Birkenstock, the renowned German footwear brand, posted stronger-than-expected sales for its fiscal first quarter, fueled by strong holiday demand and the growing popularity of its closed-toe clogs.
However, the companys U.S.-listed shares (NYSE: BIRK) were down about 3% in premarket trading Thursday as of the time of this writing.
Strong demand meets investor skepticism
The company reported quarterly revenue of 361.7 million, exceeding analyst expectations of 356.2 million. However, it maintained its annual margin forecast, as Reuters reported.
The drop in share price is likely related to a cautious outlook on profit margins for fiscal 2025, with investors also concerned about the long-term impact of Birkenstock’s expansion strategyespecially the rising costs associated with new retail locations and manufacturing facilities.
Expansion costs weigh on margins
The footwear brand has been aggressively expanding, particularly in Asia. In October 2024, Birkenstock launched a dedicated e-commerce platform in South Korea and announced plans to open brick-and-mortar stores in the region by spring 2025.
The companys gross margins fell by 330 basis points in fiscal 2024, as the Wall Street Journal reported, largely due to increased spending on new retail locations and manufacturing facilities, including a new production plant in Pasewalk, Germany.
Investors may be wary of how long these expenditures will continue to pressure profits before yielding meaningful returns.
Market expectations and profit misses
Birkenstocks revenue forecast for fiscal 2025between 15% and 17% growthfell slightly below expectations. Analysts had anticipated a more aggressive outlook, especially given the companys recent momentum.
Additionally, while sales have been strong, profits have not kept pace. Birkenstocks earnings report showed that despite higher revenues, net income was lower than analysts had projected. This discrepancy suggests that rising operational costs, supply-chain expenses, and promotional spending may be eating into profitability.
Brand strength vs. market concerns
Birkenstock remains a strong brand with cultural relevance, thanks in part to high-profile collaborations and celebrity endorsements. However, the stocks decline reflects broader market concerns about whether the company can translate its current sales momentum into sustained long-term profitability.
This isn’t the first time investors have reacted negatively to Birkenstock’s financial performance. In August 2024, the companys stock plummeted 15% after missing profit estimates. While the latest dip isn’t as severe, it signals continued skepticism about the company’s ability to balance growth with profitability.
The stock prices of quantum computing companies are surging in premarket trading this morning after Microsoft unveiled a new type of quantum computing chip yesterday, the Majorana 1. Heres what you need to know about Microsofts breakthrough and its impact on the stock prices of quantum computing companies.
What is Microsofts Majorana 1 chip?
Things can get very complicated when discussing anything about quantum computing because the technology involves quantum physicsnever a straightforward subject to discuss.
However, in brief, quantum computing is a burgeoning field of computing that uses the properties of quantum physics to carry out computations. In classical computing, classical computerswhich include your Android phone, your MacBook, and todays most powerful supercomputers that currently power AI platformsoperate using bits, each bit being a one or a zero.
But Quantum computers operate using qubits. Due to the properties of quantum physics, a qubit can be a one and a zero at the same time, meaning quantum computers can carry out computations nearly infinitely faster than classical computersprovided they have enough quantum bits.
Right now, most quantum computers have far fewer than 100 qubits, and experts think that a quantum computer will need to have at least a million qubits in order to easily process and solve complex problems (such as coming up with a cure for all cancers or creating self-healing materials). This current lack of qubit computing power is why many experts think practical quantum computers are still decades awayor at least they were.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it has created a new type of quantum computing chip called the Majorana 1. The chip uses an entirely new form of matter, called a topoconductor, that makes it much easier to scale qubits. Right now, the Majorana 1 only has 8 qubits, but Microsoft says the chips topoconductor matter offers a path to fit a million qubits on a single chip.
Because of the Majorana 1, Microsoft now says that quantum computers that can solve meaningful, large-scale problems could be on the market in years, not decades.
Quantum computing stocks surge
The fact that Microsofts breakthrough seems to suggest we are just years and not decades away from a reliable quantum computer has lit a fire under quantum computing stocks this morning.
If practical quantum computers are just years away, then quantum computing companies stand to start growing revenues and making profits much sooner than expectedat least, thats the hope. And it seems that hope is causing some investors to buy into existing quantum computing shares.
At the time of this writing, D-Wave Quantum Inc. (NYSE: QBTS), Quantum Computing Inc. (Nasdaq: QUBT), and Rigetti Computing, Inc. (Nasdaq: RGTI) are all up over 10% in premarket trading. IonQ, Inc. (NYSE: IONQ) is up around 4%.
