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Tue, 14 Jul 2026 22:50:00 +0000 Jack Smith's Team Spied On 44 Lawmakers' Texts, Built A Case On Them, And Misled Congress: Grassley
Jack Smith's Team Spied On 44 Lawmakers' Texts, Built A Case On Them, And Misled Congress: Grassley
Former special counsel Jack Smith's investigators blew past the Justice Department's own privilege safeguards to di
Read more.....
Jack Smith's Team Spied On 44 Lawmakers' Texts, Built A Case On Them, And Misled Congress: Grassley
Former special counsel Jack Smith's investigators blew past the Justice Department's own privilege safeguards to directly access text messages between Trump White House officials and 44 members of Congress - then had the FBI match the phone numbers to lawmakers' names, according to DOJ records released Tuesday.
Assistant Attorney General Patrick Davis told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in a letter accompanying the records that Smith's team "bypassed the Filter Team and directly accessed these text messages." The FBI then worked out which senators and House members had sent or received them, Davis wrote.
The filter unit existed for one purpose: to screen messages pulled from the National Archives for privileged material before line investigators ever laid eyes on them.
"All communication to/from the Filter Team must go through the Coordinator, " one internal protocol document states - adding that nothing was to reach the investigative team without a filter attorney's sign-off.
The messages, sent between October 2020 and Jan. 20, 2021, ran between a bipartisan roster of lawmakers and Trump White House figures including chief of staff Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, Ivanka Trump, Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, now-CIA Director John Ratcliffe and now-FBI Director Kash Patel, the records show.
Among the 44 lawmakers: Grassley himself, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.); House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.); Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.); Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee; then-Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), now mayor of Los Angeles; and then-Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), now head of the EPA.
An internal DOJ email dated Aug. 21, 2023, shows Smith's team discussing "54 excel files with text messages from White House phones" being loaded into a shared drive - material gathered under the codenames "Project Coconut," the election-interference probe, and "Project Cranberry," the Mar-a-Lago documents case.
"Jack Smith's criminal investigation of President Trump was a runaway train that had no brakes," Grassley said Tuesday, charging that investigators reviewed messages from dozens of lawmakers "outside the scope of the government's investigation" - and that Smith's team "ran roughshod over the Constitution even after repeated warnings."
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) called the disclosure "yet another grotesque example" of the Biden-era Justice Department's weaponization, saying no one should be shocked by Smith's "recklessness and blatant abuse of power."
'Just toll records'
The records land squarely on testimony Smith gave under oath seven months ago.
At his Dec. 17 deposition before the House Judiciary Committee, Smith repeatedly assured lawmakers that his office's reach into Congress stopped at "toll records" - bare logs of who called whom, and when.
"Did you seek a search warrant for the content of any text messages from Members?" a committee lawyer asked.
"No, I don't recall that," Smith answered.
"It was just toll records?"
"Correct."
Asked separately whether the toll records his office obtained from members of Congress included "the content of text messages," Smith answered flatly: "No."
Strictly speaking, those questions concerned records sought directly from lawmakers and their phone carriers - not the White House data Smith's office already held. But nowhere in the 255-page deposition did Smith volunteer that his investigators possessed - and, per the Davis letter, had directly accessed - the actual contents of members' messages, harvested from the other side of the conversation. The committee, unaware of the National Archives trove, never asked.
A review of the transcript also found Smith sharpened his sworn answers after the fact. In an errata sheet correcting the record, Smith revised his response on whether any other lawmaker's phone had been seized from "I don't know" to a definitive "I don't -- no." Another correction strikes the word "text" from his reference to "text records" that could prove certain Jan. 6 calls happened - leaving just "records."
Either way, the 'perjury' word is being tossed around now...
Roughly 30 pages of the transcript released by the committee - including the page carrying Smith's "just toll records" exchange - were inserted as images rather than searchable text, meaning keyword searches of the document skip past them. The committee did not respond to questions about the formatting.
Months of warnings
Tuesday's release caps a months-long drip of Arctic Frost disclosures: 197 subpoenas touching more than 430 Republican individuals and groups; toll records for at least 11 senators and six House members, all shielded by court-approved gag orders; and internal emails showing prosecutors were warned that congressional subpoenas could violate the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause.
In one email released this spring, a member of Smith's team wrote that the office was about to "fire off subpoenas for so many members tolls" that Smith himself should be looped in first.
Smith has insisted the phone-records furor is overblown. "Recent narratives about my team's work are false and misleading," he told the committee in his opening statement, stressing that toll records "do not include the content of calls." His attorneys have previously called the collection lawful - noting that special counsel Robert Hur obtained President Biden's toll records, and that the Justice Department under Trump's first term seized phone records of Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, along with those of dozens of congressional staffers.
"Jack Smith has answering to do," Grassley said, vowing to haul the former special counsel before the Senate Judiciary Committee "in the coming months."
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/14/2026 - 18:50 Close
Tue, 14 Jul 2026 22:25:00 +0000 Rubio Invites Countries To Summit Addressing "Underestimated Threat" From Far-Left Terrorism
Rubio Invites Countries To Summit Addressing "Underestimated Threat" From Far-Left Terrorism
Rubio Invites Countries To Summit Addressing "Underestimated Threat" From Far-Left Terrorism
Authored by Bryan Hyde via American Greatness,
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is will meet with delegations from scores of countries this week for a summit focused on the neglected threat posed by “the resurgence of transnational far-left terrorism.”
ABC News reports that a note shared with foreign governments describes the concept of the meeting as addressing a threat that “has remained a blind spot in the international community’s counterterrorism focus, underestimated and under-resourced, despite the danger it poses.”
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told Newsmax that the Trump administration is taking seriously the gaps that have persisted for decades in counterterrorism strategy.
The conference seeks to combat international organizations, specifically the decentralized antifa movement, which the administration has formally designated as a domestic terrorist organization.
Law enforcement and counterterrorism experts have exposed a “clear trend” of “globally networked, politically-motivated terrorists — particularly far-left terrorists” increasingly turning to “organized, deadly violence to advance their political objectives.”
The gathering will include senior ministers from over 60 countries — including nations across Europe, Latin America, Asia, as well as India and Israel—to discuss intelligence sharing and law enforcement cooperation.
