BUSINESS

On “Forbes Newsroom,” Democratic strategist Laurie Watkins responded to the rape allegation against Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner.

Oil prices touched their highest levels in more than two weeks on Wednesday after President Donald Trump said he believed the cease-fire with Iran was over.

Sometimes a stock does so well that Wall Street starts worrying about its price.That is roughly where Delta Air Lines (DAL) finds itself this week.Financial research firm Raymond James still likes the business, but it thinks the near-term gains have already been made after a significant pump in the shares. As a result, it cut its rating a few days before Delta reports second-quarter earnings.For Delta shareholders and anyone tempted to buy the dip, this move is worth considering. Raymond James is flashing both caution and optimism, and investors need to understand why before making a decision.Why Raymond James downgraded Delta Air Lines stock right before earningsRaymond James lowered Delta to outperform from strong buy on Monday, July 7, while raising its price target to $104 from $80, Investing.com reported.The two moves look contradictory until you separate the company from the stock price.Analyst Savanthi Syth still calls Delta a top pick for long-term investors. She pointed to structural advantages over rival network carriers, a strong balance sheet, and steady capital returns, TipRanks noted. What changed was the entry point.Delta shares have climbed hard in 2026, and Syth flagged the recent run-up as the main reason for the change.She also mentioned the narrower gap between the current price and where she thinks it can go next.

A Delta Air Lines jet on the tarmac ahead of the airline’s second-quarter earnings reportMichael Derrer Fuchs / Getty Images

What the higher $104 price target says about Delta’s valueRaising a target while cutting a rating is Raymond James saying Delta can still climb, just not as steeply from here. According to 24/7 Wall St, the new$104 target replaces the old $80 figure.A rating measures how much room is left. A price target measures where the stock could land. Both can move at once.Raymond James points to a few things holding Delta up:A strong balance sheet and steady debt reductionA recent 15% dividend increase that rewards shareholdersA renewed push into its third-party aircraft maintenance businessDelta declared a quarterly dividend of about 21.5 cents per share, roughly 15% above earlier levels, the company shared.How jet fuel and airfare trends shape Delta’s outlookDelta does not fly in a vacuum, and two industry forces decide this call.Raymond James reduced its jet fuel forecast for the second through fourth quarters, which lowers a major cost for every carrier. Related: Delta Air Lines cuts two flights forever, refunds availableAt the same time, demand and pricing across U.S. airlines have stayed firm, GuruFocus noted.Fares back that up. In May, airfares rose 26.7% compared to the previous year, while jet fuel has fallen about 35% from its April highs, The Business Times reported.Cheaper fueland higher fares at the sametime is a setup airlines rarely get. It helps explain why targets across the group have been rising.How Delta Air Lines stock stacks up against its airline peersDelta is not the only carrier drawing fresh attention before earnings.Bank of America recently placed Delta and United in what it called a rare sweet spot, lifting Delta’s target to $100 and United’s to $150.More Airline Stocks:BofA sees Delta, United entering a rare airline sweet spotMorgan Stanley resets American Airlines stock price target amid jet fuel surgeAnother low-cost airline leaves 6 cities, refunds availableMeanwhile, Morgan Stanley raised American Airlines to $24 while flagging a slower turnaround.The pattern is consistent. Analysts like the sector, but they are getting choosier about which names still have obvious room for growth left after a strong first half.What Delta investors should watch at second-quarter earningsAccording to TipRanks, Delta reports its June-quarter results on the morning of July 10. That report will test whether the recent rally was justified.A few things still need to line up before the bulls are proven right:Premium cabin and corporate demand hold through peak summer travel.Management raises or protects its full-year profit guidance.Fuel costs stay near the lower end of forecasts.If those hold, the higher targets across Wall Street look reasonable. If demand softens or capacity grows too fast, the near-term caution Raymond James flagged could prove correct.For long-term holders, the downgrade is closer to a small warning than a stop sign. For newer buyers, it is a reminder that price matters as much as the story, and that chasing a stock after a big run rarely offers the same margin of safety.Related: Southwest Airlines leaves rivals flat-footed as bankrupt carrier folds

