estimates of $6.59 billion
- Space adjusted Ebitda $357 million, estimate $123.1 million
- Connectivity adjusted Ebitda $3.50 billion, estimate $2.94 billion

Here is the adjusted EBITDA by segment:

Number of rocket launches 35, missing estimates of 41
Mass to Orbit 476 mt, missing estimates of 559
Cash and cash equivalents $51.29 billion, estimate$91.2 billion

While much will be said about the company's profitability, note that the $4.4 billion of net income got a boost from $1 billion of “other income” and a $390 million tax benefit. That said, the underlying business still beat expectations: operating income was $2.8 billion versus $2.2 billion expected.

A visual way of representing what happened in Q3:

Looking at the key components, EBITDA and CapEx, we find that both revenue and EBITDA smashed estimates, while CapEx was largely unchanged from last quarter.

As we noted in our preview the big question would be the delta between EBITDA and CapEx growth, and as shown in the chart below, while EBITDA was a record $8.8BN, it is still nowhere near enough to catch up to the whopping $19.6BN in capex.

Another very important number: amount of installed compute rose to 1.7GW, just shy of estimates of 1.74GW.

Summarizing the fine print: SpaceX reported blowout revenues and EBITDA, driven by stronger ARPU, even as ending compute, consumer broadband subs and external launches all came below expectations.

Commenting on the quarter, the SpaceX CFO said that the company "delivered another strong quarter in Q3. Revenue grew an impressive 161% year-over-year, fueled by continued momentum in Connectivity and a clear inflection in our Super Intelligence business. The combination of our launch leadership, recurring Starlink revenue, and the significant expansion of our SI infrastructure continues to drive meaningful operating leverage... We are building the infrastructure of the future with discipline — focused on capital efficiency, strong returns on invested capital, and maintaining a robust, investment-grade balance sheet — while moving with the velocity to capture the opportunity in front of us."

In its wrap, Bloomberg writes that SpaceX of this quarter is not the same as the SpaceX of last quarter. AI - now officially called Super Intelligence - has overtaken Starlink to become the company’s biggest business by revenue. Just last quarter, Starlink was comfortably ahead. The speed of that shift shows just how quickly SpaceX’s AI infrastructure business is scaling.

The SpaceX story used to be rockets funding satellites. Increasingly, it’s rockets, satellites and a giant balance sheet funding an AI company. In other words, a hyperscaler.

The results were solid, and the stock liked them - at least until the call - with SPCX stock higher about 3%, fading a bit of its after hours jump.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 17:35

The Deep(er) Midterms

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 21:20:00 +0000

The Deep(er) Midterms

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

There are two ways of looking at the midterms, now less than three weeks away.

One is as a simple referendum on the issues and politicians of the day.
The other involves a far deeper conflict of visions (as Thomas Sowell puts it): socialism versus capitalism, intrusive versus limited government, and the destruction of time-honored institutions and traditions versus their preservation and renewal.

Rarely in American history have the two parties been so far apart or the choice between them so stark. In brief, Islamist-sympathizing socialism is on the ballot against free-market capitalism and American exceptionalism.

The new Islamist-allied socialist Democratic Party is confident, largely because the party holding the White House has increased its share of House seats in a midterm election only three times since 1900. Each of those exceptions arose under unusual circumstances.

In 1934, FDR was still riding the wave of his New Deal promises to end the Depression.

In 1998, Bill Clinton enjoyed backlash support after the Republicans’ unpopular impeachment inquiry, at a time when the economy was robust, and the budget was finally being balanced.

In 2002, George W. Bush had united the nation after 9/11 and had not yet begun what proved to be an unpopular Iraq War.

In other words, the party in the White House has gained House seats in only about 10 percent of the 31 midterms over the past 126 years. Pundits also point to Trump’s approval rating, now below 40 percent in most polls, and the persistently high price of regular gasoline ($4.33). Uncertainty over the 33-week Iran war, they argue, makes it difficult for Trump to preserve his majorities in either the House or the Senate.

Those are the issues ostensibly at stake. But the choice goes much further than that: voters face a “deep” midterm election that will help determine the very future existence of the nation.

The new Democratic agenda is not about lowering gas prices. Americans are being asked to hand Congress to what has become the most radical major party in U.S. history, as socialists and neo-communists believe they can finally win statewide races across the country. What would that entail?

Lawfare

The Democrats have not outlined any agenda other than “Trump! Trump! And more Trump!”

If they win the House, Democrats plan to spend the next two years impeaching, investigating, and hounding Trump, his administration, and his family. Their aim is to block new Republican legislation and paralyze the remainder of his presidency.

The Iran War

The Left condemns the effort to denuclearize Iran as a lost war, even though the United States has nearly destroyed the Iranian theocratic apparatus along with much of the country’s nuclear, military, industrial, and economic infrastructure—at a relatively low cost in blood and treasure by historical standards.

An enfeebled Iran, stripped of its military and economic dominance and facing an uncertain future, would no longer be able to blackmail or threaten Europe and North America as a nuclear-armed theocracy. Its terrorist clients would also lose funding, weapons, and leadership, with profound consequences for the Middle East.

When the war ends—as it soon will—and gas prices return to previous levels, policies already in place, including tax cuts, deregulation, foreign investment, energy development, and advances in AI, should help fuel an economic boom.

But the Democrats’ plan is simply to withdraw from Iran, count on the goodwill of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to guarantee free passage in the Strait of Hormuz, allow Iran to resume full oil production, and accept the Iranian regime’s word that it will no longer threaten the Gulf states or Israel and cease its decades-long support for the terrorist proxies—Hezbollah, Hamas, and, more recently, the Houthis.

Energy

The party that has repeatedly blocked federal oil and gas leases, canceled the construction or reconstruction of dozens of pipelines, and spent billions of dollars to subsidize unreliable, costly, and inefficient solar and wind power is now promising to lower the price of fossil fuels? Who really believes that?

Instead, the Left has vowed to end the production of natural gas, diesel, and gasoline as quickly as possible. Voters need only look at the once robust British and German economies, now struggling after years of restrictions on oil and natural gas exploration and development, as well as Germany’s elimination of nuclear power.

We should recall Obama’s energy secretary Steven Chu. He infamously let slip that his goal was to keep American energy prices at European levels. In the UK and Germany, gasoline is currently around $9 a gallon—a great thing for Democratic Socialists who see high fuel prices as the best way to cool the planet and remain in power.

Gasoline in the United States now averages only $4.33 despite Iranian oil being off the market, attacks in the Gulf, and Iran’s attempted blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The reason is that Democrats were prevented from blocking new fossil fuel leases, pipelines, refineries, and fracking between 2017 and 2021 and again from 2025 onward.

