‘What do you do with all that money?’ Tether plots its global expansion
One of crypto’s biggest players has grand plans to deploy its large profits
Tether has expanded its eccentric venture capital portfolio and launched a hiring spree as it seeks to move beyond its roots as a secretive provider of crypto-financial plumbing and create a global conglomerate built around “freedom”.
The world’s largest stablecoin issuer has long been run by a small circle of executives, who manage its $185bn token USDT, which serves as the main bridge between crypto and dollars.
The group, registered in El Salvador but with a base in Switzerland, has begun to deploy its large profits to build a sprawling portfolio that now spans 140 investments from a South American agricultural producer to a stake in Italian football club Juventus.
It has also more recently expanded its headcount to about 300, with plans to add another 150 staff over the next 18 months, largely engineers.
Chief executive Paolo Ardoino took the stage at a conference Tether hosted recently in San Salvador to explain the burst of activity.
He clicked through AI-generated images of a “world descending into darkness” — thunderous clouds, stormy seas and a woman being devoured by metallic cables — and explained Tether’s mission to “bring stability” through a “freedom tech stack” in finance, intelligence, communications and energy.
Ardoino said the company was focused on creating peer-to-peer tools to counter Silicon Valley behemoths. “If we build everything with centralised technology, freedom will fall,” he said.
It is an ironic stance for the company that acts as the biggest centralised cog in the $2tn global crypto market.
Observers have been left baffled by the strategy behind Tether’s empire building, which is still shaped by the personal influence and ideology of a small group of executives who have forged close ties to members of the Trump administration.
“How much of this is marketing and how much is held belief?” said Austin Campbell, managing partner of crypto advisory firm Zero Knowledge Consulting.
“How do you square ‘the world is ending’ with ‘we’re reinventing tech and everything is going to be great’? . . . Internal consistency has never been a strength of the crypto space,” he added.
Tether was also diversifying its revenues beyond stablecoins as competition from rivals and traditional financial companies heats up, Campbell said.
Beyond engineers, Tether also wants to hire AI filmmakers in Italy, venture investment associates in the United Arab Emirates and regulatory affairs leads in Ghana and Brazil, according to job listings on LinkedIn.
Tether, founded in 2014, has grown to 500mn users and expanded USDT’s market value from $5bn in 2020 to roughly $185bn. But it has still struggled to shake the secrecy, unorthodox governance and tensions with authorities that defined its first decade.
At the conference, employees sported name tags with only first names, which one member of the team said was for “privacy” reasons.
People close to Tether describe an internal drive to add corporate structures and financial discipline, with a focus on “profit and loss”.
A small team in London now oversees finance and operations under a new chief financial officer, Simon McWilliams. Employees have little visibility into the work of other teams, outside occasional gatherings in El Salvador or the Swiss city of Lugano.
Giancarlo Devasini, the intensely private Italian and former plastic surgeon who owns a large stake in the company and has for years been the driving force behind it, floated around the conference in all-white clothing. But he declined all interviews. “I don’t speak with journalists,” he said.
Even as it seeks to expand in the US market under new regulations passed by the Trump administration, Tether last year shifted its headquarters to El Salvador, where it has been welcomed by the authoritarian, pro-crypto president, Nayib Bukele. Earlier bases include the Isle of Man and British Virgin Islands.
Its chief stablecoin rival Circle, by contrast, has its headquarters at One World Trade Center in lower Manhattan and went public in the US last year.
Tether’s effort to cement its financial credibility in the US with a $15bn-$20bn funding round has run into pushback from some investors, who object to its $500bn valuation target.
Stablecoins also face scrutiny for their use in illicit activity. Nearly all payments into entities and jurisdictions under sanctions were conducted using these tokens, with Russia’s stablecoin and Tether’s USDT making up the majority, a report by intelligence firm TRM Labs said.
A recent letter sent by the New York district attorney alongside state attorney-general Letitia James to Democratic lawmakers raised concerns that both Tether and Circle were not doing enough to assist in fraud investigations.
Tether provided assistance only in limited circumstances and “law enforcement has been left to [its] mercy”, the letter said.
