TheChek News Flow

Lawyer Sarah Krissoff said the DoJ request was a ‘distraction’ and Trump was ‘trying to present himself as if he’s doing something’

A Justice Department request to unseal grand jury transcripts in the prosecution of chronic sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend is unlikely to produce much, if anything, to satisfy the public’s appetite for new revelations about the financier’s crimes, former federal prosecutors say.

Lawyer Sarah Krissoff, an assistant US attorney in Manhattan from from 2008 to 2021, called the request in the prosecutions of Epstein and imprisoned British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell “a distraction”.

“The president [Donald Trump] is trying to present himself as if he’s doing something here and it really is nothing,” Krissoff told Associated Press in a weekend interview.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made the request on Friday, asking judges to unseal transcripts from grand jury proceedings that resulted in indictments against Epstein and Maxwell, saying “transparency to the American public is of the utmost importance to this Administration”.

The request came as the administration sought to contain the firestorm that followed its announcement that it would not be releasing additional files from the Epstein investigation, despite previously promising that it would.

Epstein killed himself at age 66 in his prison cell in August 2019, a month after his arrest on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year prison sentence imposed after her December 2021 sex trafficking conviction for luring girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.

Krissoff and Joshua Naftalis, a Manhattan federal prosecutor for 11 years before entering private practice in 2023, said grand jury presentations are purposely brief.

Naftalis said Southern District prosecutors present just enough to a grand jury to get an indictment but “it’s not going to be everything the FBI and investigators have figured out about Maxwell and Epstein”.

“People want the entire file from however long. That’s just not what this is,” he said, estimating that the transcripts, at most, probably amount to a few hundred pages.

“It’s not going to be much,” Krissoff said, estimating the length at as little as 60 pages “because the Southern District of New York’s practice is to put as little information as possible into the grand jury.”

“They basically spoon-feed the indictment to the grand jury. That’s what we’re going to see,” she said. “I just think it’s not going to be that interesting. I don’t think it’s going to be anything new.”

Both ex-prosecutors said grand jury witnesses in Manhattan are usually federal agents summarising their witness interviews.

That practice might conflict with the public perception of some state and federal grand jury proceedings, where witnesses likely to testify at a trial are brought before grand juries during lengthy proceedings before indictments or when grand juries are used as an investigatory tool.

In Manhattan, federal prosecutors “are trying to get a particular result so they present the case very narrowly and inform the grand jury what they want them to do”, Krissoff said.

Krissoff predicted that judges who presided over the Epstein and Maxwell cases will reject the government’s request.

With Maxwell, a petition is before the US Supreme Court so appeals have not been exhausted. With Epstein, the charges are related to the Maxwell case and the anonymity of scores of victims who have not gone public is at stake, although Blanche requested that victim identities be protected.

“This is not a 50-, 60-, 80-year-old case,” Krissoff noted. “There’s still someone in custody.”

She said citing “public intrigue, interest and excitement” about a case was probably not enough to convince a judge to release the transcripts despite a 1997 ruling by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals that said judges have wide discretion and that public interest alone can justify releasing grand jury information.

Krissoff called it “mind-blowingly strange” that Washington Justice Department officials are increasingly directly filing requests and arguments in the Southern District of New York, where the prosecutor’s office has long been labelled the “Sovereign District of New York” for its independence from outside influence.

“To have the attorney general and deputy attorney general meddling in an SDNY case is unheard of,” she said.

Cheryl Bader, a former federal prosecutor and Fordham Law School criminal law professor, said judges who presided over the Epstein and Maxwell cases may take weeks or months to rule.

“Especially here where the case involved witnesses or victims of sexual abuse, many of which are underage, the judge is going to be very cautious about what the judge releases,” she said.

Bader said she did not see the government’s quest aimed at satisfying the public’s desire to explore conspiracy theories “trumping – pardon the pun – the well-established notions of protecting the secrecy of the grand jury process”.