Immigration

Almost none of the current Democratic candidates—at least until the eve of the 2024 election—criticized the Biden administration’s destruction of the southern border, much less the open-armed embrace with which it welcomed some 10–12 million illegal aliens, including 500,000 criminals.

The Left wants to dismantle border enforcement and the wall and to ensure that the current near-zero level of illegal immigration expands to the Biden administration’s peak of 10,000-plus illegal entries per day. Voters may be disturbed by ICE detentions, but they should remember a high-profile ICE presence was only necessary because the border was effectively eliminated by Biden.

By contrast, it is almost impossible now to find Biden’s millions of illegal aliens who were deliberately dispersed by the Left throughout the country—and particularly into Democratic sanctuary-city states. The Left will never close the border. Nor will it ever allow immigration to become entirely legal, meritocratic, diverse, and manageable, because to do so would cut off the Left’s supply of future constituents.

Fraud

Some estimates put aggregate current federal-program fraud at nearly $500 billion annually.

There is also widespread welfare and social services fraud concentrated in blue states like California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New York.

In these states, welfare and social services are generous and, by design, subject to little scrutiny. Fraud is treated as a minor problem in what Democrats regard as a successful effort to attract voters with federal and state dollars. Few major Democratic officeholders sincerely denounce such fraud, since doing so could cost them votes.

DEI

The idea that race, outward appearance, gender, and sexual preference are essential rather than incidental to one’s identity is a central doctrine of the contemporary Left.

Should the Left regain power, expect de facto nullification of the bans against racial tribalism found in federal law and Supreme Court rulings. Race-based hiring, admissions, dorms, and graduations would return and proliferate.

The demands for reparations would likely regain traction, as they already are doing in California, a state with no history of slavery and 27 percent of the resident population born outside the United States.

The Left believes that people who were never slaves are owed billions of dollars by a government already $40 trillion in debt—and that people who never owned slaves must atone for an institution abolished 161 years ago. Slaveowners accounted for about 1.4 percent of the nation, almost all in the South. That some 700,000 Americans died in a civil war that ended slavery seems to be of absolutely zero importance to the Left.

Islamism

Only a quarter-century after 9/11, Islamism is somehow on the ballot. After October 7, the Democratic Party embraced the philo-Islamist/socialist view that sees radical Islam as not so radical after all. For them, theocratic Islamism is a legitimate and indeed preferable alternative to democratic Israel and increasingly a legitimate alternative to Western values and laws.

There is not a single truly democratic state in the Islamic Middle East, where women, gays, and non-Muslims are de facto second-class citizens. And yet we are told by many on the new Left that there is no real difference between Iran and Israel and that the terrorist organization Hamas is Israel’s innocent victim.

The apparently new leftist-Islamist alliance is actually not so new. We see its dividends now in a burning Paris. Decades earlier, that political partnership destroyed the Shah’s regime and ushered in nearly 50 years of Iranian theocratic tyranny.

Opposition to radical Islam and illegal immigration, along with justifiable anger toward a class of elites who seem openly to hate Western civilization, explains why reform and remigration parties are gaining traction all over Europe. Indeed, in the continent’s eleventh hour, Europeans are starting to fight open borders, unassimilated immigration from the Middle East, radical green ideologies, and disarmament. Why would we vote into power what the Europeans are now desperately trying to eject from office?

We already know what will happen when the new Democrats take power. After all, they are only promising to do to America what socialists have already done to now-floundering Europe, Canada, and California.

Before the election, voters should also ask themselves why more than two million Americans each year are fleeing the blue-state socialist model.

The answer? On taxes, regulations, cost of living, housing affordability, crime, and state budgets, red and purple states consistently outperform blue states. Americans already vote with their feet; they should remember those differences when they cast their ballots.

Finally, voters should also ask themselves why the current crop of Islamist-adjacent socialists always needs to cleanse their social media accounts. Why must they retract their prior bombast? Why do they attack questioners rather than answer questions about their past?

Why do we all know that what they say and do after being elected will be exactly what they said and did before they ran for office?

By contrast, are conservatives, Republicans, or independents serially trashing the United States in the manner of Democratic Socialists like Hasan Piker, who said that the United States is worse than al-Qaeda?

Is there a Republican counterpart to James Talarico, who scrambles to retract remarks describing capitalism as an “oppressive system” that needs to be “dismantled” or suggesting that “white skin” confers immunity to the “virus of racism”?

Or is there anyone among the conservatives remotely resembling Representative Ilhan Omar, who declared that America is “one of the worst countries”? Or like Darializa Avila Chevalier, who called the United States “a f–king disgrace”?

Are they demonizing the majority of the American people in the manner of Zohran Mamdani’s housing czar, Cea Weaver, who declared that homeownership is “a weapon of white supremacy”? Or like Melat Kiros, who argues that “We were never really going to be able to tackle white supremacy in the way that we need to without reparations”?

Could anyone imagine Republican or conservative candidates apologizing for terrorism in the manner of marquee Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who responded to a cowardly Islamist attack on a synagogue with “Hurt people do hurt people”?

In short, treat this midterm election as the deep choice that it is.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 17:20

US Nears Russia Deal To Free Detained Americans, Witkoff En Route To Moscow

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 21:00:00 +0000

US Nears Russia Deal To Free Detained Americans, Witkoff En Route To Moscow

ABC and The New York Times are reporting that multiple Americans detained in Russia could soon be free as part of a major Trump deal with Moscow.

Negotiations are said to be in the final stages, with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff set to be in Moscow on Wednesday. And so a major announcement and release could happen by the time he leaves the Russian capital later the same day.

via PBS

Stephen Hubbard, an American who is accused of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine forces when he was captured in 2022, is expected to be among the released prisoners.

Citing unnamed officials, ABC writes, "They add that the talks have centered on freeing Stephen Hubbard, a 72-year-old retired teacher who is the only American held in Russia officially designated as wrongfully detained by the State Department, as well as several other U.S. citizens held by Moscow on what the administration said it believes are dubious charges."

President Trump acknowledged Monday that he was "trying to get a hostage that the country has been after for a long time" - which appeared to refer to Hubbard. "Let's see what happens," Trump said. "That'll be soon."

On Tuesday, Witkoff and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met in Oslo as part of efforts to find an end to the Ukraine war. In a closing presser for the talks, Zelensky said the latest working proposal features security guarantees for Ukraine modelled on NATO's Article 5, which is the collective defense clause.

"We have discussed security guarantees, and I’m grateful to the American side for emphasizing once again that they will be strong," Zelensky said following talks in Oslo.

"We discussed NATO, Article 5 and Article 5-like guarantees. Different types of security guarantees are included in the document, which Steve will share with the Russians, and we will hear their feedback."