Tether said it did not have a blanket legal obligation to comply with state-level civil or criminal processes in the way a US-regulated financial institution would, but it voluntarily works closely with American enforcement agencies.
Greater US scrutiny of Tether looms if Democrats retake control of either chamber of Congress in this year’s midterm election.
In 2021, Tether reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with state and federal US authorities over claims it lied about the assets that back the value of USDT to ensure it retains its 1-to-1 peg with the dollar.
Concerns about Tether’s reserves have not gone away. It publishes quarterly attestations of its assets from accounting firm BDO Italia, but still does not provide a full audit.
Ratings group S&P has expressed concern about the presence of gold, bitcoin and other risky assets in the reserves. Tether has rejected the analysis.
Tether has also increased its supply of more reliable assets, including as a large buyer of US debt, making it an important link between traditional finance and cryptocurrency. It has stockpiled land and gold to build a “fortress” to guard against societal collapse.
The returns on its trove of assets, which Tether keeps rather than paying to token-holders as interest, has given it tens of billions of dollars in annual profit to fund its wider ambitions.
The conference, hosted at the Sheraton Presidente and the Museum of Art of El Salvador, displayed the range of Tether’s connections and sprawling financial interests.
Booths featured Tether products with an alphabet soup of letters and names. Young employees pitched the company’s latest operating system for bitcoin mining (MOS), a platform that would run AI agents (“the QuantumVerse Automatic Computer” or QVAC), and wallets for those AI agents to accept Tether (WDK).
The company’s push into crypto-related software bets is mirrored by “moonshot” investments, including in robotics, AI and satellites.
One of Tether’s biggest public investments is the roughly $775mn it invested in Rumble, the right-leaning challenger to YouTube.
Rumble’s cloud also hosts Truth Social, the social media platform owned by the Trump family’s media company, TMTG. In El Salvador, Rumble’s founder Chris Pavlovski told attendees the company had worked with Tether to build a wallet that enabled users to tip creators with crypto.
Their relationship underscores Tether’s increasing alignment with rightwing political causes. One Rumble creator at the conference said he had left “Commie Canada” for the “free state of Florida” and complained that Canadians were among “the most propagandised in western civilisation”.
“They look at me and say, I’m the crazy one. I look at them and I say, no, you are all crazy ones,” he said.
Tether executives enjoy close relationships with the Bukele administration in El Salvador, where it is building a gleaming office tower. Ardoino missed one conference session after being summoned by the president, the event’s emcee said.
Ardoino attributes much of Tether’s growth to increased use by people in countries with unstable local currencies, including in Venezuela.
Tether also has strong ties to the Trump administration, particularly commerce secretary Howard Lutnick. The bank Lutnick ran until taking office, Cantor Fitzgerald, serves as a custodian for Tether’s trove of US Treasuries and is an investor in Tether.
Brandon Lutnick, who took over from his father as chair of the bank, attended the conference in El Salvador. He has called Ardoino “one of Cantor’s closest partners and a close personal friend”.
For its US expansion, Tether has hired experienced American lobbyists and recruited former members of US President Donald Trump’s administration to join its ranks.
Even as Tether launches its products in the US, it envisions a much grander future. “The question is what do you do with all that money?” said one person familiar with Tether’s business. “Their ambitions are large. They see themselves as a decentralised central bank.”
South East Water still has ‘troubling’ governance gap, warn auditors
UK utility that left 30,000 households without water has no internal audit function
South East Water, the utility that left tens of thousands of customers without water for several days, still has no internal audit function nearly two years after an industry body warned regulators that this could lead to service and financial failures.
The Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors told Emma Hardy, the minister for water and flooding, that it was “deeply troubling” that no action had been taken to force the utility to appoint an internal function, despite the body flagging concerns in February 2024.
Unlike other regulated sectors, such as banking or energy, there is no requirement for English water companies to have an internal audit function. This is despite the high-profile failings at Thames Water, the UK’s biggest water company, which is struggling under a £20bn debt pile and is trying to avert renationalisation through a controversial rescue plan from creditors.
