Investments and Business

The United States has spent the past five years pushing to reduce its reliance on China for computer chips, solar panels and various consumer imports amid growing concern over Beijing’s security threats, human rights record and dominance of critical industries.But even as policymakers and corporate executives look for ways to cut ties with China, a growing body of evidence suggests that the world’s largest economies remain deeply intertwined as Chinese products make their way to America through other countries. New and forthcoming economic papers call into question whether the United States has actually lessened its reliance on China — and…

Mustafa Suleyman is one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence entrepreneurs, having co-founded not one but two start-ups at the cutting edge of the most transformative technology since the internet.Mr. Suleyman, 39, is C.E.O. of Inflection AI, the company he started last year with Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn. In June, the firm closed a $1.3 billion funding round that included Microsoft and Nvidia, the leading A.I. chip maker, and that reportedly valued the company at about $4 billion. (Its chatbot, Pi, is designed to be a personal digital companion.)Mr. Suleyman also co-founded DeepMind, an A.I. pioneer that Google…

Federal Reserve officials are likely to closely watch employment numbers on Friday for further signs that the economy’s momentum is slowing, an important consideration for them in deciding whether to lift interest rates further.Fed policymakers have sharply increased borrowing costs over the past year and a half, to a range of 5.25 to 5.5 percent, from near-zero as recently as March 2022. Those moves were meant to slow the economy by making it more expensive to borrow to buy a house, purchase a car or expand a business.Now, central bankers are contemplating whether they need to raise interest rates one…

A new biography of Elon Musk portrays the billionaire entrepreneur as a complex, tortured figure whose brilliance is often overshadowed by his inability to relate on a human level to the people around him — his wives, his children and those on whom he relied to help develop the space exploration and electric car businesses that made him the wealthiest man on Earth.Mr. Musk’s life so far — his difficult childhood in South Africa, his stormy romantic relationships, his success as a visionary who built SpaceX and Tesla, and his impetuous decision to buy Twitter — is detailed through scores…

American workers got smaller pay increases in August. That could be welcome news for policymakers at the Federal Reserve.Average hourly earnings rose 0.2 percent from July, the slowest pace of monthly growth since early last year. Pay was up 4.3 percent from a year earlier, versus a peak growth rate of nearly 6 percent in March 2022.The earnings data is preliminary and can be skewed by shifts in the industries that are hiring, among other factors. But the slowdown in wage gains is consistent with other evidence suggesting a gradual cooling in the labor market. Employers are posting fewer job…

The U.S. Open has been as gripping as ever this year, with the 19-year-old breakout star Coco Gauff set to face off against Aryna Sabalenka in today’s singles final and Novak Djokovic seeking a 24th Grand Slam win tomorrow. But as a business, tennis has been struggling for years — and faces new pressure to find a sustainable model as Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, known as P.I.F., has made major investments in sports, sloshing money around in golf, soccer and mixed martial arts.Some deal makers wonder whether tennis, which has already confirmed initial talks with Saudi Arabia, will be…

The United Auto Workers union and the three established U.S. automakers remain far apart on wages and other issues with less than a week to go before contracts covering 150,000 union workers expire.So far, the companies — General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler — have offered to raise pay by 14 percent to 16 percent over four years. Their offers include lump sum payments to help ease the impact of inflation, and policy changes that would lift the pay of recent hires and temporary workers, who typically earn about a third less than veteran union members.But…

The NewsThe next giant Starship rocket from Elon Musk’s SpaceX is standing on the launching pad in South Texas. But the Federal Aviation Administration said on Friday that the company must undertake “corrective actions” before it would issue a launch license for the second flight.A Number That Sums It Up: 63 corrective actions are required.The first Starship test flight successfully lifted off on April 20. A few minutes later, it started to tumble out of control and then ended in an explosion induced by its flight termination system, which is designed to prevent out-of-control rockets from crashing into a populated…

More Republicans are coming to the view that economic inequality, or a lack of social mobility, is a problem in the United States — and that more can be done to enable families to attain or regain a middle-class life.Though discussions about inequality tend to be most visible among liberals, about four in 10 Republican or Republican-leaning adults think there is too much economic inequality in the country, according to a Pew Research survey. And among Republicans making less than about $40,000 a year who see too much economic inequality, 63 percent agree that the economic system “requires major changes”…