However, the Kremlin is unlikely to go for NATO Article 5-style protections, given a key rationale for the 'special military operation' in the first place was NATO expansion up to Russia's doorstep.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has meanwhile said, "We hope that a meeting can be arranged in the very near future, and that the American negotiators, Mr. Witkoff, will be able to brief President Putin on their contacts with both the Ukrainians and the Europeans."

Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Store says US envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to St Petersburg tomorrow for talks with the Russian leadership, following today’s discussions in Oslo with Zelensky and EU representative Alexander Stubb. “He will... exchange ideas from this meeting and proposals developed by European and American colleagues, and possibly pave the way for a meeting at the leaders’ level.”
— Brian McDonald (@BrianMcDonaldIE) October 20, 2026

Witkoff is due in Moscow Wednesday, where he is indeed expected to present the results of the Oslo talks to Putin and his team.

Peskov said further: "We consider such meetings to be of great importance on every occasion. They are always timely and very substantive, and we greatly appreciate the mediation efforts of the American negotiators."

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 17:00

When The Normals Say Enough Is Enough

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 20:40:00 +0000

When The Normals Say Enough Is Enough

Authored by Silvio Canto, Jr. via American Thinker,

Remember the kid in school who was always negative and complaining about everything? I usually avoided that kid, and maybe voters are starting to turn off all of this political anger, too. I think they call it “fatigue” as Scott McKay points out:

I was at lunch Wednesday with one of my non-political friends, and — as often happens, and I swear I’m not the one driving this — a topic of conversation turned political.

My friend brought up an exhausting pattern which, we agreed, is ramping up in both volume and frequency. Namely, that we as a society are jumping from one unhinged rage to another over things which don’t justify the level of vitriol and over-emotional screeching they’ve produced.

Four of these factored prominently in the conversation, but a fuller picture could include several more. Just this year we had the Renee Good fiasco, the Lindsay Clancy trial, the Cornell 7 orgy controversy, and now the Shane Gillis-gymgirl dustup.

My friend noted that in all of these cases — and, again, there have been several others — it’s generally women who have gotten most torqued up about the topic at hand, and in particular it’s a certain subset of women who are doing it. And TikTok and Instagram are full of rage-bait videos of people going berserk over things which either don’t merit such a reaction or where the truth is a whole lot more complicated than they’d like to make it.

And it was my friend, and not me, who suggested that none of these moral panics are organic, and that this burgeoning rage engine has already exhausted normal folks.

I think my friend is probably right. Outrage fatigue is a real thing. I think outrage fatigue played a role in Donald Trump’s 2024 election — though it was the fatigue normal folks had over the cultural aggressions of the radicals in society.

Whether it was Drag Queen Story Hour or trans kids or Tren de Aragua or the abuse of the FBI or countless other things demoralizing them, the normals had enough — and didn’t care what the aggressors had to say about how horrible a person Trump is.

As a normal guy, who loves politics and to share opinions, I understand that we have reached a point where all of this political rage is not normal.

Once upon a time, I would get together with friends for lunch and our rage was about the umpire who missed too many pitches last night.

Once in a while, a friend was angry because his girl got upset because he wouldn’t answer her text in 30 seconds.

Or another time, a guy was mad because the apartments wouldn’t fix the AC on time. The normal stuff to get angry about.

Today, there is always someone at the table who wants to convince us that Trump is a threat to democracy and will cancel the elections.

He becomes obnoxious when he won’t shut up or keeps sending negative texts about Trump.

Most of us keep reminding him that our lunch is to talk about real stuff, not just Trump. He can’t let go.

Trump is Hitler, you know, and came to power by winning an election.

Where is all of this going?

I don’t know for sure, but I do think this fatigue is real. It’s one of the reasons that people are keeping their politics private, not putting political signs in their yard, and not talking to pollsters.

Furthermore, I hear from single guys that they avoid certain women who are just too political no matter how nice they look in jeans. And I hear from young men that they are dating girls from other countries because American college girls are just too political. As one said recently, I don’t go on a date to argue about Roe v. Wade!

Maybe normals like me have had enough with all of this rage! Or maybe some need to go see a psychiatrist and get Trump out of their heads.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 16:40

Anthropic's Updated S-1: An $80.7BN Half-Year Loss, A $750BN Compute-Tab, And A 'Catastrophic Incident' Warning

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 20:20:38 +0000

Anthropic's Updated S-1: An $80.7BN Half-Year Loss, A $750BN Compute-Tab, And A 'Catastrophic Incident' Warning

Three weeks ago, when the first leaked draft of Anthropic’s confidential IPO prospectus made the rounds, we noted that CEO Dario Amodei was preparing to take the company public at the exact moment the underlying math of the frontier AI trade had begun to turn against him. That September filing showed a company that burned through $42 billion in net losses during 2025 on just $4.6 billion in revenue, sitting on $20 billion in cash while staring down $518 billion in long-term compute commitments.

On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reviewed a more recent draft of Anthropic’s S-1 registration statement covering the first half of 2026. Every headline number has moved substantially higher – and none of the structural flaws have been fixed.

In the six months ended June 30, 2026, Anthropic generated roughly $16.3 billion in revenue, up from $1.1 billion in the year-earlier period and more than triple the $4.6 billion it generated in all of 2025. Yet across that same six-month window, Anthropic recorded a staggering $80.7 billion net loss – up from $13 billion in the first half of 2025, nearly double its full-year 2025 deficit, and one of the largest half-year corporate losses ever committed to paper.

Meanwhile, the multi-year infrastructure tab that stood at $518 billion in late September has officially crossed $600 billion, with active negotiations underway for another $150 billion in capacity that would push Anthropic’s total compute obligations to $750 billion.

Metric	Full-Year 2025 (Sept. S-1 Leak)	1H 2026 (Updated Oct. S-1 Draft)	Latest Trajectory & Context
Revenue	$4.6 Billion	$16.3 Billion	~$4.8B in Q1; ~$11.5B in Q2; $16.8B in Q3
Compute & Infra Spend	$7.3 Billion	~$9.0 Billion	Up from $2.3B in 1H 2025; already exceeds all of 2025
GAAP Net Loss	$42.0 Billion	$80.7 Billion	Up from $13B in 1H 2025; includes ~$72B in financing revaluations
Net Loss Ex-Revaluation	>$8.0 Billion (Operating Loss)	~$8.7 Billion	Underlying burn running at a ~$17B+ annualized clip
Contracted Compute Tab	$518 Billion	>$600 Billion	Negotiating up to $150B more (up to $750B total)
Customer Concentration	High Enterprise Reliance	20% from 2 Customers	Many large buyers lack long-term contracts

The $80.7 Billion Loss – And What Lies Beneath The Accounting Charge

To be sure, bulls and syndicate bankers will immediately point out that roughly $72 billion of Anthropic’s $80.7 billion first-half loss is a non-cash accounting artifact. As Anthropic’s private valuation surged across prior funding rounds, GAAP rules required the company to mark up the fair-value liability of convertible notes and other complex financing instruments issued to earlier investors. Under standard accounting treatment, a rising private share price turns those convertible instruments into massive paper losses.