OpenAI on Wednesday launched GPT-Live, a pair of new voice models that fundamentally redesign how people talk to ChatGPT — replacing the company’s existing Advanced Voice Mode with an architecture that can listen and speak simultaneously, much like an actual human conversation.The two models, GPT-Live-1 and GPT-Live-1 mini, are rolling out globally starting today across iOS, Android, and ChatGPT.com. GPT-Live-1 becomes the default voice model for paid ChatGPT users on the Go, Plus, and Pro tiers, while GPT-Live-1 mini serves free-tier users. OpenAI also plans to bring the models to the API, and developers can sign up to be notified.The release marks the third generation of ChatGPT’s voice technology in roughly two years — and OpenAI’s clearest bid yet to turn its chatbot into something that feels less like querying a search engine and more like talking to a colleague.Why full-duplex voice changes everything about talking to AIThe defining technical advance in GPT-Live is what OpenAI calls a “full-duplex architecture.” In telecommunications, full-duplex means both parties on a phone call can talk and listen at the same time. Applied to AI, it means the model continuously processes your incoming audio even while it generates its own spoken response — no more waiting for a clean silence gap to figure out when you’ve finished a thought.”Instead of processing a sequence of separate messages, GPT-Live continuously processes input while generating output,” OpenAI wrote in its research blog. “The model can therefore make interaction decisions many times per second: whether to speak, continue listening, pause, interrupt, or invoke a tool.”In practice, that translates to a voice assistant that can insert conversational acknowledgments — “mhmm,” “yeah,” “got it” — while you’re still talking, pick up on a natural pause without jumping in prematurely, and handle rapid interruptions without derailing the entire exchange. OpenAI’s previous Advanced Voice Mode, launched to paid users in September 2024, processed and generated audio within a single model but still operated on rigid turn-by-turn exchanges. As OpenAI acknowledged in the announcement, “because turn detection is based on silence, even a brief pause or background noise could be mistaken for the end of turn — causing the model to interrupt at unnatural times.”That brittleness created a product that, while impressive in demos, could be deeply frustrating in extended real-world use. Background chatter in a coffee shop could trigger a response. A thinking pause might get swallowed. The experience felt, as one researcher put it on X shortly after the announcement, like “walkie-talkie turn taking.” GPT-Live is designed to end that era.How OpenAI split voice and intelligence into two separate layersGPT-Live introduces a second structural change that may prove just as consequential for enterprise adoption: it decouples the voice interaction layer from the reasoning layer.When a user asks a straightforward question, GPT-Live handles it directly. But when the query demands web search, deeper reasoning, or more complex agentic work, GPT-Live delegates the task to a frontier model running in the background — at launch, GPT-5.5, the large language model OpenAI released in April — and continues talking with the user while the computation happens asynchronously.”While it works, GPT-Live can keep talking with you and maintain the flow of conversation,” OpenAI explains. “As we release new frontier models, we’ll continuously update the model used by GPT-Live.”This delegation model is a meaningful architectural bet. Rather than building a single monolithic voice model that tries to be both conversationally fluid and deeply intelligent, OpenAI has split the problem in two: a voice-native model optimized for real-time interaction, and a separate reasoning engine that can be swapped out as the state of the art improves. It is, in effect, a modular design — one that allows OpenAI to upgrade the intelligence of its voice assistant without retraining the voice model itself. The implications for enterprise and developer workflows are significant. A voice agent built on this architecture could maintain a natural conversation with a customer while simultaneously querying databases, searching the web, or performing multi-step reasoning — tasks that would have introduced several seconds of dead air under the old pipeline.The three generations of ChatGPT voice, from clunky pipeline to continuous streamTo understand how far voice AI has come, it helps to trace the three generations that led to GPT-Live.The original ChatGPT Voice, launched in 2023, used a cascaded pipeline — a speech-to-text model (Whisper) transcribed what you said, a large language model (GPT-4) generated a text response, and a text-to-speech model converted that response back into audio. Each handoff introduced latency and lost information. As OpenAI noted, “the complexity came at a cost: information could be lost across models, and responses were slow and stilted.” That cascaded approach was the industry standard, and its limitations were well-documented. As the blog OpenHelm noted in an October 2024 analysis of OpenAI’s Realtime API, the old pipeline stacked up to roughly 1,700 milliseconds of latency — nearly two full seconds of dead air before the first word of a response. Managing the state between the three separate APIs consumed an enormous amount of engineering effort.OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode, which began its limited rollout to paid ChatGPT Plus users in July 2024 before expanding more broadly in September 2024, collapsed that three-model pipeline into a single model that processed audio natively. As TechCrunch reported at the time, the rollout came with five new voices — Arbor, Maple, Sol, Spruce, and Vale — alongside improved accent handling and smoother conversations. The feature also launched on the web in November 2024, extending it beyond mobile. But Advanced Voice Mode still operated through discrete, alternating turns — and it launched into the shadow of a PR debacle that OpenAI is still working to leave behind.The Scarlett Johansson controversy still shadows OpenAI’s voice ambitionsAdvanced Voice Mode arrived in the wake of one of OpenAI’s most damaging self-inflicted crises. During the GPT-4o launch in May 2024, the company showcased a voice called “Sky” that many listeners immediately noted sounded strikingly similar to Scarlett Johansson, who famously voiced an AI companion in the 2013 film Her.Johansson said she had declined OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s offer to voice the system, then was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” when the product launched with a voice her own friends couldn’t distinguish from hers, as NBC News reported. Altman had tweeted just the word “her” the day the product launched.OpenAI pulled the voice and apologized, but the incident drew public scrutiny from SAG-AFTRA and members of Congress, and crystallized broader concerns about AI companies moving fast with creative IP.The Hollywood labor union said the issue underscored “why we’re strongly championing federal legislation that would protect their voices and likenesses … from unauthorized digital replication,” as NBC News reported. Forbes contributor Paul Tassi wrote at the time that Altman, “by holding up Her on a pedestal of something to strive for, has missed the point of that film” — in which