South East Water is also on regulator Ofwat’s watchlist of financially at-risk companies.
“The ongoing failures at South East Water, which have caused significant disruption to customers, demonstrate why this gap in the governance framework can no longer be ignored,” Anne Kiem, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors, wrote in the letter dated last week and seen by the FT.
She added: “It is deeply troubling that nearly two years after we first flagged issues, South East Water continues to operate without internal audit […] and is now experiencing the sort of failures robust internal audit can help prevent.”
The complaint comes after about 30,000 South East customers, including hospitals, schools and care homes in Tunbridge Wells, were hit by water outages for two weeks before Christmas, with many losing water again for several days last month.
The company, which serves about 2.2mn water customers in Kent and surrounding areas, has a £1.3bn debt pile and paid out £1.2bn in interest and dividends between 2011 and 2025.
This is almost as much as the £1.5bn it spent on its capital investment — including pipe networks and storage capacity — during that 15-year period. South East Water has previously said that no external dividends have been paid since 2019 and that “interest payments are a normal cost of doing business”.
The company is owned by the Utilities Trust of Australia, which has a 50 per cent share, Canadian financial group Desjardins, with 25 per cent, and the NatWest Group Pension Fund, with 25 per cent.
South East Water said it “commissions a number of internal audits each year which are undertaken by an outsourced internal audit provider”.
It added: “These reports are reviewed by the audit and risk committee, which is chaired by an independent non-executive director.”
The CIIA urged Ofwat to make internal audit a regulatory requirement for all water companies. An internal audit would provide the utilities with independent assurance over risk management, operational resilience and business continuity, the CIIA said. It also claimed that had South East Water had such a function, it would have alerted its board to key risks so that action could have been taken more quickly.
Publicly owned Scottish Water and Northern Ireland Water have an internal audit requirement, the CIIA added. “Yet despite the critical nature of water supply, no equivalent requirement applies to water companies in England and Wales.”
Ofwat confirmed that it had not introduced a requirement for internal auditors at water companies.
It said: “All water companies are required to have an appropriate system of internal controls and to report their governance frameworks, including their leadership, audit and risk control.”
Cover:
-Robots are nearing their anticipated takeover, transitioning from science fiction to reality. At the 2025 CES, humanoid robots, notably Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, captured attention, supported by chip manufacturers like Nvidia and Intel. As Wall Street embraces the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous robots, significant advancements are underway. Unlike traditional models and consumer products, new robots leverage AI to learn tasks such as packaging, assembly, and household chores. However, mass production remains elusive, with costs uncertain; for example, the NEO robot for home use is reserved at $20,000, while Tesla's Optimus robot for commercial use might also hit that price once production stabilizes at a million units annually. Although robots are operational in factories and warehouses, their home integration is still developing, requiring human support during early learning phases. Despite long-term maturity anticipated in the industry, investors see potential as robots contribute to existing trends in AI chip demand, data connectivity, and US manufacturing growth. Estimates suggest robotics could generate $25T in revenue by 2050, heralding the third Industrial Revolution.
Interview:
-Cardinal Health has once again raised its fiscal-year earnings outlook, now anticipating adjusted earnings between $10.15 and $10.35 per share, surpassing its previous forecast of at least $10 and exceeding analyst expectations of $10.02, according to FactSet. This updated guidance follows a prior adjustment made last month at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, where the company indicated a range of $9.65 to $9.85 per share. The announcement led to an 8.7% increase in stock price, reaching $224.92, while other drug distributors like Cencora and McKesson also saw significant stock rises. CEO Jason Hollar noted that all operating segments performed effectively by simplifying their strategies. The pharmaceutical and specialty solutions segment, which is the largest by revenue, generated $60.7B in the quarter, benefiting from sales growth both from existing and new clients, pushing segment profit up to $687M from the previous $531M in 2024.