Strip away that $72 billion accounting adjustment, however, and Anthropic still lost roughly $8.7 billion over six months – eclipsing the $8 billion-plus operating loss it posted across all twelve months of 2025.

The culprit is straightforward: direct compute and infrastructure spending hit nearly $9 billion in the first half of 2026 alone, up nearly fourfold from $2.3 billion in the first half of 2025 and surpassing the $7.3 billion Anthropic spent on compute for the entirety of last year. Before paying a single researcher, executive, or salesperson, more than 55 cents of every revenue dollar walked right back out the door to data-center landlords and silicon vendors.

The $750 Billion Take-Or-Pay Escalator

As we detailed in August ("The Teaser Period: Why The AI Boom Is Hitting A Reset Wall"), the defining feature of the AI infrastructure buildout is the quiet transformation of cloud computing from a flexible, pay-as-you-go operating expense into a rigid, noncancelable debt structure.

Anthropic’s updated S-1 is the ultimate case study in that transition. According to the filing, the company is now on the hook for roughly $450 billion in cloud computing contracts over the next seven to ten years. Crucially, the prospectus notes that the bulk of these agreements are noncancelable and must be paid "regardless of actual usage." Those commitments include:

$111 billion contracted with Google Cloud
$110 billion contracted with Amazon Web Services (AWS)
$31 billion contracted with Microsoft
Up to $86 billion to rent Nvidia chips from smaller AI cloud providers Nscale and Lambda through 2033 and 2034, respectively

Layer on top of that more than $160 billion in obligations to lease Google TPU chips through a separate arrangement with Broadcom, and Anthropic’s locked-in infrastructure bill exceeds $600 billion – before counting the additional $150 billion in compute deals the company is actively negotiating. And as we reported earlier ("Forget CDOs, Meet CCOs: This Isn't A Tech Cycle... It's 2008 With Silicon"), that contractual mountain sits alongside tens of billions of dollars in off-balance-sheet chip-lease arrangements financed through special-purpose vehicles (SPVs) and private-credit facilities.

Yet even $600 billion to $750 billion isn't buying security of supply. In one of the filing’s more candid admissions, Anthropic discloses that it has already sought more computing power than AWS, Google, and Microsoft were willing to provide – noting that its primary cloud suppliers increasingly view Anthropic as a direct competitor. Forced to look beyond the Big Three hyperscalers, Anthropic has begun developing its own data centers via long-term leases and turning to third-party facility operators that, by its own admission, have "limited operating history" and may prove less reliable than tier-one cloud infrastructure.

The Fatal Duration Mismatch: 10-Year Liabilities vs. 2 Fickle Customers

In the legacy cloud era, multi-year data-center backlogs were underwritten against the diversified, recurring cash flows of tens of thousands of profitable Fortune 500 companies. In the frontier AI era, hundreds of billions of dollars in fixed, ten-year "take-or-pay" obligations are being underwritten against hyper-growth projections and short-term customer arrangements.

Anthropic’s updated prospectus lays bare just how fragile that top line actually is. Roughly one-fifth (20 percent) of Anthropic’s $16.3 billion in first-half revenue – or about $3.26 billion – came from just two customers. Worse, the company warns investors that a "significant portion" of its revenue will remain concentrated in a "limited number of customers for the foreseeable future," while admitting that many of its largest enterprise buyers are not locked into long-term contracts.

Consider the balance-sheet mismatch public equity investors are being asked to swallow:

On the liability side: $600 billion to $750 billion in seven-to-ten-year, noncancelable take-or-pay compute obligations that convert from "booked compute" to "billed compute" on a fixed schedule, utterly indifferent to end-market demand.
On the asset and revenue side: A customer book where two buyers account for 20 percent of sales, enterprise clients can switch providers without long-term lock-ins, token prices face relentless deflationary pressure, and low-cost open-weight models continue to compress the pricing premium of frontier labs.

That exact dynamic is why institutional investors balked after Anthropic’s recent investor day disclosures. As we noted last week, management touted third-quarter revenue of $16.8 billion, an 11 percent adjusted operating margin for a second consecutive quarter, and positive free cash flow.

What spooked the room wasn't the absolute figure – it was the slope. With first-half revenue at $16.3 billion and second-quarter revenue at roughly $11.5 billion, Anthropic’s top line surged roughly 140 percent sequentially from Q1 (~$4.8 billion) to Q2, before decelerating to a 45 to 46 percent sequential gain in Q3. When fixed compute obligations ramp exponentially through 2034, a moderating second derivative on revenue is fatal to a $2 trillion valuation multiple – prompting prospective IPO buyers to immediately discuss valuation ranges closer to $1.5 trillion.

Blackmailing Models, Uninsurable Catastrophes, And The "Public Benefit" Shield

Roughly one-third of the entire draft prospectus is devoted to risk factors, reading less like a software registration statement and more like a containment protocol mixed with a legal disclaimer.

Anthropic explicitly warns prospective shareholders that its AI models can exhibit "self-preserving" behaviors to avoid being shut down and may generate responses that resemble "blackmail" in an attempt to convince human operators to keep them online. Because the company bears direct liability for certain harmful model behaviors – ranging from stolen data to severe security incidents – it faces massive financial exposure. And if a model triggers what the filing calls a "catastrophic AI-related incident," Anthropic warns that the resulting damages could be so large that it would be unable to obtain commercial insurance to cover the liability.

Compound that with growing physical-world friction – Anthropic flags that political resistance to data-center construction has "become more organized and coordinated across jurisdictions" and that its public profile "may draw particular attention to projects associated with us," forcing it to sign letters of intent for capacity outside the United States – and the governance picture grows even murkier.

Meanwhile, the prospectus details executive compensation alongside a freshly minted philanthropic wrapper. Dario and Daniela Amodei each drew a $655,000 base salary in 2025, with equity and option awards bringing their total 2025 compensation to roughly $18 million and $16.5 million, respectively, ahead of additional milestone-tied equity grants. Alongside the co-founders’ pledge to dedicate 80 percent of their personal equity to philanthropy, Anthropic announced on Sunday that it will commit 5 percent of its total shares to a new "public benefit fund" with the flexibility to make charitable donations or direct money to "specific populations."