The meeting, scheduled to take place in Washington on Thursday, will lay the foundation for “coordinated action” to counter international organizations that are “seeking to implement an extreme political vision through intimidation and coordinated campaigns of terror” according to ABC News.
The initiative aligns with a new U.S. counterterrorism strategy released in May 2026 that prioritizes “violent secular political groups” alongside traditional threats.
Some allies and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other critics have accused the administration of utilizing counterterrorism authorities to target politically opposed but peaceful activists and donors, according to ABC News.
The State Department has clarified that the terrorist designations are aimed at groups that are “engaged in violent terrorist activities such as kidnapping, targeting U.S. law enforcement, targeting the civilian population.”
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/14/2026 - 18:25 Close
Tue, 14 Jul 2026 22:00:00 +0000 New York's Millionaire Exodus Is Costing Billions In Lost Revenue
New York's Millionaire Exodus Is Costing Billions In Lost Revenue
Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood outside Ken Griffin's $238 million Manhattan penthouse in April and declared victory. "When I ran for mayor, I said I was
Read more.....
New York's Millionaire Exodus Is Costing Billions In Lost Revenue
Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood outside Ken Griffin's $238 million Manhattan penthouse in April and declared victory. "When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich. Well, today we're taxing the rich," he said in a social media video marking the debut of New York City's first pied-à-terre tax, an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners do not live in the city full time. He promised the tax would raise "at least $500 million directly for the city," money he said would fund free child care, cleaner streets, and safer neighborhoods. "This is a fundamentally unfair system that hurts working New Yorkers," Mamdani said. "Now it's coming to an end."
Three months later, a new study suggests the mayor picked an odd moment to celebrate.
The Citizen Budget Commission published an analysis Monday , finding that New York's shrinking share of the nation's millionaires cost the state an estimated $10.7 billion in lost personal income tax revenue in 2022 alone. New York's share of the country's millionaires fell from 12.7 percent in 2010 to 8.7 percent in 2022, the steepest decline of any state over that period. Had New York simply held its 2010 share, the Commission concluded, the state would have collected roughly $10.7 billion more in personal income tax that year.
So Mamdani, who took office in January, had inherited a tax base already showing signs of flight. His pied-à-terre push targets exactly the kind of high earners the CBC says have been leaving in growing numbers, and critics view the timing as more provocation than plan. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is running for reelection in November, has stopped short of backing an outright tax increase on wealthy New Yorkers this year, though she supports the pied-à-terre concept for luxury second homes in the city.
"In New York, the top 1% of earners pay about 45% of all state income taxes in any given year, so New York's revenue is very reliant on high earners to stay in New York, and that has been a challenge in recent years," said Jared Walczak, an economist and senior fellow at the Tax Foundation think tank, told the New York Post .
Walczak said city-level measures like Mamdani's cannot fix the underlying problem, since any meaningful tax change requires action in Albany. He also warned that continued hikes combined with more competitive alternatives elsewhere could accelerate departures.
Abir Mandel, senior state policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, said New York currently ranks last in the nation for tax competitiveness. She pointed to Elon Musk relocating his companies from California to Texas as the kind of decision New York risks inviting without reform, cautioning that the state will otherwise struggle to attract both population and business. Of Wall Street's outsized role in propping up state revenue, Mandel offered a blunt assessment. "Wall Street is the golden goose," she said. "But for how long?"
The CBC report traces the stagnation back well before Mamdani ever took office. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo raised income taxes on high earners during the COVID pandemic, and Hochul now oversees Medicaid spending, which is on pace to reach $58 billion by the end of the decade. Ken Girardin, a research fellow at the Manhattan Institute, pointed to the state's 2019 rent-control overhaul and its green-energy mandate as a one-two punch that reduced housing supply and raised energy costs. "Albany is directly responsible for the stagnation," he said.
New York has lost more residents to every other state than it has gained from any of them, with Florida and Texas among the top destinations for departing New Yorkers, and that's a huge problem.
Justin Wilcox, executive director of Upstate United, called the study's findings hard to ignore. "It's difficult to not be alarmed by this data," he said. "With this CBC tool, Upstate New Yorkers can see for themselves the devastating impacts of Albany's policies - businesses failing to grow, population decline, and the loss of revenue. NYS needs to course correct now before it's too late and we become permanently entrenched in a cycle of fewer people."
Asked about the study on Monday during an unrelated event, Mamdani dismissed concerns that higher earners will flee the city, arguing that New York gained millionaires after past tax increases by Albany. He defended his broader philosophy without addressing the CBC's specific findings. "I've been very clear about the fact that we live in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, and it's unacceptable that one in four New Yorkers are living in poverty, and I believe that the wealthiest can do a little bit more to ensure that everyone can afford to live here," he said.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/14/2026 - 18:00 Close
Tue, 14 Jul 2026 21:20:00 +0000 Largest US Power Grid Is 6.8 Gigawatts Short To Ensure Reliability On Historic Data Center Boom
Largest US Power Grid Is 6.8 Gigawatts Short To Ensure Reliability On Historic Data Center Boom
The largest US power grid failed for a third straight year to secure enough future supply commitments to ensure reliability for the futu
Read more.....
Largest US Power Grid Is 6.8 Gigawatts Short To Ensure Reliability On Historic Data Center Boom
The largest US power grid failed for a third straight year to secure enough future supply commitments to ensure reliability for the future amid a historic boom in data center demand.
PJM Interconnection, the largest US power grid (Regional Transmission Organization), which serves 67 million customers in 13 states and Washington, DC, said its auction to procure power for the year starting June 2028 fell 6.8 gigawatts short of what it will need to guarantee system reliability during demand spikes , in a statement released Tuesday . The shortfall is equivalent to almost seven traditional nuclear reactors.
The result ramps up pressure on a grid that’s home to Virginia’s Data Center Alley, the biggest concentration of data centers in the US, and has borne the brunt of criticism for the struggle to manage the AI boom and sufficiently protect customers from soaring costs. Attention now shifts to an emergency procurement mechanism later this year that aims to shift the burden of ramping up power generation to hyperscalers.