the protagonist’s relationship with his AI companion ultimately does him more harm than good.GPT-Live appears designed, in part, to move past those controversies. OpenAI says it has “remastered the nine distinct voices in ChatGPT for GPT-Live” and notes the system “is designed for conversation, not voice impersonation,” with “safeguards to prevent it from imitating a real person’s voice.”What 150 million weekly voice users will actually notice todayOpenAI disclosed that more than 150 million people talk to ChatGPT using voice and dictation features each week — a notable slice of the platform’s 900 million total weekly active users. The voice experience has grown into a substantial product in its own right, used for language practice, bedtime stories, commute-time chat, and hands-free everyday help.The new product features reflect that usage. GPT-Live introduces rich visual cards that surface during voice conversations — weather forecasts, stock data, sports scores, and maps — giving users something to glance at without breaking the flow of speech.Users can now choose between three reasoning levels for answers: Instant for quick responses, Medium for moderate thinking, and High for more complex work. And if you take a moment to think, “ChatGPT Voice now waits instead of jumping in and interrupting,” OpenAI wrote. “If you ask it to stay quiet and listen, it will. And when there’s background noise, like passing traffic or nearby conversations, ChatGPT is better at focusing on your voice instead of getting distracted.”Early reactions from users with preview access were cautiously positive. “I had early access to sol. it is a phenomenal model,” wrote one user on X, adding it is “much better at frontend, long context knowledge work, and its vibes are much better.” Another observer cut to the heart of the matter: “The smarts are not new here, GPT-Live hands hard questions to GPT-5.5. What is new is the feel: full-duplex voice that listens while it talks.”New voice-specific safety tests reveal where the risks still liveThe GPT-Live system card, published alongside the announcement, reveals a safety strategy built around the particular risks of real-time voice interaction — a domain where the speed and intimacy of conversation create hazards that text-based chat does not.OpenAI expanded its safety evaluations to include audio-native tests, using both real user voice samples (from those who opted in) and synthetically generated prompts targeting edge cases across categories like self-harm, sexual content, illicit behavior, emotional reliance, mental health, and hate speech.On the synthetic evaluations — which OpenAI described as deliberately adversarial — GPT-Live-1 showed substantial improvements over Advanced Voice Mode. In illicit behavior, for instance, the safety score rose from 0.63 to 0.97. On self-harm, it climbed from 0.72 to 0.98. Hate speech achieved a perfect 1.00, up from 0.87.On the production-prompt evaluations — which used real user audio and reflected more ambiguous, borderline scenarios — the picture was more mixed. GPT-Live-1 matched or improved on Advanced Voice Mode in most categories but showed a slight regression on emotional reliance (from 0.88 to 0.82), though OpenAI noted the change was not statistically significant.The company built real-time safeguards that can intervene while the model is speaking — steering toward safer responses, surfacing crisis resources, or ending the voice conversation entirely in higher-risk situations. It also designed additional protections for teen users and adapted self-harm support flows for voice, including crisis helpline integration.Perhaps most notably, OpenAI said it is “rolling out longer-term measurement and post-launch monitoring focused on emotional reliance” — an acknowledgment that the very naturalness GPT-Live strives for creates its own category of risk.Google, ByteDance, and Nvidia are already in the full-duplex raceWhile OpenAI was refining its safety guardrails, its rivals were shipping full-duplex systems of their own. Google’s Gemini Live, which supports full-duplex conversation alongside camera and screen sharing — capabilities GPT-Live notably lacks at launch — is already available in the Gemini app. Google released Gemini 3.1 Flash Live in March as its highest-quality real-time audio model, targeting low-latency voice interactions for developers.ByteDance launched Seeduplex in April, claiming to be the first production-scale full-duplex speech AI deployed at scale, inside its Doubao app. Seeduplex reported roughly a 50 percent reduction in false-response and false-interruption rates compared to ByteDance’s previous half-duplex system. And Nvidia’s PersonaPlex, released in January, brought customizable voice and role control to full-duplex models, breaking what had been a constraint where natural-sounding models were locked into a single fixed voice.The competitive picture is clear: full-duplex voice interaction is quickly becoming table stakes for consumer AI products, not a differentiator. OpenAI’s advantage lies in the scale of its existing user base, its integration with GPT-5.5’s reasoning capabilities, and the breadth of the ChatGPT ecosystem.But the window in which any one company has a monopoly on natural-sounding voice AI has already closed. OpenAI also acknowledged several gaps. GPT-Live does not support voice with video or screen sharing at launch. Language support is limited, with the company noting that “for certain languages, the model may have a non-native accent or gaps in fluency.” And API access is not available on day one, meaning enterprise developers cannot yet build on GPT-Live directly — a constraint that will slow the model’s penetration into commercial voice-agent workflows where competitors like Google, ElevenLabs, and Deepgram already have developer-facing products.The end of the chat box may be closer than anyone expectedGPT-Live is essentially OpenAI’s most significant bet yet on voice as the primary interface for AI — not just a convenience feature bolted onto a text chatbot, but a purpose-built interaction layer that sits between the user and the company’s most powerful models.”Over time, we believe this research will also unlock the ability to use voice for increasingly complex, longer-running, and more agentic work,” OpenAI wrote. That ambition — using natural voice as the front end for autonomous AI agents that can perform multi-step tasks — is the logical endpoint of the full-duplex plus delegation architecture.Imagine telling your phone to book a flight, negotiate with your insurance company, or debug a production server, all through a conversation that feels as natural as talking to an assistant who also happens to have the intelligence of a frontier AI model.Two years ago, talking to ChatGPT meant dictating into a microphone and waiting nearly two seconds for a stilted reply. One year ago, it meant a smoother exchange that still felt like a polite, slightly awkward phone call with someone who insisted on waiting for you to finish every sentence. Today, it means something closer to a real conversation — imperfect, still constrained in some languages and missing video, but unmistakably closer. OpenAI once got into trouble for wanting to recreate the movie Her. With GPT-Live, the company may finally be reckoning with the harder question the film actually posed: not whether AI can sound human enough to talk to, but what happens to us when it does.