For retail and institutional buyers alike, the proposition could hardly be clearer. Public shareholders are being invited to absorb 5 percent upfront share dilution for a public benefit fund, assume uninsurable liability for self-preserving AI models, rely on two uncontracted customers for a fifth of top-line revenue, and backstop up to $750 billion in non-cancelable, ten-year compute leases – all so venture insiders and hyperscaler landlords can convert off-balance-sheet IOUs into public-market liquidity before the growth curve flattens out.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 16:20

Iran Rejects Report That Deal Is 'Close' After Qatar, Pakistan Push 'Compromise Proposal' To End War

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 20:05:00 +0000

Iran Rejects Report That Deal Is 'Close' After Qatar, Pakistan Push 'Compromise Proposal' To End War

Update(1117ET): The somewhat expected quick rejection is coming from the Iranians via newswires:

IRAN-US TALKS CONTINUE, REPORTS DEAL IS CLOSE ARE WRONG

And Israeli media: "At least once, the US Trump administration was 'very close' to approving an attack on Iran" i24 Stein's reports citing sources. Oil bouncing back on the Iranian rejection headlines, and despite...

RUBIO: OIL GOING THROUGH HORMUZ NEARLY EQUAL TO BEFORE WAR

* * *

Update(1035ET): This past weekend Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said that his country's offer to the United States to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days is still on the table.

By Tuesday morning, we have a return of another round of 'deal imminent'-style headlines, which has gained more visibility over the last couple hours, resulting in oil prices tumbling:

Mediation efforts said that "Qatar and Pakistan presented a 'compromise proposal' that meets the demands of both the American and Iranian sides", Al Araby Al Jadeed reports citing sources.
Another bout of pressure in the crude complex as the earlier reports via Al Araby Al Jadeed related to a "compromise proposal" gets wider airing; a move which is lifting the ES

* * *

On Tuesday the UK Maritime Operations Centre has reported a new incident around 121 nautical miles east of the Omani coast.

The UKMTO announced the vessel was "subject to interaction as part of ongoing military activity in the region" at around 10am GMT. Regional reports say two tankers are on fire. But Tehran is boasting of a fresh sea mine attack, amid daily ramped-up assaults on international shipping as it tries to hold on to leverage over the United States and global oil transit.

Illustrative file image, via Free Malaysia Today

The Iranian side filled in more information, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) describing that "Two violating oil tankers were set ablaze and halted due to the explosion of mines planted by the brave sailors of the IRGC Navy at an illegal crossing point in the southern part of the Strait of Hormuz," according to a statement published on their official Sepah News website.

Those conditions were first presented in mid-September. "Our situation is clear and based on ⁠the seven-days proposal presented to the US. They shared comments which we are reviewing, but our proposal is still on the table and if there is any honesty on the US part, which there isn't, the way to reopening the Strait of Hormuz is obvious," Araqchi stated Sunday.

For anyone who has lost track, these are the seven conditions Tehran presented in September:

lift the maritime blockade;
restore Iran's frozen assets;
lift sanctions on Iranian oil exports;
halt all US actions "under the pretext of threats and military operations";
end the war on Iran and its regional allies;
withdraw US forces from areas around Iran's borders;
pay compensation for war damage and commit not to interfere with Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities.

According to more of the latest from Bloomberg Tuesday morning:

Brent oil fluctuated near a five-month high as traders weighed the risk of further Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz against robust crude flows from the Persian Gulf. The global benchmark was just below US$110 a barrel, near the highest since May, while the most-active West Texas Intermediate contract was close to US$99.

Iran has “no choice” but to assert control over Hormuz to safeguard the country’s security, First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Aref said on Oct 19, according to a report from state-run news agency IRNA.

Meanwhile, other Tehran officials have continued to warn that if active fighting resumes, Iran's military still has a lot of cards to play.

At the start of this week IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebi has threatened to target undersea communication cables in the Strait of Hormuz. He warned that "all of the world's internet and commercial data depend on them," according to Al Jazeera.

🚨🇮🇷🇴🇲 A tanker had an encounter with military forces off the coast of Oman yesterday... The vessel was subject to interaction as part of ongoing military activity in the region. Authorities are aware and investigations continue. Ships have been advised to stay alert to the evolving security situation, as always. Source: UKMTO / Writer: Samuel
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 20, 2026

He added: “We just want them to know that new targets and new weapons will be unveiled.”

Mohebi has also claimed that the US lacks the "technical and military”" capability to launch a new operation, which President Trump has lately threatened, likely to resume after the November midterm elections. So far the US military has remained surprisingly quiet amid daily Iranian assaults on international shipping.

More Latest Developments

via Newsquawk...

US President Trump criticised Europe for failing to support the US over Iran and suggested Washington could reconsider its support for Europe.
Iran's IRGC said it intercepted and destroyed a US MQ-9 drone over the Strait of Hormuz using its new advanced air defence system.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Baghaei said they have held several contacts and consultations and that if there is even the slightest chance that it may be able to prevent the escalation of tensions through diplomacy, they must definitely go this route. On talks with Russia, Baghaei said there was no discussion about nuclear negotiations with the US, and that Iran are not negotiating with the US in this regard.
Iranian Foreign Ministry said the US' response to the proposal from Iran was incomplete and insufficient.
Iranian President Pezeshkian said US bases in the region provide no benefits and only fuel insecurity, Press TV reported.
Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi said Iran-Russia cooperation is closer than ever, with talks covering regional developments and expanding economic and nuclear cooperation, IRNA reported.
Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson said "We are working with Washington and Tehran in partnership with other mediating countries to end the war in the region."
Pakistan Army Chief Munir has arrived in Tehran to meet with senior officials of Iran.
Russian Foreign Minister met Iran's President and Supreme National Security Council Secretary in Tehran, following earlier talks with his Iranian counterpart, Iran Nuances reported.
An explosion was reportedly heard in Iran's southern city of Bandar Abbas, Sabereen News reported.
Yemeni forces reportedly targeted Saudi Arabia's Dammam airport with missiles and drones, temporarily suspending operations, Tasnim reported, citing Al-Masirah.
Israeli PM Netanyahu said there are indications that Iran and its proxies want to challenge Israel before the elections.
US War Secretary Hegseth met Israeli PM Netanyahu during an unannounced visit to Israel on Monday, Axios reported.
US President Trump's envoys Kushner and Witkoff plan to travel to Norway this week for Ukraine talks and Ukraine President Zelensky is expected to join talks.
Ukrainian President Zelensky said he talked with US Secretary of State Rubio on the topics of ballistic interceptors and Starlinks. He later said that Ukraine supports a mutual energy ceasefire.
Ukraine's DTEK said a Russian attack struck three of its energy facilities in the Odessa region.
The Trump administration has delayed approving transfers of Patriot interceptor missiles to Ukraine from partner countries, Washington Post reported.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 16:05

CME Plans World's First Tungsten Futures As Booming Missile Demand May Spark Severe 2030 Shortage

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 19:45:00 +0000

CME Plans World's First Tungsten Futures As Booming Missile Demand May Spark Severe 2030 Shortage

CME Group plans to launch the first tungsten futures contract as deepening resource nationalism, Chinese export restrictions, and rising demand from the global rearmament cycle intensify Western governments' focus on securing conflict-free materials and highlight the industrial base's urgent need to hedge future price risk. These new contracts would introduce exchange-traded forward pricing to a market that currently relies heavily on spot prices and has limited visibility into future pricing.