“I’m sure that all the line prosecutors who really sort of appreciate the secrecy and special relationship they have with the grand jury are not happy that DOJ is asking the court to release these transcripts,” she said.

Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice, called US President Donald Trump’s comments and influence in the Epstein matter “unprecedented” and “extraordinarily unusual” because he is a sitting president.

He said it was not surprising that some former prosecutors are alarmed that the request to unseal the grand jury materials came two days after the firing of Manhattan Assistant US Attorney Maurene Comey, who worked on the Epstein and Maxwell cases.

“If federal prosecutors have to worry about the professional consequences of refusing to go along with the political or personal agenda of powerful people, then we are in a very different place than I’ve understood the federal Department of Justice to be in over the last 30 years of my career,” he said.

Krissoff said the uncertain environment that has current prosecutors feeling unsettled is shared by government employees she speaks with at other agencies as part of her work in private practice.

“The thing I hear most often is this is a strange time. Things aren’t working the way we’re used to them working,” she said.

Tesla opened the doors to its first showroom in India this week, and among the first visitors was Vishal Gondal — a longtime Tesla and Elon Musk loyalist who pre-booked a Model 3 in April 2016, just hours after reservations went live. But despite showing up on day one, Gondal says he has no plans to buy a Tesla now.

“I felt a little bit underwhelmed,” said Gondal, founder and CEO of fitness-tech startup GOQii, after visiting the maiden Tesla showroom in Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex.

Over the better part of a decade, Gondal held out hope for Tesla’s debut in India. But his excitement soured when he had to chase the company for a refund in 2023 — sending multiple emails just to get his $1,000 reservation fee.

“Trying to get the money back was a problem,” he told TechCrunch. “And the joke was, had we invested that money in Tesla IPO stock, we would have made more money.”

Gondal is among the earliest backers of Tesla in India — someone who pre-booked a vehicle long before there were any guarantees. But nine years on, it seems many of those early believers are not celebrating the launch and have instead made up their mind not to go with Tesla, at least on its debut.

Those backers never got their Model 3s, for which they paid the reservation fee soon after Musk promised to launch the car in the country. And some, like Gondal, even waited and tried hard for years to get the refund, while some got it in May, just a couple of months before Tesla’s formal debut.

“It is frustrating to see Tesla take so long. I mean, our government and processes and red carpet are hard, but it’s hilarious that even Starlink has gotten approval in a shorter period,” said Varun Krishnan, who runs tech blog FoneArena from Chennai and is also one of Tesla’s early backers in India.

Tesla did not invite these loyalists to visit its Mumbai showroom, nor did it give them an update on the launch.

The 6,000-square-foot Tesla showroom is located in Maker Maxity Mall, near Apple’s first store in the country. Nonetheless, Gondal said Tesla’s store was nowhere near similar to that of the Apple store launch.

“When Apple launched their showroom in the same place, the buzz that Apple was able to create versus the buzz that Tesla was able to create, there is a world of difference,” he said.

Gondal went to the Tesla showroom in his Audi e-Tron, which he had bought the previous year, after waiting a long time for the Model 3.

“This felt like the coldest launch,” said Amit Bhawani, founder of tech blog Phoneradar, who also pre-reserved the Model 3 in 2016.

Bhawani eventually got the $1,000 refund after criticizing Tesla in a video released on YouTube in 2020.

The video received comments from dozens of people who had also reserved the Model 3 in India and were waiting for a refund, he said.

“That’s when I felt that the whole love for Tesla became a real hatred for Tesla,” he told TechCrunch.

“The least Tesla could have done was email all the people who reserved the car earlier and said, ‘Guys, we are going to have a special event for you’,” Gondal said. “Those people really went out of their way, and even though let’s say it’s not a big amount, it was saying that we support Tesla.”

Some others, like Kawaljit Singh Bedi, said they have no regrets about supporting Tesla, although they received the refund just before the launch this year. Nevertheless, they are also not looking to buy a Tesla soon.