6.831 Megawatt Shortfall
PJM Interconnection today announced the results of its 2028/2029 Base Residual Auction (BRA), which secured 138,318 MW of unforced capacity generation (UCAP) and demand response to meet projected electricity needs for the more than 67 million people across 13 states and the District of Columbia, which fall under the RTO's umbrella.
Regions under the Fixed Resource Requirement (FRR) acquired an additional 10,864 MW in UCAP, for a total of 149,182 MW in UCAP available to serve forecasted peak electricity demand, plus a reserve margin. UCAP represents a generation resource’s maximum output adjusted for its estimated ability to reliably perform at times of highest system risk. The capacity of the resources procured in the auction, plus FRR resources, is short of PJM’s reliability requirement by 6,831 MW , meaning that the committed supply is less than what would be required to meet the one-event-in-10-year reliability standard (and with electricity-guzzling data centers popping up almost daily these days, the one-event-in-10-year has become a daily occurrence).
This shortfall was not unexpected given the conditions PJM has been observing, including a shortfall of approximately 6,500 MW in the previous capacity auction (for the 2027/2028 Delivery Year). These most recent auctions were the first in PJM history in which the entire RTO fell short of the reliability requirement . PJM plans to seek FERC approval to hold a special “Backstop Procurement” in September to help address the near-term shortfall in electricity supply.
In coordination with the governors of all 13 PJM states and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, PJM established a price cap and floor, or collar, for four capacity auctions to protect both consumers and investors from market volatility. This was the third consecutive auction with the price collar.
The clearing price came in at the FERC-approved price ceiling of $325 per megawatt-day which will show up in users’ monthly utility bills; the price was a 2.5% decrease from the 2027/2028 Base Residual Auction cap of $333.44 per megawatt day.
Source: PJM
Costs would be even higher if not for the price cap first negotiated in 2024. While that has helped keep a (loose) lid on costs, PJM has been among those to say that the system also means there isn’t a sufficient price signal for producers to build new power generation.
The table below from the PJM statement shows what prices would have been without a price cap. For 2028/2029, all prices cleared at $554.72 except the COMED LDA, which cleared at $776.69.
In other words, absent a regulatory cap, the price of electricity would be 70% higher ($554.72 vs $325).
Source: PJM
Meanwhile, advanced technology providers of nuclear energy such as modular reactor companies Nano Nuclear and Oklo are just waiting for the green light to plug their energy sources into the grid.
Payouts to generators for the year starting June 2028 matched the last auction’s all-time high of $16.4 billion set in December, according to PJM (the total value does not equate to the total cost to load because load that is hedged through self-supply or bilateral contracts is not exposed to the clearing prices in the auction).
PJM power prices jumped 76% during the first quarter due to rampant demand from data centers, according to a report from Monitoring Analytics, the grid’s independent market monitor.
PJM CEO David Mills recently described such a situation as “untenable."
Commenting on today's auction, Mills said that “these auction results show that demand for electricity continues to grow faster than electricity supply. At the same time, PJM recognizes how this supply-and-demand imbalance impacts the reliability of the system and costs for consumers. We are working with government and industry leaders on multiple fronts to restore that balance by bringing on new generation as fast as possible and managing the growth of new load on the grid.”
As we have repeatedly warned when discussing just how little excess capacity there is in the US grid - with PJM already well below the critical reliability threshold - a searing heat dome earlier this month showed just how close the PJM grid is to reaching its limits, with power demand likely surpassing a record that had stood for over two decades. Without urgent action, the grid risks further deterioration with demand outstripping oncoming supply.
PJM already was under intense scrutiny with data centers and power generators saying they are not being connected fast enough as consumer groups and politicians hammer the grid for spiraling power bills. Those concerns are likely to come to a head at a July 23 conference called by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to discuss grid governance.
The latest auction result, intended to guarantee enough capacity is available for the few hours in a typical year when demand peaks, will also put further onus of an emergency measure slated for later this year to fill the supply gap and ensure data centers pay. As Bloomberg notes, PJM has yet to submit its proposal for exactly how that will work, but the process is set to get underway in September after heavy pressure from the White House and state governors.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/14/2026 - 17:20 Close
Tue, 14 Jul 2026 21:00:00 +0000 Rubio Pledges To Dismantle International Criminal Court's Threat To US Sovereignty
Rubio Pledges To Dismantle International Criminal Court's Threat To US Sovereignty
Rubio Pledges To Dismantle International Criminal Court's Threat To US Sovereignty
Authored by Victoria Friedman via The Epoch Times,
The State Department is launching a campaign to “dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to U.S. sovereignty,” the department said, including through disabling the court’s ability to target American servicemen or officials.
The State Department said in a July 13 statement that actions under consideration include U.S. officials contacting foreign nations to highlight the ICC’s abuses and the risk posed to other countries by the court, and urging them to withdraw from the body.
The Trump administration is also considering revoking visas and imposing travel bans on ICC personnel, imposing increased sanctions against the ICC and its affiliates, and increasing pressure on nations that refuse to reject ICC rulings while still relying on U.S. assistance.
“No diplomatic option will be off-limits in the campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the ICC to Americans,” the department said.
The ICC was established in 2002 to prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, asserting its jurisdiction if a member of the ICC is unable or unwilling to undertake prosecutions itself.
The United States has never been a member of the ICC; however, the court’s statutes give it the power to prosecute crimes committed in a member state by nationals of non-member states, including Americans.
“The ICC poses an intolerable threat to U.S. sovereignty - it claims the authority to prosecute and even imprison American servicemen and officials operating on behalf of America’s national interest,” the State Department said.
“Americans never signed up for this, and all American presidents since the ICC’s ratification have maintained that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over Americans.”
The ICC’s spokesperson, Oriane Maillet, said the court would not comment on the matter at this stage.
President Donald Trump’s opposition to the court goes back to his first term in office. He and other officials in Washington have long said the ICC should not have the authority to investigate and prosecute U.S. citizens, particularly members of the military.
In March 2020, ICC prosecutors opened an ?investigation in Afghanistan that included looking into possible crimes by U.S. military personnel. However, since 2021, it has deprioritized the United States’ role, focusing ?on alleged crimes committed by Taliban forces and the Afghan government.