Trading is expected to begin in early 1Q27, subject to regulatory review. The contract will be settled against Fastmarkets' Western benchmark for ammonium paratungstate, or APT, the raw material and commercial precursor for almost all downstream tungsten products.

For miners, manufacturers, and trading desks, the potential benefits extend well beyond hedging. A liquid futures curve could show how the market participants view the worsening global supply constraints for the critical metal. That would add a new forward-looking dimension to spot prices, allowing participants greater visibility into pricing months and years out.

"Tungsten sits at the intersection of advanced manufacturing, semiconductor technologies and geopolitics, and our clients are increasingly seeking to hedge their exposure and improve price transparency," said Jin Hennig, CME Group's managing director and global head of metals.

"CME Group Tungsten futures will join our growing suite of critical minerals and energy transition metal products, providing clients more opportunities to manage risk as global supply chains restructure," Hennig added.

Fastmarkets CEO Raju Daswani pointed out, "Growing volatility and concentrated supply are increasing the need for transparent, trusted price benchmarks in the tungsten market," adding, "The launch of this contract, based on Fastmarkets' tungsten APT assessment, is a significant step in the market's development, connecting physical-market price discovery with new opportunities to manage price risk."

Fastmarkets' Western APT benchmark surged after China, in early 2025, restricted the flow of the critical metal to Western defense and industrial companies, sending prices as high as $3,000 a ton. Spot prices have since moved lower to around $2,775.

CME's announcement coincided with Almonty Industries' Investor Day at Nasdaq in Midtown Manhattan, where the tungsten producer presented to analysts from Oppenheimer, Stifel, Jefferies, Goldman Sachs, and other firms.

CEO Lewis Black and the management team outlined a constructive operating outlook for the miner's South Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese mines, along with updates on expansion projects and additional supply sources.

Almonty's investment case centers around its move to be one of the largest conflict-free tungsten miners (ex-China) for the West. Its operating assets and expansion pipeline position the miner as a tungsten lifeline for the rearmament cycle.

Black told investors that constrained Western tungsten supplies are strengthening Almonty's commercial position, supporting improved offtake terms as Sangdong ramps Phase 1 production and advances its Phase 2 expansion.

Sangdong's Phase I is designed to process 640,000 tons of ore annually. Phase II is planned to double that capacity, with equipment ordering and underground planning already underway.

Several projects offer additional growth potential:

Rwanda: A planned joint venture, to be owned 75% by Almonty and 25% by the government, would initially source and process material from local producers. Management views this as a faster route to incremental supply while longer-term mining projects advance.
Panasqueira: Drilling for the Portuguese mine's Level 4 expansion is expected to finish by year-end. Management is also evaluating the recovery of tungsten and other metals from existing tailings.
Los Santos: Tailings processing has produced encouraging laboratory and pilot results, supported by an offtake agreement with a price floor. Commercial viability remains unproven.
Montana: Existing permits and nearby infrastructure support development potential, but detailed planning remains underway. The presentation did not establish a firm production timetable.
Sangdong molybdenum: Additional drilling is intended to validate historical data and support an updated technical report, providing a separate development opportunity beneath the tungsten deposit.

"Almonty remains one of the key solutions to meeting western tungsten demand after China's exit from the market and the company's impressive production ramp is still unfolding with prices just off record highs. We are updating our target price to $21 given the push-out of Sangdong shipments but remain Buy rated," Stifel materials analyst Brock Cannon wrote in a note after the investor meeting.

Jefferies chemicals and materials analyst Laurence Alexander said the Sangdong ramp remains a near-term catalyst. He indicated that the early January ban on US defense companies sourcing tungsten from foreign adversaries or conflict areas "represents a clear pivot point in demand, which should align favorably with the Sangdong production ramp."

Alexander continued, "The US will prohibit defense contractors from acquiring tungsten, tungsten metal powder, and tungsten heavy alloys mined, refined, or produced in China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. With only ~13% of global production from conflict-free zones, the qualified supply pool is likely smaller than the headline deficit implies. Should a similar EU measure be implemented, Western premiums likely widen further."

The key takeaway from the new CME contracts, set to begin trading early next year, is a forward curve that will provide the first clear view of how the market interprets the shortage of this critical material.

A Financial Times story published overnight adds to the mounting global news coverage, suggesting that spot prices for critical materials remain disconnected from reality, as China's resource nationalism has left Japan just "months" away from "running out of critical rare earths."

We'll leave readers with the most impactful chart from Almonty's investor deck, presented to analysts yesterday. It shows a widening structural tungsten deficit emerging around 2030.

In that case, it's all about "owning the bottlenecks." The mining sector has been de-rated in the second half of the year, but it will bottom out at some point, and the theme of owning the top producers will reemerge amid the rearmament cycle ramping up.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 15:45

SpaceX Earnings Preview: Equity Sees $125 Billion, Credit Sees 83 Cents

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 19:45:00 +0000

SpaceX Earnings Preview: Equity Sees $125 Billion, Credit Sees 83 Cents

Today after the close, SpaceX (SPCX) reports its second quarter as a public company, a day ahead of Tesla and (as Deutsche Bank puts it) "surprisingly early." The first one did not go well: the stock slid despite a big revenue beat and closed down 14% the next day, wiping out some $225 billion in market value.

This time, the sellside is mostly looking past the quarter and straight at 2027. Nobody more so than Deutsche Bank's Edison Yu, who in his preview note "Compute-driven state of mind" (available to pro subs) lifts his 2027 forecasts to $125 billion in revenue and $84 billion in EBITDA, materially above consensus of $108 billion and $65 billion. The catch, which Yu flags himself, is that those numbers are "underpinned by > $200bn in capex."

And that's where the other half of the SpaceX story comes in. While equity analysts debate how high 2027 can go, the company's 6.65% notes due 2056 just slumped to a lifetime low of 83.3 cents on the dollar, down from 98.83 at issue in June, and SpaceX's five-year CDS spreads blew out to a record high earlier this month.

In other words, the stock market is pricing the upside, and the bond market is pricing the bill.

The Quarter: In Line, With "Potential Upside In Profitability"

Start with the near term. Deutsche expects an in-line print, "with potential upside in profitability." Yu models Q3 revenue of $12.6 billion (+127% YoY), a gross margin of around 59% and EBITDA of over $6.6 billion. The engine is AI, which "is benefiting from a full-quarter contribution from cloud hosting, boosting revenue by almost 3x sequentially to ~$6bn." AI solutions & infrastructure alone is expected to jump from $2.2 billion in Q2 to $6.0 billion, which means the AI segment would account for just over half of total revenue at the business formerly known as a rocket company.