While those companies aren’t directly tied to the Majorana 1, it seems that their stock price jump is a case of a rising tide lifts all boats. If commercial quantum computing is closer than expected, companies operating in the space have a chance to gain sooner than once thought.
But the stocks remain volatile
While the four major public quantum computing companies are seeing their stock prices rise today in the hope that the quantum computing world is much nearer than once believed, its important to note that shares in quantum computing companies have been highly volatile over the past year.
For example, while shares of QBTS are up 275% over the past 12 months as of yesterdays stock market close, its share price has dropped 22% since the beginning of the year.
Likewise, QUBT shares are up 784% over the past 12 months, but they are down over 51% since 2025 began.
RGTI shares are up 552% over the past 12 months but down 27% year-to-date.
IONQ shares are up over 215% over the last year but down over 18% since this year began.
And lately, it is not uncommon to see the share prices in these companies surge or fall by double-digit percentages in a single trading session.
The point is, there is a lot of excitement around quantum computing, but also a lot of speculation. Investors are looking for the next Nvidiaa company that can quickly go from being worth billions to trillions of dollars.
While Microsofts latest chip advancement is a huge step forward for the industry, there remains no certainty on where quantum computing goes from here, or how quickly everyday usage of quantum computers arrive.
The IRS will lay off roughly 7,000 workers in Washington and around the country beginning Thursday, a person familiar with the plans told the Associated Press.The layoffs affect probationary employees with roughly one year or less of service at the agency and largely include workers in compliance departments, according to the person, who was not authorized to disclose the plans and spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday. Compliance work includes ensuring that taxpayers are abiding by the tax code, filing their returns, and paying their taxes, among other duties.The layoffs are part of the Trump administration’s intensified efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce through the Department of Government Efficiency by ordering agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees who have not yet gained civil service protection. They come despite IRS employees involved in the 2025 tax season being told earlier this month that they would not be allowed to accept a buyout offer from the Trump administration until mid-May, after the taxpayer filing deadline.It’s unclear how the layoffs may affect tax collection services this year. As the nation’s revenue collector, the IRS was tasked during the Biden administration with targeting high-wealth tax evaders for an additional stream of income to the U.S., which is $36 trillion in debt. By the end of 2024, the IRS collected over $1.3 billion in back taxes from rich tax dodgers.The IRS has roughly 90,000 employees total across the United States, according to the latest IRS data. Racial minorities make up 56% of the IRS workforce, and women represent 65%.In addition to the planned layoffs, the Trump administration intends to lend IRS workers to the Department of Homeland Security to assist with immigration enforcement. In a letter sent earlier this month, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to borrow IRS workers to help with ongoing immigration crackdown efforts.Representatives from the IRS and U.S. Treasury did not respond to requests for comment from the AP.
Fatima Hussein, Associated Press
In The Mindset of Making, Oliver Jeffers shared a compelling invitation: Simply make as an extension of being alive.
His wisdom ignited my imagination. Too often, we associate creativity with being an artist, when all of us are creators. What might the world look like if we tapped into our innate creativity?
The world is a result of all of us as creators and storytellers, Jeffers shares. All human beings are is a collection of stories: There are the stories that we’re told, the stories that are told about us, and then the stories that we tell.
Were all born with this sense of surviving and then makingthat is the reason that civilization flourished in the first place, he adds. So, to say that creativity is just for artistsor it’s just decoration or entertainmentis to fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of creativity.
Jeffers is a visual artist and author, renowned across mediums from painting to performance, sculpture to bookmaking. Hes created 21 award-winning picture books, while presenting first of their kind art exhibits around the world.
His answer reflected the spirit that he creates his own art with: an unafraid curiosity to explore both the beauty and complexity of our life on Earth. Then, an invitation to write a better story about it.
In our conversation, Jeffers illuminates questions and a road map to begin doing so, individually and collectively. He shares how to trust yourself as a creative, master the art of simplicity, and ask questions to design a brighter future.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
[Image: Philomel books]
Fast Company: Youve described your work as making books about what it means to be a human being. What questions do you ask yourself every day to uncover the heart of that? What answers have you discovered?
If I’m talking about me as an individual, or anybody as an individual, its one set of questions. If were talking about society at large, it’s a different set of questions.
With me, its: What is it that I actually want? If I can answer that question honestly, then pair it with who it’s for, it’s a unique way of understanding my own set of circumstances: Why am I doing any of this? What is it for?
The question that I get asked when I’m speaking at art colleges with young adult students is: What do you do when you’re trying to find your style? Or, when you face rejection or artist’s block?
