fortune

Hundreds of billionaires pledged to donate their fortune. The philanthropic era of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett has come to an end

by

In 2010, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett teamed up on an unusual project: convincing hundreds of millionaires that They didn’t need half his fortune and they owed billions of dollars to philanthropic projects. Sounds crazy, right? Well they got it. However, the model promoted by these two regular figures in the top 10 with the greatest fortunes in the last four decadesappears to be reaching a tipping point. They are coming tax reforms and moral incentives are not supported by the always convincing fiscal incentives. The golden age of philanthropy among millionaires could be in its final stages. Gates and Buffett’s original plan. The project The Giving Pledgelaunched by Gates and Buffett 15 years ago, invited hundreds of the world’s billionaires to sign a non-binding pledge promising to donate at least half of their fortune to charitable causes during their lifetime or after their death. Since its creation, more than 250 billionaires from 30 countries have signed this commitment, adding a combined fortune close to $600 billion in potential donations. according to calculations of Business Insider. Despite the magnitude of the figures, in recent years the viability of this model of collective philanthropy has been questioned. Warren Buffett himself recognized in his last letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that its plan to engage and motivate the ultra-wealthy “hasn’t worked,” assuming the idea of ​​a golden age of mass philanthropy may be coming to an end. According to a recent report of the Institute of Political Studies, of the 256 signatories of the commitment to donate half of their fortune, only nine have fulfilled their promise. Open doors to philanthropy. The approval of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act, a fiscal package that imposes a 10% tax to foundations with more than $5 billion in assets, has significantly altered the philanthropic plans of many billionaires. The withdrawal of tax incentives makes donations They are no longer such a priority for great fortunes. According to what he told Fortune Kathleen McCarthy, director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society“The insidious thing about this is that it will seriously affect the large liberal foundations like Gates, Ford and Soros”, which contributed millions of dollars to social, health and educational projects. “Whereas conservative foundations are much smaller and will pay a much lower rate,” McCarthy stressed. New ways to donate. This new scenario, which alienates large foundations from the front line of giving, is pushing philanthropists to look for alternative ways to give and modify their strategies. “Billionaires will begin to look for alternative mechanisms when they realize that they are being forced to close their foundations,” explains McCarthy. Practices like direct donation practiced by MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, and her Yield Giving foundation are gaining ground. Your strategy: donate the money directly to the organizations that develop the projects. Without intermediaries or segmentation of funds. According to a report of the Center for Effective PhilanthropyScott has already awarded more than $19.25 billion to 2,450 nonprofit organizations. This is how Bella DeVaan, from the Institute for Policy Studies in the article Fortune“I think she sets the trend and is an ethical reference in the way of donating money, as Gates has been.” Buffett’s family legacy. Although the era of massive philanthropy seems to end, Warren Buffett has not stopped giving. With Buffett’s retirement as head of Berkshire Hathaway, the investor has delegated part of his fortune in donations to the charitable foundations of his three children and his late wife. Annually, the veteran investor has been distributing billions in the form of actions to strengthen the family legacy and ensure that its wealth benefits society. However, in his latest donations from the millionaire a striking absence has been noted: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has already does not appear among its beneficiaries. In Xataka | The True Legacy of the Duty Free Founder: How Chuck Feeney Inspired Bill Gates and Warren Buffett Image | Flickr (Fortune Live Media)

An atoll in the South Pacific is the best kept secret of the ultra-rich. If you want to hide your fortune, this is your island