Tech Trader:
-On Tuesday, software, media, and information company stocks, including Salesforce, Reddit, and Thomson Reuters, experienced a significant decline. This downturn was triggered by the launch of new artificial intelligence tools from start-up Anthropic, which many investors viewed as a potential threat to companies that do not manufacture physical goods. Despite concerns, the fears may be exaggerated; while these AI tools demonstrate substantial potential in office environments, they are not yet fully developed and may pose risks to the firms that adopt them. Moreover, these AI agents rely on existing software and information sources, suggesting that they will not entirely replace those systems.
Once the market calms, numerous firms in the affected sectors may present attractive investment opportunities, with private equity firms likely to take interest.
The Trader:
-Artificial intelligence has significantly impacted the stock market, with investors recently expressing concerns that it has morphed from a protective force into a potential liability. This week witnessed the Dow Jones Industrial Average surpassing 50,000 for the first time, despite widespread software industry failures. Notable companies like Thomson Reuters, PayPal Holdings, and Verisk Analytics experienced record losses, plummeting over 15%. Other firms, including Oracle and S&P Global, also faced declines. While some analysts, such as John Belton from Gabelli Funds, argue that companies with loyal customer bases and proprietary data will ultimately benefit from AI, a shift in investor sentiment indicates growing skepticism. Mark Hackett from Nationwide noted that the market has transitioned from viewing AI as uniformly beneficial to scrutinizing investment returns, leading to penalties for companies perceived as overspending.
-Rising fears over artificial intelligence have negatively affected US stocks and emerging markets (EM) that have benefited from US corporate spending on AI, with the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF falling 2.5% this week. The iShares MSCI Taiwan, South Korea, and China ETFs also experienced declines of 1.6%, 4.7%, and 5%, respectively. Despite the AI trade's US focus, emerging markets, particularly in Asia, play a significant role in supporting AI growth due to their tech-heavy infrastructure. Stacie Mintz from PGIM highlights this potential in regions like China, South Korea, and Taiwan. Beyond East Asia, India emerges as a promising non-AI emerging market, set for a recovery after a challenging 2025, with earnings expectations for the iShares MSCI India ETF projected to rise 16% in 2026 and 15% in 2027. However, India is not immune to AI-related market fluctuations, as major companies like Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services have seen declines of 4.8% and 3.6%, respectively. Kunal Desai from GIB Asset Management emphasizes that India's market fundamentals, which are driven by domestic consumption, infrastructure investment, and service-led growth, position it favorably, especially following recent trade agreements with the EU and the US that lower tariffs on Indian goods.
Features:
-The emergence of private credit "cockroaches," particularly in the software sector, signals potential challenges for the industry, which comprises over $1T in loans to riskier companies. These loans are often sold through non-publicly traded private credit funds and publicly traded business development companies (BDCs) such as Ares Capital and Blue Owl Capital. While private credit has been widely popular and perceived as low-risk during favorable economic conditions, warnings from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon highlight growing concerns, especially after recent declines in publicly traded software stocks, which have dropped an average of 20% this year. A significant portion of private-credit funds, approximately 20%, is typically allocated to the software sector, leading to a notable selloff in the $350B BDC market. Concerns arise as even established software companies like Salesforce face setbacks, prompting fears for smaller, highly leveraged firms in the sector. This situation poses serious risks for alternative asset managers involved in private credit, marking one of the toughest tests for the sector since its post-financial crisis inception.
-Over the past two years, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have substantially benefited Bitcoin, amassing nearly $60 billion since early 2024 when the SEC permitted direct crypto holdings. This convenience has allowed Main Street investors to purchase Bitcoin easily, driving its price up from $44,000 in January 2024 to over $126,000 by October 6, 2025. However, following a recent decline in Bitcoin's price by over 40%, now around $68,000, there has been a significant outflow from Bitcoin ETFs, with approximately $1B withdrawn in the past week alone. While Bitcoin ETFs still hold around $101B in assets, persistent outflows could cause further price declines due to increased selling pressure. Reports indicate that many ETF holders are facing losses, with an average buy-in price of about $83,000, resulting in an average loss of 18%. Additionally, the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF posted a negative return of 18% over the past year, with actual investor losses averaging 23%, highlighting a troubling trend for those invested in Bitcoin ETFs.