“After all these years I have waited, I’m in no hurry to buy it now and become the first one to have it, because what’s the point? I waited nine years? I can wait nine years and six months more,” said Bedi, co-founder and CTO of Frammer AI.

“Most of them who had put in their early vote of confidence are disappointed, including, I know, Vishal and Vijay [Shekhar Sharma of Paytm],” said Krishnan. “People like Vishal or Vijay, they are taken with a lot of authority. So, if they are buying something, there would be 100 people going by their word.”

Sharma, founder and CEO of Indian fintech giant Paytm, echoed comments from other early backers, telling TechCrunch that he would not go with Tesla and would rather wait for a larger portfolio of cars.

“It may be a bit too late,” he said. “There are so many other options with price-value math more suited for India.”

The years-long delay in Tesla’s launch — along with not being invited to the showroom opening — has left some of the brand’s earliest Indian loyalists feeling let down, said Arun Bhatt, founder of Tesla Club India, who also pre-booked a Model 3 in 2016

“You paid something and you ardently waited for 10 years, and then out of the blue, they just tell you, we’ll cancel it and we’ll refund, then what happens — 10 years having waited for something, will we be given preferential treatment?” he questioned. “There’s zero communication regarding that. So, eight out of 10 reservation holders are frustrated.”

Bhatt started the club with another Tesla enthusiast and Delhi University student, Nikhil Chaudhary, in 2019 as an informal group for people having an interest in the EV carmaker. However, he told TechCrunch that due to the delay in Tesla’s launch in the country, the club has slowly changed from a Tesla awareness club to an EV and clean energy awareness club.

One of the concerns that many Tesla early backers have is the lack of clarity on how Tesla will set up the Supercharger network in the country and handle after-sales care. The company announced that it would establish eight charging stations, equally distributed across Delhi and Mumbai, before starting its deliveries in Q3. However, it is unclear whether these will be sufficient to provide enough backing to Tesla drivers in these two cities. Additionally, there are no announcements regarding how Tesla plans to handle after-sales service of its cars in India.

“Having gotten older in nine years, I’ve also gotten more prudent in my vehicle purchase process. I’m more worried about practical things than just the Tesla brand tag, which I fell in love with 10 years ago,” said Krishnan of FoneArena.

“There is no real excitement to own the first car, knowing that there is no Supercharger network also,” Bedi of Frammer AI said.

In recent months, Musk’s public persona has undergone a shift — from a visionary entrepreneur running multiple companies to a polarizing political figure in the U.S. This transformation has impacted Tesla’s stock and business not only in America but also in key international markets. India appears to be no exception.

“After the whole elections and the politics, and whatever is happening, I don’t see Elon with the same colors as what I used to,” FoneArena’s Krishnan said.

Kunal Khattar, an EV-focused investor in India and founder of VC firm AdvantEdge Founders, echoed Krishnan’s sentiment, saying Tesla has lost “a little bit of its shine” due to several factors — including Musk’s political involvement, his alignment with Trump, and the public fallout that followed.

“People used to think Tesla is saving the world, it’s saving the climate, and this and that, it’s no longer there,” he said.

Khattar was invited to the Tesla launch in Mumbai. Just like Gondal of GOQii and others, he also described it as “underwhelming” and “not like a typical vehicle launch.”

Tesla has launched the Model Y in India, starting at ₹59,89,000 (approximately $68,000). Some compare the India pricing with that of the Model Y in the U.S., which begins at $44,990 (₹38,71,000). However, the carmaker is importing the car from China — rather than manufacturing it locally in the country — something that the industry commonly refers to as a Completely Built-Up (CBU). This adds up to tariffs that Tesla is set to pay for some time, until it decides to set up a local factory, and thus, customers will have to pay an exorbitant price.

In India, the premium segment, which starts from ₹35,00,000 (approximately $40,700) and goes up to ₹1,00,00,000 (approximately $116,200), comprises just 1% of the total car sales in India, roughly 50,000 vehicles. However, in that 1%, electric cars have almost a 10% share so far, per Puneet Gupta, director, S&P Global Mobility.

“With Tesla coming in, and if Tesla really starts manufacturing in India, maybe two years down the line, there is no doubt about it that it will make a strong case for all these OEMs [original equipment manufacturers], including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi, to make a vehicle for our Indian customer for the first time,” he said. “The problem is that India has never been able to convince these OEMs that they can really make an India-centric product, and it will have sufficient volumes.”

Overall, electric car sales in India accounted for just 2.5% of the total market in 2024, per Counterpoint. But it was “almost negligible” in 2016, when Tesla initially announced its entry. This was also the reason why people showed a lot of interest in Tesla back then.

“These days, everyone can get a beautiful, amazing, super powerful electric vehicle in India. So, Tesla is not something ‘wow’ worthy, except for 5-10 minutes, people should ask to just take a look inside it,” Bhawani of PhoneRadar said.

India’s automobile giant Tata Motors has dominated the country’s electric car market in recent years, though others — including China’s MG Motor, which recently signed a joint venture with Indian conglomerate JSW Group — are starting to gain ground.

The premium segment remains niche in the country, though the increasing number of high-net-worth individuals has led to a 66 percent year-over-year rise in the sales of premium EVs during the first five months of 2025, Abhik Mukherjee, a research analyst for automotive and IoT at Counterpoint, told TechCrunch.

BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Land Rover, Volvo, and select models from Hyundai and Kia are sitting in the segment where Tesla has brought the Model Y to the country.

“Tesla’s current price point is unlikely to cause any dent to the brands operating within that price range,” Mukherjee said.

Nonetheless, Tesla’s debut is likely to draw some customer attention to electric cars in a market where two-wheelers dominate the EV space.

“People will at least put EVs in their consideration set. Will Tesla sell a lot of cars? I don’t think so … Will Tesla increase the sales of other EV brands? I think so,” Khattar of AdvantEdge Founders said.

Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.

Donald Trump: six months in six charts

The US president has had a profound impact at home and abroad with a tumultuous start to his second term

It has been six months since Donald Trump began his second term as US president.

In that time he has shaken trading relations with US allies and upended markets with tariff threats, increased immigration enforcement, imposed wide-ranging tax cuts and embarked on a project to reshape the structure of the federal government.

Many of the changes have been implemented by executive orders, bypassing congressional oversight.

Below are six charts that capture some of the tumult of the past six months.

Stocks and the dollar

In early April, US stocks registered their biggest daily decline in nearly five years after Trump announced tariffs targeting dozens of countries on what he called “liberation day”.

Since then, the markets have rebounded to all-time highs as Trump has repeatedly delayed the implementation of his tariff threats, giving rise to the viral phrase “Taco”, or Trump always chickens out.

The US dollar, meanwhile, is having its worst year since 1973, raising alarms among economists that Trump’s economic policies, coupled with his attacks on Federal Reserve independence, risk diminishing the haven role of US dollar-denominated assets for foreign investors.

Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have surged under Trump, who has called for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

The administration aims to deport 1mn people a year, and while Trump had promised to focus on those with criminal records during his 2024 election campaign, government data shows that ICE arrests are skewing heavily towards immigrants without criminal convictions.

According to the Deportation Data Project by the University of California Berkeley law school, arrests by ICE nearly doubled year on year in the month after Trump was inaugurated.

In June, there were more than 1,400 daily arrests on multiple days, while over the same period last year, during former president Joe Biden’s tenure, the number never breached 500.

Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff threats have driven up the overall effective US tariff rate — which measures the revenue raised by duties on goods as a proportion of import value — from 2 per cent at the start of the year to 8.8 per cent, according to tracking of actual trade data released through the beginning of this month by the Financial Times.

Thus far these tariffs have raised $47bn more revenue than the same period last year, and reached a record-high $64bn in the second quarter. The bulk of this is from Washington’s 30 per cent levy on Chinese imports.

If all of Trump’s policies announced by July 13 are implemented, including 30 per cent tariffs on the EU and Mexico, the average effective tariff rate for US consumers could rise as high as 20.6 per cent — the highest since 1910, according to estimates by Yale’s Budget Lab.

From January 20 to the end of mid-July, Trump issued 170 executive orders, which allow him to act without congressional oversight, an average of about one per day and a pace that far exceeds any other recent president.

The orders define many of Trump’s signature policies: the “liberation day” tariffs, challenges to constitutionally guaranteed birthright citizenship, targeting law firms and challenging the authority of the judicial system.

A central goal for Trump in his second term was getting Congress to pass his flagship tax and spending legislation, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The bill passed the Senate and House by narrow, largely party-line votes, and Trump signed it into law on July 4 as military planes flew overhead.

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The legislation extends vast, regressive tax cuts, paid for in part by large cuts to Medicaid, the health insurance programme for low-income and disabled Americans. Nearly 11mn more Americans will be without health insurance by 2034 as a result of the law, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.

The bill also allocates about $170bn for immigration enforcement and border security, including $45bn to increase ICE’s detention capacity and $30bn to hire thousands of new personnel.

The administration’s drive to reduce the size of the federal government was led by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, spearheaded by Elon Musk, ostensibly to root out “waste, fraud and abuse”.

The drive has led to entire departments being closed, sometimes with little consideration for the consequences. In February Musk posted to X that Doge “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper”, referring to the agency responsible for administering foreign aid. A recent paper in the medical journal The Lancet found that ongoing deep funding cuts could result in more than 14mn additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5mn deaths of young children.

Doge has dismantled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the broadcaster Voice of America, and slashed thousands of roles at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health.

Since January, it has fired more than 67,000 federal employees across a variety of agencies, according to Roger Lee, who tracks lay-offs across the federal government and tech industry.

The federal government is leading all US sectors in lay-offs, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Musk announced his departure from Doge in late May, but the cuts are continuing. On Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration could implement its plan to fire 1,400 employees at the Department of Education.

“The majority is either wilfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion.

An orbital industrial revolution is under way

Every industrial revolution is defined by its location — think of Manchester’s mills, Detroit’s assembly lines and the remote bubble of Silicon Valley’s R&D labs. The same is true for the next industrial revolution, currently unfolding 250 miles above our heads. 

Picture this: it is 2040 and semiconductors are being manufactured in orbit to achieve quality performance impossible on Earth. Energy systems that dwarf terrestrial solar farms are operational. The space economy is approaching $2tn, spanning supply chains and transportation to consumer goods and lifestyle.  

Much of this future depends on the cost of sending rockets into space continuing to fall. In the past 15 years, launch costs have dropped from $50,000 per kilogramme to under $2,000. They are expected to dip below $200/kg with Starship — a reusable, heavy-lift launch vehicle being developed by SpaceX. 

Those prices are more FedEx than rocket science. The cost reduction will enable more companies to experiment, including start-ups like the UK’s Space Forge, which recently raised $30mn to manufacture semiconductors in orbit. Private space investment exceeded $26bn last year.

As a factory floor, space offers a set of unique properties. Microgravity assists new assembling habitats that may enable breakthroughs. Pharmaceutical companies have studied protein crystallisation on the International Space Station. SpaceX is exploring in-orbit drug research with its new Starfall programme.

Certain alloys can also only be created in low-gravity environments while orbital solar panels can collect energy 24/7, unaffected by weather or nightfall. These could be the next leap in clean energy.

There is sometimes a false choice presented between investing in Earth and investing in space. This misses the point. The infrastructure that we build in orbit can directly benefit Earth. Space-manufactured semiconductors can power more efficient data centres. Orbital pharmaceuticals could treat previously incurable diseases. Space-based solar panels can provide clean energy. Several governments, including the UK, are investing in the development of systems able to beam this energy back to Earth. If successful they could slash both energy costs and carbon footprints.

There are more immediate revenue-generating opportunities too.

