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After its high-profile breakup from Microsoft, OpenAI has found a new partner with even deeper pockets, if that is at all possible. Nvidia said Monday that it will invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI and begin providing the artificial intelligence firm with semiconductors for its data centers as soon as next year.

OpenAI will pay Nvidia in cash for the chips. Then, as the semiconductor chips are deployed in OpenAI’s data centers, Nvidia will make progressive investments in exchange for non-controlling shares. Nvidia said the partnership will complement work both companies are already doing with collaborators including Microsoft (they’re still friends, we think), Oracle, and SoftBank to build advanced AI infrastructure — now if only all that world-leading collaborative power could teach a neural network how to draw a human hand.

Is Google’s Ad Tech Biz Ripe for the Breaking?

Photo by Karollyne Videira Hubert via Unsplash

Google has been let off the hook for its search monopoly. But what about its equally gargantuan ad tech business? We’ll soon find out.

On Monday, the company entered the remedy phase of its ad tech monopoly trial, after antitrust regulators at the US Department of Justice successfully argued the unit was an illegal monopoly earlier this year. But what would a break-up of the division even mean for Google, and the online ad business writ large?

On Display

In determining remedies for Google’s search monopoly, a US judge essentially found that time heals all wounds — and that the advent of generative AI chatbots meant the market finally created an organic competitor to Google’s search engine. The DOJ sees a much more straightforward path toward cracking Google’s ad tech monopoly, however: forcing the company to divest AdX, the ad exchange software that connects ad buyers and ad sellers. Note: Google also owns and operates unique platforms for both buyers and sellers; it was found to have a monopoly in the latter space, too, though DOJ regulators say only a divestiture of AdX is necessary to crack its unfair grip.

But would kicking out the third leg of the ad stool truly impact Google’s bottom line? To understand the value of AdX, it’s worth looking at the bigger picture of Google’s total advertising business:

Google is expected to generate some $86 billion in US online ad revenue this year, but the vast majority of that, roughly $70 billion, is from ads featured in search results that are outside the scope of its ad tech business. The remaining $16 billion or so comes from the display ads on websites served by its ad tech unit; in other words, relatively small potatoes for Google.
But for the entire display advertising industry, it’s still most of the potatoes in the entire sack. In the trial portion of the case, the DOJ argued that AdX owns a roughly 65% market share of all ad exchange transactions, or about nine times more than its next closest competitor.

Tied Up: A little more than half might not sound like a monopoly. But Google’s tool for ad sellers, DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), controlled roughly 91% of its respective market, and the DOJ found that DFP clients were effectively coerced into also using AdX. Tying the two services together allowed Google to snare a roughly 20% fee on each ad dollar that moved through the exchanges, a higher cut than other competitors. Google says there’s a much easier solution to cracking its monopoly than forcing it to divest AdX: Keep the platform, but allow DFP and its buyer platforms to be interoperable with third-party exchanges. Gee, why didn’t they think of that earlier?

Written by Brian Boyle

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Healthcare

Tylenol-Maker’s Shares Sink amid Autism Scrutiny

A medicine-cabinet staple may struggle to keep its spot on consumers’ shelves after government claims that dragged Tylenol-maker Kenvue’s shares down more than 7% yesterday to an all-time low. President Trump said Monday afternoon that the FDA strongly recommends against pregnant women using Tylenol except in some cases (like a high fever). His administration said there may be a link between Tylenol use during pregnancy and an increased chance of autism. Kenvue denies the claim.

Trump prefaced the move the day before, saying it would be one of the biggest medical announcements in US history and “an answer to autism.”

Potential Side Effects

Studies exploring whether there’s a connection between Tylenol’s key ingredient, acetaminophen, and autism have had mixed results. The Trump administration’s claim follows a study published last month that found increased rates of neurodevelopmental conditions in children with mothers who took acetaminophen during pregnancy, but one of the study’s authors told The New York Times the results don’t prove causation. The largest study to date, from last year, found no such link.

But increased scrutiny on Tylenol could have a causal relationship with Kenvue’s future financial performance:

Kenvue was spun off from Johnson & Johnson two years ago to focus on selling consumer health products and skincare. Its largest unit, “self care,” which consists of drugs including Tylenol and Benadryl, makes up about 42% of its revenue. The other two arms of its biz — one that sells health products like Band-Aids and Listerine and another that sells skincare brands like Neutrogena and Aveeno — make up smaller chunks.
Kenvue is under pressure from activist investors to boost its profits, ousting its CEO in July as part of an overhaul. One focus: Its skincare segment has struggled to appeal to Gen Z, even as rival brands like CeraVe flood TikTok’s For You page. Kenvue’s sales fell 4% from the previous year in the most recent quarter, and the company cut its annual forecast last month.

Prognosis: Public perceptions around health and wellness are shifting, and companies are trying to keep up. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. previously said he would figure out what causes autism by September and has pointed to a range of possible culprits, including artificial food dyes and vaccines. Companies have reacted to the administration’s claims, with food companies including Froot Loops-maker WK Kellogg pledging to purge their products of synthetic food dyes. But a strategy shift isn’t as simple for pharmaceuticals.

Written by Jamie Wilde

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Technology

Silicon Valley Confusion Over H-1B Visa Spurs Tech Plunge in India

Silicon Valley executives spent the weekend trying to determine if tens of thousands of their staff would be impacted by the White House’s sudden decision to levy a $100,000 fee on skilled foreign worker visas, which previously cost $2,000 to $5,000.

Such was the confusion that several H-1B holders got off an India-bound Emirates flight from San Francisco before takeoff on Friday. On Monday, it was the tech industry across the Pacific, in the country where that plane was headed, that had the most pressure to contend with.

The Cost of Doing Hiring

While the White House announced its plan for the $100,000 fee on Friday with a hasty Sunday implementation, it didn’t clarify until Saturday that the new fee won’t apply to existing visas. By that point, firms including Amazon, Google and Microsoft had advised foreign national employees to remain in the US or return immediately. Ultimately, the new fee will apply to H-1Bs when they are first granted, and not to existing visas or any future renewals.

H-1B visas let companies sponsor skilled foreign workers in specialty occupations that require educational or professional experience, making them particularly popular in tech: Some 60% of H-1B workers since 2012 were sponsored for computer-related work, according to Pew. With 10,000 approved beneficiaries in the 2025 fiscal year, e-commerce giant Amazon is the number one H-1B employer, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Under the new fee regime, bringing in that many employees for the first time would cost $1 billion. Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Google, JPMorgan Chase, Walmart and Deloitte also feature in the top 10 H-1B sponsors, now incentivized to reconsider the heftier upfront costs of hiring abroad. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings tweeted it is a “great solution” that will ensure the program is “used just for very high-value jobs,” alluding to critics who say the program is frequently used to bring in cheaper foreign labor. While that long-term consideration will play out stateside in the years to come, another country is facing more immediate consequences:

According to US government figures, roughly 71% of H-1B beneficiaries last year were from India, a country where the five largest IT firms make 55% of their revenue from the US. India’s large IT consulting sector brings in thousands of workers to perform duties in the US and, after Amazon, the second largest H-1B employer is Mumbai-headquartered IT giant Tata Consultancy Services.
Mumbai-listed shares in Tata and Infosys, another consultancy that makes significant use of the H-1B program, fell 3% and 2.5%, respectively, on Monday. The Nifty IT Index, which tracks the broader Indian tech sector, fell 3%.

Doctor Loophole: Thousands of hospitals and medical research centers use the H-1B program to sponsor physicians and other medical professionals to address healthcare worker shortages. The American Medical Association raised an alarm Monday, stating the new H-1B fee “risks shutting off the pipeline of highly trained physicians, especially in rural and underserved communities.” The White House later suggested physicians and medical residents could be eligible for exemptions “in the national interest.”

Written by Sean Craig

Extra Upside

Fully Licensed: Oracle will create a licensed copy of the TikTok algorithm, and provide security for it, in the deal being negotiated to bring the social media app under US control.
Horror Story: Hershey’s beat a lawsuit that claimed the company’s Halloween-themed candies were not sufficiently Halloween-y.
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