Europe:
-The U.S. administration's critical remarks towards Europe have surprisingly benefited the euro, which recently hit near 10-year highs. The euro is currently up 14% against the dollar and 9% versus the Chinese yuan over the last year, though this appreciation poses challenges for Europe. Notably, while the euro's rise has been a mixed blessing, leading to a significant 30% increase in the iShares Europe exchange-traded fund, it has not adversely affected the EU's trade balance, which remained stable from January to October 2025, despite higher euro prices and U.S. tariffs. European exports primarily consist of less price-sensitive luxury items, such as semiconductor technology and high-end vehicles. Furthermore, European assets are seen as a safer investment alternative amid uncertainties in U.S. policies and potential downturns in tech stocks. The EU economy has shown resilience, with GDP growth at 1.3% and unemployment at a record low of just over 6%, while inflation has decreased to 1.7%, potentially prompting interest rate cuts from the European Central Bank. Analysts note a surge in domestic demand, suggesting that Europe is currently in a favorable economic position.
Emerging Markets:
-No update
Commodities:
-Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial in Washington, D.C., aimed at stabilizing the supply of critical minerals essential for modern economies, such as rare earths and lithium. Despite this initiative, critical mineral stocks are declining, indicating that government efforts alone cannot boost stock prices. Vice President JD Vance highlighted the challenges of consistent investment amid erratic pricing and foreign market pressures. The meeting proposed measures like enforceable price floors to prevent predatory pricing. However, shares of leading companies like MP Materials and USA Rare Earth fell significantly, likely due to fears of increased competition from eased funding for mining projects. Although stocks had risen significantly over the past year, the lack of new developments discussed could have led to investor concerns, suggesting that policy changes may not be enough to sustain stock prices, emphasizing the need for companies to prove their execution capabilities on mining projects.
Streetwise:
-Walt Disney recently appointed Josh D’Amaro as its new chief executive, noted for his extensive theme park experience and enthusiasm for the brand. However, corporate activist Nelson Peltz expressed concerns about D’Amaro's limited entertainment background, suggesting this may lead to another flawed leadership transition. Currently, Disney's Experiences division, which includes parks and cruises, generates significantly more operating profit compared to its Entertainment division. D’Amaro will be supported by Dana Walden, the new chief creative officer. The current CEO Bob Iger has not been as well-received by Wall Street as his predecessor, and expectations for future leadership stability seem cautious following Bob Chapek's troubled tenure.
Bitcoin has now crashed -53% in just 120 days without any major negative news or event and this is not normal.
Macro pressure plays a role, but it’s not the main reason Bitcoin keeps dumping. The real driver is something much bigger that most people aren’t talking about yet.
Bitcoin’s original valuation model was built on the idea that supply is fixed at 21 million coins and that price moves based on real buying and selling of those coins. In the early cycles, this was mostly true. But today, that structure has changed.
A large share of Bitcoin trading activity now happens through synthetic markets rather than spot markets.
This includes:
• Futures contracts
• Perpetual swaps
• Options markets
• ETFs
• Prime broker lending
• Wrapped BTC
• Structured products
All of these allow exposure to Bitcoin’s price without requiring actual Bitcoin to move on chain. This changes how price is discovered because now selling pressure can come from derivative positioning rather than real holders selling coins.
For example:
If institutions open large short positions in futures markets, price can fall even if no spot Bitcoin is sold.
If leveraged long traders get liquidated, forced selling happens through derivatives, accelerating downside moves. This creates cascade effects where liquidations drive price, not spot supply.
That is why recent sell offs look very structured. You see long liquidation waves, funding flips negative, open interest collapses, all signs that derivatives positioning is driving the move.
So while Bitcoin’s hard cap has not changed, the effective tradable supply influencing price has expanded through synthetic exposure.
Price today reacts to leverage, hedging flows, and positioning, not just spot demand.
Adding to this, there are other factors too driving the current dump.
GLOBAL ASSET SELL-OFF
Right now, selling is not isolated to crypto. Stocks are declining. Gold and silver have seen volatility. Risk assets across markets are correcting.
