BUSINESS

The company has a lucrative opportunity in letting rivals tap its data centers for computing power.

Every administration promises to cut red tape. Very few can show you what the cuts actually saved, because paperwork is easy to count and hard to price.

The pitch rarely changes. Fewer forms and faster approvals mean companies spend less on lawyers and compliance staff, and more on equipment, wages, and new hires.

That logic holds up on paper. Proving it is harder, since scrapping a rule nobody followed saves roughly what it cost, which is close to nothing.

Wall Street tends to shrug at these scorecards, but you shouldn’t. The businesses on the receiving end set the prices you pay, the hours you work, and whether your local shop adds another person this year.

I’ve covered Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent long enough to know he rarely posts a number without a purpose. On Thursday, Sept. 24, the same day the U.S. and China extended their trade truce, he posted one aimed straight at business leaders.

That number is a deregulation ratio, and the way Washington built it deserves a closer look than it got.

How White House’s 10-for-1 rule on regulations works

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 31, 2025, telling agencies to kill 10 existing rules for every new one they issue, according to a White House fact sheet.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), the White House unit that reviews federal rules, keeps the scoreboard. Its December tally claimed 646 deregulatory actions against five new ones, a ratio of 129 to 1.

Related: Scott Bessent sends signal on Kevin Warsh Fed rate hike

The office pegged the savings at $211.8 billion, or more than $600 per American.

“We have blown far past the target 10-to-1 deregulatory ratio in President Trump’s Executive Order, saving hundreds of billions for the American people,” Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought said in a statement, according to the White House.

Scott Bessent touts President Trump’s 129-to-1 ratio of regulation cuts to business leaders.VioletaStoimenova / Getty Images

Bessent pitches business owners on a lighter rulebook

Bessent’s post leaned on that same figure. “Under @POTUS, 129 regulations have been eliminated for every new rule introduced,” Bessent wrote on X (the former Twitter).

“By reducing red tape, the Trump Administration has created an environment where businesses can expand, hire, and invest in the American economy,” he added.

He framed it as a growth story. “Economic growth accelerates when businesses are able to invest, innovate, and compete rather than navigate unnecessary bureaucracy,” he wrote.

More Tariffs:

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Jamie Dimon just took India’s side in the Russian oil fight

How Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s tariff refunds affect shoppers

It isn’t his first victory lap. In August, Treasury exempted millions of U.S. business owners from beneficial ownership reporting, a rule that made small companies disclose who really owns them.

“Treasury is eliminating a burdensome reporting requirement for millions of law-abiding business owners without compromising our national security,” Bessent wrote on X on Aug. 11.

Critics saw it differently. “This is a gift to cartels, criminals, and U.S. adversaries that exploit shell companies to move millions through our financial system,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said, according to Benzinga.

Why the 129-to-1 ratio looks bigger than it is

I pulled OIRA’s own fiscal 2025 report, and the fine print tells a different story from the headline number. The 129-to-1 figure covers only the administration’s first eight months, a period that ended Sept. 30, 2025, a full year before Bessent’s post.

Here’s how the numbers break down:

646 deregulatory actions against five significant new rules in fiscal 2025, according to OIRA. 

218 of those actions changed the Code of Federal Regulations, a 43-to-1 ratio, based on to the same OIRA report. 

$128.6 billion, or 61% of the claimed savings, came from Treasury, according to the George Washington University (GWU) Regulatory Studies Center. 

$47.7 billion from Homeland Security included programs whose authority expired in July 2023, the same GWU analysis noted. 

The gap comes from how the counting works. Agencies “count a range of regulatory actions in the numerator, but only significant regulatory actions in the denominator,” wrote Tambudzai Charumbira (Gundani) of the GWU center.

“Simply put, OIRA gamed its methodology to produce a higher ratio,” Charumbira added.