TheStreet aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.Getting into shape, or staying there, can be as difficult as it can be rewarding. No matter the athletic endeavor you favor, staying healthy is a marathon, not a sprint; even if your chosen exercise is sprints. There are a number of things that can help you stick to your fitness plan and stay on the straight and narrow. One of those is support from the people around you. There’s a lot to be said for friends and family getting behind your desire to be healthy. They can tear you down or cheer you on, and having the latter can make it far easier to chase your fitness goals. Another, more readily available tool for maintaining your training regimen is a good fitness tracker. Shopping for one of these trackers can sometimes feel as daunting as the workout itself, but we assure you it’s well worth the hassle.What is a fitness tracker?A fitness tracker is the first line of defense in the battle against yourself. Most fitness trackers keep tabs on every aspect of your health in order to help you plan your next goal and work toward it. They help you keep an eye on your heart rate, distance walked or run, VO2 max, blood oxygen level, sleep habits, and much more. These trackers are especially helpful for runners, cyclists, and swimmers, who need to keep an eye on their ultimate fitness goals and how close they are to achieving them. There are a few different types of trackers that are most popular with fitness buffs. Before offering some of our favorite options, it’s probably a good idea to break down some of the most important fitness tracker styles and describe their key attributes.Types of fitness trackersThe three most common fitness tracker styles are smartwatches, fitness bands, and smart rings. These trackers are most often used for keeping an eye on the distance run, GPS location, and heart rate. If you’re a regular runner or cyclist, then you likely use one or more of these types of trackers on a daily, or at least weekly basis. However, there’s always a reason to try something new, so if you’re not completely satisfied with your current fitness tracker, why not try a different style? It could make all the difference in your fitness journey.Benefits of fitness watchesFar and away the most popular of these three are smartwatches. Within this category are two different types of smartwatch. The first is the pure fitness tracker. These have been made popular by brands like Fitbit and Garmin. They are geared toward fitness enthusiasts and have user interfaces that have been designed exclusively for those who see exercise as a way of life, and not just a hobby. They often track your progress using GPS triangulation and are made to be extremely rugged and waterproof. The second type of smartwatch often used for fitness is the standard smartwatch, similar to an Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch. These are designed for everyday use, and happen to include similar fitness applications for those who want to track their workout goals. Which you choose depends on your lifestyle and daily needs.Samsung Galaxy Watch 8