Data companies are training AI on satellite imagery. Hedge funds use this information for commodity trading while logistics companies optimise routes. Companies can use the data provided from satellite imagery to predict retail footfall, agricultural yields, subsurface water location and supply chain disruptions. US based start-up Locus Lock is producing satellite-enabled GPS receivers that maintain ultra-precise accuracy even in compromised environments — critical for autonomous vehicles in dense cities, military operations in contested spaces, and orbital spacecraft navigation.

Satellites play a dual role in this orbital economy: both as the command-and-control infrastructure enabling manufacturing operations in space and data providers for Earth-based businesses. By the mid-2030s, the amount of information they provide will have multiplied. Thousands of earth-observation satellites will be producing petabytes of data daily — almost double today’s level.

Every industrial revolution rewards early movers and punishes laggards. We need to see space as an emerging market — one that requires strategic attention. Those who take it seriously will be well positioned to capitalise on orbital opportunities. Those who ignore the developments run the risk that one day they will be competing against technology that is impossible to match on Earth.

Some Republicans have laid the groundwork to oust the central-bank chief, but the Treasury secretary cited practical obstacles and economic hazards

reasury Secretary Bessent advised President Trump against ousting Fed Chair Powell, citing potential economic and market risks.

Bessent highlighted potential legal challenges and Senate hurdles, suggesting Trump could shape the Fed through upcoming vacancies.

Some advisers suggest challenging Powell’s oversight of Fed construction costs, potentially laying groundwork for a “for cause” removal.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in recent days privately laid out his case to President Trump for why he believed Trump shouldn’t try to oust Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, people familiar with the matter said.

Bessent’s reasons for avoiding a messy dispute over Powell’s final 10 months as Fed chair focused on a few themes: the possible effects on the economy and markets, the prospect that the Fed is already moving toward cutting interest rates later this year, and the likely political and legal obstacles that such a move would face, these people said.

Bessent said firing Powell was unnecessary because the economy is doing well and markets have responded positively to the president’s policies, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. Bessent also reminded Trump that Fed officials have signaled they could cut rates twice before year’s end, this person said.

The possibility of the president attempting to fire Powell has been in the air for months, but it exploded into public view again this past week. Trump has repeatedly complained that the Fed needs to cut rates to lower federal debt expenses, and a senior White House official on Wednesday said the president had indicated to GOP lawmakers at a recent meeting he could soon move to fire Powell. Later on Wednesday, Trump told reporters that he wasn’t planning to do so.

The episode briefly churned up financial markets. Many investors think attempting to replace central-bank officials over policy disputes could steadily erode the central bank’s independence, or its authority to take unpopular steps when necessary to maintain low inflation.

The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick advised Trump against attempting to oust Powell when the president publicly mused about the Fed leader’s “termination.”

In this latest episode, Bessent told Trump that if he fired Powell before the conclusion of his term, the Fed chair could sue and that lawsuit might drag into the spring—coinciding with the end of Powell’s term anyway.

On his Truth Social platform Sunday, Trump wrote that he didn’t need Bessent to explain to him that firing Powell would be bad for the market. “Nobody had to explain that to me. I know better than anybody what’s good for the Market, and what’s good for the U.S.A,” Trump wrote. “People don’t explain to me, I explain to them!”

Some advisers in the president’s orbit have acknowledged that even without a probable court challenge from Powell, any attempted removal could create a prolonged leadership vacuum—because there is no guarantee the Senate, typically away from Washington in August, would quickly confirm a replacement. Firing Powell over the objections of several GOP senators could frustrate the confirmation process for any successor.

Under current law, the Fed’s vice chair serves in the chair’s absence. Vice Chair Philip Jefferson is a Biden appointee and Powell ally.

These advisers have conceded that financial-market and practical obstacles to pushing out Powell risk a lose-lose scenario for Trump: The administration owns the cost of adverse market reactions without the benefit of gaining immediate influence over monetary policy.