In my analysis, the most telling detail sits in Bessent’s own building. Treasury’s slice came mostly from IRS notices declaring old guidance obsolete, including guidance on “collapsible corporations,” a provision repealed in 2013, according to the GWU review.

Charumbira did give the approach some credit. Guidance documents “can impose real compliance burdens on businesses and individuals even when they never go through a notice-and-comment rulemaking process,” she told Government Executive.

Consumer advocates want a different yardstick. “It’s not just about some number of regulations. It’s about what that represents,” Katie Tracy, a regulatory expert at Public Citizen, told Government Executive.

Tariff refunds show which companies got paid first

Bessent’s post left tariffs out entirely, and for many business owners, that’s the bigger bill.

The Supreme Court struck down tariffs President Trump imposed under emergency powers in February, and Treasury had refunded about $100 billion to importers such as Costco (COST) and FedEx (FDX) by August, according to 24/7 Wall St.

Households absorbed an estimated $1,745 per family in tariff costs and get none of that money back, the outlet estimated. “I got a feeling the American people won’t see it,” Bessent said at the Economic Club of Dallas on Feb. 23, 24/7 Wall St reported.

When I set the White House’s per-person figure next to that estimate, the two nearly cancel out. A family of three would book about $1,800 in regulatory savings on paper, spread across present and future years, while the tariff bill came out of real checkout lines.

Bessent has sparred with retailers over tariff price hikes before, and trade pressure hasn’t gone away. The U.S. and China agreed to extend their trade truce through Jan. 10, NBC News reported on Sept. 24.

What a $1.5 trillion cleanup could mean for your wallet

The administration is aiming far higher this year. Its fiscal 2026 plan lists 702 deregulatory actions and $1.5 trillion in projected savings.

The targets include vehicle emission standards at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) export controls at the Commerce Department, Fox Business reported on July 6.

“Fiscal Year 2026 will go far beyond even that number with a record-setting $1.5 trillion in projected cost savings,” OIRA general counsel Mark Paoletta said, according to Fox Business.

Some of that will be real. Faster permits and fewer duplicate filings do lower costs for a small manufacturer or a regional bank.

Whether you ever feel it is a separate question. Bessent has promised relief for Main Street over Wall Street before, so watch prices at the register and hiring at small firms, not the ratio.

Until those savings reach your grocery bill or your paycheck, 129-to-1 remains a talking point.

Related: Bessent just picked the one wage measure still rising

The chip maker is buying the startup and adding AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li as its chief scientist.

Meta is creating an enterprise platform business that aims to make it easier for developers to use its products. CJ Desai, formerly of MongoDB, will head up the initiative.

Instinct is rapidly amassing investment dollars, illustrating the rush of excitement around personal AI assistants.

Fei-Fei Li, known as the “Godmother of AI,” will join AMD as part of the agreement.

SpaceX (SPCX) stock is down about 7.6% since January after a shaky summer, and it closed near $148.68 on Sept. 25. Many investors are nervous about heavy insider selling and are unsure where the company’s profits will actually come from in the next few years.

Mizuho Securities just made its call on the stock. The Wall Street bank stuck with its Buy rating on SpaceX and kept its $200 price target. If Mizuho is right, the stock has room to climb about 35% from Friday’s close.

The call also came just days before Starship Flight 14, set for today, Sept. 28, and right after a large amount of insider shares became available to trade. That timing has investors thinking about what SpaceX will earn once the wave of insider selling fades. 

Inside Mizuho’s $200 SpaceX price target

Mizuho analyst Brett Linzey stuck with his Buy rating and $200 price target on SpaceX on September 25, 2026, according to Investing.com.

Linzey has followed aerospace and industrial companies for more than a decade at Mizuho, and he leads the firm’s coverage of electrical products and industrial names. He believes SpaceX can keep charging high prices for its space-based capacity until 2028 while it also builds a lot more of that capacity.

