There comes a time in every companys journey when they need help sharing their story. And choosing the right partner to help tell that story is an important decision.
Selecting the ideal PR agency isnt just about finding the firm with the best reputation. The right partner will understand your business, align with your values, and act as a strategic advisor in helping you navigate the media landscape, build connections, and uncover opportunities.
When theres alignment in communication style, industry expertise, and shared vision, your PR efforts become more impactful. It also becomes more efficient and authentic. Here are four ways to ensure alignment.
1. Should I choose a generalist or specialized agency?
Determining whether to partner with a generalist agency or one thats specialized for your industry is an important first step. My advice is to consider your elevator pitch.
When explaining your company to others, how long does that elevator ride need to be?
If you can explain what you do in 10 floors or less, a generalist agency could be a safe option. However, if that elevator ride is going to the top of a New York City skyscraper, you probably want to consider a specialized agency.
The more complex or niche your business, the more important a specialized communications partner becomes.
Successful communication today requires partners who are industry experts willing to see both the familiar and the unfamiliar in new ways, Sarah Biller, cofounder of Fintech Sandbox told me. I look for professional communication agencies whose teams can synthesize information and make substantive connections that may not be immediately obvious to others in the industry.
Youll want a team that talks your talk and has the ability to accurately translate your messaging to journalists, your target audiences, and other key stakeholders.
2. Whats the business value?
More and more, clients need to tie communications and marketing efforts directly to sales and company revenue.
The right agency partner will work with you to develop tailored strategies and KPIs that align with your broader business goals, and theyll act as an extension of your team to help you track toward success. Whether creating a bespoke media relations plan or building a targeted paid social campaign, youll want a partner who understands the tactics that are most likely to drive meaningful impact.
Be wary of agencies that equate PR with press releases only. Often, the media outreach around an announcement is more impactful than the press release itself. Look for a partner who will brainstorm with you and think through how to make your biggest moments even bigger.
3. Are they well connected?
Connections are important. When choosing an agency partner, evaluate their industry ties. The more niche your industry, the more important this becomes. Without deep industry relationships, surface-level PR tactics may not be enough.
First, consider the agencys relationships with reporters. Do they have close connections with publications and journalists of value to your business? Understanding what media are looking for and which publications will be most impactful is essential.
Equally importantthough often overlookedis an agencys connectivity to industry conferences and events. A partner with a close pulse on the most impactful events for your industry can guide you on which are worth attending, speaking at or sponsoring, ultimately saving you time and money.
And finally, consider broader connectivity in your industry. Relationships are the foundation of business, and you never know what connections could be built through your agencys network.
4. Do our cultures align?
The right communications partner will become a valuable extension of your team. Its important to know and trust the people on the other side of the table (or computer screen).
As you evaluate potential agencies, try to get a sense of how their team operates and thinks. Youll want a partner whose working style and values align with yours.
Culture clashes dont work for anyone. You should be able to rely on your agency if things go south. Youll spend a considerable amount of time together, so ensuring culture alignment must be a priority.
Choosing the right PR partner requires research, due diligence, and thoughtful evaluation. But when you find a partner that truly aligns with your companys vision and goals, you open the door to meaningful collaboration and powerful opportunities.
By using the considerations outlined above as your guide, youll be well on your way to finding the right communications partner for your business.
Grace Keith Rodriguez is CEO of Caliber Corporate Advisers.
In the first half of 2025, she racked up over 55 million views on TikTok and 4 million likes, mostly from tweens glued to their cellphones. Not bad for an AI-generated cartoon ballerina with a cappuccino teacup for a head.
Her name is Ballerina Cappuccina. Her smiling, girlish face is accompanied by a deep, computer-generated male voice singing in Italianor, at least, some Italian. The rest is gibberish.
She is one of the most prominent characters in the internet phenomenon known as Italian Brain Rot,” a series of memes that exploded in popularity this year, consisting of unrealistic AI-generated animal-object hybrids with absurdist, pseudo-Italian narration.
The trend has baffled parents, to the delight of young people experiencing the thrill of a new, fleeting cultural signifier that is illegible to older generations.
Experts and fans alike say the trend is worth paying attention to, and tells us something about the youngest generation of tweens.
A nonsensical, AI-generated realm
The first Italian brain-rot character was Tralalero Tralala, a shark with blue Nike sneakers on his elongated fins. Early Tralalero Tralala videos were scored with a curse-laden Italian song that sounds like a crude nursery rhyme.
Other characters soon emerged: Bombardiro Crocodilo, a crocodile-headed military airplane; Liril Laril, an elephant with a cactus body and slippers; and Armadillo Crocodillo, an armadillo inside a coconut, to name a few.