Beyond the immediate obstacles, Bessent also told the president he is already well on his way to putting his stamp on the Fed. Fed governor Adriana Kugler’s term ends in January. Powell’s term as chair ends in May. That will give Trump one or two vacancies to fill early next year.

A White House spokesman said Trump “will nominate the best possible candidate to restore competence, confidence and accountability at the Federal Reserve.”

Trump’s renewed consideration of firing Powell coincided with administration officials laying out a new line of attack by challenging his oversight of the renovation of two historic buildings that will serve as its headquarters in Washington. The project has seen large cost overruns that the Fed has blamed on rising material costs and unanticipated construction challenges.

A handful of Powell’s Senate critics have called on him to resign, but at least three Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee have said they don’t believe the Fed chair can or should be dismissed. Senate Majority Leader John Thune raised similar concerns on Wednesday, telling Fox News, “I think the markets want an independent Federal Reserve.”

Bessent’s cautious approach marks a contrast to other administration officials who have entertained more aggressive tactics. Trump told reporters on Tuesday he feels Bessent is “soothing.”

White House budget director Russell Vought has been leading the campaign to pressure Powell over Fed construction cost overruns, potentially laying groundwork for a “for cause” removal that could sidestep legal protections.

As part of that effort, Trump recently installed three advisers, including one who works directly for Vought, on a local planning commission. That commission signed off on the Fed’s design plans in 2021. Those advisers and Vought have threatened to seek a more comprehensive audit of the Fed’s construction and financial decisions.

Those advisers also asked to visit the Fed’s construction site, and the Fed offered a Friday-evening tour, James Blair, a deputy chief of staff, told reporters on Friday afternoon. He said the time didn’t work and asked to reschedule for next week.

Vought has been coy about whether the pressure campaign could serve as a predicate for attempting a for-cause removal of the Fed chair that sidesteps a recent Supreme Court order.

Bessent said this past week the Fed chair succession process is already under way. Senior economic adviser Kevin Hassett is seen by many in Trump’s orbit as the current front-runner.

Trump has been considering announcing his pick to replace Powell by September, according to previous reporting by the Journal. But declaring Powell’s replacement sooner could satisfy the president’s desire to more immediately influence rate policy without triggering potential chaos from attempting to remove Powell.

“There are a lot of great candidates and we will see how rapidly it progresses. It’s President Trump’s decision and it will move at his speed,” Bessent said this past week in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

Some advisers have indicated in recent days that they could consider a broader range of candidates, including some whose names haven’t surfaced publicly, according to some of the people. The hope is that a greater number of surrogates will take to the airwaves and publicly pressure the Fed to lower rates.

The AI race is splintering big tech names, with investors pointing to a divergence in business approach and stock performance

The “Magnificent Seven” stocks are diverging, especially in AI, affecting their stock performance.

Nvidia, Meta and Microsoft have gained, while Apple, Tesla and Alphabet have lagged behind.

Investors are watching second-quarter results closely to see if AI investments justify high valuations.

The “Magnificent Seven” stocks are starting to grow apart.

They are not quite heading to splitsville, but some of the market’s tech heavyweights have made more headway in artificial intelligence—and that has put a strain on their relationship. At least with respect to their recent relative stock performance.

“They are in therapy,” said Dan Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust, of the Magnificent Seven’s diverging paths.

Amazon.com, Alphabet, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla have lorded over the stock market in recent years, linked by the outsize role they share in the economy’s future and the significant slice they comprise in the benchmark S&P 500 index.

This year, though, shares of Nvidia, Meta and Microsoft have climbed about 20% or more, while Apple and Alphabet are down 16% and 2%, respectively. Each will soon deliver a quarterly scorecard to investors, with Alphabet and Tesla set to report earnings Wednesday, followed by Meta, Microsoft and Apple the following week.

“It was inevitable. They all can’t run in lockstep forever because they do different things,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group. “Now, the winners and losers stratification is upon us.”

The Magnificent Seven still have a strong grip over the market. Their stocks led the tariff-induced selloff in April, and then helped lift the market all the way back during its march toward new highs. Those big names represent about 35% of the S&P 500, according to Dow Jones Market Data, and investors don’t expect that to change soon.