‘Waging a War Against Our Country’
“As we speak, the ICC and its friends are waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes and compacts and the force of so-called international law,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a video message posted on July 13.
Rubio said that when the ICC was established, it said it was limited to dealing with the most serious of offenses.
“But the truth is, it was something far more radical and extreme. It was a global tribunal staffed by unelected globalist bureaucrats who claim their power is almost unlimited,” he said.
Rubio said that the court’s power has only continued to grow, and that the United States should not stand idle and let judges living thousands of miles away make determinations well beyond their jurisdiction.
“The American people never agreed to any of this, and they never will,” Rubio said.
“Read the words of our Declaration of Independence. We fought a revolution against a foreign power, transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses. Independence is our birthright. We will never let foreign bureaucrats take that away from us.”
In December 2025, Rubio sanctioned two ICC judges after accusing them of being engaged in the “illegitimate targeting” of Israel. Rubio said at the time that neither the United States nor Israel is a party to the Rome Statute, the international treaty that established the ICC, and therefore rejected the court’s jurisdiction.
“The ICC has continued to engage in politicized actions targeting Israel, which set a dangerous precedent for all nations. We will not tolerate ICC abuses of power that violate the sovereignty of the United States and Israel and wrongly subject U.S. and Israeli persons to the ICC’s jurisdiction,” Rubio said in the Dec. 18 statement.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/14/2026 - 17:00 Close
Tue, 14 Jul 2026 20:40:00 +0000 New York Becomes First State To Enact One Year Ban On New Data Centers
New York Becomes First State To Enact One Year Ban On New Data Centers
The blowback against data centers escalated this morning, when Read more.....
New York Becomes First State To Enact One Year Ban On New Data Centers
The blowback against data centers escalated this morning, when New York became first state in the nation to enact a moratorium on data centers, pausing construction on new facilities for one year.
An executive order by Gov. Kathy Hochul bans state lawmakers from approving environmental permits for hyperscale data centers. Hochul said Tuesday the pause will give lawmakers time to create a framework to protect residents and the environment.
"Massive data centers are being built across our state and our country. The scale and speed of this development has put unprecedented demand on energy and water resources, and threatens to drive up utility costs. Before it goes any further, I need safeguards in place to protect New Yorkers," Hochul said in a social media post.
AI data centers, which contain thousands of servers and typically use 50 or more megawatts of power to operate, have been blamed for everything from noise pollution to sending regional electricity prices soaring. They also require a steady supply of water to keep cool.
Hochul said the state still welcomes AI investments and businesses, and looks forward to helping them grow and thrive.
"But when you benefit from the talent and energy of New York, we expect you to protect our resources and give back to our communities," Hochul said.
The order comes as the state is experiencing unprecedented growth in the demand for data center development driven by AI and other computing operations, according to the governor's office. The data centers require "millions of gallons of water, draining the local supply."
"The bottom line is progress shouldn't arrive with a higher utility bill, depleted water supplies, or noise pollution. So we have no choice but to address these challenges created by these massive facilities," Hochul said.
Hochul said New York will require data centers to either produce their own energy or pay a premium for accessing New York's grid. Hochul also said she opposes any tax subsidies for AI data centers as well.
The Department of Public Service will create the guidelines for centers to ensure new facilities meet consistent standards.
Hochul said the process will take up to a year, prompting the moratorium. Once state officials finalize the standards, the ban will be lifted.
Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand applauded the move: "This one-year moratorium is fundamentally about trust. Right now, New Yorkers aren't convinced these massive facilities benefit them. Before we move forward, our communities need ironclad guarantees that their energy bills won't spike, their water will be protected, and their air will remain clean," Gillibrand said.
Gillibrand described the need for federal action regarding AI as well: "That requires establishing clear, reliable rules of the road. We must build a framework that protects our kids from harmful algorithms and social media tools; shields seniors and consumers from AI-driven scams and fraud; and safeguards American jobs and livelihoods from displacement."
"It kills good-paying union jobs"
Not everyone is pleased with the moratorium.
"A shortsighted moratorium only accomplishes one thing: it kills good-paying union jobs. Rather than implementing guardrails to build the future of American ingenuity, Governor Hochul is taking her ball and going home. We urge the governor to work with all parties, including the hardworking New Yorkers whose jobs are at stake, to implement common sense guardrails," United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters general president Mark McManus said.
The Associated General Contractors of New York State also objected to the moratorium, calling it "the wrong policy for New York."
"Halting permits for as much as a year in this fast-moving sector will not simply delay projects—it will send them permanently to Virginia, Texas, Georgia and other states actively competing for these investments and the construction and other jobs that come with them. Once a developer breaks ground somewhere else, that project—and the opportunities and tax revenue that come with it—are not coming back," AGS NYS president and CEO Mike Elmendorf said. "Data center construction is the strongest-performing segment in an otherwise uncertain construction market nationwide, and New York's construction industry—which still has not recovered to pre-pandemic employment levels—cannot afford to forfeit it."
Elmendorf called the moratorium a "de facto ban that tells the marketplace New York is closed for business."
Meanwhile, PA senator John Fetterman, snubbed the NY decision by simply stating "China wins."
A grassroots pushback against data centers has been spreading across the nation in the past year and most recently culminated in the so-called Silion Alley in Virginia - which has the highest concentration of data centers in the US - and where we reported a week ago that giant data center landlord Blackstone is walking away from plans to build its portion (which at this point is the only portion left after its partner already pulled out days earlier) of a 2,100-acre data center campus in Virginia - also known as Prince William Digital Gateway which would house as many as 37 data-center buildings - handing a win to residents who fought for years to topple the project.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/14/2026 - 16:40 Close
Tue, 14 Jul 2026 20:20:00 +0000 Offload Risks Onto The Bottom 90% And Immiseration Follows
Offload Risks Onto The Bottom 90% And Immiseration Follows
Offload Risks Onto The Bottom 90% And Immiseration Follows
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
The underlying story of the past 50 years has been the offloading of risk onto workers and consumers.
On my map of how the world works , we start with structures of control that distribute the good stuff--resources, assets, income and power--and the bad stuff: costs, losses and risks. As I explained in The US Economy In a Nutshell: Privatize the Gains, Socialize the Costs , the current arrangement distributes the gains to the top 10% and the costs and risks to the bottom 90% via privatizing the gains and socializing--i.e. dumping them onto the biosphere and the public--the costs and losses.
