At the 2026 Detroit Auto Show, the spotlight quietly shifted. Electric vehicles, once framed as the inevitable future of the industry, were no longer the centerpiece. Instead, automakers emphasized hybrids, updated gasoline models and incremental efficiency improvements.
The show, held in January, reflected an industry recalibration happening in real time: Ford and General Motors had recently announced $19.5 billion and $6 billion in EV-related write-downs, respectively, reflecting the losses they expect as they unwind or delay parts of their electric vehicle plans.
The message from Detroit was unmistakable: The U.S. is pulling back from a transition that much of the world is accelerating.
That retreat carries consequences far beyond showroom floors.
In China, Europe, and a growing number of emerging markets, including Vietnam and Indonesia, electric vehicles now make up a higher share of new passenger vehicle sales than in the United States.
That means the U.S. pullback on EV production is not simply a climate problemgasoline-powered vehicles are a major contributor to climate changeit is also an industrial competitiveness problem, with direct implications for the future of U.S. automakers, suppliers, and autoworkers. Slower EV production and slower adoption in the U.S. can keep prices higher, delay improvements in batteries and software, and increase the risk that the next generation of automotive value creation will happen elsewhere.
Where EVs are taking over
In 2025, global EV registrations rose 20% to 20.7 million. Analysts with Benchmark Mineral Intelligence reported that China reached 12.9 million EV registrations, up 17% from the previous year; Europe recorded 4.3 million, up 33%; and the rest of the world added 1.7 million, up 48%.
By contrast, U.S. EV sales growth was essentially flat in 2025, at about 1%. U.S. automaker Tesla experienced declines in both scale and profitabilityits vehicle deliveries fell 9% compared to 2024, the companys net profit was down 46%, and CEO Elon Musk said it would put more of its focus on artificial intelligence and robotics.
Market share tells a similar story and also challenges the assumption that vehicle electrification would take time to expand from wealthy countries to emerging markets.
In 39 countries, EVs now exceed 10% of new car sales, including in Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia, which reached 38%, 21%, and 15%, respectively, in 2025, energy analysts at Ember report.
In the U.S., EVs accounted for less than 10% of new vehicle sales, by Embers estimates.
U.S. President Donald Trump came back into office in 2025 promising to end policies that supported EV production and sales and boost fossil fuels. But while the U.S. was curtailing federal consumer incentives, governments elsewhere largely continued a transition to electric vehicles.
Europe softened its goal for all vehicles to have zero emissions by 2035 at the urging of automakers, but its new target is still a 90% cut in automobiles carbon dioxide emissions by 2035.
Germany launched a program offering subsidies worth 1,500 to 6,000 euros per electric vehicle, aimed at low- and middle-income households.
In developing economies, EV policy has largely been sustained through industrial policies. In Brazil, the MOVER program offers tax credits explicitly linked to domestic EV production, research and development, and efficiency targets. South Africa is introducing a 150% investment allowance for EV and battery manufacturing, giving them a tax break starting in March 2026. Thailand has implemented subsidies and reduced excise tax tied to mandatory local production and export commitments.
In China, the EV industry has entered a phase of regulatory maturity. After a decade of subsidies and state-led investment that helped domestic firms undercut global competitors, the governments focus is no longer on explosive growth at home.
With their domestic market saturated and competition fierce, Chinese automakers are pushing aggressively into global markets. Beijing has reinforced this shift by ending its full tax exemption for EV purchases and replacing it with a tapered 5% tax on EV buyers.
Consequences for U.S. automakers
EV manufacturing is governed by steep learning curves and scale economies, meaning the more vehicles a company builds, the better it gets at making them faster and cheaper. Low domestic production and sales can mean higher costs for parts and weaker bargaining power for automakers in global supply chains.
The competitive landscape is already changing. In 2025, China exported 2.65 million EVs, doubling its 2024 exports, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. And BYD surpassed Tesla as the worlds largest EV maker in 2025.
The U.S. risks becoming a follower in the industry it once defined.
Some people argue that American consumers simply prefer trucks and hybrids. Others point to Chinese subsidies and overcapacity as distortions that justify U.S. industry caution. These concerns deserve consideration, but they do not outweigh the fundamental fact that, globally, the EV share of auto sales continues to rise.
What can the U.S. do?
For U.S. automakers and workers to compete in this market, the government, in our view, will have to stop treating EVs as an ideological matter and start governing it like an industrial transition.
That starts with restoring regulatory credibility, something that seems unlikely right now as the Trump administration moves to roll back vehicle emissions standards. Performance standards are the quiet engine of industrial investment. When standards are predictable and enforced, manufacturers can plan, suppliers can invest in new businesses, and workers can train for reliable demand.
Governments at state and local levels and industry can also take important steps.
Focus on affordability and equity: The federal clean-vehicle tax credit that effectively gave EV buyers a discount expired in September 2025. An alternative is targeted, point-of-sale support for low- and middle-income buyers. By moving away from blanket credits in favor of targeted incentivesa model already used in California and Pennsylvaniagovernments can ensure public funds are directed toward people who are currently priced out of the EV market. Additionally, interest-rate buydowns that allow buyers to reduce their loan payments and green loan programs can help, typically funded through state and local governments, utility companies or federal grants.
Keep building out the charging network: A federal judge ruled on January 23, 2026, that the Trump administration violated the law when it suspended a $5 billion program for expanding the nations EV charger network. That expansion effort can be improved by shifting the focus from the number of ports installed to the number of working chargers, as California did in 2025. Enforcing reliability and clearing bottlenecks, such as electricity connections and payment systems, could help boost the number of functioning sites.
Use fleet procurement as a stabilizer for U.S. sales: When states, cities and companies provide a predictable volume of vehicle purchases, that helps manufacturers plan future investments. For example, Amazons 2019 order of 100,000 Rivian electric delivery vehicles to be delivered over the following decade gave the startup automaker the boost it needed.
Treat workforce transition as core infrastructure: This means giving workers skills they can carry from job to job, helping suppliers retool instead of shutting down, and coordinating training with employers needs. Done right, these investments turn economic change into a source of stable jobs and broad public support. Done poorly, they risk a political backlash.
The scene at the Detroit Auto Show should be a warning, not a verdict. The global auto industry is accelerating its EV transition. The question for the United States is whether it will shape that futureand ensure the technologies and jobs of the next automotive era are in the U.S.or import it.
Hengrui Liu is a postdoctoral scholar in economics and public policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Kelly Sims Gallagher is a professor of energy and environmental policy and director of the Climate Policy Lab and Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The only constant in life is change. This truth is as salient today as it was when the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus posited the idea centuries ago. Its a truth that most modern leaders know firsthand, especially when it comes to culture. Culture is in constant flux. Emergent ideas are introduced to an organizationbe they new technologies or nascent philosophieswhich catalyze new imaginations and result in new ways of work. However, the question isnt if things will change but how and when? So, we sat down with the former CMO of McDonalds North America, Tariq Hassan, for this weeks episode of the From the Culture podcast to talk about cultural change and how leaders can best navigate it.
As Hassan poetically puts it, every organization is haunted by the ghosts of cultures past. These are the existing conventions of an organization that were once introduced and integrated into its operating system but linger about even after a leader departs. Some were advantageous in the moment but perhaps soured over time. Others were likely rejected at first glance but eventually revealed themselves to be useful. These cultural contributions can be edifying or detrimental to an organization. Therefore, its incumbent upon new leaders to identify which ghosts should be summoned and which ought to be exorcised.
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How Will I Know
According to Hassan, a trained strategist turned C-suite executive, culture should evolve but also remain static. This dynamic might seem paradoxical on the surface, but it is empirically supported by the literature. Famed anthropologist Grant McCracken refers to this as fast and slow culture. Slow culture consists of the deeply held beliefs and assumptions of an organization that inform how we do things around here. Fast culture, on the other hand, is a reflection of the organizations beliefs in a contemporary context, based on the realities of today. They both exist at the same time but change at different rates.
Slow culture moves at a glacier pace, if at all. This is the static nature of culture that Hassan argues is the anchor of an organization that keeps it stable. Fast culture is far more temporalthe evolving parts of Hassans cultural calculus. When considering change, new leaders must distinguish between the fast and the slow, which parts must be revisited (the fast) and which should be reinforced (the slow). This is where reenvisioning comes into play for the CEO and executions become contextualized for managers.
Three Ideas
To navigate these complexities, Hassan offers three recommendations. First, leaders must approach change with great humility. This means realizing that someone was there before you who helped get the organization to where it is today. As good as you may be, you cant enter the company thinking Everyone here is incompetent and only I, alone, will save it. Doing so is to ignore the cultural conventions that ushered in its past successes or, worse, it may lead you to erroneously mistake them for the lingering conventions that may have prevented the organization from thriving. Discerning the differences is key.
Secondly, Hassan suggests adopting a curious mindset. As a leader, hes far more infatuated with questions than he is with answers. Questions invite other members of the organization who have experienced previous cultures to contribute to the exploration of change. It allows leaders to brain surf the institutional knowledge that already exists and leverage the endowment effect so that members of the team feel a sense of ownership in the change. That way, they are a part of the change as opposed to the change happening to them.
Lastly, Hassan emphasizes the importance of empathyself-aware perspective taking. Considering the kaleidoscope of meanings the world presents to our collective sense; having more perspectives provides a vivid picture of the organizations reality, which helps you, as a leader, lead change more effectively. This, as Hassan notes, is not only true of business culture but also of culture more broadly. And thats spot-on. Things arent the way they are; they are the way that we are, to paraphrase famed French-born author Anas Nin. And if that is the case, then understanding the multiple perspectives of the organization is critical to truly understanding the organization itself. Without this understanding, how can you effectively lead change?
Check out our full conversation with Tariq Hassan on the From the Culture podcast, where we explore the inner workings of organizational culture with the leaders who lead them.
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Most professionals spend their days focused on performance, deadlines, deliverables, and doing good work that gets noticed. Thats normal. But theres an overlooked truth about work (and life, really) that doesnt show up in job descriptions or KPIs. Work feels better, and often goes better, when its shared.
Shared in the human sense: letting someone in, acknowledging others, and enjoying progress together instead of alone.
That idea comes through clearly in a story Oprah Winfrey often tells about growing up in Mississippi and learning an early lesson from a candy bar.
Im telling you, if you do something to make someone else happier, its almost like it comes back to you exactly 100-fold. . . . I learned for myself, even as a little kid, that the candy bar tasted better if I had somebody to say, Isnt this good? . . . All things in life get better when you share it, and when you do something for someone else, the benefit comes back to you as well as to them. Thats where I get my great joy.
Its a simple story. Now, lets apply it to the workplace, where we spend the majority of our waking hours. Because most of us miss it.
Work isnt meant to be a solo sport
When people keep everything to themselvesideas, credit, stress, winswork becomes transactional and isolating. Thats a bummer by my book, and Ive been in these dreadful offices before. But when workers share, even in small ways, something shifts in the atmosphere. Trust grows. Energy increases. People feel less alone in the grind.
So, what does this look like in everyday work?
Sharing builds connection without extra effort
You dont need a team-building exercise to create connection. Sharing context on a tough project, looping someone in early, or simply saying, Heres what Im working on, helps others feel included. It builds community. Inclusion, even informal inclusion, reduces friction and misunderstandings.
Shared credit strengthens collaboration
Calling out a colleagues contributionespecially when you dont have todoes more than make them feel good. It signals praise, respect, loyalty, and fairness. People are more willing to help when they know their effort wont go unnoticed.
Helping others improves your own work
This is the part Oprah points to that people often underestimate. When you support and serve someone elseby offering feedback, time, or encouragementit benefits you in many ways. It helps reinforce cultural values like empathy, generosity, and servant leadership.
I would wager that most meaningful work moments for you may have involved other people. Those times when you were tasked to solve a problem together, laughing after a stressful meeting, and celebrating a small win. Work satisfaction rarely comes from achievement alone. It comes from achievement thats witnessed.
None of this requires a title, authority, or permission. And its free.
Ill leave you with a few ways to share with peers and colleagues on the fly, starting today:
Share information instead of guarding it.
Say thank you out loud; dont just think it.
Invite someone into a win instead of claiming it.
Check in when someone looks overwhelmed.
Include others in daily decision-making.
Share credit with the team.
The candy bar tastes better when someone else is there to enjoy it with you. Work does too. This week, intentionally share one thing at workcredit, your help, context, or appreciation. Notice how it changes not just the other persons day but also yours.
By Marcel Schwantes
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys sister site, Inc.com.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
For two decades, I’ve mentored professionals at every career stage: first as a high school teacher and administrator, and presently as a university professor and corporate consultant. One pattern emerges across every career pathwaythe people who find strong fits for their talents aren’t the ones with the most impressive single credential. They’re the ones who understand how three things work together: Skills. Credentials. Network.
The car mechanic who realized his hands-on skills weren’t enough as cars went digital. So he went to night school and earned his associate’s, bachelor’s, and MBA in four years. During the journey, he took advantage of every professional networking opportunity his job and college offered him. Today he’s a fleet director at a major construction firm.
The product manager who wanted to transition into consulting. She started running experiments online and building an audience for her behavioral design work. That public learning launched her into a consultant role and, eventually, a managing director position at the same company.
The mid-career professional who pursued an online masters degree in data science while aggressively expanding his network. Within two years: book endorsements, podcast appearances, and a transformed career.
Three people. Three different starting points. Same solution: they each tended to the three corners of professional success.
Skills. Credentials. Network. Here’s what each corner means:
Skills: Can You Do the Work?
This is the obvious one, but it’s more layered than most people realize. You need hard skills (can you code, analyze data, design a system?), soft skills (can you communicate clearly, collaborate effectively, adapt to changing circumstances?), and job sculpting skills (can you position yourself effectively through résumés, cover letters, and strategic outreach?).Furthermore, in a world where AI can replicate many technical skills, you need to demonstrate more than competence. You need to show you can apply skills in messy, real-world contexts that don’t come with clear instructions. This comes from years of solving problems and creating possibilities in collaborative, real-world contexts.
Credentials: Can You Navigate Systems?
Yes, the “skills-based hiring” movement is real. But credentials still matter, and not just for the knowledge they represent. A degree signals to employers that you showed up, navigated a complex system, and saw a multiyear commitment through to completion. As one hiring manager told me: “If you finished college, I know you can operate in structured environments, meet deadlines, and push through when things get difficult.” Credentials aren’t just proof of knowledge. They’re proof of persistence and the ability to navigate systems.
Network: Does Anyone Know You Exist?
This is the most overlooked corner and the hardest to measure. Stanford University sociologist Mark Granovetter famously called it “the strength of weak ties”: the acquaintances who know different people and have access to different opportunities than your close friends do. It’s about who knows what you can do, who vouches for you when opportunities arise, and who creates pathways you’d never find on your own. The number of LinkedIn connections doesn’t matter. It’s the depth of contacts and engagements you have with people in your field and adjacent fields that does. Professional associations, internships, alumni networks, mentors: these aren’t “nice to have.” They’re foundational.
Why All Three Matter
Here’s what I’ve seen so many people misunderstand: they’re crushing it in one corner but can’t figure out why their career isn’t clicking. Dazzling skills, impressive credentials, cool connections, yet nothing’s working.
I had one mentee who applied to hundreds of marketing jobs. He had impressive skills but no network and the wrong credentials. No interviews came his way. From where he sat, it was maddening. From the outside, it wasn’t mysterious at all. A strong network may have been able to overcome the credential mismatch, but with neither in place he had to carefully reconsider his next steps.
Meanwhile, often mid-career professionals considering a master’s degree forget to be strategic about all three corners. The best programs aren’t just about the credential. You’re bringing work experience, building new skills, and accessing a powerful alumni network simultaneously. Too often people enter programs with a narrow focus. I’ve seen professionals complete expensive degrees, ace every exam, and graduate with zero meaningful relationships in their cohort. They dont even think about using their student status to land an internship or fellowship at organizations they care about. They paid for one corner and ignored the other two!
Here’s what makes this framework durable: the three corners reinforce each other. When you sharpen someone’s work, you’re building their skills. When you help them navigate complexity, you’re teaching system navigation. When you make introductions, you’re expanding their network. The framework works at every career stage because the fundamentals don’t change.
The world is changing fast. AI disrupts skills, remote work reshapes networks, degree inflation is real. But employers will always need people who can do things well, navigate complexity, and work effectively with humans.
Assess all three corners honestly. Where are you strongest? Where have you been neglecting? Invest there. Your next opportunity won’t come from one thing; it’ll come from understanding how all three work together. And while you can’t control luck, building all three corners means you’re ready when it shows up.
If youre a CEO, entrepreneur, recruiter, or hiring manager, you know how important it is to hire the right people for the right roles. But hiring the right people for the right roles goes way beyond simply attracting the best and brightest of your industry. Just because someone is highly qualified, great at what they do and has impressive experience, doesnt mean they are a good fit for your organization or your culture. If you want your business to thrive in the marketplace, you need to filter out potential employees who may not be a great fit for your organization and attract those who are the most likely to thrive. Here are three ways to attract potential employees who are more likely to fall in love with your brand.
Give candidates a realistic job preview
According to LinkedIn, the biggest concern candidates experience when searching for a job is not knowing what its really like to work at an organization before they apply. If you truly want to give candidates a transparent look at your organization, including the not-so-glamorous side of the role they are applying for, consider adopting Realistic Job Previews as part of your recruitment strategy. Realistic Job Previews (RJPs), as the name suggests, are designed to give candidates a realistic peek behind the curtains of the role they are applying for so they can make well-informed decisions on whether the job is one which they will love and thrive in.
Some companies, like Boston Consulting Group, allow candidates to take a 3D tour of the company and to register for a job simulation. Other companies, such as Marriott, use gamification to give candidates the opportunity to perform the digital equivalents of the tasks they would perform on the job if they are successful in their application. This gives candidates a close approximation of the difficulty level of the jobs they are applying for and can help them decide whether the job they are applying for is a good fit for them.
If you simply dont have the budget for these high-tech solutions, an effective low-tech alternative may be to simply allow candidates applying for a job at your organization to spend an entire day in your workplace shadowing team members in the department they are applying to be a part of and speaking with any of your team members individually or in groupsunsupervised and without any intervention or interruption by any member of our leadership team.
This allows candidates the opportunity to have a truly unfiltered and uncensored view of your business from the perspective of employees without management running interference. Candidates who like what they see will be more likely to apply for (and love) a role at your organization, while those who dont will look elsewhere for employment (saving you valuable time and money). This is RJP in its purest and most transparent form.
Dont worry too much about scaring off candidates with the truth, because when you stop and think about it, if they join your team, it wont be long before they see both your strengths and weaknesses for themselves. Its much better to be upfront with candidates so they can make an informed choice rather than to hide the truth and have your new employees quit after a few months, weeks, or days after they experience your culture for themselves!
Articulate an inspiring purpose
Research by Gallup shows that employees with a strong sense of purpose in the workplace are 5.6 times as likely to be engaged in their jobs compared to those with a low sense of purpose. And research conducted by McKinsey indicated that 82% of employees believe its important for their company to have a purpose. Thats why its important to carefully articulate your purpose in a way that inspires potential employees who are aligned with your purpose to want to work with you.
If your purpose is, for example, to help alleviate poverty, it will attract individuals who love the idea of helping people improve their quality of life. If your purpose is to create technologically advanced products that improve the lives of customers, that purpose will help attract individuals who genuinely love being involved in the process of technological innovation. And, if your purpose is to help preserve the environment, you will attract employees who are passionate about conserving natural habitats.
If your company doesnt have a thoughtfully articulated and documented purpose, take the time to do so right awayit just might help you to attract individuals who will love working at your organization.
Demonstrate that you value career development
If you want your employees to love your organization, let them know upfront what career opportunities they may be eligible for across the organization beyond the role for which they are applying. Deloittes Explore Your Fit initiative does a good job of this by using technology that allows candidates to answer a series of questions about themselves, their experience, and their interests. Based on the responses, Deloitte will provide candidates with a custom digital guide to help them navigate career opportunities within their fit area.
If you prefer a more personal touch, have a conversation with candidates that includes a review of your organizational chart, and what positions they may be eligible for if they excel at the position they are currently applying forespecially if your company has a history of promoting from within the organization. Some companies that value career development have even been known to create custom positions for high performers they want to retain even after they have outgrown the positions they originally applied forsomething you may want to consider if you want to ensure that you retain your top talent, even in roles you may not have previously envisioned.
When employers demonstrate that they value career development, candidates are more likely to have confidence that their work will be meaningful and lead to future opportunities within the organizationhelping them make a more informed decision and more likely to fall in love with the jobs they have applied for.
Of course, there are several other ways to attract employees who will love working for your organization, but these three activities are an excellent way to start the process of having potential employees who will fall in love with their roles in your organization.
Can I say it?
If you have ever scrolled on social media and felt like you joined a conversation halfway through, with no context at all, you are not alone. Over the past few weeks, a type of posting has resurfaced online with the sole purpose of ragebaiting everyone.
It is called vagueposting, and it involves being intentionally cryptic as a form of engagement bait. Common vagueposts include can I say it? without ever saying anything, or insisting you wont like the answer without ever revealing the answer. Or oh thats not What? WHAT?
The practice is not new. The term was originally called vaguebooking, which referred to posting emo Facebook statuses that pandered for attention. One example might be writing worst day ever without offering any details, or posting a black square paired with a pointed platitude.
The first meme of the year was one example of vagueposting in action. It started with a TikTok posted in December about rebranding for 2026. In the comments, others shared their own strategies and self-improvement tips for the upcoming year. A user named Tamara shared her own method involving 365 buttons.
@poptrish #tamara #365buttons #2026 #rebrand long live tamara and i wonder what they buttons are for ?? I was very intruiged before i even realized that was the whole comment section Sybau – KCK Mixes
When pressed to explain what the 365 buttons were for, she simply responded: Hey, so it actually only has to make sense to me for me to do it and I dont feel like explaining it to anyone else.
Vagueposting has also resurfaced on platforms like X in December and early January. On X, one user noted, Why has this entire site turned to fucking vagueposting in the past month, like every viral tweet means nothing anymore because there’s no context.
Why has this entire site turned to fucking vagueposting in the past month, like every viral tweet means nothing anymore because there's no context— FPSthetics (@FPSthetics) December 15, 2025
Another added: Many dreadful things are happening online, but I’m really impressed by how utterly maddening the vagueposting for likes trend is.
Many dreadful things are happening online, but I'm really impressed by how utterly maddening the "vagueposting for likes" trend is— Clarissa Aykroyd (@stoneandthestar) January 26, 2026
The fact that vagueposting is proliferating on X right now is not a coincidence. Elon Musks new monetization policies have warped the platform. Those who remain are in a race to the bottom, competing against AI slop in pursuit of clicks and engagement.
Vagueposting is a trend because the algorithm senses that you are clicking on those tweets (engagement) to see the replies for context, one X user explained. So it promotes vague tweets over ones that explain enough that you can read and scroll past them.
vagueposting is a trend because the algorithm senses that you are clicking on those tweets (engagement) to see the replies for context so it promotes vague tweets over ones that explain enough that you can read and scroll past them.— demi adejuyigbe (@electrolemon) January 11, 2026
As the internet continues to eat itself, what remains across beleaguered social media platforms are half-formed thoughts, clips stripped of necessary context, and engagement baits designed to hook our shrinking attention spans and further trigger our dysregulated nervous systems.
youre probably not gonna like the answer.
Women in all parts of my life are encountering similar obstacles in their health journeys. The common thread is that when we dont advocate for ourselves and ask the right questions, we dont get the care we need.
While volunteering as a womens heart health advocate and immersing my public relations agency in the health innovation ecosystem, Im constantly thinking about how to bring to light the issuesand solutionsthat are all around us.
Women are dying because we aren’t marketing life-saving therapies to them, said Rachel Rubin, MD, a urologist and sexual medicine specialist, and assistant clinical professor in urology at Georgetown University Hospital. She made these comments in her 2-hour conversation last May with Peter Attia, MD, on his podcast The Drive. The podcast discussion helped illuminate the decades-long debate around hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Since then, the FDA removed its 20-year-plus warning label on HRT for menopause.
STORYTELLING CAN HELP
This is where storytelling can lead to real change, bringing awareness to previously misunderstood or underreported issues that can save lives.
At the very least, we need to encourage each other to find the right provider, ask the right questions, and not settle until we get the answers we need.
Professionally, the optimist in me cant help but see opportunities to help connect these dots. Here are four immediate steps we can take:
Education: Over the last year, Ive heard countless stories of women dismissing seemingly minor symptoms that turned out to be the precursor to a heart attack or undiagnosed cardiovascular health issue. The message is clear: We need to empower women to listen to our bodies by giving patients and providers the platforms to share their stories. Fortunately, journalists are looking for sources to speak with every single day, and PR professionals can play matchmaker.
Funding: Media coverage can help the next round of health innovators secure funding and support. If you share your stories and expertise with journalists and podcasts, and on social networks like LinkedIn, you can create a butterfly effect that can influence these sources of funding.
Reach and scale: Even early-stage startups, regional providers, small practices, and nonprofits have the opportunity to get quoted in national media outlets. Every day, journalists are looking for credentialed medical experts across topics like menopause, fertility, heart health, nutrition, and mental health to comment on the stories theyre filing for trusted news sources. You can enlist the help of a PR team or respond to queries yourself, if you have the time.
Partnerships: While there are incredibly innovative health solutions popping up around the world, the massive opportunity in womens healthand healthcare overallrequires the whole ecosystem to take part. A PR strategy focused on increasing visibility in industry publications and at conferences can help innovators and payers form meaningful partnerships.
Strategic partnerships between femtech and big tech, femtech and pharma, femtech and retail, and more are on the rise. These success stories illuminate a powerful way for womens health startups to rapidly scale in both reach and credibility, Theresa Neil, founder of Femovate and a deep femtech advocate told me.
Building on the momentum over the last year, Im encouraged by the direction of womens health conversations, and yet I still know too many women who struggle to get the help they need.
We can all play a part in amplifying these stories.
Amy Jackson is founder and CEO of TaleSplash.
For decades, women business owners have faced a persistent challenge: access to capital. Despite owning nearly half of all small businesses in the U.S., women often encounter barriers to financing. Ive seen from my experience at the SBA and now First Women’s Bank, that one of the biggest drivers of the gender lending gap isnt just rejection, its that many women dont come forward for financing at all. Whether due to lack of awareness, confidence, or systemic hurdles, access captures both those who are denied and those who never apply.
Also driving the gender lending gap is the type of capital women seek. Women often seek startup capital that is difficult to obtain, rather than growth and acquisition capital. Especially pronounced is the lack of acquisition financing in the womens economy. Women are starting businesses at twice the national average, yet based on my experience, the number of women engaged in financing business acquisitions versus startups is relatively low.
That matters because when women choose to bootstrap startups and grow organically rather than acquiring an existing business, they are choosing the long road to success. Business acquisitions can be a powerful shortcut to scale. Starting from scratch means building infrastructure, cash flow, and customer relationships, one step at a time. Acquiring an established business gives you all that on day one, plus brand equity and proven operations. Its a way to bypass early-stage risk and accelerate growth by leveraging whats already working.
SBA LOANS AND REAL ESTATE
And back to the issue of access to capital. A startup, from a banks perspective, can be risky to finance and difficult to underwrite as the bank can only review projections. Financing an acquisition can be more achievable, as the bank can underwrite the acquisition targets past business performance. SBA 7(a) loans are a strong financing option for business acquisitions, and combining an equity raise with SBA financing is yet another strategy that can create a healthy debt-to-equity structure and lower the debt burden for the business post-acquisition.
Financing the acquisition of owner-occupied real estate, or in other words, acquiring real estate for your business to operate from, is another underutilized strategy in the womens economy. Real estate assets can strengthen your balance sheet by adding real estate collateral, which can be used to secure future growth financing. Real estate ownership can stabilize expenses, eliminate landlord restrictions, and build long-term control and consistency. Over time, these assets dont just support operations; they enhance your business value to your banks and investors. For owner-occupied real estate acquisition, SBA 7(a) and 504 loans can offer lower down payments for those who qualify.
ACQUISITION FINANCING TO CLOSE THE GAP
Strategic acquisition financing can lead to women controlling more assets, gaining negotiating power, improved financing terms, and the ability to reinvest in their companies and communities. Financing the acquisition of both business and real estate assets creates a virtuous cycle of empowerment, growth, and credibility, a critical step toward closing the gender lending gap.
Marianne Markowitz is CEO of First Women’s Bank.
Elon Musk is merging his rocket maker SpaceX with his artificial intelligence startup xAI in a deal that changes what a future SpaceX IPO represents.
After rumors surfaced last week, Musk confirmed the move Monday in a SpaceX blog post, calling the combined company the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, spanning AI, rockets, space-based internet, and his social media platform, X. Public records filed in Nevada and obtained by CNBC show the deal was completed February 2, with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. listed as the managing member of X.AI Holdings.
Bloomberg reports that the merged company is expected to price shares in an initial public offering that could value it at $1.25 trillion. At that scale, the story is no longer just about rockets. It is about AI and Musks claim that the future of compute will not be confined to Earth.
A $1.25 trillion IPO that looks very different
Before the deal, a SpaceX IPO would have given investors exposure to space launch services, government contracts, Starlinks satellite internet business, and Musks long-term Mars ambitions.
Now it would also include a frontier AI company and a new thesis: AI cannot scale on terrestrial infrastructure. It must scale in orbit.
SpaceX was valued at about $800 billion in a secondary share sale last year. And xAI was valued at roughly $230 billion in a $20 billion funding round earlier this year. The percentage uplift is larger for SpaceX, while xAI shareholders gain stability by being folded into one of the most profitable private aerospace companies.
Reuters reported last week that SpaceX generated an estimated $8 billion in profit on $15 billion to $16 billion in revenue in 2025, citing people familiar with the results. By contrast, xAI is still burning cash as it races to build infrastructure to compete with OpenAI and Google, which remain ahead in the model race. The merger ties those two trajectories together.
It looks like Elon Musk has one window to do a big IPO, and he wants to make the most of that, Edward Niedermeyer, author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors and an auto industry analyst, told Fast Company last week.
Musks core claim: Earth cannot power the future of AI
Musk argues that AIs reliance on power-hungry data centers is unsustainable, as rising demand strains both electrical grids and the environment. His solution is to move the problem off-planet. Space is called ‘space’ for a reason, he said in the blog post, arguing that there will be more room off the planet.
My estimate is that within two to three years, the lowest-cost way to generate AI compute will be in space, Musk continued. This cost efficiency alone will enable innovative companies to train their AI models and process data at unprecedented speeds and scales.
SpaceX has already asked the Federal Communications Commission for authorization to launch up to 1 million satellites as part of what Musk calls an orbital data center.
Orbital data centers powered by the Sun
The orbital data center plan would require launching 1 million tons of satellites per year. Each ton generates 100 kilowatts of compute, which equals 100 gigawatts of AI capacity added annually.
Even in 2025, the most prolific year in orbital history, humanity launched only about 3,000 tons of payload into space, mostly Starlink satellites aboard Falcon rockets.
The difference now is Starship. Musk envisions Starship rockets launching every hour, carrying roughly 200 tons per flight, and delivering millions of tons to orbit per year.
SpaceX already operates the worlds largest satellite constellation through Starlink, with more than 9,000 satellites in orbit and roughly 9 million customers. The operational lessons from Starlink form the foundation for something much larger: satellites that function as AI data centers.
A familiar Musk playbook
This is not the first time Musk has merged his companies to move faster. Early last year, he merged xAI with X (formerly Twitter). Now xAI is being folded into SpaceX. Tesla, the primary source of Musks liquid wealth, said last week that it has agreed to invest about $2 billion into xAI.
The merger also pulls SpaceX into xAIs regulatory scrutiny.
Currently, xAI is facing probes in Europe, India, Australia, and California after its Grok AI tools allowed users to generate sexualized images of children and nonconsensual intimate images of adults from photos found online. These investigations add risk to a company that is already spending heavily to catch up in the AI arms race.
Folding xAI into SpaceX gives it financial cover and operational scale, but it also ties SpaceXs future IPO to those controversies.
Beyond orbit: the Moon and deep space
Musks vision does not stop with satellites circling Earth.
Starships ability to land heavy cargo on the moon opens the possibility of lunar manufacturing. Factories could use lunar materials to build satellites and deploy them deeper into space using electromagnetic mass drivers. Musk argues that at that scale, humanity begins to harness more of the suns energy.
The business case is simpler. If space becomes the cheapest place to run AI compute, everything else follows.
“The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centers a reality will fund and enable self-growing bases on the moon, an entire civilization on Mars, and ultimately, expansion to the universe,” Musk wrote in the blog post.
Oracle shares fell 2% Monday following the company’s announcement it planned to raise upwards to $50 billion in 2026.
Funding rounds of that size are no longer unusual. The surge in AI investment and the growing need for cloud capacity and data centers have pushed many companies to seek massive financing. But Oracles recent run has been unusually volatile. Just a few months ago, its shares jumped 40% in a single day, briefly making CEO Larry Ellison the worlds richest person (ahead of Elon Musk).
That spike came after Oracle reported a 359% increase in its remaining performance obligation (RPO, which are expected revenues based on customer commitments). That was driven by a $300 billion contract with OpenAI. Things haven’t gone so well since then, though.
The stock saw a big tumble after the company reported earnings in December that fell short of analyst’s revenue expectations, the stock saw a big tumble. And Oracle shares today are well below where they stood before the spike. As of Monday, they were more than 30% lower than the mid-September level.
The need to build out the infrastructure remains, though, thus the hunt for financing, which will be raised in debt and equity. Oracle, on Sunday, said it plans to use the $45 to $50 billion it hopes to raise this year to expand its cloud capacity as demand increases from customers including Nvidia, Meta, OpenAI, TikTok and xAI.
While the stock was higher at times on Monday, investors began to have doubts as the day went on. In recent months, the market has become increasingly concerned about Oracle’s aggressive AI buildout plans, as well as the debt the company is taking on. That has led to the underperformance of the stock.
An overreliance on OpenAI may also be a factor. While Oracle’s RPO announcement last fall gave shares a boost, a similar announcement from Microsoft last week (where RPO jumped 110% to $625 billion, with 45% of that number being a commitment from OpenAI) saw that company’s stock tumble.
Like Microsoft, Oracle has significant exposure to OpenAI’s ability to delivery on its promised business. While OpenAI has been successful in its ongoing fundraising efforts, it has made $1.4 trillion in total commitments over the next eight years. That’s despite the company still not being profitable and continually hunting for additional funding (Amazon could be the next big investor, as the companies are in talks for the retailer to purchase up to a $50 billion stake. And a possible IPO looms by the end of the year.)
Some analysts see Oracles financing plan as a way to reduce that dependence. By issuing equity and slightly diluting existing shareholders, Oracle can help fund its expansion without jeopardizing its investment-grade credit rating, a key factor for more conservative investors such as pension funds.
“Oracle is not only saying they’re committed to investment-grade debt, but they are sending a clear message to bond investors and the rating agencies that they are,” Guggenheim analysts said in a note to investors.
Oracle’s hunt for additional funding underscores just how competitive the AI field is these days. The company is racing to catch up in the cloud infrastructure field with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. The more infrastructure-as-a-service (essentially computing power and storage it can rent out) Oracle has available, the more it can share in the cash outflow that AI companies are doling out.
Whether Oracle can regain investor goodwill on an ongoing basis will likely be determined March 9, when it is next expected to report quarterly earnings. Investors will be looking for guidance about cloud capacity and AI partnerships. If revenues growth in that segment outpaces spending, Oracle could reverse the decline it has been seeing for the past several months.