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Check price at AmazonTrausi Fitness Smartwatch

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Check price at AmazonGarmin Forerunner 165

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Check price at AmazonFitbit Inspire 3 Fitness Watch

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Check price at Walmart3cloudge Fitness Tracker

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Check price at WalmartBenefits of fitness bandsFitness bands, on the other hand, tend to be a simpler and more straightforward option. They are thin elastic bands with health monitoring sensors built-in that go around the wrist. Fitness tracking bands will keep track of your heart rate, stress levels, and distance traveled. However, they typically have either no info screen or the bare minimum. These are usually favored by athletes who don’t need all the extra bells and whistles of a smartwatch and want just the stats. They’re usually smaller than a traditional fitness watch, and because they don’t need a large screen, they’re a fair bit lighter as well.Domhong Fitness Smart Bracelet

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Check price at AmazonQyzharyx Fitness Band Bracelet

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Check price at AmazonActivity Fitness Tracker Band

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Check price at WalmartSolis Olympus Fitness Band

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Check price at WalmartBenefits of fitness ringsFinally, there are also fitness rings, for those who really want the least conspicuous of the trackers. These are a relatively new advent, but one that is gaining popularity rapidly. Fitness rings have very similar functionality to fitness bands, but they come in an even smaller package. All you have to do is slip it on your finger, and it can track all of your fitness goals while those around you are none the wiser. Fitness rings are lightweight, inconspicuous, and relatively affordable. They’re also one of the easiest to wear at all times without needing to remember to put them on. Oura Ring 4 

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Check price at AmazonBiemha Smart Ring Health Tracker

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Check price at AmazonRingconn Gen 2 Fitness Ring

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Check price at AmazonOsawalla Smart Ring

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Check price at WalmartLivup Smart Ring Fitness Tracker

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TheStreet Shopping is your guide for shopping insights and advice. We look beyond the price tag to find the best value in home, tech, and wellness gear based on product features and real-world use. Read more about our Editorial Standards and How We Choose Our Shopping Deals.