When you really sit down and questionWhose validation is it you’re seeking?you probably can’t come up with an answer with a person. If you can, you probably won’t like that answer.
You only get one crack at this business of being alive. So, the question to yourself is: What do you want to do with that time? What is it all for? Who is it all for?
When you were talking about your books, you shared that they are distilled down to such a pure form that I have to know what theyre saying . . . What is the fewest amount of words you can use and the sparsest artwork that fully conveys the emotion and structure of the story? What is essential in the art of simplicity? How do you practice that discipline?
By thinking a lot about: What is the why behind the why? What is the simpler way to say this? What is the feeling that I’m trying to convey, with as little information as possible, but with as little distortion as possible?
Theres the classic line about storytelling: Give the audience what they want, just not the way they expect it. Whenever you pander to what you think people want, you end up making work that’s derivative or dry. Making art is effectively about being very, very openly vulnerable.
When Im thinking about the books that arent simple stories, but about my observations in the world, say it’s a book about greed thats a comment on capitalism like The Fate of Fausto. Its not really about that. Its about: Why do we have that in the first place? Why is more always better? What is our fundamental relationship with nature all about?
Its getting deeper and simpler to the point of the cogs of the wheelthe center of the wheel so to speakwhere any little movement at that zoomed-in level has a massive amplification when you magnify it.
You shared a great mantra: Be the river, not the rock. What does this mean to you and how does it guide you?
Its the comparison between the river and the rock specifically, because the rock is unbending and unwilling to move. It seems strong and rigid. But, the water, in its own meandering way, will find a way around it and the rock will eventually get eroded down.
Do you have other mantras?
Another one is when I get creative block, how I get over it is to remember that I’ll be dead soon. Thats the creative kick in the arse that anybody ever really needs. Nobody is going to do the work for you. If you want it to happen, what are you waiting for?
In describing your portraiture work, you said every time I start a new painting or go into a direction of a body of work, I say: Im going to be loose this time. I want to be big and loose. I invariably keep getting back to being tighter at that skill. I somehow cant find the freedom and energy that happens intuitively with the book art on a large scale painting. Im still learning to trust myself. What have you learned about staying loose in the creative process, especially when youre simultaneously trying to improve?
It was a comment on when I first set off post university. In my final years at art college, I wanted to be a painter. I wanted to be in the fine art world. Thats what I set off to do.
Then, the books were a tangent from that, but the books exploded. I wanted to prove to the art world: Look, Im a real artist. So, the early paintings I was making, I discovered that I did have a talent for figurative painting. I used that to my advantage quite well. But, then I couldn’t escape from that, because I kept trying to prove to people that I can paint.
The looseness and freedom is not just a visual aesthetic term. It’s about the process and the project as well. Ive been getting that with worrying less about the outcome and enjoying the act of making. So, its starting to happen. A big part of it is both literally using a bigger paintbrush. But, trusting yself and trusting the right moment, because some days it flows and some days it doesnt; And, not beating myself up on the days when it doesn’t.
Lets talk about your Dipped Painting Project: You paint a portrait of someone in your studio. Then, conduct a performance where you dip it into paint for a small audience. Theyre the only people who ever see the painting. It evokes the nonattachment notions of Buddhist sand mandalas, when they create sand art and then destroy it. Tell us about the value of nonattachment in creativity and in life. How do you cultivate it?
A lot of people did compare the Dipped Paintings to the monks and the sand. But, there’s one difference: They intentionally said that they destroyed the work afterwards, whereas that’s not what I’m doing. There’s a fine line between creation and destruction. What I’m actually doing is completing the creation, because it was always the intention to do that. There is still a thing that you look at. It just has a very different set of expected properties. It still looks like a beautiful object in the end, as opposed to the sand, which is scattered to the wind.
I consider those paintings incomplete until they’re dipped, not completed and destroyed. Its all about intent and motivation. Language is a funny thing. Motivation can often be the nuance in language.
This question may be irrelevant, given that its your intention. But, after working so hard on it, does it hurt when you dip it into paint?
It doesnt, because at that point it’s a piece of performance, almost like a theatrical ceremony where there’s a lot that I’m thinking of. Theres a poem that I recite and a speech that I give. There’s a lot of choreography. I’m not thinking about the painting. I barely look at it during the ceremony.
No photographs ever exist, but I have my moments with it during the process of the creation. I’ll be painting a hand, finger, or ear. I know its going to get covered. I’ve learned to appreciate that one little moment in that time. It’s like watching a sunset. Theres no point in taking a photograph of the sunset: A) Because they’re very hard to photograph; B) You never look at them again; C) Thats not what it’s about. It’s not about how it looks. It’s about how it feels.