Linzey called SpaceX “the infrastructure layer of the orbital economy.” That phrase tells investors where he thinks the real profits will come from as Starlink and the company’s data-hosting business keep growing. It also explains why Mizuho expects the hosting business to produce profit margins closer to what software companies earn.

Just a day earlier, SpaceX released a big amount of insider shares from a lock-up. About 328.4 million shares worth roughly $48.7 billion became free to sell on Sept. 24. Mizuho’s note helped the stock handle that selling pressure without resulting in a bigger drop.

SpaceX is preparing Starship Flight 14, a mission central to expanding its next-generation Starlink network.PATRICK T. FALLON / Getty Images

The pricing plan changing how SpaceX makes money

SpaceX launches rockets through its Falcon and Starship vehicles. It also sells Starlink internet subscriptions to homes and businesses, and rents out data center capacity that other companies use to run artificial intelligence programs.

That data center business is what has Mizuho excited, because SpaceX plans to launch space-based data centers soon.

SpaceX management has said it plans to charge between $30 and $50 per watt for that capacity in 2027, and current market prices are already near the top of that range, GuruFocus reported.

More SpaceX Coverage:

SpaceX investors get bold Wall Street price target for 2027 year-end

SpaceX just won something that gives its investors hope

SpaceX renews investor hope with bold new plan

Linzey said demand for both space-based and ground-based capacity is holding “exceptionally firm” through the second half of 2026, which supports the strong profits Mizuho expects from the hosting business.

SpaceX also said a new major hosting agreement will start on Dec. 1, 2026. At the top of its price range, that deal is projected to bring in between $1.11 billion and $1.18 billion every month, GuruFocus reported. That is about $13.3 billion a year in revenue.

Where Morgan Stanley goes further than Mizuho on SpaceX

Adam Jonas at Morgan Stanley is even more bullish than Mizuho. Jonas has covered the space and mobility industries for more than two decades and helped build many of Wall Street’s early models for valuing SpaceX. He has an Overweight rating on the stock, a base target of $300, and a bull-case target of $600.

Jonas thinks SpaceX could bring in up to $319 billion in total revenue by 2030, as long as Starlink and the data center business keep growing at their current pace.

His model assumes the pricing plan remains the same and the company completes similar deals like the one in December in 2027 and 2028. He also treats SpaceX’s current $2.02 trillion value as just the start.

Mizuho’s $200 target focuses on what SpaceX can prove in the next 12 months. Morgan Stanley’s model projects about five years into the future. Both firms agree that the company’s pricing power is real, but they disagree on how quickly the market will reflect that in the stock.

What SpaceX investors should watch after Mizuho’s call

The next big event is Starship Flight 14, scheduled for Sept. 28. During the mission, SpaceX will try to reach orbit and deploy 26 of its newest Starlink V3 satellites. Those satellites expand the network that the data center business depends on. A successful launch would give investors more confidence that the operations side of the business is on track.

However, if other companies encroach on the new space-based data center business in 2027, SpaceX’s $30 to $50 per watt pricing could feel some pressure. The company’s 52% gross profit margins depend on that pricing remaining the same. More insider selling from the remaining lock-up releases could also affect the stock in the near term.

Current shareholders need to decide if they trust SpaceX’s management to turn the December hosting deal into steady, repeatable revenue. New investors may want to wait for the next earnings report and Starship Flight 14 before buying.

Related: Morgan Stanley doubles down on SpaceX stock for investors

A block of cheese can sit in the refrigerator for weeks, sometimes forgotten, but usually an everyday staple in a house with children.

And once the original packaging is removed, it can be difficult to remember exactly when or where it was purchased.

It is now relevant, with a new nationwide cheese recall linked to an E. coli outbreak that has resulted in 8 hospitalizations so far.

Sierra Nevada Cheese Company has recalled all of its Graziers grass-fed raw milk cheeses after federal health officials linked the products to a multistate outbreak of E. coli O26.

