Welcome to Markets Desk, here's what's moving the needle this afternoon.
Social Security's fiscal clock is ticking louder than it has in decades. The two thousand twenty six Trustees' Report confirms the program is on track for insolvency within six years, which would trigger an automatic twenty-two percent benefit cut for tens of millions of retirees and dependents — the most precarious position the system has faced since nineteen eighty three.
Turning to the EV space, Rivian is trimming its headcount, laying off hundreds of workers representing less than two percent of its total workforce. The company is framing this as a profitability push, and while the cuts are modest in scale, they signal continued pressure on EV makers to demonstrate a credible path to sustainable margins as the sector faces a tougher capital environment.
And at the G-seven summit, something notable is happening beyond the usual diplomatic choreography. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are seated alongside world leaders, a visible signal of how much weight frontier artificial intelligence now carries in conversations about global power, infrastructure sovereignty, and economic security. That's not a side meeting — that's the main table.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