When global markets move into risk-off mode, capital exits high-risk assets first and crypto sits at the far end of the risk curve. So Bitcoin reacts more aggressively to global sell offs.
MACRO UNCERTAINTY & GEOPOLITICAL RISK
Tensions around global conflicts, especially U.S.–Iran developments, are creating uncertainty.
Whenever geopolitical risk rises, supply chain risks increase, and markets shift toward defensive positioning. That environment is not supportive for risk assets.
FED LIQUIDITY EXPECTATIONS
Markets had been pricing a more dovish liquidity backdrop. But expectations around future policy leadership and liquidity stance have shifted.
If investors believe future Fed policy will be tighter on liquidity even if rates eventually fall, risk assets reprice lower.
ECONOMIC DATA WEAKNESS
Recent economic indicators job market trends, housing demand, credit stress are pointing toward slowing growth conditions. When recession fears rise, markets derisk.
Crypto, being the most volatile asset class, sees outsized downside during those transitions.
STRUCTURED SELLING VS CAPITULATION
Another important observation:
This sell off does not look like panic capitulation. It looks structured.
Consecutive red candles, controlled downside moves, and derivative driven liquidations suggest large entities reducing exposure, not retail panic selling.
When institutional positioning unwinds, it suppresses bounce attempts because dip buyers wait for stability before re-entering.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
It is a combination of:
• Derivatives driven price discovery
• Synthetic supply exposure
• Global risk-off flows
• Liquidity expectation shifts
• Geopolitical uncertainty
• Weak macro data
• Institutional positioning unwind
Until these pressures stabilize, relief rallies can happen, but sustained upside becomes harder.
New York lawmakers propose a three-year pause on new data centers
New Yorker state lawmakers have introduced a bill that would impose a moratorium of at least three years on permits tied to the construction and operation of new data centers. While the bill’s prospects are uncertain, Wired reports that New York is at least the sixth state to consider pausing construction of new data centers.
As tech companies plan to spend ever-increasing amounts of money to build AI infrastructure, both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concerns about the impact those data centers might have on surrounding communities. Studies have also linked data centers to increased home electricity bills.
Critics include progressive Senator Bernie Sanders, who has called for a national moratorium, as well as conservative Florida Governor Ron De Santis, who said data centers will lead to “higher energy bills just so some chatbot can corrupt some 13 year old kid online.”
More than 230 environmental groups including Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, and Greenpeace recently signed an open letter to Congress calling for a national moratorium on the construction of new data centers.
Eric Weltman of Food & Water Watch told Wired that the New York bill — sponsored by state senator Liz Krueger and assemblymember Anna Kelles, both Democrats — was “our idea.” Data center pauses have also been proposed by Democrats in Georgia, Vermont, and Virginia, while Republicans sponsored similar bills in Maryland and Oklahoma.
According to Politico, Krueger described her state as “completely unprepared” for the “massive data centers” that are “gunning for New York.”
“It’s time to hit the pause button, give ourselves some breathing room to adopt strong policies on data centers, and avoid getting caught in a bubble that will burst and leave New York utility customers footing a huge bill,” she said.
Last month, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a new initiative called Energize NY Development, which her office said would both modernize the way large energy users (i.e., data centers) would connect to the grid while also requiring them to “pay their fair share.”
‘Industry’ season 4 captures tech fraud better than any show on TV right now
HBO’s hit financial thriller “Industry” has delivered one of its most compelling storylines yet this season: a hunt to expose a fraudulent fintech company called Tender.
The show follows Harper Stern, who’s leading her newly launched investment firm and looking for a company to short — essentially, betting that its stock will crash. After a journalist tips her off that something’s wrong with Tender, she sends her associates, Sweetpea and Kwabena, to Ghana to investigate.
What they discover is damning. “Fake users drive fake revenue drives fake cash,” Sweetpea tells Harper. The entire company appears to be built on fabricated numbers. “The thing is nothing.”
What’s fascinating about this season of “Industry” is how well it speaks to this moment. Tender starts as a payment processing platform for adult content. The show references the very real (and still controversial) Online Safety Bill that the UK introduced, which has led to age verification and other enhanced rules for consuming adult content online. Because of its affiliation with adult content, Tender finds itself at odds with the new government’s regulation and must pivot or die, as the saying goes.