You talked about that earlier, where you’re trying to find these beautiful moments throughout the week. I’ve always been like this, where I see beauty all around me, all the time. There could be myriad reasons for that. Im very comfortable with my own mortality. I’m very comfortable with having everything or having nothing. I’m very comfortable with change and other people’s expectations. Hell, I’m just along for the ride.
[Image: Philomel books]
Shifting gears to your mission, this Wayne Dyer quote feels reflective of your work and the questions you have us ask: When you change the way you see things, the things you see change. What does that mean to you and what helps you embody that?
Its absolutely right. It’s about perspective. There’s the theory of duality, which is a mathematical equation that shows that light, if it’s measured in particles, becomes a particle. If it’s measured in waves, it becomes a wave. How can light be both a particle and a wave? What this is really saying is: By how we choose to look at something, we define what it is. Perspective is everything.
It reminds me of when I was doing research for Here We Are and looking into the overview effect and cosmology. The astronauts on Apollo 8they were the ones who took that famous Earthrise photographwhen they turned the camera around and looked at Earth, what’s less talked about is that they saw this giant landmass. But, they couldnt work out what landmass they were looking at. It was the entire bottom half of Africa, but they didn’t recognize it because it was sideways.
We’ve been so conditioned to think of the map with north at the top and south at the bottom. But, that’s a perspective. The reality is that Earth is a ball floating through space. There is no up and there is no down. Therein, if you take a map of the world, turn it upside down, and label everything the right way up, which I have done, it makes everything that seems very familiar suddenly seem very foreign. Its an exercise that you can do at any point.
You described that your book Begin Again was saying: Heres a key. You can get inside yourself and turn the steering wheel a little bit. Expand on that intention for us.
If you go back to: What is it that you’re doing and why? If you were to take, say the division in America right now, a lot of it is about building the wall and other peopleWhat do you want? Why do you feel that this is so important? Is it because you don’t like the people that you’ve defined as your enemy and that they might be right? Or, is this what you actually want your fight to be about?
When you think about: If this is the one goal that I get of being alive, do I want to spend my time proving somebody wrong? Or, do I want to spend my time enjoying beauty? When you think about it in those simple terms, what are these fights about?
That’s what I mean. It was: You alone have access to that steering wheel of what your goals and motivations are. Nobody else will ever know. What does it matter that you change that? It’s not about being right and wrong. It’s about being better.
Lets expand on that, because you created an entry point to have a different conversation about the moment that were in when you said: We prioritize being right over wrong more than anything else. But, if we replace the words right or wrong in any conflict or debate with better or worse, it suddenly becomes very clear what needs to happen. Its not about the ego, self, or justifying the past. Its about: What do we do now? How do we make this better? Tell us about the power of the questions that we ask to shape our conversations and the outcomes of those conversations.
Most people in the USA, if you ask them what is the world that they want, without mentioning anything that they dont wantanybody who is a Democrat, Republican, or anywhere in between. No matter where they’re fro, people tend to answer the same things when they talk about what they do want, rather than what they don’t want.
So, if that is where we want to be, that would be better. What are the practical ways to get there? Forgetting about right and wrong, how do we get to better? It massively changes the discourse and the route that we’re currently on.
[Image: Philomel books]
An important lesson youve learned is to ask people more questions. You said: Ask people things about themselves and their lives, as you never know how they will reveal their story and what you might possibly learn from it. What is your favorite question to ask people?
It depends on who it is. I got to know Brandon, who started Humans of New York. He said that he can get people to sing like a canary, complete strangers, just by asking them: Whats your biggest struggle right now?
People are just waiting to reveal their vulnerable underbelly in a way that they feel seen and heard. Thats a nonjudgmental way to ask that question, where I’m not trying to prove you right or wrong. I’m interested in you as a person.
Lets bring this back to something that we talked about earlier. When you think about how many people, especially children, you have the ability to influence. Then, you think about creating like an artist, where youre creating for yourself. How do you continue to create for yourself, without thinking about what other people are going to think, when you have that platform and success?
Art is the one industry where the more selfish you are, the more generous you are.
I’ll take picture books, for example. If you think aboutWhat stories do kids want to hear?and then you try to make that story, its almost like what Henry Ford said about doing market research: If Id asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.
What tends to happen is if you think about: What has worked? I’ll do that again. The next big thing was never a repeat of the last big thing. You end up pandering and making work that’s derivative and dull. But, if you are being publicly vulnerable by being selfish, like: Here’s what I want to do and see. Im going to let everybody see me do it. You end up making work that’s way more accessible than if you make work that you think people want to see, because they’re like: Yes, thats human. Theres a human sense of motivations here that I understand. That makes sense to me now.