by

In the middle of the South Pacific, there is a little paradise which attracts both nature lovers and those looking to put their great fortunes safely away. The Cook Islands, with their turquoise beaches and dreamlike landscapes, have become the chosen refuge by many millionaires for keep your money safe and anonymous. Beyond being a privileged tourist destination, this archipelago adopts the second most used meaning of paradise: that of tax haven. Its special legal system protects the assets of those millionaires who decide to enjoy its dream beaches and its legal opacity with assets. They came for its beaches, they stayed for the trusts This natural oasis, located about 3,000 kilometers from New Zealand, is not only home to beauty and tranquility, but also a sophisticated asset protection mechanism that has gained global fame in recent years among millionaires around the world. Although many think of tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands are distinguished by their ability to raise trust financial structures from which millionaires can manage assets of all kinds, from properties to cryptocurrencies, with a very lax taxation. Not in vain, the Cook Islands were a recurring reference in the great financial scandals that were revealed by the Panama Papers, Pandora or the Paradise Papers. As and how they counted in Fortunesince the 1980s, the Cook Islands established a single fiduciary system which offers a level of opacity and protection difficult to find in other enclaves considered tax havens. For example, the authority of foreign courts to intervene in these funds is not recognized and, furthermore, the identities of the owners are protected by law. This combination makes the country a bastion for those who want to keep their assets safe from external demands or embargoes. Cook Islands, a paradise for human and fiscal matters Here, millionaires transfer their assets to a trust managed by a local fiduciary (front man), while they can remain beneficiaries or dispose of the money and property freely. This separation between Ownership of the heritage and who enjoys it generates a legal barrier that makes it difficult for third parties to claim those assets. In this way, millionaire businessmen protect their fortunes in the event of bankruptcy of their companies because, legally, they are not owners of the assets that they do enjoy. Likewise, fortunes would not be so exposed to divorce cases. “If all your money is in your pocket and someone tries to take it from you, maybe they can. But if the money is in another country and not under your control, chances are they won’t be able to touch it,” he explained to Fortune Blake Harris, lawyer specializing in property protection in the Cook Islands. In addition, shell companies are used to manage certain assets in order to add another level of opacity to the ownership of trust assets. “We created a practically unbreakable structure. And it is a fundamental practice. It is necessary to protect yourself,” said Harris. Spanish millionaires also travel to paradise The Panama Papers and other tax scandals exposed the financial engineering that large fortunes were using to reduce their tax bill. Among the names that appeared in these investigations there were also some spanish names. It should be said that constituting a trust in the Cook Islands It is completely legal for a Spanish resident. The Polynesian atoll was excluded from the EU tax haven lists and from Spain. However, the Spanish legislation It focuses on who actually controls and benefits from the assets, not just who is listed as the formal owner. However, just because it is legal in Spain does not mean that it works the same as for an American millionaire. Spain does not include the figure of the trust in its legal framework, although it does takes it into account at the tax level. In practice, this means that even if the assets are transferred to a trustee in another country, The Tax Agency considers that the person residing in Spain retains some type of control or benefit over them. And if this control exists, the Treasury understands that this assets remain linked to the taxpayer and, therefore, must declare it as part of your heritage. Therefore, although the protection against international litigation offered by Cook Islands trusts is effective, in Spain they do not have the same effectiveness than in the US, so It is not such a popular instrument. between the great Spanish fortunes as among the millionaires of other countries. However, as how they point From the Gesta tax consultancy, trusts are recommended more as tools of succession planning or protection against civil risks, and both for evade taxes. In Xataka | They were promised a bitcoin paradise and zero taxes for 120,000 euros. Today there is only one desert island on the verge of disappearing Image | cook islandsUnsplash (Nathan Dumlao)

OpenAI is going to have to pay a fortune in credit obligations in 2026. Today the accounts do not work out