Thirteen people across nine states have become sick, and eight, or 62%, have been hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Three people developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, a serious condition that can cause kidney failure. No deaths have been reported.

More than half of the people sickened are children aged 5 or younger.

Sierra Nevada recalls raw milk cheese nationwide

The recall covers these Sierra Nevada Graziers’ grass-fed raw milk cheeses:

Medium cheddar

Sharp cheddar

Jalapeño Jack

Monterey Jack 

The products were sold at retailers nationwide and online in 8-ounce and 16-ounce packages. 

Here’s some of my coverage on previous recalls:

Popular Walmart frozen meal recalled over possible listeria

Grocery giant recalls applesauce over potentially harmful toxin

Walmart, Harris Teeter recall fruit bars over glass risk

Five-pound loaves were also distributed to food-service businesses and wholesalers.

So far, cases have been reported in 9 states.

California

Colorado

Georgia

Kentucky

Michigan

Nevada

Oregon

Tennessee

Utah

Illnesses began between July 7 and Aug. 26.

Of the nine people interviewed by public health officials about what they ate before becoming sick, all nine reported eating Sierra Nevada Graziers’ raw milk cheese.

The FDA contacted Sierra Nevada Cheese Company on Sept. 24 and recommended a recall. 

The company agreed and began recalling the cheeses that same day. 

The investigation remains ongoing as regulators work to determine the source of the contamination and whether other products could be affected.

Sierra Nevada issues nationwide recall of raw milk cheese.Scott Olson / Getty Images

Another raw dairy E. coli outbreak sickened children this year

This is not the first E. coli outbreak involving raw dairy products in March, 2026.

Earlier this year, federal health officials investigated an E. coli O157 outbreak linked to Raw Farm raw cheddar cheese and raw milk.

That outbreak ultimately sickened nine people across California, Florida, and Texas. 

Three people were hospitalized, and one developed HUS. The CDC declared the outbreak over in April.

More recently, an E. coli outbreak linked to frozen organic blueberries sickened 17 people and hospitalized six before the CDC declared it over on Sept. 21.

The CDC advises consumers not to eat any of the recalled Graziers cheese and to throw it away or return it for a refund. 

As a parent, it can get scary, but the best bet is to remove anything even remotely unclear to guarantee safety.

Anyone who no longer has the original packaging and cannot determine whether cheese is included in the recall should throw it away, according to the FDA. 

Surfaces or containers that touched the cheese should also be cleaned and sanitized.

The CDC recommends choosing pasteurized milk and dairy products, particularly for children under 5, who face a greater risk of severe foodborne illness.

Related: Walmart, Aldi, and Kroger follow Costco’s lead

The New York Yankees’ longtime second baseman and outfielder sent a retirement message to “the best franchise in all of sports.”

October traditionally is the most volatile month for U.S. stocks.

Among this year’s multitude of risks is a key question: Will the Federal Reserve hike interest rates again on Oct. 28, just days before inflation-weary Americans face the divisive midterm elections on Nov. 3? 

This week’s economic data reports provide clues, as the energy shocks from the Iran war, rising Treasury yields, and AI supply-demand dynamic continue to froth prices to sticky inflation levels elevated by fiscal, not monetary, policy. 

Bond markets are already bracing, with the 10-year Treasury yield hitting its highest close since July 2007 and traders hiking the odds of an October rate increase to 70%.

This week’s data could fine-tune that focus.

Economists expect August’s PCE price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, to rise 0.4% from July, with the core measure up 0.3% when it’s released Sept. 30. The Oct. 2 jobs report for September is forecast to show 100,000 new jobs and unemployment rising to 4.2%.

A hot inflation reading accompanied by a stable labor market would strengthen the Fed’s hawkish tilt to more tightening. But a soft jobs report might give policymakers pause.

Fed Governor Lisa Cook said in a Sept. 28 speech that in the short term, AI appears to be adding inflationary pressures to the economy, postponing inflation’s return to the Fed’s 2% target.