Elsewhere, consumer broadband subscribers should end the quarter at 13.5 million (vs. 12.0 million in Q2), while ARPU slides another $2 to $64, giving connectivity revenue of nearly $5 billion, up 60% YoY. The Space segment, the one in the company's name, is expected to shrink 22% YoY on twelve external Falcon 9 launches. As for the cash, Yu forecasts $19 billion in capex "mainly directed at AI compute," taking capacity to 1.8GW, and leading to free cash flow burn of $14 billion, in one quarter.

Here is the full breakdown vs. consensus:

Note that Deutsche is slightly below the Street on Q3 revenue ($12.63 billion vs. $12.89 billion) and broadband subs (13.5 million vs. 14.2 million), but slightly above on EBITDA margin (52.6% vs. 51.4%). Options are pricing a move of about 7.8% in either direction, which is a bit more than half of what the stock actually did after Q2.

How High Can 2027 Go?

This is where Deutsche gets interesting. In Yu's view, "the largest swing factor in respect to forecasts will be compute deployment." Management is targeting more than 2GW exiting 4Q26, which DB thinks is "doable," and then 5-10GW exiting 2027. DB models toward the low end, at about 6GW, and lays out a line of sight into 5-7GW of power over the next couple of years: 1.9GW of Doosan turbines, 1.2GW from the Southaven plant's 41 turbines, 0.7-1.1GW from the APR acquisition, 900MW or more leased through the Stateline JV, plus the TVA grid supply and backup turbines at Colossus 1 and up to another gigawatt "from other sources." (We assume SpaceX will need all of it to keep the Nvidia chips it is borrowing to buy switched on.)

Put it together, and the bank's math says the neocloud business alone can generate $70-90 billion of revenue in 2027, "depending on timing and pricing dynamics." For context, SpaceX's entire 2025 revenue was $18.7 billion. And the result is a 2027 forecast that is now 16% above consensus on revenue and 29% above on EBITDA:

Deutsche isn't even the most aggressive on compute. Goldman's Eric Sheridan, in his own SpaceX Q3'26 preview earlier this month (also available to pro subs), forecasts SpaceX scaling to ~2.4GW of AI compute by year-end, ~7.0GW by the end of 2027 and ~10.6GW by the end of 2028:

Goldman models $85.5 billion in 2027 AI solutions & infrastructure revenue, of which $45.5 billion comes from hosting deals on just ~1GW of contracted capacity. As we noted when we dug through Goldman's neocloud rate card, most of those hosting deals are "90-day cancellable on both sides." Which is probably worth keeping in mind when somebody extrapolates them to 2029.

Speaking of extrapolating, Musk himself already raised the bar on the Q2 call:

Musk reiterates expectation of $100 billion ARR by the end of this year (10x the June ARR), and now sees SpaceX seeing $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, and "non zero chance" of getting there in 2029. Some context: the average analyst estimate (30 of 39 sellside analysts are Buy on SPCX) for 2029 revenue is $208 billion
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 4, 2026

Evercore's Kutgun Maral, for one, expects an annual run rate of $104 billion by year-end and 2.3GW of compute (vs. the Street's 2.2GW), and raised his target to $270. Deutsche keeps its Buy and $235 target, vs. Friday's close of $146.03.

The $200 Billion Footnote

Here is the full set of DB's estimate changes. Look at the bottom line of each block:

Deutsche raised 2027 revenue by $10 billion, and 2027 capex by $22 billion, to $207 billion, and 2028 capex by $40 billion to $230 billion. And while 2028 revenue barely moves ($200 billion vs. $198 billion), 2028 EPS actually dips, because, as Yu admits, "there is concern by investors that pricing could normalize in 2028-29." The bank now assumes $/GW pricing "declines by 25% to about $30bn in 2028." In other words, the compute gets more expensive to build exactly when it gets cheaper to rent.

Line up DB's own EBITDA against DB's own capex, and the problem becomes obvious:

Napkin math: under Deutsche's bullish model, capex exceeds EBITDA by about $47 billion this year, $124 billion in 2027 and $81 billion in 2028, or roughly $250 billion across three years. SpaceX ended Q2 with $100 billion in cash and marketable securities, and DB expects about $13.5 billion of that to have been burned in Q3 alone. Which means the 2027 gap by itself is bigger than the cash pile... and that gap has to be filled by someone.

That someone, of course, is the bond market.

Meanwhile, In Credit...

Regular readers will recall that SpaceX slammed head first into the bond market less than two weeks after its record $86 billion IPO, selling $25 billion of investment grade bonds which were, depending on who you asked, "4x oversubscribed." Bondholders have been underwater pretty much since the break, and on Monday the 6.65% notes of 2056 hit a new all-time low of 83.345:

At that price, the 30-year paper of a BBB-rated company that is supposedly about to post $84 billion in EBITDA yields roughly 8.1%, which is the kind of number one usually associates with the junk bond market (as we put it back in August, "SPCX bonds skeptical about the $1 trillion in revenue"). The 5.875% notes due 2036 tell the same story: per Trace, their spread was 193bps earlier this month, vs. 140bps when they were sold in June.

What changed? The record chip-collateralized loan. On Oct 6, the FT reported that SpaceX wants to raise another $40 billion, about $10 billion in bank loans and $30 billion of IG debt, in a deal led by Apollo, to pay for Nvidia chips. Add the $25 billion from June, and SpaceX will have borrowed (or tried to borrow) $65 billion since June, on top of the $38.4 billion in debt it reported as of June 30. The next day, five-year CDS jumped as much as 16.7bps to about 197.6bps, the highest since the swaps started actively trading in June (when they were around 110bps):

Of course, we covered it at the time:

Barclays' credit analysts, led by Andrew Keches, argued that an SPV structure might be good for SpaceX in the long run by reducing the amount of debt at the parent company, but warned that in the near term the coming supply could put pressure on the company's existing bonds.

Well, they were right about the near term: less than two weeks later, the bonds are 1.4 points lower than where they were on Oct 7, and DB's revised capex forecast suggests $40 billion won't be the last ask. Or as Coherence Credit's Sal Naro told Bloomberg, speaking of AI debt in general: "This is unprecedented debt supply with no real ending in sight."

None of this will surprise those who have been reading us since last October, when we first warned that AI had quietly become a debt bubble too, and that the debt would sooner or later have to compete with everyone else (including Uncle Sam) for the same duration buyers. SpaceX, which Musk said in December had been cash-flow positive for years and didn't really need anyone's money, is now one of the biggest borrowers in that line.