Content creators around the world have created entire storylines told through intentionally ridiculous songs. These videos have proven so popular that they have launched catchphrases that have entered mainstream culture for Generation Alpha, which describes anyone born between 2010 and 2025.
Fabian Mosele, 26, calls themselves an Italian brain rot connoisseur. An Italian animator who lives in Germany and works with AI by trade, Mosele created their first Italian brain-rot content in March. Shortly after, Mosele’s video of Italian brain-rot characters at an underground rave garnered about a million views overnight, they said. It has since topped 70 million.
Even as the hysteria over the absurdist subgenre has slowed, Mosele said the characters have transcended the digital realm and become an indelible part of pop culture.
It feels so ephemeral,” Mosele said, but it also feels so real.
This summer, one of the most popular games on Roblox, the free online platform that has approximately 111 million monthly users, was called “Steal a Brainrot.” The goal of the game, as the title would suggest, is to steal brain-rot characters from other players. More popular characters, like Tralalero Tralala, are worth more in-game money.
Sometimes, the games’ administratorswho are also playerscheat to steal the characters, a move called “admin abuse” that sent many kids and teens into a frenzy. One video of a young child hysterically crying over a stolen character has 46.8 million views on TikTok.
It’s not supposed to make sense
In the non-virtual world, some have made physical toy replicas of the characters, while others have created real-life plays featuring them.
The nonsensical songs have at times gestured to real-world issues: One clip of Bombardiro Crocodilo sparked outrage for seemingly mocking the war in Gaza.
But ultimately, the majority of videos are silly and absurd.
Mosele said Italian brain-rot consumers largely dont care about how the images relate to what is being said or sung. They often dont even care to translate the nonsensical Italian to English.
Its funny because its nonsense, Mosele said.
Seeing something so dark, in a way, and out of the ordinary, that breaks all the norms of what we would expect to see on TVthats just super appealing.
The rise of brain rot
Italian brain rot didnt go viral in a vacuum. Brain rot, the 2024 Oxford University Press word of the year, is defined as the numbing of an intellectual state resulting from the “overconsumption of trivial or unchallenging material.
It can also be used to describe the brain-rotting content itself.
Lots of content falls into that category. Consider videos of the game Subway Surfers split-screened next to full episodes of television shows, or Skibidi Toilet, an animated series featuring toilets with human heads popping out of their bowls.
Those not chronically online might instinctively recoil at the term “brain rot,” with its vaguely gory connotations, especially as concern about the potential harms of social media for adolescents mounts.
When “brain rot” was crowned word of the year, Oxford Languages President Casper Grathwohl said the term speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.
Emilie Owens, 33, a children’s media researcher, agreed that endless scrolling poses dangers for young people. But she said that the concern about brain rot is misguided.
It’s normal to view the thing the newest generation is doing with fear and suspicion,” she said, pointing to how past generations have had similar concerns about the detrimental effects of comic books, television, and even novels at one time.
Concerns about brain rotthat it is unproductive and pointlessactually reveal a great deal about their appeal, Owens said. Brain rot is an acute rejection of the intense pressures on young people to self-optimize.
Its very normal for everyone to need to switch their brains off now and again, she said.
By Safiyah Riddle, Associated Press/Report For America
Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
When you hear governance, what pops to mind? We often picture limitations or roadblocks. Yet the opposite is true, particularly with artificial intelligence. AI governance is about discovering what your organization can do.
Organizations implementing comprehensive AI governance experience measurable returns, including $840,000 in operational efficiency gains and 80% in productivity improvements.
Building out your AI roadmap requires a mindset shift. These ideas will move you from limitation to acceleration.
CLARIFY YOUR BUSINESS CONCERNS
Implementing AI governance helps you learn what your business needs. Every business has constraints, like legal obligations, privacy rules, and internal risk tolerances. Every company also has ambitionsefficiency, acceleration, or gaining a competitive advantage. Governance lets you express your boundaries and goals within a scalable system.
Dont think of it as a checklist. Think of it as a steering wheel.
Before rushing to deploy the latest model, answer this: What AI technology is mature enough to be useful for us right now, and which parts of the business are ready for it?
That framing alone changes the game. Governance becomes less about saying no and more about learning whats viable.
Many organizations have swiftly adopted internal-facing AI tooling, with uses for documentation, meeting summaries, and extracting key insights from reports. The risk is lower, the value is immediate, and accountability is clear.
Governance plays a different role in higher-risk domains. iCAD, a healthcare technology company using AI to help identify breast cancer, is developing end-user services. Their models score lesions and cases based on diverse global data sets. This isnt casual experimentation; it’s AI applied with domain specificity, regulatory oversight, and extremely high reliability standards.