by

In recent months, OpenAI has signed agreements worth more than $1.4 trillion in infrastructure—data centers—that will be built in the next 8-10 years. The problem is that to do this they will have to face gigantic credit obligations that will require billions of dollars in 2026, and it is not at all clear how they will be able to face those payments. bad business. Your current income structure certainly does not support such debt. Sam Altman indicated in X They expect to end the year with more than $20 billion in annualized revenue. Even so, they will continue to be in (very) red numbers, although they also promise that by 2030 they will enter “hundreds of billions of dollars“The accounts do not come out, and that makes it virtually impossible to meet all credit commitments without resorting to extraordinary forms of financing, refinancing or… Rescue. Last week there was already talk about how both NVIDIA and OpenAI had dropped the possibility that papa state had to rescue them in case of a debacle. Sam Altman himself clarified shortly after that “we don’t have or want government guarantees (…) and taxpayers should not bail out companies that make bad business decisions.” He does not want a rescue, but he does talk about agreements with the government. Although Altman clarified that he was not seeking government bailouts, he did make it clear that there is a debate about a strategy to face these loans: “The only area in which we have discussed loan guarantees is in the framework of supporting the construction of semiconductor factories in the United States (…) Of course, this is different from governments guaranteeing the construction of data centers for private purposes.” It seems impossible for them to get out of this. As analyst Ed Zitron explains in your newsletterOpenAI needs $400 billion over the next 12 months to meet those credit obligations. Not only that: for him OpenAI’s plans to build chips with Broadcom and fill a 1 GW data center or create similar data centers with AMD chips Instinct or with the Vera Rubin from NVIDIA “There is not enough time to build these data centers. And if there was enough time, there would not be enough money. And if there was enough money, there would not be enough (electrical) transformers, electrical grade steel or specialized talent to supply the electricity for these data centers.” That’s all a gigantic house of cards. Possible strategies. OpenAI increasingly depends on debt issues and strategic investors, but also on those circular financing agreements it has reached with several companies. SoftBank, which already invested in OpenAI, could expand its bet, especially now that it has just sold completely all its participation in NVIDIA. Although the sale has obtained almost $6 billion, the figure is still insufficient even if it is invested in OpenAI. And of course OpenAI could achieve explosive revenue growth, but it is far from clear that it will achieve such growth in the short term. The other solution: slow down. OpenAI’s excessive ambition makes everything surrounding its agreements and proposals absolutely enormous, and that also affects its credit obligations. Adopting a slightly less risky strategy and setting more feasible deadlines could reduce the financial stress to which the company is subject… but it would also raise doubts about the growth promises that Altman and his people have made for years. Going public? Another option for OpenAI is to go public now that it has managed to complete the restructuring and has become in a for-profit organization under the umbrella, of course, of the OpenAI Foundation. In recent days there was talk about how this option would allow the company get a billion dollar valuationbut the analysts they doubt that something like this is going to happen in the short term… if it happens at all. And the bubble keeps growing. Analysts like Scott Galloway they explained recently that the valuations of companies like NVIDIA, Oracle or AMD are conditional on those “handshake” agreements with other companies like OpenAI. For him, these agreements have no substance: there is much ado about nothing. If the market ends up losing confidence, the consequences could be dire and the hypothetical bubble could burst. Source: Apollo Academy All eggs in one basket. Stock market concentration does not help. Torsten Sloj, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, has been talking for some time about the dangerous concentration of the S&P 500 index in 2025. A few days ago published a graph in which it showed the returns of various assets in the last five years, and there is a clear conclusion: while “the Magnificent Seven” have grown exceptionally, the rest have barely done so. Image | Steve Juvetson In Xataka | There is a race in which Anthropic is winning over OpenAI: that of being profitable

House prices are so sky-high that a millionaire built a tree house and spent a fortune on it

by

High housing prices have caused buy a house has become little less than a utopia for many people, especially the youngest. Todd Graves, a Louisiana millionaire who founded the fried chicken restaurant chain Raising Cane’sdecided to do something different and quite crazy: build a house on the top of a giant tree in the garden of his mansion in Baton Rouge. It is not a toy house, but a real house, with everything you expect to find in a conventional house, but looking at the entire landscape from above. A house, on a house, near another house The millionaire did not decide to build his peculiar house in the heights due to lack of space for his family. In fact, the Graves have built the house on a more than 30-meter live oak tree that is in the garden of their enormous mansion, and right next to the 465-square-meter guest house. As the businessman confessed in a recent interview with Forbesdecided to build a house 20 meters high in 2015, after seeing one of the television shows Treehouse Masters. In the show, a group of professionals are dedicated to build tree houses. However, Graves wasn’t interested in just any house: He asked the team to build a real house with three floors, a terrace, a dining room, a bedroom and even a bathroom with running water. For anyone who doesn’t have a checking account with millions of dollars in it, this sounds strange:why spend so much on something like that When can you have everything on dry land? Graves assures that he uses it to disconnect and have fun, which is like going back to childhood, but as an adult. “It’s fun to have magical things,” he said. A house to move into…if you can afford it The Graves tree house has a first level with a terrace of about 42 square meters to enjoy the outdoors equipped with a slide and another 37 square meters in a living room on the first floor, with everything what a house needs to be comfortable, including a bar counter and a bathroom with running water inside. In addition, for its construction they used wood from an old sewing factory and stained glass that they rescued after the Hurricane Katrina that devastated the area, which gives it a special touch and full of history. On the upper floor, a room invites you to relax and rest, with views that are beginning to be unsuitable for those with vertigo. However, the final climax puts it a viewpoint at the highest part of the construction from which you can see the entire landscape that surrounds the mansion from a height of 25 meters. In addition, it has a suspension bridge almost 21 meters long that connects with another viewpoint overlooking a nearby lake. The millionaire’s whim is truly spectacular, but to the same extent as its cost. Build all this infrastructure It cost $400,000 in 2015a sum that for a normal person is a fortune, but for Todd it represents only 0.002% of his immense fortune, estimated at more than 22 billion dollars, according to data of Forbes. A meeting point for celebrities Graves’ treehouse is not only a treat for his children and their friends to play in, but Graves uses it as a refuge to clear your mind and “improve your performance at Raising Cane’s.” For him, it is a space that combines fun, childhood nostalgia and creativity, even if it is an unnecessary luxury in the eyes of many. The peculiar construction has become a meeting point for some famous friends of the businessman. Rappers like Snoop Dogg and Nelly, and athletes like Shaquille O’Neal and NFL star Ja’Marr Chase have stopped by after appearing on the show.Treehouse Masters’. In fact, Shaquille O’neal liked the Graves treehouse so much that he commissioned a similar one for his home in Georgia from the same builders. On that occasion, the lack of a tree the size of the 100-foot Graves oak made the house a little more contained in terms of dimensions and height. The height already Shaq brings it as standard. In Xataka | A businessman built a mega mansion without permission: the neighbors have gotten the city council to demolish it Image | Raising Cane’s, Animal Planet

does everything the other way around in Spain, is losing a fortune… and plans to open more stores

by

Costco has announced that it will continue opening warehouses in Spain despite accumulating 150 million euros in losses since its arrival in 2014, according to reports Digital Economy. The Spanish subsidiary recorded another 7.5 million losses in 2024, although its sales shot up to 607 million. The company already operates five centers (Seville, Getafe, Las Rozas, Sestao and Zaragoza) and is looking for new land. Its latest establishment in Zaragoza started with 15,000 members on the day of its inauguration. Why is it important. Costco represents the complete opposite of the model that dominates Spain: Mercadona triumphs with medium storesa reduced assortment and no membership. He doesn’t even have his own card. Costco is committed to large stores of more than 15,000 square meters, buying in bulk and charging a membership fee. It is the clash between two philosophies: the Spanish one that lives in your neighborhood and offers small, domestic formats, versus the American one of “pay 36 euros a year and get 24 rolls of toilet paper.” The strategy. Costco is playing the game Amazon played for two decades: lose money in a controlled way while it grows and build market share. Its 750,000 members (15% more than in 2023) and constant sales growth suggest that the model is finding its place. The company earned 11.5 million just from membership fees in 2024. Each new center comes with a gas station and Kirkland’s own brand products. Its average salary of 24,044 euros is above the sector. The contrast. Where Mercadona has immediate success, Costco has sustained losses. Where Mercadona optimizes margins (3.88% net profitin an upward trend), Costco optimizes volume and loyalty. Where Mercadona dominates with a 28% national share, Costco is building small niches. Yes, but. The bet has obvious risks. Costco needs critical mass for its model to work, and Spain is not the United States. Spanish purchasing habits favor proximity over volume, and competition in large stores – dominated by the French – is fierce. In fact, the hypermarket is going down in favor of the supermarket. We no longer make shopping a three-hour ritual on Saturday, but instead take advantage of empty spaces to make small purchases any day. And now what. Costco maintains that 2025 will bring more investment and land prospecting. The key will be if it manages to replicate in Spain what it achieved in other markets: convert initial losses into long-term leadership. It took Amazon twenty years to become profitable. Costco has been in our country for ten years and continues to invest. In Xataka | Spain has become a country addicted to something that a few years ago enjoyed little prestige: white label. Featured image | Marcus Reubenstein

A factory in Ireland made a fortune selling baby formula to China. Until the Chinese stopped having children

