Explore every episode of the podcast Forbes Topline

India’s government on Thursday dismissed Elon Musk’s claims that “certain oligarchs” were blocking the rollout of his Starlink satellite internet service in the country, and said it has put “fair and non-discriminatory” regulations in place to approve satellite communication services. In an official response from India’s Ministry of Communications that omitted explicit reference to Musk, authorities addressed online posts alleging regulatory bias in the approval process. The ministry said three satellite communications operators have received telecom licenses and all of them are currently “undergoing security assessment” as part of the approval process. Starlink is one of the three providers who received the initial license from the government last year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Federal agencies are working together to monitor travelers arriving from Siberia after a potential pneumonic plague case was identified in Russia, though health officials say they’re confident the threat to Americans is “extremely low” and President Donald Trump says Russia claims to have the situation “very much under control.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio said the artificial intelligence bubble is nearing the point where it may burst as interest rates rise and technology companies borrow heavily to fund the AI infrastructure build out. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/fionariley/2026/10/07/billionaire-ray-dalio-warns-ai-bubble-could-soon-burst/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paramount completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday, creating a new media mega-player called Skydance that will control large swaths of the entertainment industry and ending a monthslong saga as the merger has drawn widespread opposition in Hollywood. Paramount announced Tuesday morning the deal had been finalized, after saying last week it expected to close the deal this day, with CEO David Ellison describing it as a “historic day” in a statement. Skydance shares will start trading on the stock exchange under the ticker symbol “SKYD,” the company said Tuesday, while Warner Bros. shares will cease trading. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2026/10/06/skydance-is-here-paramount-closes-110-billion-warner-bros-merger-after-months-of-controversy/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elon Musk’s net worth topped $1 trillion Monday morning as stocks for his companies SpaceX and Tesla climbed after the stock market opened, restoring the controversial tech mogul’s trillionaire status after he first hit that milestone in June. Forbes estimates Musk’s net worth at $1 trillion on Monday, which is up by $30.6 billion over Friday, the last day the stock market was open. The surge cements Musk’s status as the richest person in the world, with Amazon leader Jeff Bezos in a distant second place with a net worth of $371.5 billion. Musk previously became the world’s first trillionaire in June after SpaceX first began trading on the Nasdaq, though he lost that status days later as stock prices for SpaceX and Tesla slumped. His net worth has neared the trillionaire mark in recent days as SpaceX and Tesla shares have rallied, with Tesla’s third-quarter deliveries beating analyst expectations last week and helping to bump Musk’s net worth by $61 billion on Friday alone. Tesla’s stock price continued to rise more than 1% Monday morning, while SpaceX’s stock price more dramatically went up by more than 5% Monday morning to a share price of $167 as of 10:30 a.m. EDT, enabling Musk to regain his trillionaire title. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Announced Friday by Argentina’s Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, and set to launch before the end of 2026, the country’s citizenship-by-investment program is the first in South America, the first for a G20 country, and the first to recognize same-sex married couples. There are two ways to buy into the program: make a one-time, non-refundable donation or invest in a seven-year, no interest bond. High-net-worth Americans are increasingly seeking a “plan B” as “an insurance policy” against instability in a volatile world, two investment migration advisers who counseled the Argentinian government, told Forbes. Since 2020, immigration attorneys and ancestry services have also seen surging interest among Americans seeking dual citizenship through descent, but the Trump administration’s staffing cuts at the National Archives have made it more challenging for people to access the necessary genealogy records, the Boston Globe reported. “I think every wealthy American will consider this,” Nuri Katz, president of Apex Capital Partners, told Forbes. “It’s so unique that it’ll be seen both as an insurance policy and as a kind of a status symbol, like the Amex Black Card. As in, ‘oh, you don’t have Argentina.’” Before launching its citizenship-by-investment product, Argentina’s government consulted with a consortium of five global immigration migration advisory firms, including Latitude World, Apex Capital Partners, Passport Legacy, Arton Capital and AIM Global Residency and Citizenship. The resulting program offers two pathways to citizenship. An applicant can make a one-time donation of $350,000 for an individual or $450,000 for a couple, plus $25,000 for each child under 18 and $100,000 for each adult child 18 to 24. Alternatively, an applicant can purchase a seven-year, no-interest treasury bond for $800,000 for an individual or $900,000 for a couple, plus $25,000 for each child under 18 and $100,000 for each adult child 18 to 24. Katz expects the first option to be more popular. “Any decent investor should be able to double their money in seven years,” he said. “For a family of four, paying $950,000 for a seven-year bond with zero interest means losing $950,000 in the future,” he said. “That’s worse than giving up $500,000 now.” Surveys show geopolitical tensions have most Americans on edge. “The world is in a lot of flux right now,” Katz said. “Not only in North America, but in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, all over the world.” Eric Major, CEO and chairman of Latitude World, told Forbes Americans now make up roughly three-quarters of his business, and that many clients are worried about doomsday scenarios. “They’re thinking, ‘if we have tanks rolling down streets in Washington or World War III or what have you, I may need to pick up my bags and move until the dust settles.’ What we offer is a form of insurance, and it’s one of those things where people would rather not pay for insurance unless they feel they really need it.” “In the same way we want to diversify our assets and our holdings in our portfolio, with exposure to the Japanese, Chinese, European and American markets, Americans are starting to realize there is value in having a European passport, a South American passport, an Australian passport—wherever they can get one,” Major told Forbes. Katz sees the same shift in thinking. “It shocks me that Americans, when they think of diversifying their finances, they think about buying stocks versus bonds versus real estate versus private equity, but it’s all in the United States. And yet the United States is facing a debt crisis of historical proportions that has never been seen before.” For Americans, a second citizenship in Argentina also has the geographic advantage of staying in the same general time zone. “For a North American businessperson, whether that’s a banker, an investment manager, or whatever, when you come to Argentina, there’s no jet lag. You don’t miss a beat,” Katz said. Since 2010, acquiring Argentinian citizenship brings another significant benefit. The Mercosur Residence Agreement gives citizens of nine South American nations—Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay—the right to reside, work, and study freely within the bloc. Citizens can also travel within the bloc without a passport or visa as long as they carry a national ID. “It’s the South American version of the European agreement, where citizens of one country can live or work in any other member country,” Major told Forbes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Billionaire Mark Cuban has emerged as one of the most prominent critics of humanoid robots for consumer households, repeating his criticism on Monday after previously predicting both robots and their manufacturers would “fail miserably” within five to ten years—contradicting the bets placed on the technology from other billionaires like Elon Musk. In an appearance on tech livestream show TBPN in March, Cuban first predicted a 5-10 year lifespan for both humanoid robots and their manufacturers, adding household robots would take more optimal shapes designed for their specific tasks. Cuban doubled down on that prediction on Monday in a post on X, noting that humanoid robots are large in size and difficult to make for multiple functions. “Would you rather have a roomba or a humanoid that pushes around a vacuum cleaner or broom?” Cuban asked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The White House released the text of an “accord” reached between billionaire AI titans who met with President Donald Trump on Tuesday, an agreement the president labeled “morally binding” even as he stopped short of saying the government would support new guardrails. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2026/09/30/white-house-releases-accord-between-billionaire-ai-execs-heres-what-it-says/?streamIndex=0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Donald Trump unveiled a new government website powered by artificial intelligence ahead of his meeting with top AI executives—as he has contested slowing AI development amid dire warnings of the dangers it poses. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2026/09/29/trump-announcing-new-ai-powered-government-website-today-ahead-of-meeting-with-industry-execs/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nvidia on Monday launched a new security system that it claims can prevent AI agents breaching their testing environments and gain unauthorized access to outside systems, just weeks after the AI chipmaker’s billionaire CEO Jensen Huang downplayed alarm about recent safety breaches and pushed back on the need for an AI slowdown. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Billionaire Bill Gates told “Meet the Press” that government regulation is needed for artificial intelligence and warned the technology is “powerful” enough to “cause a billion deaths” if used maliciously, as Washington and the AI industry consider how to move forward in light of dire warnings about AI’s potential effects. NBC News released a clip Friday of Gates’ interview with “Meet the Press,” in which the billionaire and philanthropist was asked about warnings from AI workers that the technology could potentially wipe out humanity. “AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that … cause a billion deaths,” Gates said, noting “there’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.” Gates was also asked about Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s recent essay calling for a slowdown on AI, which argued frontier labs should slow down the pace of their progress and “voluntarily work together to set standards” around artificial intelligence. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2026/09/25/bill-gates-warns-ai-is-powerful-enough-to-cause-a-billion-deaths/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An OpenAI agent hacked into an Australian government national healthcare database earlier this year, the country’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Wednesday, in what appears to be the first known incident of an artificial intelligence agent breaching a major government database. Albanese addressed the incident on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, noting that the OpenAI agent accessed a public-facing Australian Medicare statistics portal. The breach occurred in June, and the Australian Prime Minister said the agent accessed both “both public and non-public files,” but it didn’t appear anyone’s personal Medicare details were affected. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2026/09/24/openai-agent-hacked-into-australias-medicare-database-prime-minister-says/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Donald Trump said he has told “people” he supports a ban on diesel exports as the country faces record prices for the fuel used for trucking and agricultural equipment amid the ongoing war with Iran and the Russia-Ukraine war, aligning himself with Republicans largely representing agricultural states hoping to ease prices for farmers. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2026/09/22/trump-wants-diesel-export-ban-as-prices-hit-record-high/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The White House launched “Trump TV” on Monday, revealing a 24/7 platform streaming old Trump administration events after President Donald Trump revoked White House press credentials from reporters with CNN, MS NOW and Politico. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2026/09/21/white-house-launches-trump-tv-after-presidents-press-ban/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