“In coming months I expect to see continued pressure on inflation from the AI buildout, as discussed today, and from the pass-through of higher oil prices and supply chain disruptions associated with the conflict in the Middle East,’’ she said in prepared remarks. “The labor market appears to be well positioned to handle an increase in rates.”

Cook said that looking ahead, she “will consider what policy rate may be needed to continue to guide inflation down to our target.”  

Yet, as EY-Parthenon Chief Economist Gregory Daco said in his Sept. 28 newsletter, monetary policy has its limits.

“Interest-rate changes cannot produce energy, resolve supply chain pressures, expand the labor force or increase semiconductor capacity,’’ Daco said. “More frequent supply disruptions therefore place greater weight on fiscal, regulatory and structural policies that can strengthen productive capacity and resilience.’’ 

His call? An additional quarter-point hike in December.

Fed’s hawkish tilt focuses on sticky inflation

For retail investors and Main Street consumers, the effects of another interest-rate hike extend beyond the stock market.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate is averaging more than 7.0%, the highest since January 2025. Diesel fuel is averaging $6.529 per gallon, up from $3.739 per gallon in September 2025. Food prices were up 2.7% year over year as of August 2026, with full-year 2026 inflation projected at 2.9%.

The takeaway for this week: Watch the inflation numbers first, then look at jobs.

Whether the Fed hikes again in October and/or December, or holds rates steady, depends on which way those numbers break.

Tighter monetary policy targets price pressures

The unanimous 12-0 Federal Open Market Committee decision Sept. 16 of a quarter-point hike lifted the Fed’s benchmark Federal Funds Rate to a range of 3.75% to 4% and was widely expected by traders and Fed watchers.

It marked a renewed hawkish push to tighten monetary policy following persistent price pressures fueled, as I reported, by rising energy costs from the Iran war and related geopolitical shocks.

The big surprise: Fed policymakers signaled that another rate hike could be coming before the end of the year and potentially more if stubborn inflation uncertainties don’t ease.

Related: Vanguard’s top economist names Fed rate that would hurt markets

The rate hike was the result of months of public and private discussions by Fed policymakers who were trying to hold rates steady while allowing inflation to return to its 2% goal — a target it has missed for 5.5 years. 

The CME Group FedWatch Tool expects the likelihood of another quarter-point rate hike as 72.5% on Oct. 28 and the probability of at least one additional hike of 94.5% on Dec. 9, the last FOMC meeting of the year.

How an interest-rate hike hits home

The Fed’s interest-rate hike, the first since January 2023, sent ripples through the entire financial system with the most immediate pressure hitting short-term borrowing such as variable-rate credit cards and student loans. 

Indirectly, it impacts fixed-rate mortgage rates which rely on Treasury yields plus corporate debt and capital investment.

The good news? Interest rates on savings accounts and CDs could see an increase.

Fed officials drop hawkish clues about interest-rate hikes

As I reported, Bank of America economists call for two more quarter-point hikes in October and December. 

Fed officials have been sending hawkish hints for weeks, and some have ramped up concerns about inflation since the September rate hike. 

Governor Michael Barr said Sept. 23 that further policy adjustments are likely needed to bring inflation down in a timely way.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack said Sept. 25 that ​she is concerned that persistently high inflation risks conditioning the American public to accept elevated prices as the ‌norm, adding that the central bank cannot let that happen.

“The biggest risk that I see with inflation right now is that an inflationary mindset could start to set in,” given that inflation has been over target for more than five years, the official said, as Reuters reported.

The previous day, New York Fed President John Williams said he thinks it’s “reasonable” to expect another hike before the end of the year, CNBC noted. 

And Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Anna Paulson also said Sept. 24 that she and her colleagues may need to raise interest rates further to bring inflation back to target. 

Related: Mortgage rates just surpassed 7%. Here’s why they’re rising