by

If China’s demographic crisis is not reversed, if the world’s factories shrink and nothing stops the bleeding, its decline will drag and have effects throughout the world: from cost increases in consumer goods (telephones, footwear, electric vehicles) to inflationary pressures due to lower manufacturing efficiency. As an example, a “button”: thousands of kilometers from China, an entire population is already suffering from the lack of babies in Beijing. In Ireland, no one imagined a situation like this. Industrial mirage. For years, the small Irish town of Askeatonin County Limerick, found his redemption in a factory that produced gold dust. It wasn’t a metaphor. Infant milk was produced on Nestlé production lines for the chinese marketa product so profitable that some workers nicknamed it “the white cocaine” of the town. Overnight, that business transformed a town forgotten by modernization into a prosperous enclave, where credit flowed easily and employment was synonymous with stability. But when the Swiss managers arrived two years ago with the closure announcementdisbelief took over everyone. Nobody could conceive that such a modern plant, the result of a million-dollar investment, would simply be closed. Rely on China. Nestlé attributed the decision to a macroeconomic reason: he birth rate crash in China. The number of births had fallen from 18 million in 2016 to just nine million in 2023, and demand for foreign infant formula was sinking. However, The New York Times said that among the 1,100 inhabitants of Askeaton the official version did not convince. There were those who suspected that the multinational was simply responding to a Chinese demand: to move production to Asian territory itself. The argument made sense. For years, Nestlé had closed markets in Europe and the Middle East to concentrate exclusively in China. “We put all our eggs in one basket.” remember the diary Oliver Scanlon, one of the veterans of the place. And although the business experienced its golden age with that turn, everyone understood too late what it meant: China was not only buying the product, it was also learning how to manufacture it. Silent learning. The workers recount how every year Chinese auditors arrived, curious to the extreme, writing down every technical detail of the industrial process. Sometimes they even visited neighboring farms, taking an interest in dairy production methods. “They came to learn,” counted rancher Tim Hanley. “They can produce everything, and their goal is self-sufficiency.” Ultimately, what happened at Askeaton was the consequence of a repeated pattern: the initial enthusiasm for the Chinese market ended with the transfer of knowledge and the relocation of production. In November 2023, just a month after announcing the Irish closure, Nestlé obtained authorization to open a twin plant in Suzhoueast of China. While justifying the closure due to the drop in birth rates, the company proclaimed that the Chinese market “continued to be the largest in the world by absolute number of newborns.” Jobless. The Times remembered that the closure of the plant has left a visible scar. The machines stopped last month and, unless someone purchases the facilities for the 22 million euros at which Nestlé has valued them, the doors will close permanently in March. Layoffs, severance packages and outplacement programs have not compensated for the sense of loss. The factory was the invisible engine that made local businesses run, from Seán Moran’s hardware store to the credit union, which for years granted loans with only a payroll as collateral. “It was a good salary and the town prospered,” admits Patrick Ranahan, head of the entity. “But we knew it could disappear from one day to the next.” From globalization to dependency. He Askeaton’s case It is an example of the vulnerability of local economies in the era of globalization. The sudden success, sustained by Chinese demand, masked the fragility of a model based on a single customer and a single market. What began as a story of international cooperation ended up being technology transfer disguised as prosperity. In the process, China not only bought the product, but also the knowledge, and when it was ready to replicate it, it simply cut the tie. For Askeaton, the “crown jewel” has become a symbol of a bitter lesson: in global commerce, the shine of success can fade as quickly as the foam on the powdered milk that fed them for half a century. Image | Nestle In Xataka | The great paradox of China’s demographic crisis: its origin is due to a policy that worked too well In Xataka | China knows that its population is going to collapse but it already has a long-term plan to solve it. Of course, thanks to AI

95% of his fortune was not going to be for his children

by

Bill Gates, has been removed from the first line of Microsoft commanddedicating all his time to distribute his fortune in the form of donations to health projectseducation and fight against climate change. From his current job, the Microsoft founder is doing everything possible to make his main objective a reality: donate 95% of his fortune and that his children only inherit A small percentage her. OBJECTIVE: Give your fortune. Long before becoming a father and when his heritage was already beginning to grow at a dizzying pace, Gates made it clear that his wealth was not going to go to his children. In An interview granted to Playboy magazine in 1994, Gates explained that in his plans there was already a long -term philanthropic goal, and was aware that donating a good part of his fortune It was not going to be a simple task. When asked about the amount of his fortune, Gates replied: “It is a ridiculous figure. But remember, 95% will give it to it. Don’t tell people to write to me. Gates’s conviction surprised from the beginning for the firmness with which he resigned to build a multimillionaire dynasty. He considered that money was not the key to a happy life or the ultimate goal of his career. Therefore, he decided early that His heirsalthough they would have a well -off life, they would not inherit virtually anything of their fortune. Money confuses you. Gates has repeated the same mantra on donar Most of his fortune in many other interviews and media over the years. For the founder of Microsoft, leave a millionaire sum to the children, instead of helping them, could “not do any favor” and “confuse them”, causing them to lose the perspective of what it implies working and striving to carve their own fortune. According to Gates in that interview, having an estimated fortune of 106,100 million “takes you from normal experiences in a way that probably weakens you. So I control that kind of things intentionally. It is one of those things of discipline. If my discipline failed, I would also confuse me. So I try to avoid it.” A well -off position. Although the first gastago of the Gates would still take a couple of years of years to be born when his father granted that interview, the millionaire was already clear that none of his children was going to lack anything. “I don’t believe in loading my children with that. They will have enough. They will be comfortable,” said the millionaire, stressing that even 1% of his fortune is already a notable amount of money. On the other hand, as part of their legacy, the children of Gates have studied in the best schools and universities in the country and have built their own professional careers under the watchful eye of their father, although without intervening significantly with their fortune. An example is found in his youngest daughter Phoebe, which recently PHIA launcheda purchasing platform with a colleague from the university. In her first foray into the business world, the youngest of the Gates had the Business Councils of his fatherbut as his mother confirmed to Fortunedid not have the financial support of the family. A difficult fortune to spend. According The published by ForbesMark Suzman, general director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said in 2022 that the foundation he directs had a fiduciary capital of more than 68,000 million dollars. However, all that money does not come only from Bill Gates’ funds. Your friend Warren Buffett has been contributing to thousands of millions every year. According to published data by the BBCsince its creation, the Foundation has already donated more than $ 100,000 million in programs to fight tuberculosis, malaria or diarrheal fevers, as well as in educational programs or in research and development projects of New technologies and energies To fight against climate change. Despite the enormous amount of money donated, Bill Gates still treasures 106.1 billion dollars, so he will have to step on the accelerator of donations much more if he wants to comply with one of the statements that he collected the BBC: “They will say many things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘Rico died’ is not one of them.” In Xataka | “They don’t need 500 million dollars to live”: Mick Jagger refuses to leave a millionaire heritage to her eight children Image | Wikimedia Commons (Jennifer Jacquemart)

If the question is why the US wants to rescue Argentina with a fortune, the answer has two ingredients: China and Lithium

by

Argentina entered again in Turbulence zone Despite the drastic fiscal and monetary adjustment of Javier Milei. A bulky defeat in provincial elections, the erosion of support in Congress and a corruption scandal that splashes their surroundings fired the doubts of the investors, forced sales of reservations by More than 1 billion of dollars in three days to defend the exchange band and approached the weight to the lower limit of the corridor. And then he The United States appeared With a briefcase under your arm. American help. Yes, the reaction was a political-financial turn of Washington: the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, defined Argentina As “systemically important ally in Latin America” ​​and announced that “all options” were on the table to stabilize the markets, an explicit wink to the “whatver it Takes” of Mario Draghi in 2012. The message, a priori, had immediate effect on prices and expectations, but opened a greater debate about the scope, incentives and the risks of such support. What has been promised and how. The United States Treasury discusses a swap line with Buenos Aires of 20,000 million of dollars with the Central Bank and the possibility of buying sovereign debt in dollars from Argentina, in addition to making direct currency purchases if the conditions justify it. The operational tool would be the so -called Exchange Stabilization Fundwith wide discretionary margin to intervene in foreign exchange and assets, used in 1995 To help Mexico. Besent added that the treasure “is prepared” to acquire bonds and offer backup credit. Trump himself, after meeting with Milei, affirmed that will help, although he said “I don’t think they need a rescue,” framing assistance as access to “good debt” and market liquidity. In parallel, Milei sought internal oxygen suspending temporarily Grain export taxes to accelerate the flow of commercial dollars, while keeping operational, although partially activated, The swap line With the Popular Bank of China (18,000 million, of which about 5,000 are active). The small print. The announcement acted as a short circuit: The peso bounced, the 2029 and 2035 bonds recovered between 6 and 7 cents and the yield of 10 years in dollars fell from 17% to ~ 15%. Great managers They celebrated the signalunderlining that it provides a “critical window” to the legislative. However, investors requested details: effective volume, deadlines, conditions and intervention triggers. The Treasury He has suggested Absence of “conditionality” added to that of the IMF, but the practice usually imposes safeguards. In “House”, the package faces resistance: Criticism in Congress American questions to allocate emergency funds to sustain the currency and assets of a third party, with the political risk of being perceived as a lifeguard to Trump’s personal ally. Strategic reasons: why. The Analysts coincide With a clearly geopolitical reason: reduce dependence Argentina from China in financing, swaps and access to critical minerals Like lithiumand strengthen an openly government Pro-Mercado and aligned With Washington. The second It is financial: Prevent an episode of regional systemic instability due about 35% of the living support of the background on a global scale. The third may be of global signal: reaffirm the capacity of the United States to stabilize emerging markets with sovereign instruments, projecting financial power in a context of strategic competence. And the fourth, more tactical, purely electoral: Prevent short -term stress Extra ball: Meme politics. An added, less economical and more symbolic factor is politics turned into “Meme”. Just like Bukele He built prisons In El Salvador for ICE deportees as a gesture to Trump, Milei has earned a place within the magician imaginary in the United States for Your incendiary stylehis rejection of the establishment and His libertarian rhetoric. Under that prism, the current White House is willing to hold it because it embodies a political-cultural ally More than institutional, if you want to also, a kind of entry between “politically incorrect countries” that lend mutual support. If instead of Milei will govern A classic Peronista rescue of this size would have hardly been articulated, although, paradoxically, Trump shares with Peronism more related features than with the libertarian ideology that Milei proclaims. Lithium site A NAFTA as a counterpart. It We have counted before. Another angle to consider is the possibility that the financial rescue serves as prelude to an eventual Free Trade Agreement Between the United States and Argentina, a play that would fit with the interests of both parties. For Washington, it would be a way to shield access to strategic raw materials under a stable institutional framework and without the threat that Beijing capitalizes them through state investments. For Milei, a NAFTA with the world’s first economy would be political and economic support Of enormous value, with the ability to attract private capital, reduce financing and consolidate its image of “reliable partner” within the western block. The scenario, which is known, is not formally at the table, but the background of the rescue makes it a plausible possibility: the United States does not usually move chips of this magnitude without also binding long -term commercial commitments. The Argentine structural problem. The Financial Times counted This week that “shock therapy” stopped hyperinflationary drift, but the economy is still caught in A monetary duality that makes the system dependent and vulnerable to twists of feeling: each capital output realizes distrust in the peso and forces expensive defenses with few reserves. In this framework, the discussion about dollarization returns to the center: Milei champied her In campaign, then postponed it for its costs (loss of monetary policy, impossibility of adjusting by exchange rate and binding external cycles), but broad support from the United States could reopen it. Regional experience (Ecuador) and The European They teach to enter is easy and get almost impossible. Without tax reforms, productivity, exchange regime and institutional credibility, assistance can become a expensive and ephemeral patch. China and Treasures. As we said, the “nuclear” aims to remove Buenos Aires from the Chinese orbit in the dispute for strategic resources. The lithium of the “triangle” that integrates Argentina, … Read more

India will spend a fortune on having its own chips industry. The problem is not just money

by

India has approved An investment of 18.2 billion dollars To develop ten semiconductor projects and thus create an entire chip industry from scratch. The country wants to reduce its dependence on imports and compete with powers such as Taiwan and United Statesbut the country will be necessary for more than money to execute its strategy. Ambition is disproportionate. India is one of the largest consumers of electronic devices in the world, but it does not practically No local chips industry. Its implementation in the semiconductors aims to create the entire supply chain, from the design to the manufacture, tests and packaging, in the region. The approved projects include two manufacturing plants of semiconductors and multiple test and packaging factories. The opportunity of India. The race began in 2022, when the United States restricted chips exports of advanced to China. This triggered a global competition for self -sufficiency in semiconductors, and for India was a golden opportunity to reduce imports and capture a greater share of the global market of electronic devices that moves away from China. Beyond money. Stephen Ezell, Vice President of Global Innovation Policy in Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Explain which India needs “more than a few semiconductor factories.” The Executive explains that leading manufacturers “consider up to 500 different factors before investing billions in a plant”, including talent, fiscal policies, labor regulations, technological infrastructure and customs policies, areas in which India still has pending work. The Government changes strategy. New Delhi has modified its approach initial. In 2022 he focused only on advanced chips of 28 nanometers or less, but this did not help develop the nascent Indian industry. Now the government finances 50% of the costs of all manufacturing projects, regardless of the size of the chip, and also supports the test and packaging units. Star projects are already underway. The largest current project is the semiconductor manufacturing plant of 11,000 million dollars That Tata Electronics builds in Gujarat, in association with the Taiwanese Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. The installation will produce chips for energy management, screen controllers and microcontrollers that can be used in AI, automotive and data storage. Talent exists, but it is limited. India has a reserve of engineers who already work for global chips design companies since the 90s. However, Jayanth BR, recruiter with more than 15 years of experience in the sector, Explain that international companies only subcontract design validation work “at the block level” to India. The central design remains in the United States or Singapore. Intellectual property is the great challenge. Sajai Singh, partner of the Jsa Jsa Advocates & Requests, Point out that India must update its intellectual property laws and improve application mechanisms. “Our competition is with countries like the United States, Europe and Taiwan, which not only have solid Pi laws, but also a more consolidated ecosystem for chips design,” he explains. And now what. The next three or four years will be decisive for the objectives of semiconductors of India, according to Sujay Shetty, general director of semiconductors at PWC India. There are still factors that India must stop, since manufacturing plants require specific locations without flooding or vibrations, with reliable road connections and suppliers of specialized chemicals that meet standards of ultraralta purity. India is still far from producing 2 nanometers avant -garde chips, but could find its niche in assembly and semiconductor tests, a sector with lower capital requirements and better margins. Cover image | Brian Kostiuk and Naveed Ahmed In Xataka | The undisputed winner of the aggressive competition of TSMC, Intel and Samsung is a European company: ASML