This follows a power-law distribution: the few at the top reap most of the gains, and the leftovers, scraps and crumbs are distributed in descending order, with most of what's left going to the top 9.5% and a diminishing dribble is scattered over the lower 90%, so that by the time we get to the bottom half of households, 170 million people own a grand total of 2.5% of the nation's financial assets, while the top 0.1% own 16.6%--6.6X the bottom 50%.
A key mechanism in this wildly asymmetric distribution of gains and costs is the system favors capital over wages. As the charts below illustrate, the financial gains go to the owners of capital, and since ownership of capital is highly concentrated, these few owners siphon up the vast majority of the gains.
One way to understand how the current arrangement favors capital over wages is to reverse the tax liabilities of capital and wages. Employers and employees pay 15.3% of every dollar of wages in Social Security / Medicare taxes, plus income taxes that quickly rise to 22%, for a total tax rate of 37.3% on wages. (Note self-employed people like myself pay the full 15.3% ourselves, as we're both employer and employee.)
Capital gains are taxed at 20%, but only when the asset is sold, so the wealthy borrow against their unrealized gains and live off this borrowed money to avoid selling and having to pay tax on capital gains. And since the system depends on debt to survive, the interest on debt is deductible, giving the wealthy borrowers a tax deduction for avoiding capital gains.
Now imagine all capital gains, realized or unrealized, were taxed at 37% and the first $80,000 of wages were tax-free. The median wage is around $80,000, hence my picking that number. As for the hue and cry about unrealized capital gains being taxed, that's easily addressed: unrealized gains in primary-residence owner-occupied homes and retirement accounts would be exempted. Every other gain made playing in the casino would be taxed.
Reversing the asymmetry of tax liabilities would dramatically alter the distribution of gains and costs. Wages have lost ground for 50+ years, and the favoring of capital is a key driver of this decline in the share of the economy that's distributed to wage earners.
Half the nation's households--170 million people own a grand total of 2.5% of the nation's financial assets:
The winner-take-most arrangement favoring capital:
Another key driver is the offloading of risk from owners to consumers and workers, a perverse process that has been obscured by incremental degradation. Risk is a strange phenomenon that defies easy definition. Risk isn't a direct loss or cost; it's the probability of losses and costs arising in what appears on the surface to be a stable arrangement.
Consider the stunning decline in the quality of durable goods such as appliances, and global industry adopting a laughably valueless one-year warranty across the board. Appliances that routinely lasted 30 years before "Progress" took the reins now routinely fail in 3+ years.
In the good old days before "Progress" took the reins, manufacturers absorbed the risk of premature failure of the goods they produced. Now this risk has been offloaded onto consumers, who are now forced to buy "extended warranties" as the only means of mitigating the risk they now carry of premature failure.
This is in effect a form of extortion: "nice refrigerator you got there, too bad it's at risk of breaking." Well, if current manufacturers had the same standards as previous generations, we wouldn't need "extended warranties." Welcome to the Mafia Economy: low quality goods and services force "upgrades," i.e. extortion.
Consider the offloading of risk onto workers. Employment other than casual labor once included healthcare insurance and other basic benefits. In the "gig economy" of contract employment and gigs, the worker is now responsible for paying their Social Security / Medicare taxes, healthcare insurance and retirement contributions.
The decline of hourly wages is another offloading of risk onto the worker. The percentage of workers paid by the hour has declined in favor of salaried positions with open-ended demands on workers: where hourly workers get paid for hours on the job, salaried workers are now on the hook for work beyond a conventional 8-hour work shift.
Then there's the immense mass of risk and labor that's been offloaded onto consumers and workers as shadow work , often the result of having to fix failures in goods and services that were once the responsibility of the provider or employer and have been dumped on consumers and workers. This is a topic I've often addressed.
This Is Why You're Drowning in Busywork: We have been told that A.I. will take people's jobs. What no one mentions is that many of those jobs are landing on us. The A.I. revolution involves a huge transfer of labor-- not from worker to machine but from worker to consumer. (nytimes.com, paywalled)
Another source of risk is the dependence on debt to fund the lifestyles we deserve : as the purchasing power of wages has declined, the easy "solution" is to fill the gap between what earnings can buy and what we want / need / expect / deserve with borrowed money.
As we all know, debt comes with risk , as falling behind greases the slide to default, bankruptcy and ruin. 27% interest rates on credit cards steepen the slide into a cliff: one missed payment can trigger a cascade of events that cannot be reversed. This is why I often observe that fewer bad things can happen if you have no debt.
Last but far from least, is the current arrangement's dependence on serial credit-asset bubbles as the sole driver of "growth" , a dependence that has led to a casino economy in which wage earners lose ground and in desperation turn to gambling as their last-ditch hope of gaining ground.
But despite 24/7 assurances that "this isn't a bubble," all bubbles pop with devastating consequences for those who believed the assurances of those operating the casino.
The underlying story of the past 50 years has been the offloading of risk onto workers and consumers , with the inevitable consequences being higher costs and losses leading to impoverishment and immiseration. We're frogs in water that's getting measurably hotter, and it's getting harder to muster the means to jump out of the simmering pot.
* * *
My book Investing In Revolution is available at a 10% discount ($18 for the paperback, $24 for the hardcover and $8.95 for the ebook edition). Introduction (free) . Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com . Subscribe to my Substack for free
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/14/2026 - 16:20 Close
Tue, 14 Jul 2026 19:45:00 +0000 Venezuela's Oil Revival Faces A Critical Services Bottleneck
Venezuela's Oil Revival Faces A Critical Services Bottleneck
Venezuela's Oil Revival Faces A Critical Services Bottleneck
Authored by Rystad Energy via OilPrice.com,
Venezuela could increase crude production by about 194,000 bpd by late 2028, with most growth coming from existing producing fields rather than new discoveries.
International oil companies led by Chevron are expected to deliver nearly two-thirds of the forecast production increase through brownfield investments.