Major semiconductor names have been falling hard as investors take profits following a blockbuster second quarter.

Pet food recalls create a different kind of consumer anxiety.For many households, dogs are part of the family, and feeding them is part of a daily routine that usually happens without much thought. When you open a can and pour the food into a bowl, as a pet parent, you expect the product to be safe.But when a recall involves possible foreign material, related actions become urgent because the risk is not abstract. Hard or sharp pieces in food can create an immediate physical hazard for pets.Mars Petcare US is now recalling two lots of Pedigree wet dog food after products that were supposed to be destroyed may have entered the marketplace.Pedigree recalls two wet dog food lotsMars Petcare said it is voluntarily recalling two lots of Pedigree Can High Protein Chopped Chicken & Duck Flavor Wet Dog Food because the products may contain foreign metal and plastic, according to a company announcement posted by the Food and Drug Administration.The affected lot codes are: 613C3KKCFC 613C1KKCFC.The recall applies only to those two lot codes of the 13.2-ounce canned product. More Recalls:FDA recall raises concern over blood pressure drugHonda’s million-vehicle recall hits core SUVs and trucksJeep owners should take immediate action to avoid huge riskMars said no other Pedigree or Mars Petcare products are affected by the recall.The company said the products did not meet Mars and Pedigree safety and quality standards. As part of its quality-control process, the two lots had been sent to a third-party vendor for destruction, but Mars later learned that the product appears to have been fraudulently diverted and sold in the U.S. marketplace.That detail makes the recall unusual. It is not framed as a standard production recall from store shelves, but rather as a case in which a product intended for disposal may have been improperly distributed.

Mars Petcare recalls 2 lots of Pedigree wet dog food.Viktoria Korobova / Getty Images

Mars says no pet injuries reported so farMars Petcare said the recalled cans may contain hard, sharp metal mixed with plastic, which could harm a dog if consumed.The potential risks include choking, lacerations, or blockages in the gastrointestinal tract. Dog owners who have already fed the recalled product to their pet and are concerned should contact a veterinarian.Mars said it has not received any related reports of pet illness or injury to date.The company is working with authorities to determine how the products entered the marketplace. It is also asking consumers who believe they purchased the recalled product not to feed it to animals.Consumers can contact Pedigree for a replacement product. Meanwhile, for pet owners, the most important step is checking the lot code before using the product. If the can matches one of the recalled lots, it should be set aside and not fed to a dog, even if it looks normal.Related: Popular pizza chain franchisee files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Los Angeles Dodgers prospect Josue De Paula is seeking to go where no baseball player has gone before: winning a second MVP Award in the All-Stars Futures Game.

The Television Academy has once again shown no love for Taylor Sheridan’s “Landman” and its star, Billy Bob Thorton.