The internet can be a great place to learn random life hacks and cry over anglerfish. But what about when it comes to managing your money?
According to new data from Intuit Credit Karma, 77% of Gen Z and 61% of millennials are turning to social media for financial advice. Millennials mainly seek out YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram for information, while for Gen Z, TikTok has emerged as an unlikely hub for financial advice, under the hashtag FinTok. Here, content creators such as @YourRichBFF and @JohneFinance have combined followings of millions with videos that offer tips on everything from credit card rewards to flight costs to 401ks, crunched into less than a minute.
@johnefinance
Many finfluencers market themselves not so much on academic credentials or qualifications as on lived experience, with popular videos titles including Money habits for a 6 figure net worth and How I manifested a million dollars. Often the clips sound like solid money advice, but as is the case with anything online, if it sounds too good to be true . . . it often is.
@breakyourbudget Realistic habits that can help you reach a 6 figure net worth original sound – Michela – Break Your Budget
Some have discovered this lesson the hard way. Despite the popularity of online finfluencers, 39% of Gen Z and one-third (33%) of millennials say they will never take financial advice from social media or online ever again, and doing so has negatively impacted their lives. Mistakes and poor financial decisions can be costly. For 37% of Gen Z and a quarter (25%) of millennials, they have ended up in trouble (hello, IRS audit) after taking action on financial advice from social media or online. A quarter of Gen Z and 23% of millennials also admit theyve been scammed by bad actors pretending to offer financial guidance.
While social media platforms, and the internet at large, offer easy access to a ton of useful information people can adopt in their day-to-day lives, consumers should always do their research and verify the information they find online before taking action, especially when it comes to their finances, says Courtney Alev, consumer financial advocate at Credit Karma. There are a lot of bad actors and information out there that can end up causing a lot of harm to peoples financial lives.
While its always best to check (and double check) the information you scroll past online, sometimes you can strike gold. In fact, 64% of Gen Z and 63% of millennials say that the financial advice they received from an influencer has made a positive impact on their lives. Just make sure to do your due diligence and dont make a financial decision just because it is trending online.
Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled a new chip that it said showed quantum computing is “years, not decades” away, joining Google and IBM in predicting that a fundamental change in computing technology is much closer than recently believed.
Quantum computing holds the promise of carrying out calculations that would take today’s systems millions of years and could unlock discoveries in medicine, chemistry, and many other fields where near-infinite seas of possible combinations of molecules confound classical computers.
Quantum computers also hold the danger of upending today’s cybersecurity systems, where most encryption relies on the assumption that it would take too long to brute force gain access.
The biggest challenge of quantum computers is that a fundamental building block called a qubit, which is similar to a bit in classical computing, is incredibly fast but also extremely difficult to control and prone to errors.
Microsoft said the Majorana 1 chip it has developed is less prone to those errors than rivals and provided as evidence a scientific paper set to be published in academic journal Nature.
When useful quantum computers will arrive has become a topic of debate in the upper echelons of the tech industry. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last month that the technology was two decades away from overtaking his company’s chips, the workhorses of artificial intelligence, reflecting broad skepticism.
Those remarks prompted Google, which last year showed off its own new quantum chip, to say that commercial quantum computing applications are only five years away. IBM has said large-scale quantum computers will be online by 2033.
Microsoft’s Majorana 1 has been in the works for nearly two decades and relies on a subatomic particle called the Majorana fermion whose existence was first theorized in the 1930s. That particle has properties that make it less prone to the errors that plague quantum computers, but it has been hard for physicists to find and control.
Microsoft said it created the Majorana 1 chip with indium arsenide and aluminum. The device uses a superconducting nanowire to observe the particles and can be controlled with standard computing equipment.
The chip Microsoft revealed Wednesday has far fewer qubits than rival chips from Google and IBM, but Microsoft believes that far fewer of its Majorana-based qubits will be needed to make useful computers because the error rates are lower.
Microsoft did not give a timeline for when the chip would be scaled up to create quantum computers that can outstrip today’s machines, but the company said in a blog post that point was “years, not decades” away.
Jason Zander, the Microsoft executive vice president who oversees the company’s long-term strategic bets, described Majorana 1 as a “high risk, high reward” strategy.
The chip was fabricated at Microsoft labs in Washington state and Denmark.
“The hardest part has been solving the physics. There is no textbook for this, and we had to invent it,” Zander said in an interview with Reuters. “We literally have invented the ability to go create this thing, atom by atom, layer by layer.”
Philip Kim, a professor of physics at Harvard University who was not involved in Microsoft’s research, said that Majorana fermions have been a hot topic among physicists for decades and called Microsoft’s work an “exciting development” that put the company at the forefront of quantum research.
He also said that Microsoft’s use of a hybrid between traditional semiconductors and exotic superconductors appeared to be a good route toward chips that can be scaled up into more powerful chips.
“Although there’s no demonstration (of this scaling up) yet, what they are doing is really successful,” Kim said.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Peter Henderson and Jamie Freed)
As the Trump administration continues to dismantle federal agencies, one that plays a critical role in U.S. infrastructure and election security faces an uncertain future.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), housed in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and tasked with enforcing cybersecurity and protecting American infrastructure across all levels of government, placed multiple members of its election security team on administrative leave over the last few weeks, according to reports by the Associated Press and TechCrunch.
The 17 reported election security team members, part of the agencys foreign influence and disinformation teams, were placed on administrative leave as part of an overall review of the team, with a particular focus on those two operations. A DHS spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied that number. On Friday, the Trump administration separately fired more than 130 members of CISA, the DHS confirmed.
We are making sweeping cuts and reform across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer, a DHS spokesperson wrote in an email to Fast Company.
The DHS declined to answer any specific questions but noted that it is currently actively identifying other positions it deems wasteful. (The White House did not respond to Fast Companys request for comment.)
Although it may be too early to understand the full impact of these personnel shifts, some experts warn that the moves could have serious consequences for future elections.
Some of the staff who were put on administrative leave were the regional election security advisers, says Derek Tisler, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice, a left-wing think tank. This was a group of election security experts, and they played a vital role in providing on-the-ground support, connecting local election officials to all of the various services and expertise that CISA has to offer.
CISA, an agency created by President Donald Trump in 2018, was a critical resource to local election offices in the past three elections, Tisler tells Fast Company. The agency would help state and local officials protect their election systems against physical and cyber attacks.
However, CISA found itself in Trump’s crosshairs after the agency released a statement saying the 2020 election was the most secure in American history (Trump falsely claimed that the election was rigged). Trump responded by firing the then-director of CISAone of his own appointeesthrough a Tweet.
Trump is not the only Republican to target CISA. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has been leading a crusade against the agency for the past two years. The Ohio congressman subpoenaed the agency for election-related documents, and the Judiciary Committee labeled it the nerve center of government censorship.
Tisler says CISAs election security team has been vital because elections are so decentralized: There are more than 8,000 local election jurisdictions across the country that often have very small offices. CISA has valuable election security experts and resources that these offices can call upon.
CISA, tasked with overseeing all critical infrastructure, does much more than police election security. Several of its flagship projects have encouraged awareness surrounding best practices for cybersecurity. The agency runs a database of exploited network vulnerabilities for businesses to refer to and has also encouraged tech companies to promote secure development practices in its Secure by Design campaign.
Tisler fears that, should CISA dwindle in size, election security will become increasingly vulnerable to both foreign and domestic threats. Since the 2016 election, interference from foreign adversarieslike China, Iran, and Russiahas threatened American election security.
Among the 130 CISA members fired by Trump, several were working to counter Chinese hacking threats, according to CNNs Zachary Cohen.
Cybersecurity experts on both sides of the aisle have spoken very positively of CISA and the assistance it offers, according to Hugh Thompson, executive chairman of the cybersecurity conference RSAC. The cybersecurity community has become accustomed to partnering with CISA.
If you believe that you’re currently under attack, CISA would be one of the places that you would go to and either report the incident or get some feedback from them, Thompson says.
The administrations approach to cybersecurity has made headlines outside of the job cuts at CISA. Last week, Trump tapped as his new national cyber director the RNC executive Sean Cairncross, who doesnt have any background in cybersecurity. And over the weekend, CISA temporarily froze all of its election security work.
But experts agree that its still too early to tell whether these changes are cause for panic or just a sign of mass government overhaul.
This is a constantly emerging space, says Tisler. Were going to lose a lot of the support that weve built up to fend off attacks. What exact impact will that have? Its hard to say, but its certainly concerning that there is going to be less support and less response available against cyber attacks.
Elon Musk’s work for President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency has turned Tesla dealerships and showrooms into protest zones, and the recent wave of demonstrations has inspired the beginnings of a new visual language of protests in Trump’s second term.