In both cases, governance didnt slow things down. It helped define where AI could make an immediate impact.
ACCEPT THAT THERES NOT ONE MAGIC FRAMEWORK
In the early days of the internet, downloading a single JPEG took 30 minutes. Building a basic website lasted weeks. There wasnt one standard for everything. We iterated as we went and accepted that because we knew what the web could unlock.
Were in a similar moment with AI governance.
Right now, theres no magic bullet. No single framework works for every company, every team, or every use case. We must understand the different dimensions of needs. A tool managing data provenance isnt the same as one that ensures secure software runtimes.
AI governance is about intentionality. Resist the temptation to have organization-wide, looming mandates for AI usage. That suppresses the ability of individual business functions to discover whats right for them. Sometimes, the best solution might be an outsourced, third-party AI service; that idea may be unfeasible in other scenarios. Governance at this stage is about enabling safe, domain-specific exploration.
COMMUNICATE AND OFFER TRANSPARENCY
In our report, Bridging the AI Model Governance Gap, we asked respondents what would most help improve model governance. Their top three: better-integrated tools, better visibility into model components, and team training.
The common thread between those priorities is transparency. About three in four companies have a fragmented toolchain, a set of tools to build or develop software. Thats okayif you understand why youre doing it. Large governance failures come from misaligned teams, not bad tools.
This misalignment can play out poorly in the real world. Air Canada had a chatbot deliver false discount information to a passenger, then refused to honor what the chatbot said. The airline claimed the chatbot was a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions. The courts disagreed, and the public trust fallout was worse than the legal ruling.
The governance around this AI lacked a shared understanding of accountability, review, and team communication. Grow that trust by bringing together the legal team, compliance, and data steward, letting them ride alongside the builders. Bring together the most open-minded people from each group to co-create and develop governance in tandem, rather than adding it afterward.
MOVE QUICKLY AND SUPPORT YOUR TEAM
The AI landscape is constantly evolving through regulatory landscapes, compliance requirements, and licensing uncertainties. A team somewhere stood up a new data pipeline while you read that last sentence.
In this environment, governance helps your teams to operate quickly without crashing through new habits, new tools, and a new level of discipline. If your teams deploy projects with significant AI coding, expect to write more monitoring, tests, and validation suites. Does it work? is no longer the question. Instead, ask, Can we explain why it works, and what happens if it doesnt?
Theres a reason F1 race car drivers spend time strengthening their neck muscles. When that 5G turn hits, they dont get whipsawed. Its all in the preparation.
Part of any teams time should be allocated to professional development. They can learn best practices, experiment, and figure out how to implement real guardrails at business and technology levels. Governance and experimentation cant be split like a budget. Embed both at the team level.
Governance is an emerging discipline. The teams building that muscle now are laying the foundation for long-term advantage.
Peter Wang is the cofounder and chief AI and innovation officer of Anaconda.
U.S. stocks are wobbling Friday as Wall Street questions whether the U.S. job market has slowed by just enough to get the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to help the economy, or by so much that a downturn may be on the way.
After jumping to an early gain, the S&P 500 erased it and fell 0.4% below the all-time high it set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 203 points, or 0.4%, as of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time, after swinging between a gain of 148 points and a loss of 409. The Nasdaq composite slipped 0.1%.
The action was more decisive in the bond market, where Treasury yields tumbled after a report from the U.S. Labor Department said employers across the country hired fewer workers in August than economists expected. The U.S. government also said that earlier estimates for June and July overstated hiring by 21,000 jobs.
The disappointing numbers follow last months weaker-than-expected update, along with other lackluster reports in the intervening weeks, and traders now are betting on a 100% probability that the Fed will cut its main interest rate at its next meeting on Sept. 17, according to data from CME Group. Such cuts can give a kickstart to the economy and job market, but the Fed has held off on them this year because they can also give inflation more fuel.
Until now, the Fed has been more worried about the potential of inflation worsening because of President Donald Trumps tariffs than about the job market. But Fridays job numbers were weak enough that they could even push the Fed to consider cutting rates by a deeper-than-usual amount in two weeks, said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.
This week has been a story of a slowing labor market, and todays data was the exclamation point, according to Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
While the data on the job market is disappointing, its still not so weak that its screaming a recession is here, and the U.S. economy is continuing to grow. A big question for investors is whether the job market can remain in a balance where its not so strong that it prevents cuts to interest rates but also not so weak that the economy falls off.
Uncertainty about that helped lead to Friday’s swings in the stock market. Wall Street needs things to go as hoped because it already sent stock prices to records amid expectations for a Goldilocks scenario where interest rates ease, and the economy keeps chugging along.
On Wall Street, Friday’s heaviest weight on the stock market was Nvidia, the chip company thats become the face of the artificial-intelligence boom. Its been facing criticism that its stock price charged too high, too fast and became too expensive amid Wall Streets rush into AI, and it fell 2.9%.
Lululemon dropped 18.1% after the yoga and athletic gear makers revenue for the latest quarter fell short of analysts expectations. CEO Calvin McDonald pointed to disappointing results from its U.S. operation, as its international results saw positive momentum. CFO Meghan Frank said Lululemon is facing industrywide challenges, including higher tariff rates.
They helped offset a leap of 9.3% for Broadcom after it reported better profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Hock Tan said customers are continuing to invest strongly in AI chips, and the company expects revenue from them to accelerate.
Tesla rose 3% after proposing a payout package that could reach $1 trillion for CEO Elon Musk if the electric vehicle company meets a series of extremely aggressive targets over the next 10 years.
Smith & Wesson Brands jumped 6% after the gun maker delivered better results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It reported a loss, but CEO Mark Smith said it saw good demand for its new products in what’s traditionally a slow season for sales of firearms.
In stock markets abroad, indexes in Europe lost early gains to turn lower with Wall Street. That followed strength across much Asia.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 rallied 1% after data showed accelerating growth in earnings for Japanese workers.
Chinese markets rebounded following three days of decline. Indexes jumped 1.4% in Hong Kong and 1.2% in Shanghai.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury tumbled to 4.07% from 4.17% late Thursday and from 4.28% on Tuesday. Thats a notable move for the bond market.
The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, fell even more. It dropped to 3.47% from 3.59% late Thursday.
Stan Choe, AP business writer
AP Writers Matt Ott and Teresa Cerojano contributed.
If hunting for a job this year feels punishing, youre not aloneand new employment numbers back that up. New data from the Labor Department shows that in 2025, the American economy is starting to fray at the seams.
For the first time since late 2020, the U.S. is losing jobs. A revision to Junes employment report revealed that the U.S. actually lost 13,000 jobs that month. The previous report showed a gain of 14,000 jobs, a figure that was revised down by 27,000 jobs lost in the new report.
Julys data was revised up by 6,000 to 79,000 jobs gained that month, but the June dip into negative territory is an ominous red flag for the American economy that captures what many job seekers are seeing on the ground in 2025.
The jobs report is the first since President Trump fired the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics over an unfavorable report that showed slow hiring in July and adjusted numbers in prior months downward. In my opinion, todays Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad, Trump said on Truth Social, after firing the longtime government employee.
In August, U.S. employers added just 22,000 jobs as unemployment inched up to 4.3%, the highest rate since 2021. When setting the pandemic-era unemployment spike aside as an outlier, last month saw the largest share of Americans unemployed since September 2017. According to the report, more than 25% of unemployed workers have been without a job for longer than a six month stretch.
Trump lashes out against new jobs numbers
Responding to the jobs report on Truth Social, President Trump blamed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for the dismal numbers. “Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should have lowered rates long ago,” Trump wrote.
Trump has repeatedly bashed Powell over the Federal Reserves decision to hold off on lowering interest rates, an approach intended to keep a lid on inflation. Prices on goods and services soared after 2020, sending interest rates up and putting the Fed on high alert.
While Trump gave the jobs report revision his customary conspiratorial spin, revisions to employment numbers are completely routine and arent published with politics in mind. An FAQ section in the report even addresses the issue of revisions, explaining that by including data that rolls in after each report, the Labor Department is able to paint a more accurate picture of the American labor marketnot a more politicized one.
The establishment survey revises its initial monthly estimates twice, in the immediately succeeding 2 months, to incorporate additional sample receipts from respondents in the survey and recalculated seasonal adjustment factors, according to the report.
A year defined by chaos
Trump wants to pin the bad jobs news on Powell, but the chaos of the U.S. economy in 2025 at least partly has the president to blame. Trump took office and immediately cut the federal workforce to the bone, leaving tens of thousands of workers scrambling into other sectors for employment.
Trumps endless barrage of tariffs loaded extra weight onto already high consumer prices while sowing chaos and confusion in global trade, with no clear benefit. To make matters even more complex, courts may unwind some of Trumps haphazardly laid plans, which could force the federal government to pay back taxes it has already collected.
Against that backdrop, the American economy is a walking contradiction. There are more unemployed people than there are open jobs, but investors are happier than ever. Job seekers forced to wade through a process redefined by AI are drowning in a sea of thousands of auto-generated résumés flung at every open position. Meanwhile, companies boast about slashing their human workforces in favor of AI, pulling up the ladder for anyone seeking entry-level work.
Concerns around inflation still loom, but given the latest jobs report, the Federal Reserve will almost certainly move to cut interest rates soon. That move wont be designed to please Trump, but rather to take some weight off of the economy before it sinks under the collective weight of so much chaos.
Tucked away among the 940 pages of President Donald Trumps massive One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) are an array of new tax write-offs, exemptions that Trump promised to enact while running for a second term. Those include a provision of the No Tax on Tips Act.
This provision of the OBBBA, which narrowly passed the Senate, and Trump signed into law in July, gives taxpayers the ability to deduct income from tips and overtime pay. It expires at the end of 2028, right before Trump leaves office.
For workers, it creates new tax deductions of up to $25,000 on income made from cash tips, and tips workers report to employers withholding payroll taxes. Eligible employees (see list below) that make up to $160,000 in 2025 qualify. (Going forward, that limit will be adjusted each year for inflation.)
For employers, it also expands the business tax credit for the portion of payroll taxes that an employer pays on certain tips, to include payroll taxes paid on tips received in connection with certain beauty services.
Which jobs qualify for the no tax on tips and overtime deduction?
Up until now, the Trump administration hadn’t clarified which jobs were eligible. Over Labor Day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Axios there are 68 occupations, calling the selection expansive but fair.
The official list will be published in the Federal Register, but here’s the preliminary Treasury list, which is likely to be substantially the same after a period of public comments:
Beverage & Food Service
Bartender
Wait staff
Food servers (non-restaurant)
Dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers
Chefs and cooks
Food preparation workers
Fast food and counter workers
Dishwashers
Host staff, restaurant, lounge, and coffee shop
Bakers
Entertainment & Events
Gambling dealers
Gambling change persons and booth cashiers
Gambling cage workers
Gambling and sports book writers and runners
Dancers
Musicians and singers
Disc jockeys (except radio)
Entertainers and performers
Digital content creators
Ushers, lobby attendants and ticket takers
Locker Room, coatroom and dressing room attendants
Hospitality & Guest Services
Baggage porters and bellhops
Concierges
Hotel, motel and resort desk clerks
Maids and housekeeping cleaners
Home Services
Home maintenance and repair workers
Home landscaping and groundskeeping workers
Home electricians
Home plumbers
Home heating and air conditioning mechanics and installers
Home appliance installers and repairers
Home cleaning service workers
Locksmiths
Roadside assistance workers
Personal Services
Personal care and service workers
Private event planners
Private event and portrait photographers
Private event videographers
Event officiants
Pet caretakers
Tutors
Nannies and babysitters
Personal Appearance & Wellness
Skincare specialists
Massage therapists
Barbers, hairdressers, hairstylists and cosmetologists
Shampooers
Manicurists and pedicurists
Eyebrow threading and waxing technicians
Makeup artists
Exercise trainers and group fitness instructors
Tattoo artists and piercers
Tailors
Shoe and leather workers and repairers
Recreation & Instruction
Golf caddies
Self-enrichment teachers
Recreational and tour pilots
Tour guides and escorts
Travel guides
Sports and recreation instructors
Transportation & Delivery
Parking and valet attendants
Taxi and rideshare drivers and chauffeurs
Shuttle drivers
Goods delivery people
Personal vehicle and equipment cleaners
Private and charter bus drivers
Water taxi operators and charter boat workers
Rickshaw, pedicab and carriage drivers
Home movers
A post circulating on Facebook shows a man named Henek, a violinist allegedly forced to play in the camps orchestra at Auschwitz. “His role: to play music as fellow prisoners were led to the gas chambers, reads the caption.
But there is no Holocaust victim by the name of Henek. The image is also AI-generated.
Publishing fake, AI-generated images of Auschwitz is not only a dangerous distortion. Such fabrication disrespects victims and harasses their memory.If you see such posts, please dont share them. Instead, follow the official @AuschwitzMuseum, where every name, every photo, and pic.twitter.com/8sMBxvPkOt— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) July 6, 2025
A new BBC investigation uncovered an international network of spammers posting fabricated Holocaust images on Facebook to profit from Metas content-monetization program.
In recent months, images of children abandoned on train tracks or lovers meeting across concentration camp fences have appeared on Facebook, attracting clicks and shares. None of the victims or stories are real.
According to the BBC, the images originate from spam networks in Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and Nigeria, where AI slop creators trade tips in private groups about exploiting Metas monetization scheme. Holocaust imagery, in particular, has proven to be a reliable traffic driver. One account claimed to generate more than 1.2 billion views and 16,000 in four months from mass-produced content.
The BBC also interviewed a Pakistani man enrolled in these monetization schemes. While he does not post Holocaust content, he said the work has become his sole source of income, noting that posts targeting U.K., U.S., and European audiences earn up to eight times more than those aimed at Asia.
Many history-themed pages and groups impersonate businesses to build audiences and qualify for monetization before pivoting to churn out Holocaust AI slop.
Meta told the BBC the images themselves do not violate its policies but confirmed it had removed certain spam accounts flagged in the investigation. (Fast Company has reached out to Meta for comment.)
In an X post earlier this year, the Auschwitz Museum addressed the disturbing trend and the impact it has on real victims and their families: What makes this particularly troubling is that their posts copy real contentincluding names, dates, and biographical facts taken directly from our posts,” the museum wrote. “Yet they pair this information with fabricated, AI-generated images that mislead viewers.
The use of artificial intelligence to generate fictional images of Auschwitz victimsas done by the Facebook page 90s History (https://t.co/oNPzY9Ykq0)is not a tribute. It is a profound act of disrespect to the memory of those who suffered and were murdered in Auschwitz. It pic.twitter.com/wCdtySoBWK— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) May 22, 2025
The post continued: The history of Auschwitz is a well-documented story. Altering its visual record with AI imagery introduces distortion, no matter the intent. Using made-up images, no matter how poignant they seem, is a dangerous distortion of facts.
European Union regulators on Friday hit Google with a 2.95 billion euro ($3.5 billion) fine for breaching the blocs competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services, marking the fourth such antitrust penalty for the company.
The European Commission, the 27-nation blocs executive branch and top antitrust enforcer, also ordered the U.S. tech giant to end its self-preferencing practices and take steps to stop conflicts of interest along the advertising technology supply chain.
EU regulators had previously threatened a breakup of the company but held off on that threat for the time being.
Google said the decision was wrong and that it would appeal.
It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money, Lee-Anne Mulholland, the companys global head of regulatory affairs, said in a statement.
The decision was long overdue, coming more than two years after the European Commission announced antitrust charges against Google.
The commission had said at the time that the only way to satisfy antitrust concerns about Googles lucrative digital ad business was to sell off parts of its business. However, this decision made only a brief mention of possible divestment and comes amid renewed tensions between Brussels and the Trump administration over trade, tariffs and technology regulation.
Top EU officials had said earlier that the commission was seeking a forced sale because past cases that ended with fines and requirements for Google to stop anti-competitive practices have not worked, allowing the company to continue its behavior in a different form.
It’s the second time in a week that Google has avoided a breakup.
Google is also under fire on a separate front in the U.S., where prosecutors want the company to sell off its Chrome browser after a judge found the company had an illegal monopoly in online search.
On Tuesday, a U.S. federal judge found that Google had illegal monopoly in online search and ordered a shake-up of its search engine but rebuffed the government’s attempt to break up the company by forcing a sale of its Chrome browser.
But the EU indicated that breakup option is not totally off the table. Google has 60 days to tell the Commission its proposals to end its conflicts of interest, and if the regulators aren’t satisfied they will propose an appropriate remedy.
The Commission has already signaled its preliminary view that only the divestment by Google of part of its services would address the situation of inherent conflicts of interest, but it first wishes to hear and assess Googles proposal, it said in a press release.
The commissions penalty follows a formal investigation that it opened in June 2021, looking into whether Google violated the blocs competition rules by favoring its own online display advertising technology services at the expense of rival publishers, advertisers and advertising technology services.
Its investigation found that Google abused its dominant positions in the ad-technology ecosystem, the commission said.
Online display ads are banners and text that appear on websites and are personalized based on an internet users browsing history.
Mulholland said, “Theres nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.
Google is facing pressure on other fronts.
In a separate U.S. case, the Justice Department asked a federal judge in May to force the company to sell off its AdX business and DFP ad platform tools that are also at the heart of the EU case. They connect advertisers with publishers who have ad space to sell on their sites. The case is scheduled to move to the penalty phase, known as remedy hearings, in late September.
Authorities in Canada and Britain are also targeting the company over its digital ad business.
Twice recently, the people who run Fox News were reminded of their biggest nightmare.
The conservative network Newsmax’s $67 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over false claims after the 2020 election recalled Fox’s own $787.5 million deal with the same company more than two years ago. New legal papers filed last month by a second company suing Fox, Smartmatic, also put an episode they would like to forget back in the news.
Between the staggering payment to bypass a defamation trial and revelations about the lengths to which Fox went to avoid telling its audience what it didn’t want to hear about Donald Trump’s defeat, many wondered if its actions in November 2020 would damage Fox News or compel it to change directions.
Not so much, it turns out.
Fox News Channel has defied gravity with its ratings, and is more popular with viewers this summer than ABC, CBS or NBC. Its top personalities resolutely support Trump, who has filled his second administration with former Fox stars like Pete Hegseth and Jeanine Pirro. Time after time, the White House turns to Fox to make news; shortly after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump was sitting with Sean Hannity.
Reached by The Associated Press, Fox declined to make anyone available to speak for this story.
No regrets, no surrender
An ethos many at Fox share with the president no expressed regrets, no apologies has also shown signs of spreading, given Newsmax’s swagger following the Aug. 11 settlement announcement.
Fox News averaged 2.63 million viewers in weekday prime-time for the second quarter of 2025, up 56% from the same period in 2023, the Nielsen company said. While the increase is somewhat inflated since Fox took a hit in the ratings two years ago following the firing of Tucker Carlson, the advance of cord-cutting means that any network gaining viewers now is unusual.
MSNBC’s prime-time audience of 1 million this spring was down 21% in two years, and CNN’s viewership of 538,000 was down 6%, Nielsen said. Forty-five percent of people watching one of the top three cable news networks at any given time two years ago were tuned to Fox. This year, that audience share jumped to 62%.
Clearly, Fox’s audience is more interested in following a Trump administration than it was for a Joe Biden administration. Just as clearly, the Dominion case had little appreciable impact on viewership.
Fox’s audience didn’t really look at that verdict and say, Oh, I cant watch them anymore,’ said Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the conservative Media Research Center. I think Fox’s audience looked at that and said, oh, the left is coming after them.
Absorbing some hits and moving on
Financially, the Dominion settlement was stiff enough that Newsmax is spreading its payments out over three years. The much larger Fox had a greater ability to absorb its hit. Fox confirmed at the time that it could deduct the settlement from its income taxes, and insurance could make the payment lower. Meanwhile, Fox News is a profit engine and becoming even more so; Axios reported earlier this year that the company expected to make half a billion dollars on non-TV products like books, podcasts and streaming.
Carlson was the face of the network before he was fired shortly after the settlement was announced, but Fox has always been able to generate new stars. Carlson took over from Bill O’Reilly when he was fired in 2017. Fox started The Five, arguably its centerpiece show, when Glenn Beck was shown the door in 2011. Jesse Watters now owns Carlson and O’Reilly’s old time slot.
Yet, it’s hard to understate the worry many at Fox had about losing audience immediately following the 2020 election. Trump, and many of his fans, were angry that the network declared Biden the winner in Arizona before most news outlets, a pivotal moment in the vote-counting.
Internal messages and deposition interviews revealed in court papers tied to Smartmatic’s lawsuit reveal much of that drama. Management criticized anchor Neil Cavuto for ordering his show to cut away from Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany when she began talking about election fraud. News reporters were disciplined for fact-checking some of Trump’s claims. Many in Fox’s audience expressed anger at hearing Trump corrected and wanted to hear conspiracy theories.
Cavuto left Fox after 28 years last December. McEnany is now a co-host of Fox’s midday show, Outnumbered. Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, hosts a weekend show at Fox.
Former Fox politics editor Chris Stirewalt, who was fired by Fox shortly after the network’s correct call in Arizona, identified in a Smartmatic deposition a programming strategy that Fox excels at. The best way to capture an audience is to make them afraid, make them fearful of something to make them hate or resent other people to try to keep them with your telecast and that they’re afraid to change the channel, he said.
Fox has also maintained its dominance by playing a form of hardball that Newsmax alleged, in a lawsuit filed this week, violates antitrust laws. Newsmax said Fox has tried to block television distributors from carrying its rival, hired private detectives to investigate Newsmax executives and pressured guests not to appear on the network.
In response, Fox said, Newsmax cannot sue their way out of their own competitive failures in the marketplace to chase headlines simply because they can’t attract viewers.
Newsmax once expressed regret about coverage. Not anymore
Smartmatic said Fox has never retracted, or apologized for, programs that falsely suggested the company was involved in changing votes in 2020. Fox, which would not make an executive available for this story, said fraud charges made by a president or his representatives were newsworthy, and the ntwork is defending itself on free speech grounds.
Newsmax has twice publicly expressed some regrets about its post-election coverage. The network settled a lawsuit with Smartmatic in 2024.
In a statement aired on Newsmax in December 2020, the network said that no evidence has been offered that Dominion or Smartmatic used software or reprogrammed software that manipulated votes in the 2020 election. The following April, Newsmax apologized for airing false allegations that a Dominion employee, Eric Coomer, manipulated voting machines or tallies to the detriment of Trump in 2020. Coomer, in turn, dropped Newsmax from a defamation lawsuit.
According to court papers in the case, Newsmax executive Gary Kanofsky wrote about conspiracy theorists to a colleague shortly after the election: Simply giving them a microphone to spew more anti-election rhetoric and advance their claims without being properly equipped to question the legitimacy or factual accuracy of their assertions may be fun, but its terrible journalism.
But Newsmax offered no apology in making the Dominion settlement, announced Aug. 11. The network’s CEO, Chris Ruddy, attacked the judge, saying he effectively entered a confiscation of our property because our reporting was not always sympathetic to Joe Biden.
The network said on the air: Newsmax believed it was critically important for the American people to hear both sides of the election disputes that arose in 2020. We stand by our coverage as fair, balanced and conducted within professional standards of journalism.
What has changed? Newsmax has grown, and two months after Trump took office again, it went public. It invites members of its audience dominated by Trump fans to invest in the network.
If you’re paying attention to your audience at Newsmax, Graham said, you don’t want to give the impression that you’re knuckling under.
David Bauder, AP media writer
The worlds richest man, Elon Musk, stands to get a lot richer in the decade aheadperhaps. Thats because his largest and only publicly traded company has put together a proposal that, if approved by shareholders, would see Musk granted nearly $1 trillion worth of shares. This would not only make Elon Musk the worlds richest individual by a long shot, but the worlds first trillionaire, too.
However, for Musk to get this massive payout, there are plenty of conditions attached. Heres what you need to know about Teslas $1 trillion offer to Musk.
Whats happened?
Today, Tesla, Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) announced its proposal that would see its CEO, Elon Musk, awarded nearly $1 trillion worth of TSLA shares if the company hit significant milestones over the next decade. The massive compensation package would be the largest for any single individual in history and make Elon Musk the worlds first trillionaire.
In an interview with CNBC, Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm said the motive behind the compensation plan for its billionaire CEO was to keep him motivated and focused on delivering for the company.
Musk has been criticized by Tesla investors this year for diverting his time and attention away from Tesla to his political activities, which have included supporting far-right parties in Europe and serving as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the Trump Administration.
This political involvement has turned off a number of Tesla customers and, in part, contributed to a decline in Tesla sales across various countries in 2025. Teslas compensation package for Musk, worth around $975 billion, aims to get the CEO focused on the car company again.
If he performs, if he hits the super ambitious milestones that are in the plan, then he gets equityits 1% for each half a trillion dollars of market cap, plus operational milestones he has to hit in order to do that, Denholm said. Musk currently owns about 13% of Tesla.
But for Musk to get the whole of this massive compensation package, which includes a total of more than 423 million additional shares, several milestones need to be reachedincluding ones no company in history has ever achieved.
The terms of Elon Musks trillion-dollar Tesla compensation package
There are several caveats attached to the potential historic compensation package Tesla is suggesting.
First, the compensation consists of 12 tranches of shares that will be paid out if certain milestones are hit. This means Msuk would receive some compensation, but not the total proposed amount if not all the milestones are reached.
CNBC reports that the operational milestones of Musks compensation package include:
20 million Tesla vehicles delivered
10 million active FSD subscriptions
1 million robots delivered
1 million Robotaxis in commercial operation
A series of adjusted EBITDA benchmarks
They also include an ever-increasing Tesla stock price, with the company needing to achieve a market capitalization of $8.5 trillion for Musk to receive the complete pay package.
Tesla would need to become the worlds most valuable companyby a long shot
To achieve the first milestone in the compensation package, Tesla would need to reach a market cap of $2 trillion. Currently, the company is about $1.1 trillion, which means its stock price would need to nearly double from todays price of $350 per share.
That in itself is a big ask, considering Tesla sales have suffered declines in markets around the world in 2025.
But for Musk to receive the full nearly $1 trillion compensation package, Teslas value would need to reach a market cap of $8.5 trillion. This would by far make it the most valuable company in history.
Currently, the most valuable company ever is Nvidia, with a current market cap of around $4 trillion. The company had a market cap of $4.4 trillion in Augustmaking it the most valuable company in history.
Tesla would need to more than double Nvidias current market cap to hit the $8.5 trillion valuation demanded by the compensation package. Or, to put that in another way, Tesla would need to become more valuable than the two most valuable companies todayNvidia (worth $4 trillion) and Microsoft (worth $3.7 trillion)combined.
Musks historic pay package isnt a certainty
Before Musk even has a shot at becoming the first person to be awarded nearly $1 trillion in compensation, however, Tesla shareholders need to approve the proposed pay package.
Its far from certain whether they will do that. The new package will be put to a shareholder vote on November 6.
As for Teslas current stock price, as of the time of this writing, TSLA shares are currently up around 3.9% to almost $352 per share after the compensation package proposal was made public.
However, year to date, the companys share price is still down. TSLA shares have fallen more than 12% since the beginning of the year, and they remain well below their peak of $488 in December 2024.