The biggest obstacles are operational, including drilling rigs, diluent supplies, infrastructure upgrades, and a competitive fiscal regime capable of attracting long-term investment.
Venezuela's upstream industry has entered a new phase. Following sweeping hydrocarbon reforms and broader geopolitical developments in early 2026, the conversation has shifted from whether the country can reopen its oil sector to whether it can successfully execute a meaningful production recovery. The country's resource potential has never been in doubt. The greater challenge now lies in converting policy momentum into sustained operational growth.
Rystad Energy estimates Venezuela's crude production could increase by approximately 17%, or around 194,000 barrels per day (bpd), between the fourth quarter of 2025 and the fourth quarter of 2028. Importantly, this growth is expected to come primarily from existing producing assets rather than large-scale new discoveries, highlighting that operational execution, not resource availability, will determine the pace of recovery.
Near-term production growth will be dominated by heavier crude grades. Around three-quarters of Venezuela's output through 2028 is expected to come from heavy, extra-heavy crude and bitumen, with the Orinoco Oil Belt accounting for roughly 60% of total production. This makes access to diluents, workover activity, infill drilling, and mature field management considerably more important than reserve additions over the next several years.
Venezuela upstream figure 1
International operators are driving the recovery
International oil companies (IOCs) are expected to contribute nearly two-thirds of Venezuela's forecast production increase through 2028. Chevron remains the largest contributor, followed by Repsol, Eni, Maha Energy and Maurel & Prom. Most of this growth is expected to come from expanding production at existing joint ventures, reflecting renewed investment following regulatory changes and sanctions relief rather than greenfield developments.
Chevron continues to occupy a particularly strategic position. Recent portfolio adjustments have strengthened its exposure to the Orinoco Oil Belt, while future production growth is expected to rely on brownfield optimization, infill drilling and the phased development of Ayacucho 8. Beyond Chevron, companies such as Eni and Repsol continue to play a dual role in both Venezuela's crude and natural gas sectors through assets including the Cardón IV block and the giant Perla gas field.
However, international participation remains highly selective. Companies continue to balance the opportunity presented by Venezuela's vast resource base against fiscal uncertainty, operational complexity and long-term investment risk.
Execution, not geology, remains the key constraint
While policy reforms have improved the investment outlook, they do not eliminate the operational bottlenecks that have constrained production for years.
Sustained production growth will require continuous access to diluents, higher drilling activity, extensive workover campaigns, improved infrastructure and significantly greater rig availability. These operational requirements represent the critical link between resource potential and realized production.
Fiscal competitiveness also remains an important consideration. International operators have indicated that future capital commitments will depend on further improvements to Venezuela's fiscal framework, particularly around royalty rates and taxation. Lower project breakeven costs through more competitive fiscal terms could materially improve investment economics and encourage broader participation across the sector.
Oilfield services could become the industry's defining bottleneck
Perhaps the greatest challenge facing Venezuela's recovery lies beyond the upstream operators themselves. The Venezuelan Oil Ministry has identified a requirement for 93 active drilling rigs by 2028, a significant increase from current activity levels. Achieving this target would require a phased expansion involving reactivating domestic rigs, refurbishing idle equipment, and eventually importing additional rigs from international markets.
This creates substantial opportunities for drilling contractors and oilfield service providers but also highlights the scale of the execution challenge. Companies must balance equipment mobilization costs, contract duration requirements, and country risk before committing capital.
Local contractors have begun reactivating existing fleets, while international service providers remain more cautious, waiting for greater evidence that recent policy reforms will translate into a stable, commercially attractive operating environment. As a result, rebuilding operational capacity may ultimately prove just as important as attracting upstream investment.
Venezuela upstream figure 2
The next phase depends on implementation
The 2026 Hydrocarbons Law represents one of the most significant structural reforms to Venezuela's upstream sector in decades. By expanding opportunities for private participation and introducing greater fiscal flexibility, the legislation has created a more attractive framework for future investment.
Yet legislation alone cannot restore production. The speed of implementation, the stability of fiscal policy, continued sanctions relief, and the industry's ability to rebuild operational capacity will ultimately determine whether Venezuela can translate ambition into sustained output growth.
For investors and operators alike, the opportunity is considerable. But the country's upstream revival will depend less on the size of its resource base than on its ability to consistently execute across drilling, infrastructure, services, and investment policy. That execution gap, not geology, is likely to define Venezuela's production trajectory over the remainder of the decade.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/14/2026 - 15:45 Close
Tue, 14 Jul 2026 19:41:00 +0000 Lucid Calls Bankruptcy Report "Completely False" As Shares Stage V-Shaped Recovery
Lucid Calls Bankruptcy Report "Completely False" As Shares Stage V-Shaped Recovery
Summary:
Lucid Exec Calls Bankruptcy Report 'Fake News'
Lucid Reponds
Read more.....
Lucid Calls Bankruptcy Report "Completely False" As Shares Stage V-Shaped Recovery
Summary:
Lucid Exec Calls Bankruptcy Report 'Fake News'
Lucid Reponds , Denies AlixPartners Has Recommended Bankruptcy Route
Lucid Crashes On Report It's Weighing A Take-Private Or Bankruptcy
Lucid PR Head Calls Report "Completely False"
Nick Twork, Lucid's chief communications officer, took to X in late-afternoon trading to deny Electric-Vehicles.com's report about a potential bankruptcy, stating that the "company has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year, as recently published in its last quarterly filings, and it has not formed any special board committee to explore the scenarios reported today."
Twork stated:
The rumors are completely false . The company has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year, as recently published in its last quarterly filings, and it has not formed any special Board committee to explore the scenarios reported today. Our focus is on improving execution, strengthening operations, and positioning Lucid to realize the full potential of its technology, products, and innovation. AlixPartners is assisting us in that and nothing else and has not recommended bankruptcy to management or the Board. We
Shares crashed nearly 50% at one point today and, in the final hour of trading, staged a V-shaped recovery.
Bloomberg data show Lucid is heavily shorted, with 37.22% short, or about 63.6 million shares.
One can only assume that short sellers used the crash to cover some of their bearish positions.
Lucid Denies Report
Lucid responded to Electric-Vehicles.com's report, stating that restructuring adviser AlixPartners has not recommended bankruptcy.
Bloomberg headline:
LUCID SAYS ALIXPARTNERS HAS NOT RECOMMENDED BANKRUPTCY
Electric-Vehicles.com's report did mention that another strategic option would be a take-private transaction.
Here are Lucid's top shareholders:
Lucid Crashes On Report It's Weighing A Take-Private Or Bankruptcy
Shares of struggling EV maker Lucid plunged as much as 49% after auto-industry news website Electric-Vehicles.com reported that the company is working with restructuring adviser AlixPartners to evaluate strategic options, including a potential take-private transaction or a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
Lucid EV
Here's more from the report:
According to the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the review is strictly confidential, AlixPartners is urging the board to run one more round of restructuring in the United States and Europe, and to narrow the company's focus onto its Gravity SUV.
. . .
One person close to the matter told EV that the two starker questions, whether Lucid should be taken private or seek Chapter 11 protection, are among the scenarios the adviser has been asked to weigh.
Neither, the person stressed, is a decision the board has taken.
Shares were halved in late-afternoon trading in New York... Multiple trading halts were seen.
How long until Lucid denies the report?
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/14/2026 - 15:41 Close
Tue, 14 Jul 2026 19:36:00 +0000 Big Blew It! IBM Crashes Most Since '60s Amid CapEx Woes; Goldman Warns Over 'Software Bear Case'
Big Blew It! IBM Crashes Most Since '60s Amid CapEx Woes; Goldman Warns Over 'Software Bear Case'
Big Blew It! IBM Crashes Most Since '60s Amid CapEx Woes; Goldman Warns Over 'Software Bear Case'
Summary:
Wall Street Desks Stunned
IBM Shares Crash Most On Record , Exceeding Dot Com & 1987 Crashes
CEO Arvind Krishna Blamed Preliminary 2Q Results on "Shifting" Customer CapEx Spending
IBM's surprise second-quarter warning blindsided traders Tuesday morning, raising new concerns that enterprise technology budgets are being redirected toward AI infrastructure at the expense of traditional software and IT services.
Shares plunged 24% in the first 20 minutes of New York trading. Should those losses hold through the close, IBM would suffer its largest one-day crash on record, based on Bloomberg trading data going back to 1968.
Here's what Wall Street's top desks are saying in first takes:
UBS analyst Robert Ruple:
The big news this morning was a surprising negative preannouncement by IBM, down 22%, with Q2 sales of $17.2 bn versus $17.8 bn expected and EPS of $2.93 versus $3.02. Citing unanticipated capex reprioritization impacting client buying patterns with numerous large deals failing to close on time, cybersecurity distractions and some supply chain-related impact where they saw clients shift their quarterly capex spend toward servers, storage, and memory purchases to secure supply-constrained infrastructure (thanks to AI boom) ahead of expected price increases. This redirection of budgets towards AI has been a topic that Karl Keirstead/team have been articulating as potential risk for some time (particularly for incumbent SaaS suppliers and IT Services companies), which sounds like a harbinger of commentary that could be further accentuated by other software, IT services and hardware-related companies as Q2 reporting season progresses that is sure to weigh on sentiment incrementally.
David Vogt provides his initial thoughts on the IBM miss and these results suggest that enterprise IT spending pressures are hitting sooner than investors anticipated, leading to a revenue shortfall and non-GAAP EPS guidance of $2.93, below both expectations and consensus. The primary driver was weakness in IBM's zSeries mainframe cycle , which hurt its high-margin Transaction Processing (TP) business. While Red Hat delivered solid 11% constant-currency growth and recently acquired assets such as HashiCorp and Confluent performed well, these positives were overshadowed by a sharp decline in TP revenue, which appears to have fallen in the mid-teens year over year and represents nearly 30% of IBM's Software segment. As a result, investors are likely to reassess IBM's long-term software growth outlook, particularly for 2027 and beyond, as rising infrastructure costs and tightening IT budgets weigh on demand . These results reinforce concerns that stronger growth areas like Red Hat may not be sufficient to offset prolonged weakness in TP business, increasing pressure on IBM to pursue larger acquisitions or other growth initiatives to sustain its software growth trajectory remaining at neutral.
Goldman analysts:
IBM: Negatively preannounced Q2 results this morning, with Revenues coming in well below estimates on shortfall led by Software & Infrastructure performance. Stock -17% in pre. Prelim Q2 Revenue missed estimates ($17.2bn vs. cons $17.9bn). Company said "did not anticipate magnitude of CapEx reprioritization." Shortfall vs. consensus was led by "Software and Infrastructure performance shortfall." Mgmt commentary: "What played out was worse than our expectations, driven by a shortfall in our Z performance and the associated software stack, primarily in Transaction Processing . In the last few weeks of June, we saw clients shift their quarterly capex spend toward servers, storage, and memory purchases to secure supply-constrained infrastructure ahead of expected price increases. This dynamic impacted client buying patterns. While we anticipated some supply chain related impact in our expectations, we did not anticipate the magnitude of the capex reprioritization ." BOTTOM LINE: This should fully play into the Software bear case, and would imagine should drive fairly broad-based weakness across software + services layer today (most names down 3%+ early in pre).
Goldman analyst James Schneider:
What happened : We expect the stock to trade meaningfully lower following IBM's negative pre-announcement this morning, which was driven by a shortfall in Infrastructure and Software to a lesser extent. We believe the mainframe shortfall reflects client demand re-prioritization toward near-term server and other hardware purchases given surging memory and component prices, a dynamic consistent with what peers such as Dell and HP have cited. This reprioritization also drove a shortfall in Transaction Processing because of perpetual licenses tied to new mainframe purchases. In addition, we believe the company's Data & Automation software segment saw weaker demand due to company-specific execution issues. Red Hat results were in line with expectations at a growth of 11% in the quarter. We leave our estimates unchanged for now, pending further color from the company on next week's earnings call on updated 2026 guidance and potential remediation efforts.
BNP Paribas analyst Stefan Slowinski:
IBM is trading -22% pre-market on a disappointing Q2 earnings pre-announcement, driven by the company's Infrastructure (hardware) and Software businesses, blamed on capex reprioritization (i.e. crowding out) and delays caused by cybersecurity uncertainty, with no indication of any improvements yet.