Two companies monopolize more than 50% of Elon Musk’s fortune. None of them is Tesla

by

Elon Musk is again in the focus of technological news after Tesla’s proposal to offer a salary bonus 1 billion dollars To “motivate” the millionaire. While it is true that getting it will not be easy, that remuneration would be the key for Elon Musk to become the First billionaire in history. Before such a figure, many (Even Pope Leo XIV) They consider it excessive. However, Tesla has a weight of weight to offer that figure: the car manufacturer is no longer the main origin of Elon Musk’s fortune, which can see more interesting to put aside Tesla and dedicate her efforts to obtain greater benefits with Spacex, XAI, Starlink or Neuralink. A megaplan of 1 billion dollars. After Judicial cancellation of the 2018 Bono, valued at more than 56,000 million dollars (according to the value of the shares), Tesla has presented A new salary plan before the US stock and values ​​commission. To achieve such a fortune, the CEO must comply with a very demanding roadmap, which will be delivered in a staggered way as they are unlocking milestones over a decade. Most of these objectives now sound like science fiction, given the delicate Tesla’s commercial situationbut we must not undervalue Elon Musk’s ability. For example, to meet the conditions of its salary bonus, Musk must make Tesla sell 20 million additional vehicles and that the company reaches a stock capitalization of 8.5 billion dollars, starting from the current valuation of around 1 billion. In addition, you must deploy one million of autonomous robotaxis and of the Optimus robots with integrated Grok, multiplying by 24 the current benefits of the company. More tesla pastel. In reality, the remuneration of the salary bonus is carried out in the form of 423 million shares of Tesla, so that Elon Musk would expand its participation in Tesla from current 13% to 29%. This would allow Elon Musk to have More influence and power of veto on the Board of Directors. However, I would also turn Tesla back into the main FElon Musk’s income. At present, Tesla represents about 140,000 million of the almost 471,000 million that Musk treasures, according to the Millionaire index of Forbes. Tesla doesn’t shine as much as before. Such and as they highlight in CNBCalthough Tesla remains relevant in the proportion of Musk’s heritage, at this time the private companies of the millionaire are those that are experiencing a greater economic growththus winning greater prominence in his fortune. Musk’s estimated participation in Spacex is 42% and is already worth more than 168,000 million dollars, especially after New SpaceX assessment in 400,000 million dollars in its last round of investments. Up to the AI ​​train. In addition, XAI Holdings, the artificial intelligence startup that “bought“The social network X, reached an assessment of 80,000 million in March 2025. After some Additional investments of Musk, his startup of AI has been revalued up to 113,000 million dollars, according to I pointed Forbes. HE esteem that in the next financing rounds the company of AI that Grok develops It could exceed 200,000 million, of which Elon Musk controls 50%. Although in a minor average, Neuralink has also grown up to an assessment of 9,000 million dollars today, of which Elon Musk is a 51%holder. Together, the three main private companies in Musk would already exceed Tesla’s weight in the person’s fortune richer in the world. Tesla has put a price to become the gold mine that was: 1 billion dollars … if you get your goals, of course. In Xataka | The shocking thing is not that Elon Musk has lost 80,000 million dollars in 2025: others have earned 102.00 million Image | Flickr (Gage Skidmore), Unspash (Anatoli Nicolae, Spacex)

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.