One major reason the seven were grouped together in the first place was that those seven companies were spearheading the AI push, Michael Hartnett, the Bank of America strategist who is credited with coining the term “Magnificent Seven” in 2023, has said.

But “right now, we’re seeing a pretty big divergence in the fundamentals,” said Ivana Delevska, founder and chief investment officer of Spear.

Apple, for instance, has failed to woo investors with its AI efforts. Last year, it introduced its Apple Intelligence service to great fanfare, only to come up short on its promises. The company has said it would share updates about its AI-powered Siri in the coming year, meaning it might not reach the market until late 2026.

Morgan, of Synovus, said he recently trimmed his Apple holdings for the first time in years. When a client was looking to make a donation, he recommended gifting Apple equities, something he wouldn’t have done years ago. Other investors have reduced Apple positions in favor of Nvidia or Microsoft.

“Apple is on a park bench eating an apple, watching the AI revolution go by on the highway,” said Dan Ives, managing director of Wedbush Securities and one of Wall Street’s biggest AI bulls.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, faces antitrust scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe, along with mounting concern that AI chatbots such as ChatGPT will eat into Google’s dominant search business.

Some investors see plenty of upside potential. Google has a significant trove of user data available, something analysts say could help advance its AI models beyond competitors. Its AI overviews, which appear atop some search-results pages, are gaining traction, as are its Gemini AI tools.

“We believe that the perceived ‘missteps’ in AI with Google will correct and that Google will figure this all out,” wrote Jeff McClean, chief executive officer of Solidarity Wealth.

Tesla, a ticker long beloved by individual investors, has diverged from its Magnificent Seven counterparts for very different reasons, including flagging electric-vehicle sales and Elon Musk’s foray into politics. Musk has pushed to transform Tesla, down 18% this year, from an EV maker into a robotics and artificial-intelligence company. The CEO recently said Tesla shareholders would vote on investing in xAI, one of his other companies.

“In the Mag Seven, there’s the cool kids table—and Apple, Tesla and Alphabet, they’re by the kitchen at the bad table, wishing they were at the cool kids table,” Ives said.

The other half of the tech-stock group has continued to reap the rewards of AI optimism. The chip giant Nvidia has been the clearest winner in the AI race thus far. The world’s first $4 trillion company has split off from the Magnificent Seven more than any other. Its stock has more than tripled in the past two years.

Meta and Microsoft are well-positioned too, investors said. Amazon, whose shares are up 3% year to date, has been affected by tariffs and the uncertainty regarding them. The company has invested in the AI startup Anthropic.

Wall Street will be parsing second-quarter results for indications that these large tech companies are continuing to invest big in artificial intelligence. That is important given lofty valuations: Six of those seven companies recently traded at more than 25 times their expected earnings over the next year, compared with an S&P 500 average of 22.35. Alphabet was the only one below that bar.

“Earnings are going to have to be really spectacular to push these stocks significantly forward from here,” said Cox of Harris Financial. “I don’t know if that’s possible.”

In the second quarter, the Magnificent Seven are expecting 14% year-over-year net-income growth, significantly outpacing the 3% decline expected for the other 493 companies in the S&P index, according to a recent report from Morgan Stanley.

Given that all seven companies have strong exposure to AI, or enough capital to make acquisitions and catch up, it is possible this divergence is temporary, according to some investors.

“The Mag Seven friends could reunite at the party over the next year, but it all depends on how they navigate the AI revolution,” said Ives, the Wedbush managing director.

The previous era was defined by FAANG—Facebook’s parent, Meta; Amazon; Apple; Netflix; and Google’s owner, Alphabet—until that group fizzled in 2023. If these companies’ stocks continue heading in wildly different directions, that might leave the door open for a newly named group of hot stocks—and the Magnificent Seven could go the way of FAANG or the Nifty Fifty.

Some investors are already wondering about what moniker will be next.