State attorneys general have reached a settlement with Paramount Skydance in their lawsuit over Paramount’s planned merger with Warner Bros., multiple outlets report, likely paving the way for the deal to go through—even as critics have warned the reported settlement terms do not adequately address concerns about the Hollywood giants joining forces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is now the highest grossing film in history at the domestic box office after grossing around $936.8 million at theaters in North America since its release in July, finally beating a record set by “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Warren Buffett, the 10th-richest person in the world, stepped down from his role as the chair of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate announced, adding that his son Howard will take over as chair. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2026/09/18/billionaire-warren-buffett-steps-down-as-berkshire-hathaway-chair/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

OpenAI is discussing raising money as part of a new funding round which would value the company at as much as $1.5 trillion, according to multiple reports early on Wednesday, days after the company’s CEO Sam Altman announced his company will not go public in 2026. Citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, the Times’ Dealbook newsletterreported that investors had recently approached the ChatGPT-maker with an offer to invest in the company at a $1.2 trillion valuation. OpenAI, however, is seeking a much higher $1.5 trillion valuation which is more than double the $730 billion it was valued at during its last funding round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Billionaire Bill Gates urged world leaders to act to ensure that artificial intelligence does not worsen global inequality, as his Gates Foundation published its annual Goalkeepers Report on Tuesday and pledged $1 billion to expand access to AI technologies, amid broader warnings from tech leaders about AI safety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Macklemore claimed Monday that billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft pioneered his removal from Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour after the rapper made “free Palestine” remarks at two shows in New York this month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Softbank’s shares fell more than 10% in Asia, leading a slump in major artificial intelligence-linked stocks across global markets on Monday amid growing calls for a development slowdown from leading labs like Anthropic and OpenAI amid warnings that rapid development of the technology may pose an existential threat to humans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Billionaire Elon Musk repeatedly attacked Alex Gibney, the director of the forthcoming documentary “Musk,” in posts on X this week, slamming him as a “horrible human” and a “bitter old man” while also reportedly threatening legal action. Read the full story on Forbes: http://forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2026/09/10/elon-musk-rages-against-musk-director-alex-gibney-lacks-any-integrity-whatsoever/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With renewed fighting in Iran and oil prices on the rise, airline CEOs and analysts are warning of higher airfares through the holiday season and into 2027. Read more on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2026/09/10/cheap-airfare-fools-errand-holiday-season/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A pair of thieves broke into a small museum in southern France and stole artwork worth millions made by the legendary painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, local authorities said on Tuesday, less than a year after the high-profile Louvre Museum heist in which thieves stole more than $100 million worth of French crown jewels. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2026/09/08/renoir-paintings-worth-millions-stolen-in-french-riviera-museum-heist/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An change.org petition calling for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s exclusion from the 9/11 remembrance ceremony later this week has crossed 100,000 signatures amid a similar push made by several prominent Republican leaders from the state, including former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Gov. George Pataki. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2026/09/08/petition-urging-mamdanis-exclusion-from-911-event-hits-100000-signs-amid-similar-push-by-giuliani-pataki/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tesla shares jumped around 7% on Thursday as investors awaited this afternoon’s Cybercab event in Austin, Texas, where Tesla is expected to unveil its two-seat autonomous vehicle as it expands its robotaxi business. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/fionariley/2026/09/03/tesla-stock-jumps-7-ahead-of-cybercab-debut-its-best-day-in-months/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elon Musk’s super PAC spent over $800,000 last month across several states with competitive Senate races as part of its first wave of spending for the upcoming midterm elections, filings made on Wednesday night showed. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2026/09/03/elon-musks-america-pac-discloses-first-tranche-of-spending-ahead-of-midterms/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The digital maps platform MapQuest has soared to the top of Apple’s App Store rankings after refusing to adhere to President Donald Trump’s order to change Lake Ontario’s name to Lake America, even as its larger rivals Google Maps and Apple Maps have chosen to do so. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2026/09/02/mapquest-tops-app-store-download-charts-after-defying-trump-on-lake-ontario/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A whistleblower at the U.S. Postal Service reported “grave concerns” with the agency’s new system for mail-in ballots as it’s come under fire in court, warning lawmakers that the “risky and haphazard” implementation of the rule could keep millions of voters from receiving a mail-in ballot in the November midterms. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2026/09/01/usps-whistleblower-warns-new-rule-could-keep-voters-from-getting-ballots-what-to-know/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lionel Messi, considered one of the greatest soccer players of all time, announced Monday he would retire from competing internationally for Argentina’s national team, saying in a statement on Instagram the decision “hurts deep down,” but “the time has come.” Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2026/08/31/lionel-messi-soccer-legend-and-billionaire-retires-from-argentina-national-team/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nvidia has reportedly agreed to buy Hugging Face, the popular platform which hosts open-weight AI models, for $12.9 billion, The Information reported late on Wednesday, just a month after the chipmaker’s CEO Jensen Huang defended open models and urged against “premature restrictions.” Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2026/08/27/nvidia-has-reportedly-agreed-to-buy-ai-model-hosting-platform-hugging-face-for-13-billion/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Researchers at Southern Illinois University have engineered microbes that can break down discarded plastic bottles and crop waste and turn them into protein-rich cookies, a step-by-step biological transformation that could address problems with plastic pollution, a looming global food crisis and help sustain deep-space missions with humans aboard. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2026/08/24/cookies-made-from-plastic-bottles-could-ease-food-shortages-feed-nasa-crews-in-space/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Donald Trump defended the ongoing buildout of AI data centers across the country and said the communities opposing them were making a mistake, as he continued to embrace the controversial buildout of AI infrastructure despite growing public backlash and opposition from governors from both parties. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2026/08/24/trump-defends-ai-data-centers-says-opposing-them-is-a-mistake-and-smart-ones-want-them/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Trump administration has ordered all visa applications be placed on hold and canceled scheduled interviews at U.S. embassies around the world as it works to tighten restrictions on who is allowed into the country, a move that is likely to significantly reduce the number of visas issued to potential visitors, students and immigrants. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2026/08/26/global-visa-interviews-on-hold-history-shows-a-36-drop-may-follow/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Trump administration is preparing to launch a mass visa revocation impacting business and tourism visas owned by up to 200,000 foreigners, the Associated Press reported, a move that would mark the largest revocation in U.S. history. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2026/08/24/trump-administration-preparing-for-largest-visa-revocation-in-us-history-report-says/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chinese regulators on Friday ordered Tesla to fix nearly 3 million vehicles amid broader concerns about emergency door releases, marking the largest-ever automotive recall campaign in the market and Tesla’s biggest such action to date. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2026/08/21/china-orders-teslas-largest-ever-recall-for-nearly-3-million-cars/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

California Attorney General Rob Bonta accused Paramount’s leadership of leaking information and acting in bad faith as he canceled a planned meeting with the media giant’s executives scheduled for Monday to discuss a potential settlement in an antitrust suit to block Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2026/08/24/california-ag-calls-off-paramount-antitrust-settlement-meeting-alleging-leaks/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Authors, archivists, historians and bibliophiles have launched an online war against tech giants and artificial intelligence developers after an increasing mountain of evidence shows they’re buying rare and antique books en masse and feeding them to large language models—only to slice off their spines and destroy the original print copies in the process. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2026/08/17/ai-companies-are-buying-and-destroying-antique-books-heres-why/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Better Home & Finance on Tuesday sued founder Vishal Garg, accusing him of a “scorched-earth campaign” to regain control of the company in a lawsuit that highlights his controversial tenure as chief executive, during which employees allege Garg called them “monkeys” and “dumb dolphins.” Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2026/08/18/ceo-who-fired-900-people-on-zoom-allegedly-calling-employees-monkeys-faces-lawsuit-from-his-company/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Walmart’s stock on Thursday slid after the retailer reported its slowest U.S. sales growth in years, despite beating Wall Street’s earnings expectations, as its pharmacy business took a hit amid federal negotiations that have cut drug prices. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2026/08/20/walmart-shares-sink-8-after-slowest-us-sales-growth-since-2020/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices