WSJ What’s News - Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk Killed at Event in Utah

Starting point is 00:00:00 Conservative activist Charlie Kirk has been killed at an event in Utah. Plus, Oracle stock surges as it announces hundreds of billions in new revenue, much of it from OpenAI. And U.S. businesses are facing the biggest health insurance cost increases in 15 years. It never gets cheaper, so it's always a question, will there be a point at which employers or some employers throw up their hands and say, no, I can't do this anymore, or I need to do this really differently. It's Wednesday, September 10th. I'm Alex O'Sullough for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. President Trump said that conservative political activist and author Charlie Kirk has died.

Starting point is 00:00:51 He was shot while on stage speaking at an event at Utah Valley University. videos on social media appear to show shots fired at Kirk as he spoke from a stage around noon local time. Our White House reporter Alex Leary sent us this just before it became known that Kirk had died. This is a major. Charlie Kirk is a beloved figure in the Trump orbit, very influential, especially among younger voters, very close to not just the president, but the president's family and a lot of his advisors. So this is a major shock. I'm at the White House now, and there's a lot of sad faces and a lot of just stunned looks on people's as they kind of react to this. This is really going to ratchet up the, which has already been in a really ongoing discussion about political rhetoric and

Starting point is 00:01:35 attempts of violence and really amplify a lot of sharp feelings that have been circulating for years, really. But since last summer, when a man tried to kill President Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania, then another man tried to shoot him at his golf course in Florida, a real sense of vulnerability and the fact that political violence is very real and very much in front of our faces, just a generally hotter political environment now, and this certainly will add to that. For more on this developing story, you can follow our live blog on WSJ.com. We'll leave a link in our show notes. Shares of database software company Oracle surge today, closing 36% higher and bringing the

Starting point is 00:02:19 company to the top 10 largest U.S. companies by market cap for the first time since 2011. This followed Oracle's fiscal first quarter earnings report late yesterday that showed that its remaining performance obligations, so money that's not yet actually in their coffers, was $455 billion, more than tripling from three months ago. Plus, the company claimed that it has even more multi-billion dollar deals in the pipeline that will soon take that number past half a trillion dollars. People familiar with the matter said OpenAI signed a contract to purchase $300 billion in computing power over roughly five years from Oracle, a massive commitment that far outstrips the startup's current revenue.

Starting point is 00:02:59 For more, I'm joined now by WSJ Hurd on the street writer, Asa Fitch. Aza, it sounds like investors were quite shocked by this. Why was this so surprising? Oracle has been involved with the AI boom for a long time, basically since the beginning, but nobody expected this kind of leap in revenue or potential revenue, let's call it, that they came out with yesterday. The scale of it is just unprecedented. It reminds a lot of people of what happened when the AI boom kicked off and Nvidia suddenly gave this projection of $11 billion of revenue for its next quarter back

Starting point is 00:03:36 at that time and it surprised everybody and set the stock way up. It's kind of a similar moment for Oracle right now. As we just mentioned, this money is not yet in hand. What does it depend on for Oracle to actually get it. First of all, a huge portion of the future revenue that Oracle is talking about comes from Open AI. And of course, Open AI develops chat GPT. So its fortunes now are tied very closely to Open AI's fortunes. And the ability of the company to collect the money that it's talking about is really tied to Open AI's story. But as we've seen in cases in the past, the business can shift. And if that happens, those contracts will be renegotiated. And it's not like the global economy is in a state of great vigor and certainty at this point, that could change too.

Starting point is 00:04:22 It has to be said, though, that Oracle seems very confident about it because otherwise they wouldn't have given these very, very strong projections. This is a lot of money, and they're putting their weight behind it. Obviously, as you said, a lot of how they're doing in the sort of medium term and short term even is tied to AI. If you look at the way that the AI picture is shaping up and if this revenue comes in from Open AI and other customers, the company is going to be very much an AI company. That's going to drown out the rest of the revenue of the company. And if AI really hits the skids, it's possible that this business is going to be in serious trouble, at least relative to its forecasts. That was WSJ heard on the street writer, Issa Fitch. Thanks, Asa.

Starting point is 00:05:02 Thank you. Another big success on Wall Street was Clarnah. Shares of the online payments provider, which made its stock market debut today, jumped as much as 30% before eventually closing up 15%. Klarna's big first day pop adds to the recent momentum among new listings in the U.S. this summer, following three years of weak issuance and poor returns. The big winners of today's offering were early investors in Klarna, including Sequoia Capital, which first invested in the company 15 years ago.

Starting point is 00:05:36 Klarna's debut and Oracle's surge helped the S&P 500 and NASDAQ rise to new closing highs today, a day after all three major indexes did so. The S&P 500 added 0.3%, while the NASDAQ was little changed. The Dow fell by about half a percent, weighed down by Apple stock, which fell for a second day. Data from the Labor Department out today showed that wholesale prices fell 0.1.1.2. percent last month, surprising economists who had expected a slight rise. Today's producer price index comes a day ahead of the more widely followed consumer price index.

Starting point is 00:06:17 Together, the two reports contribute to a key inflation gauge the Federal Reserve tries to steer toward 2%. The Fed's next interest rate decision is due in a week. Coming up, how U.S. companies are handling an upcoming rise in the cost of health insurance. That's after the break. We're exclusively reporting that U.S. businesses are facing the biggest health insurance cost increase in 15 years. Estimates from two different benefits consulting firms, Aon and WTW, estimate that costs for employer coverage are expected to surge more than 9% in 2026. Other employer surveys conducted this year have generated similar findings.

Starting point is 00:07:06 are pikes in health coverage spending for next year? That comes on top of two years of significant increases. Anna Will D. Matthews, who covers health insurance for WSJ, is here now to discuss. Anna, what's driving up these costs? It's really a combination of things. Health costs are going up, and there are a lot of reasons for that. One is just still the impact of inflation in the general economy, which had a delayed effect on health care costs as hospitals asked to ensure for higher rates, higher prices, negotiated those, usually those contracts are on a three-year cycle. So you're still seeing hospitals getting bumps up in the rates that they are paid by the insurers and thus by the employers. You're also seeing just people accessing more health care

Starting point is 00:07:53 services. One thing that insurers and the benefits firms were telling me is that they're seeing higher incidence of certain health conditions, including cancer, in the working age population. And that leads to greater need for health care and greater costs. Another factor that came up was the really expensive drug therapies across a number of different areas, but including the GLP1 drugs, those high-profile drugs we've all heard of, Wagovi, Monjaro, etc. That can be a significant cost for the employer. What are employers doing about this? One thing that employers can look at as the costs get bigger is to shift more of that burden to their workers, ask them to pay a bigger portion of that premium. Another way that we all pay for our coverage is in terms of our out

Starting point is 00:08:42 of pockets. So that's stuff like deductibles, right? The amount you pay when you access care. And again, that's another way in which employees also share a part of the burden. And it's a way in which employers can maybe move more of that cost to employees. So it's always a question, will there be a point at which employers or some employers throw up their hands and say, no, I can't do this anymore or I need to do this really differently. I don't think any of us know. But the increase that is expected heading into next year is coming on top of two years already. Pretty steep increases in the cost of employer coverage. Employers are feeling that and are not happy. That was WSJ reporter, Anna Wieldy Matthews. Thanks, Anna. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:09:28 In international news, the European Union plans to propose a partial suspension of its trade agreement with Israel as it faces pressure to take a harder line on Gaza. Speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, EU President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc would also propose sanctions and would establish a so-called Palestine donor group in October with a dedicated instrument for Gaza's reconstruction. What is happening in Gaza has shaken the conscience of the world. People killed while begging for food. Mothers holding lifeless babies.

Starting point is 00:10:09 These images are simply catastrophic. So I want to start with a very clear message. Man-made famine can never be a weapon of war. For the sake of the children, for the sake of humanity, this must stop. In response, Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Tsar, said that von der Leyen's comments were, quote, regrettable. And Nepal's army has deployed its troops to enforce a nationwide curfew in a bid to stop violence and vandalism from spiraling.

Starting point is 00:10:46 The move comes after days of protests against politician and corruption turned deadly, killing at least 19 people. Yesterday, Nepal's Prime Minister resigned, leaving the country with no clear leader. And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Pierre Bienname and Rodney Davis, with supervising producer Michael Cosmides. I'm Alex Oslo for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.

WSJ What’s News - Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk Killed at Event in Utah

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