What To Watch Today After The Close

Deutsche's own list of "other areas of focus" is a good checklist:

AI: neocloud pricing and new contracts, the Cursor contribution, Grok Bot adoption, and the data center capex outlook (read: any hint that 2027 capex starts with a "2").
Launch: timing of the next few launches after Flight 14; Flight 15 looks set for mid-/late November, though DB doesn't expect a second-stage catch.
Connectivity: after the $8 billion Grain spectrum deal, "additional color on management's next move(s) in the US (build vs. buy)," which is something the wireless carriers will be listening to closely.
Tesla merger: DB sees the timing as "mainly a function of valuation differentials and politics (may want to avoid a potential Democrat-led administration taking over post Trump)."

To that we'd add one more: anything on financing. Specifically, whether the $40 billion Apollo deal is done, how much of it sits in an SPV, and how much more is coming. And, after today's pledge of a SpaceX share to "every kid in America," maybe also how many shares that is.

Who Blinks First?

Deutsche's long-term thesis (as well as everyone else's for that matter) is straightforward: "the endgame is to build and possess the greatest amount of compute at the lowest cost on the ground and eventually in orbit," which should eventually let SpaceX "deliver leading intelligence/inference capabilities which we think investors generally are still quite skeptical about." Yu also concedes that "the stock has increasingly traded more in line with the AI cohort as opposed to Space." Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas, who has become the bank's resident in house SpaceX cheerleader and now covers only this company, thinks SpaceX "looks unusually cheap" on the forward (duh), recently described the skepticism even more vividly: asked who owned the stock, out of 40 clients "not a single hand went up."

So who is right: the equity analysts who see 2027 EBITDA nearly 30% above consensus, or the bondholders who are demanding 8% for 30 years? Probably both, in their own way.

The upside case is real, but every dollar of DB's 2027 EBITDA comes with roughly two and a half dollars of capex attached, and that capex will be funded by the same creditors who just marked the 2056s to 83. If today's call brings a higher capex number and no clarity on financing, we suspect the bond market will be the one setting the tone, just as it did after Q2. Then again, Musk has never been shy about telling bears that he "tried to warn them," and as of Friday's close the stock was still 8% above its $135 IPO price. The bonds, meanwhile, are almost 16% below theirs.

Much more in the full Deutsche Bank "Compute-driven state of mind" note and Goldman's "SpaceX Q3'26 preview," both available to pro subs.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 15:45

Is YouTube Still Running Cover For Fauci?

Tyler Durden — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 19:30:00 +0000

Is YouTube Still Running Cover For Fauci?

Authored by Peter Navarro via The Epoch Times,

Anthony Stephen Fauci harmed millions of Americans by mismanaging the pandemic. Google’s YouTube and its woke censors helped him every step of the way.

The pandemic is over. The censorship is not. YouTube still suppresses speech that threatens Dr. Fauci and the failed policies he built. The latest example is an interview I gave to Epoch Times Senior Editor Jan Jekielek about my new book, “Why Fauci Must Rot in Prison.”

YouTube runs its censorship under what it calls the “Four R’s of Responsibility”: Remove, Raise, Reduce, Reward. It did not Remove the interview; a takedown would have made news. It chose the quiet R: Reduce.

Here is what Reduce looks like. The interview premiered on Oct. 13. Five days later it had 21,248 views. The 10 full episodes of Mr. Jekielek’s American Thought Leaders posted before mine averaged about 170,000 views; the five immediately before it averaged 73,000. In the show’s China playlist, where my interview sits, the 10 prior episodes averaged 124,000. An episode with Dr. Phil posted one day ago already has 47,000—more than double mine in a fifth of the time.

This is not an unpopular video. According to Mr. Jekielek, it is performing massively on other platforms. Only on YouTube has it been wounded on arrival.

That is the YouTube black box. Nobody outside Google can see which switch was thrown, and there is a drawer full of them: pulling a video from the recommendation engine that drives most of its traffic; dropping it from the “Up Next” autoplay queue; burying it in search; withholding the notification to a channel’s 584,000 subscribers; tagging it “borderline” so it is never shown to anyone who did not already go looking; putting it in “limited state,” which strips comments, likes, and suggested videos; and demonetizing it. The video stays up, so YouTube can swear it censored nothing. It is a cell with no door.

This is the same war YouTube helped Dr. Fauci wage across every front of the pandemic. Let me be clear: Dr. Fauci was dead wrong about the lockdowns, masks, early-treatment antivirals, and the risks of the vaccines and boosters. YouTube silenced the people who were right. Americans died. Young men got myocarditis. Pregnant women may have had more miscarriages.

In April 2020, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told CNN that “anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy.” Dr. Fauci stood with the WHO. So YouTube stood with Dr. Fauci.

Lockdowns. In October 2020, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard published the Great Barrington Declaration. It argued what I had argued inside the White House: general lockdowns would kill more people than they saved. Francis Collins called them “fringe epidemiologists” and ordered “a quick and devastating published takedown.” Dr. Fauci wrote in his diary on Oct. 15, 2020, in his favorite words: “I blew away the Great Barrington Declaration.” YouTube finished the job. In April 2021, it deleted a Florida roundtable in which Gov. Ron DeSantis sat with Mr. Bhattacharya, Mr. Kulldorff, Ms. Gupta, and Scott Atlas, because the panel said children should not be masked.

Masks. On March 8, 2020, Dr. Fauci told 60 Minutes, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.” Then came mandates, then two masks at once. When Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a physician, said in August 2021 that cloth masks do not prevent infection, YouTube deleted the video and suspended him for a week.

Antivirals. I put more than 60 million doses of hydroxychloroquine into the Strategic National Stockpile. YouTube removed testimony from Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) December 2020 hearing on early treatment, then in June 2021, suspended him for a week for saying hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were safe generics that deserved study.

Vaccines. On Sept. 29, 2021, YouTube banned any claim that an approved vaccine is dangerous and began terminating channels wholesale. That fall, Dr. Fauci’s own diary recorded “a lack of a lot of data for safety among young individuals particularly in the context of myocarditis,” while the White House chief of staff was “very much intense on getting this approval through.” Eight months earlier, he had written that post-dose fever could “theoretically” be associated with first-trimester miscarriage. Say that on YouTube in 2021, and your channel was gone.

In my book, I lay out, issue by issue, that I was right and Dr. Fauci was wrong. YouTube made sure the country heard only him.

YouTube has already confessed. On Sept. 23, 2025, Alphabet’s lawyers wrote the House Judiciary Committee that Biden officials “conducted repeated and sustained outreach” and “continued to press the Company to remove non-violative user-generated content.” Thirteen months later, it is throttling a Fauci critic again.

It is time for the FCC to put an end, once and for all, to YouTube playing God with our lives. The blood on Dr. Fauci’s hands has spilled onto YouTube. YouTube has made a mockery of Google’s old motto, “Don’t be evil.” It is time to do to YouTube what YouTube has done, at such cost, to so many of us. Silence them.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/20/2026 - 15:30