Protests were organized at more than three dozen Tesla locations over the weekend, where people spoke out against DOGE access to government data and cuts the agency has made to government programs. Turnout varied widely from a dozen or so protesters at some events to hundreds who showed up to a protest in San Francisco. These protests represent a more visible sign of anger at Musk, by using one of his most powerful and accessible visual proxies in the public domainthe Tesla brandas a platform for dissent.
Decatur, Georgia. February 15th, 2025. [Photo: Erik S Lesser/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock]
Messaging for higher stakes
The signage at these recent protests stands in contrast to that of protests four years ago. When Trump first took office in 2017, protests like the Women’s March inspired a new generation of Instagram-friendly protest signs. “Protest is the new brunch” read one sign at a protest outside Trump’s then-Washington, D.C., hotel. “So bad, even introverts are here,” read another at a protest in New York City.
For Millennial and Gen Z protesters who were too young to protest the Vietnam or Iraq wars, these cute, clever signs signaled a mass movement that was new and novel. A 2018 Pew Research Center survey found that more than a quarter of U.S. adults said they had attended a protest in the previous five years.
Columbus, Ohio. February 9th, 2025. [Photo: Paul Becker/Becker1999/Flickr]
Trump’s second inauguration, though, wasn’t met with another Women’s March. Even considering the higher turnout of protests during Trump’s first term, the tone of protest signs during that period are trivial by comparison. This time around, visuals indicate a rightful feeling among protestors that the stakes are much higherand protest signs in recent days outside Tesla dealerships and showrooms from Arlington, Virginia; Berkley, California; Seattle; as well as outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., show as much.
Seattle, Washington. February 15th, 2025. [Photo: Jason Redmond/AFP/Getty Images]
Images of Musk giving a straight-arm salute at Trump’s inauguration rally compared to a Nazi salute are popular, with messages like “Tesla Funds Fascists,” which appeared on a sign in Seattle. At a protest in Arlington, Virginia, one sign showed the Nazi symbol with a line through it and the words “Get Musk Out of Our Government.”
Other signs feature pro-democracy messages or criticize Musk, the world’s richest man, for holding so much power despite the fact that the American public did not elect him, and the Senate did not confirm him. At a protest outside a Tesla showroom in San Francisco, signs read, “Uphold Our Constitution,” “Uphold the Rule of Law,” “Unelected, Greedy, Dangerous,” and “Defund Elon, No More Government Contracts.” At a protest in Manhattan, signs included “Friendly Reminder, Elon Musk is Not the President” and “Presidents Are Not Kings.”
New York, New York. February 15th, 2025. [Photo: Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg/Getty Images]
Although many of the protest signs are serious in nature, humor isn’t completely out of the question, as seen in a sign that read “Bad DOGE.” One sticker that went viral on TikTok warns “Don’t Buy a Swasticar.” While some signs would work equally well in 2017 as 2025, there is less affinity for cringey puns, and the tone is less flippant.
@everyonehateselon free stickers. link in bio #elon #peoplevselon #tesla original sound – People vs Elon
Tesla protest’s business impact
Musk’s businesses have come under attack for their owner’s politics. In addition to dealer protests, anti-Musk bumper stickers for Teslas rocketed up the Amazon sales chart after the election last year, and calls to boycott Musk’s companies growing. Singer Sheryl Crow announced she got rid of her Tesla.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sheryl Crow (@sherylcrow)
The electric car company saw a sharp 16% drop in sales between December and January, although that could be attributable to a variety of factors, including a focus on end of year sales. Its still too early to see any (Musk backlash) in the Tesla numbers, Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights for Cox Automotive, told CNN.
Protest may no longer be the new brunch, but a different visual language is emerging for a new era where protests are less of a fad. Criticizing Trump as fascist isn’t new, but Musk’s salute gives the line of attack a striking new visual while Trump’s attempts to expand his executive powers gives it a heightened sense of urgency. Messages on signs today are more pointed because the threat to democracy protesters are demonstrating against is less abstract, it’s things DOGE is doing right now.