Its CFO-turned-leader, Whitney, wants the company to pivot into a bank and has a plan to make that happen, including making Tender’s CEO, Henry, the face of that transformation. Whitney is the embodiment of every tech baron cliche. Move fast, break things. Win at all costs. He’s lobbying politicians for a banking license and hunting for merger opportunities.
Harper, meanwhile, is leading her newly launched firm after feeling undermined at her previous firm and being called a DEI plant by the man who hired her (a nod to the decline of DEI in the past few years). She has teamed up with new friends and old frenemies and is looking for blood — meaning a company on the precipice of crashing. To her, Tender is that company.
This puts her at odds with her friend Yasmin, who is married to Henry and is crafting communication and lobbying strategies for Tender. It’s pride and prejudice — the sugar and spice that help make the world go round.
The show nails the tech world with such accuracy that reality itself starts to feel like satire. Even TechCrunch gets name-checked as part of Tender’s media playbook.
There is commentary on fascism via the character Moritz, who lobbies against Western liberalism and is hesitant to sell his family’s bank to Whitney, whose last name is the Jewish-sounding Halberstram. The character is perhaps a nod to the rising “technofacism” criticism of some tech barons.
Harper, meanwhile, is still a calculating sociopath. “My real passion lies with finding dead men walking,” she says at an investor breakfast. She ends up raising millions for her new firm.
She is the one character whose existence strains credibility. Personality-wise, she has to be shrewdly calculating; unlike Yasmin and Henry, she has nothing to fall back on should she fail. But would the UK establishment, which is notoriously insular, exclusionary, and white, really let a Black American woman rise through their ranks and beat them at their own game?
“Who needs realism when she’s such a great character,” one Black British founder told me.
He said the show aptly captures how detached the UK upper class is from consequence and is actually one of the few shows he’s seen that “accurately portrays the ruthlessness of the British elite, specifically how they maneuver the media and governments to suit their own whims.”
“Nepotism and lack of boundaries at work, people sleeping together for trade secrets, is very realistic and common, unfortunately,” one European investor added.
Meanwhile, Yasmin is headed down a dark path. Earlier this season, she organized a ménage à trois between her husband, Henry, and Whitney’s assistant, Hayley. As the season continues, her behavior becomes so hedonistic that one reviewer has already likened her to Ghislaine Maxwell — perhaps a perfect emblem of what lies at the pits of money and power, and the role some women play in digging those holes.
An Icarus moment could be on the way, however, at least for Whitney.
By now, the audience is familiar with how founders in the real world sometimes use deception to overinflate success (like Charlie Javice’s Frank) and allegedly steal from investors and the public (the FTX crypto crash). There are many such infamous cases, and some are even referenced in the show. But perhaps the most relevant real-world parallel for Tender would be the ultimate implosion of the German fintech Wirecard a few years ago.
Wirecard admitted that the billions in cash it reported having likely never existed, despite the company’s earlier claims that two banks in the Philippines were holding the funds. It was a tale of complex accounting and legal gray zones — much like the financial fraud depicted in Tender. Short sellers went after Wirecard, too, and one blog dubbed them “alternative whistleblowers” — people who step in when “the market, and the regulator, refuse to see what is right in front of them.”
The philosophy is one that one could easily see Harper embracing soon enough, especially after Eric tells her at one point that “short-only work is ugly, hard, investigative,” and that it’s “anti-status quo, anti-establishment, anti-power.”
With Wirecard, numerous people, including the CEO, were arrested, while the COO went on the run (and was also accused of being a Russian spy). Tender’s fate remains unrealized until the last few episodes run. One of the best parts about “Industry” is that it moves fast and breaks things. It is so clearly set in our time and so audacious in its demeanor that the audience is forced to pick their favorite anti-hero and go along for the ride.
It’s a rush, a thrill; the visual embodiment of the absence of ethical capitalists. And yet, just like in real life, we can’t get enough.