Tesla CEO (TSLA) Elon Musk is back again, pushing one of his boldest claims about the AI boom, in which the technology might eventually make work optional.Musk first made that prediction at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum. Sitting alongside Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Musk told the crowd, “My prediction is that work will be optional.” Now Musk is doubling down. According to Business Insider, citing a back-and-forth on X, Musk said AI and robots could create enough abundance to support a “universal high income.”Michael Burry quickly pushed back, though, suggesting the road to that future could be far more chaotic than Musk’s vision implies.For perspective, “The Big Short” investor Michael Burry, famous for calling the 2008 housing crash, has effectively turned his old bubble playbook on the AI trade.The pushback began with Burry arguing that AI spending has gone too far, likening Nvidia to Cisco in the dot-com era, and later filings revealed bearish bets on Nvidia and Palantir, according to Yahoo Finance. Most recently, The Wall Street Journal said Burry called the new AI shorts the “beginning of the end”, while TheStreet reported he shorted memory giant Micron after citing “fear of missing out” and “greater fool theory” in the rally. Nevertheless, the key tension here is whether AI becomes the engine of a richer future or first delivers the kind of economic shock markets are not fully pricing in.Musk’s AI promise meets Burry’s transition warning Elon Musk went beyond the debate over AI as a productivity tool and described a scenario in which labor itself becomes less central to survival.More Wall Street:Wall Street has a new problem, and it’s not the technologyWall Street’s biggest banks just landed the AI IPO of the yearWall Street’s top analysts just doubled down on 3 stocksMusk wrote on his X account that,“AI+Robots will be able to do everything, resulting in universal high income. Work will be optional.”Michael Burry’s reply was blunt: “False. There will be revolution first.”Musk doubled down on the end state, in which AI and robotics could drive costs down so sharply that food, housing, utilities, healthcare, and other essentials become cheaper. In that version of the future, government support moves beyond basic income toward a broader, more robust safety net.Burry is challenging the road to get there.He argues that the transition could potentially break before the promised abundance arrives. If millions of workers are displaced faster than companies, governments, and communities can absorb, the result might be anger before comfort and instability before leisure.Related: Elon Musk and Tesla announce serious AI changes for workersIt’s important to note that Burry has also said he is shorting Tesla, according to Yahoo Finance, while describing Musk as an American treasure but an aggressively incentivized futurist. Moreover, Burry is not the only one sounding the alarm about the transition.According to Yahoo Finance, billionaire and legendary investor Ray Dalio warned that AI could deepen wealth inequality and heighten the risk of internal strife if the gains are not redistributed. On the flipside, according to Fortune reporting, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon offered the more optimistic version, saying AI could eventually shorten the workweek and improve lives.He warned, though, that companies and governments might need to effectively reskill workers quickly, or the labor-market shock could arrive first. 

 Elon Musk’s AI jobs forecast is facing a sharp labor-market warning.Marc Piasecki/Getty Images

The evidence undercuts the ‘AI replaces everyone’ panicAccording to the ILO-NASK 2025 index, about one in four jobs worldwide could be transformed by GenAI rather than automatically eliminated.According to PwC’s 2026 AI Jobs Barometer, AI-skilled workers now command a 62% wage premium, indicating rising demand for human-AI skills.According to BCG, 50% to 55% of U.S. jobs may be reshaped by AI, with many workers staying in similar roles. According to the World Economic Forum, AI-era disruption could create 170 million jobs and displace 92 million, a net gain of 78 million by 2030.According to Microsoft, 78% of leaders are considering AI-specific hiring, including AI trainers, agent specialists, and ROI analysts.According to Forbes, Ford rehired 350 veteran engineers after AI tools fell short in producing high-quality work.
Source line: ILO-NASK, PwC, BCG, World Economic Forum, Microsoft, Fortune/Bloomberg, and Forbes/Bloomberg.
The AI bubble warning is really a funding-chain warningThe big AI-bubble risk at this point has everything to do with whether the debt-funded buildout can earn enough cash before financing conditions tighten. According to MarketWatch, AI-linked corporate bonds sold off this week as Amazon moved to borrow another $25 billion, with Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Oracle, and Nvidia together holding more than $460 billion in outstanding debt and nearly $100 billion in issuance planned for 2026 alone. Moreover, Barron’s separately reported that $236 billion of AI-related debt had been raised globally through May, about four times the 2025 level.OpenAI in particular becomes a symbolic pressure point. According to Reuters, OpenAI is targeting nearly $600 billion in compute spending through 2030, while popular tech critic Ed Zitron, citing leaked financials, said OpenAI posted $13.07 billion in 2025 revenue against $34 billion in costs and expenses, with losses piling up sharply.More Wall Street:Wall Street has a new problem, and it’s not the technologyWall Street’s biggest banks just landed the AI IPO of the yearWall Street’s top analysts just doubled down on 3 stocksAt the same time, Oracle is taking the AI circular financing debate to the next level by ramping up AI capex toward $95 billion in fiscal 2027 and planning nearly $40 billion in debt and equity financing, according to Reuters.Reuters has also noted private-credit AI loans may have nearly doubled, while Morgan Stanley estimates private credit could fund over half of the $1.5 trillion data-center buildout through 2028.Related: Goldman Sachs revamps SpaceX stock price target for 2026