Barclays analyst Andrew Keches:
The news: IBM pre-released selected 2Q26 results alongside a letter to shareholders, with revenue below expectations amid shortfalls in Software and Infrastructure. Revenue came in at $17.2bn overall (vs. $17.9bn est.), while at the segment level, Software grew 5% y/y (vs. +11% est.), Infrastructure fell 7% (vs. -3% y/y est.), and Consulting was flat (vs. +2% y/y est.). The company attributed most of the underperformance to unexpected shifts in clients' late-quarter budget allocations toward securing supply-constrained infrastructure ahead of price increases. IBM also acknowledged an execution component, with numerous large deals failing to close on schedule.
The context: Today's update comes at a sensitive point for IBM's investment narrative . Software has become the company's primary growth engine, and management had increasingly framed AI as additive to the software stack rather than a source of disruption. Today's update complicates that framing as the shortfall was concentrated in Z and the associated Transaction Processing software stack, with clients redirecting spending toward supply-constrained servers, storage, and memory. The key debate, in our view, will be whether this represents a temporary shift in the timing of enterprise purchases, or evidence that rapid AI infrastructure investment is beginning to crowd out portions of traditional software spending.
Our take: Clearly the results are a disappointment and the equity move alone (-20% premkt as of writing) will be a drag on credit performance. Credit metrics would not be impacted in a meaningful way, but the development adds to already weak sentiment in the name. We are mindful of the pointed M&A comments made on the last call (valuations attractive, appetite could be higher than in normal years), and although this pre-release suggests nothing about the topic, weak results will add to the overhang. Moreover, IBM spreads have held in better than most A/BBB TMT curves in the recent TMT sell off, widening the differential to BBB telco and single-A software curves such as NOW. To be clear, we view this quarter as a one-off rather than a step function in mainframe and software demand and also acknowledge that IBM has the cash flow to absorb medium sized M&A, but the impetus to step in and defend the structure at these levels is not obvious to us.
Laterals: The clearest potential beneficiaries from IBM's commentary are hardware providers levered to the spending categories being prioritized, such as servers and storage at DELL and HPE, and memory at MU. Conversely, the update may reinforce concerns around software names broadly, as well as consulting and IT-services businesses such as ACN and KD, if AI infrastructure investment is crowding out other portions of enterprise technology budgets. That said, we are somewhat surprised by the breadth of the read-through across the group so far this morning . IBM explicitly acknowledged company-specific execution issues, including large deals that failed to close on schedule, and the decision to pre-release more than a week before its scheduled earnings call suggests that its shortfall may be more outlier than industry-wide. We understand that this is a "sell first, ask questions later" market, but we would be cautious about treating IBM's results as a 1:1 read-through to every software and services company.
Laterals: The clearest potential beneficiaries from IBM's commentary are hardware providers levered to the spending categories being prioritized, such as servers and storage at DELL and HPE, and memory at MU . Conversely, the update may reinforce concerns around software names broadly, as well as consulting and IT-services businesses such as ACN and KD, if AI infrastructure investment is crowding out other portions of enterprise technology budgets. That said, we are somewhat surprised by the breadth of the read-through across the group so far this morning. IBM explicitly acknowledged company-specific execution issues, including large deals that failed to close on schedule, and the decision to pre-release more than a week before its scheduled earnings call suggests that its shortfall may be more outlier than industry-wide. We understand that this is a "sell first, ask questions later" market, but we would be cautious about treating IBM's results as a 1:1 read-through to every software and services company.
Bloomberg tracked analysts have an average 12-month price target of $300 on IBM, highlighting how far Wall Street expectations had run ahead of the shock preliminary second-quarter results earlier. Of the 25 analysts covering the stock, 17 rate it a Buy, six are Neutral and just two recommend selling.
SaaSpocalypse Is Back: IBM Crashes Most Since 1987 As Customers Abruptly "Shift CapEx Spending"
IBM shares plunged almost 20% in premarket trading, putting the stock on track for its worst intra-day collapse since the infamous Oct. 19, 1987.
Worse than the Dot Com crash...
The catalyst for the selloff was IBM CEO Arvind Krishna's letter to investors outlining preliminary second-quarter results .
Here is what's key:
IBM CEO: DID NOT ANTICIPATE MAGNITUDE OF CAPEX REPRIORITIZATION
Traders were likely caught off guard by a 7% decline in infrastructure revenue , raising new concerns about demand across one of IBM's key business segments.
Here are the preliminary 2Q results:
Revenue of $17.2 billion, up 1%
Software revenue up 5%
Consulting revenue flat, up 1% at constant currency
Infrastructure revenue down 7%
Krishna detailed in the letter to investors that customers unexpectedly redirected their June technology budgets toward servers, storage and memory to secure scarce equipment before anticipated price increases.
In return, that left less money and management attention available for IBM's z17 mainframes and related transaction-processing software . Deals IBM expected to close during the quarter were delayed or pushed into later periods, rather than necessarily canceled outright.
Here are Bloomberg headlines:
Signaling a return to the SaaSpocalypse (client spend shifting from commoditized software to constrained hardware), Krishna wrote:
When we discussed our expectations with you in April, we noted that we would be wrapping on the launch of z17 in the second quarter.
Given this was the strongest start to a mainframe program in our history, we expected Infrastructure revenue to decline low-single digits for the year, beginning this quarter.
What played out was worse than our expectations , driven by a shortfall in our Z performance and the associated software stack, primarily in Transaction Processing.
In the last few weeks of June, we saw clients shift their quarterly capex spend toward servers, storage, and memory purchases to secure supply-constrained infrastructure ahead of expected price increases .
This dynamic impacted client buying patterns. While we anticipated some supply chain related impact in our expectations, we did not anticipate the magnitude of the capex reprioritization.
In addition, clients were distracted with rapidly-evolving, industry-wide cybersecurity concerns in the quarter.
Krishna also admitted: "We did not adapt and move quickly enough," with large deals failing to close on expected timelines.
The key question is whether IBM is emerging as an early warning sign that the AI boom is beginning to crack, with a potential "token revolt " taking shape as customers push back against surging AI costs.
Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/14/2026 - 15:36 Close