To update the Obama Foundations visual identity ahead of the opening of former President Barack Obamas presidential center in Chicago next year, the designers tasked with the project had to figure out what to do with its already iconic typeface: Gotham.GQ first commissioned the geometric sans-serif typeface in 2000, but Obamas 2008 presidential campaign made it famous (at least in design circles). The type has since become something of a default font for politics, even being co-opted, ironically, by President Donald Trumps 2024 campaign. In effect, the aim for the Obama Foundations rebrand was clear: The designers had to make a completely saturated typeface feel fresh again.That was a key challenge at the beginning of the project, Tom Crabtree, creative director at the brand design studio Manual, tells Fast Company. [Gotham is] simple, its very neutral, but for me, it didnt really have that sort of fresh, vibrant, youthful energy.[Image: Manual]Vibrancy and youthfulness were key to conveying the organizations message of forward momentum, community engagement, and the power of individual action to create lasting change. Manual worked on the brand refresh alongside the digital product agency Work & Co, which updated Obama.org and other digital design projects. Sara Soskolne, who worked on the original Gotham at the type foundry Hoefler&Co. and is now a type designer at Monotype, also contributed. Their work, which is now live on the Obama Foundation website, will continue to roll out into next year with the centers opening.[Image: Manual]Three new versions of GothamManual collaborated with Soskolne to create three bespoke versions of Gotham to keep the established Obama brand equity the typeface offers while still pushing it forward. Their first reinvention is Gotham Slab Condensed, a slab-serif display typeface designed for editorial use around communications related to civics, history, and education.[Image: Manual]The second iteration is Gotham Stencil Condensed, which uses a stencil effect meant to look more contemporary. Its intended for use in communications around community engagement and sustainability. Gotham Inline Condensed uses a striped letterform that evokes the stripes in the Obama campaign O logo; it will be utilized for communications about athletics, music, and performance.[Image: Manual]Gotham feels new again, Crabtree says. It uses the bones of a typeface, but it sort of modulates in different ways.That modulation and versatility are crucial for the refreshed identity, which will show up online, in assets for the Obama Foundations programming and work, and on wayfinding signage, ticketing, and maps at the presidential center, which will serve as a community hub, museum, and library. The branding needs to communicate more traditional, presidential, and somber messages, but also be dynamic for a foundation that seeks to inspire a new generation of leaders.[Image: Manual]Part of the museum experience is learning about the presidency and looking back, Crabtree says. But I think the Obama Foundation is a very forward-looking organization, and the presidential center is, I would say, as much, if not more, about looking forward as it is having a library and talking about the legacy of the presidency.[Image: Manual]Expanded use of color That forward-looking attitude also shows up in the centers varied color palettes, which arent limited to the red, white, and blue of the former presidents campaign materials. Obama Foundation programs like My Brothers Keeper Alliance, an initiative for boys and young men of color, and Girls Opportunity Alliance, founded by former first lady Michelle Obama, have their own distinct color stories, while the annual Democracy Forum event uses gradients.[Image: Manual]Parker Sapp, a product management leader at Work & Co, says his team first prototyped the 2026 version of Obama.org as it would look after the centers opening, then returned its focus to the current website. And while the agency has worked on nonprofit projects before, Sapp says it was a pleasant surprise to discover how committed to innovation and good design the Obama Foundations team iswhich is fitting when you consider President Obama was the countrys first digital president.Its a design-forward approach that looks nothing like what weve seen from a presidential library before, and its perfectly suited for a brand thats synonymous with hope and change.
The upside of friends, roommates, or family members sharing a multiline phone plan is everyone has a lower monthly bill. The downside, however, is one person is ultimately responsible for both paying that billand gathering what is owed to him or her from their friends each month.
AT&T is offering a new way to divvy things up, though. The carrier, on Thursday, will introduce AT&T SplitPay, which will individually bill people on select shared wireless plans. The service will be available immediately.
College kids are Venmo-ing each other to share accounts, says Erin Scarborough, AT&Ts President of Broadband & Connectivity Initiatives. Theyre having to calculate account charges per line and were taking that frustration out for them.
AT&T says it is patenting the technology behind SplitPay, which has been in the works for over a year. While the company plans to restrict its use to its own cellular network initially, it is considering licensing the technology to other companies (that would, as an example, let people sharing a streaming service split the cost automatically).
SplitPay might make it easier for people to pay their share of a bill, but the primary account holder is still ultimately responsible for ensuring any financial obligations are met. Each person on the plan will get a text asking them to pay whatever their share of the bill is (including all fees). If they fail to do so, however, the primary account holder will receive a notification five days before the bill is due, letting them know who hasnt yet paid.
If that person neglects to make a payment, the primary account holder will be charged and will have to recover the money from their friend (or family member) separately. SplitPay will allow for recurring payments as well, to minimize this scenario.
To sign up for the SplitPay service, AT&T account owners can log on to att.com/splitpay and assign a payor to each line.
Several companies, from Google to Airbnb, have tested out group payment methods in the past, but AT&T says the individual billing for a shared account is an industry first.
Eighty-five percent of our customers have multiple line and we believe at least half of those are using split pay on their own in some form, says Scarborough. This is the first and only [payment system] of its kind in our industry. Were happy to solve a pain point and solve it first.
