LUXEMBOURG — Europe’s energy ministers are running out of ideas to protect citizens from surging energy prices as winter approaches.

But at a summit in Luxembourg on Thursday, they were clear on one thing: Demanding voters cut back on power use is not an option.  

European gas prices soared above €100 per megawatt-hour on Wednesday for the first time since 2022, as last-minute panic-buying to fill European gas reserves added to supply pressures linked to the war in the Middle East.  

But at the Thursday summit, EU energy ministers broadly acknowledged that both Brussels and national capitals had run out of ideas to contain price pressures.

“We’ve exhausted most of our short-term options,” said one senior European energy official, granted anonymity to offer a candid perspective. “What’s left is really crisis management.”

For the past year, government attempts to cushion price rises with renewables schemes, windfall taxes and costly fuel subsidies have ultimately failed to contain anxieties that have since boiled over into widespread protests across the continent.

“The EU and member states don’t have a magic wand to make the price increases go away,” Irish Energy Minister Darragh O’Brien, whose government holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, told reporters. “There’s a lot of measures that have been taken already in the short term. What today is about is actually seeing how we can move to more sustainable measures.”

But even crisis management is proving politically difficult. Despite calls by EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen earlier this year to encourage consumers and businesses to cut energy use, European ministers are reluctant to make such a move official policy.

“I don’t want to see that we will limit people,” said Mika Nykänen, the state secretary to Finland’s energy ministry. Instead, he called for policy designed to “change behavior” and reduce energy consumption less painfully. “Industry does it naturally. Normal households, normal families — they sometimes need encouragement,” he said. “For instance, subsidies to invest in the energy efficiency of houses, windows.”

Demand reduction “has an impact on industry, it has an impact on business, and in a difficult situation, it could be the way to do that. But it does not … solve the long-term,” Polish Secretary of State for Energy Wojciech Wrochna told reporters.

High prices “will regulate demand by itself,” Swedish Energy Minister Ebba Busch told reporters.

Fossil fuel subsidies

Such was the opposition to demand reduction measures on Thursday, Jørgensen — who was at the summit warning of a “difficult” winter of soaring fuel prices ahead — gave up even proposing it, focusing instead on subsidies. He reluctantly accepted that such subsidies could include fossil fuels as well as clean alternatives, but urged that they be “targeted and temporary.”

Since the war started, governments have paid €18 billion for tax relief on fossil fuel products, including a controversial move by Rome earlier this month to reduce the impact of gas prices on electricity costs.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned national leaders against this tendency, urging them at a summit this month to keep policies temporary and targeted to avoid inadvertently increasing fossil fuel demand and distorting the EU single market, according to two EU diplomats familiar with her comments.

That remains a point of contention among EU leaders, with some, including Greece, calling for greater fiscal space to increase energy subsidies while others warn of the dangers of subsidizing fossil fuels.

“Our concern is to make sure that we don’t create conditions where different member states go very far in different national decision-making,” said Lithuanian Energy Minister Lukas Savickas in a separate interview.

Jørgensen did not respond to POLITICO’s question at a subsequent press conference when asked whether new fiscal flexibilities were being considered.

Other ideas have gone by the wayside. Von der Leyen rejected calls by countries to establish an EU-wide tax on windfall profits of oil and gas companies at this month’s summit, the diplomats cited above said even as European oil companies like Shell, TotalEnergies and Repsol rake in their biggest profits since 2022.

Member countries also questioned the value of a Commission proposal to coordinate the purchase of energy supplies. Such a scheme would work in theory but be hard to implement for “big players” with established supply chains, Wrochna said.

Neither has the EU’s commitment to hastening the release of strategic crude oil and diesel reserves earlier this month — in response to what EU officials described as U.S. “blackmail” — done much to ease fuel costs.

Even so, the EU’s commitment will now include over 40 million barrels on top of the 10 million pledged by Paris, France’s economy minister Roland Lescure told reporters on Thursday.

A parallel push to delay methane monitoring requirements — a plank of the EU’s 2024 Green Deal that industry argued was poorly designed and would disrupt supplies — also had no impact on prices.

Slow pay-off

To be sure, measures designed to lower electricity prices and encourage consumers to switch away from imported fossil fuels are starting to work, with soaring sales of heat pumps and electric vehicles in Europe this year. “There’s no silver bullet, but when you add all of these things up, it can actually matter,” said Jørgensen.

But even longer-term efforts to encourage the switch to cleaner energy are facing backlash as countries resist ceding power to Brussels.

One example is a Commission proposal to make electricity bills more affordable and speed up electrification, including by ensuring electricity is not taxed more heavily than natural gas. Member countries pushed back against the proposal’s taxation provisions on Thursday, arguing that Brussels is overstepping EU treaties requiring that tax changes be approved unanimously, risking higher costs for households and industry.

Busch, the Swedish energy minister, said the proposal’s taxation provisions went too far, warning it would face “a lot of pushback” from countries concerned about EU interference in national tax policy.

Germany and Poland also raised concerns about the proposal’s potential impact on industry and national tax systems, while Italy warned that changing tax rates could make energy more expensive rather than encourage electrification.

MONTREAL — Prime Minister Mark Carney is positioning Ottawa’s C$1.6 billion investment in Canadian artificial intelligence company Cohere as a downpayment on his country’s national security. 

“We’re not waiting for the future of AI to be decided somewhere else by those we don’t know or … don’t trust,” Carney said Thursday in Montreal ahead of the start of the Canada-EU summit.

Carney framed the upcoming congress, which includes meetings Friday with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa, as a shared endeavor to build a stronger transatlantic alliance in the face of global disruption.

“Sovereignty now requires secure access to semiconductors, critical minerals, payment systems, clean energy technology, vaccines, space-based communications and artificial intelligence,” Carney said. “Canada is taking a major step forward in artificial intelligence.”

In a pre-summit speech earlier Thursday in Montreal, von der Leyen cited April’s multi-billion dollar merger between Cohere and German counterpart Aleph Alpha as a key piece of the deepening Canada-EU cooperation that is set to unfold at Friday’s talks on AI.

“Both Canada and Europe believe this technology should serve people. So we will work together to tackle head-on the safety and security issues of runaway AI. We will develop together rules and standards and strong global governance,” she said.

Carney said Canada was making a commercial investment alongside private investors including Nvidia, Bell and Germany’s Schwarz Group.

Cohere co-founder and CEO Aidan Gomez announced the initial close of its Series E funding round on Thursday, which is targeting up to C$7 billion at a C$35.7 billion valuation.

Gomez joined Carney at Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, for the Canadian portion of the funding announcement. 

“We believe that artificial intelligence would become one of the defining technologies of this century, and that Canadians should help build it, shape it and benefit from it,” Gomez said, standing next to the Canadian leader. 

The Canada-EU summit is unfolding against the backdrop of economic threats by U.S. President Donald Trump against both transatlantic partners.

Carney dismissed suggestions Thursday that the summit could draw reprisals by Trump against the participants. “This is a process which we’re doing absolutely in the interest of the Canadians, but ultimately the U.S. will see that,” he said.

This week, the Pentagon released a full-resolution image of the vehicle, the capabilities of which remain rather mysterious.

Keep your Cyberpunks or your Fallout 76es: when it comes to launch disasters, No Man's Sky remains the undisputed champion, which I'm not sure is something to be proud of. Something Hello Games can be proud of, however, is its continued and intensive effort to raise the game above its buggy, barebones launch state with more than a decade of constant updates. — Read the rest

The post Somehow, No Man's Sky is still getting updates appeared first on Boing Boing.

Lying beyond Pluto, 2026 ED138 could be as large as 1,500 kilometers in diameter. Astronomers are still working to confirm whether it meets the criteria for a dwarf planet.

European leaders are descending on Montreal in a bid to forge closer ties with Canada.

On today’s show, host Zoya Sheftalovich catches up with Sarah Wheaton, who’s on the ground at the EU-Canada summit. They unpack what the talks could actually deliver — from defense and critical raw materials to space and AI — and the Trump-shaped shadow hanging over it all.

Next, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen may be here in Montreal, but back in Brussels, questions remain about her role in the EU’s Covid vaccine deal with Pfizer.

Finally: Eurovision has revealed its 2027 lineup — but the row over Israel’s participation is far from over.

Questions, comments? Please write in! Find us on WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.

Articles mentioned in this episode:

• Our EU-Canada summit live blog.
• ⁠EU and Canada eye golden window to Trump-proof their ties.
• Eurovision confirms candidates for 2027 — but 2 EU countries are still on the fence.
• EU Public Prosecutor’s Office will be ‘killed softly for doing its job,’ says outgoing chief.

LONDON — Andy Burnham became Britain’s prime minister 100 days ago on a pledge to end 40 years of neoliberalism. His first budget announced he wouldn’t do that on the front page.

Wednesday’s 150-page red book was titled “breathing space for today, fresh hope for the future”, a confession, with true British modesty, that it was a stepping stone to bigger pledges downstream.

Burnham’s top finance minister, Chancellor John Healey, unveiled 98 changes, including help for most households’ energy bills, which are due to spike this winter because of Donald Trump’s war with Iran, and a £10 billion defense package to support Ukraine.

Many of the tax tweaks were limited and technical, including an 8% cut to tariffs on soy milk. Healey’s ambition was reined in by surging global oil prices and a political choice by his boss not to blow the doors off yet.

Burnham has reviews on the creaking welfare system, devolving power to the regions and a “10-year plan” all coming before Christmas. Only then can he grind out the numbers for next year’s spending review.

The Labour MP Darren Jones, who served in the Treasury until Burnham arrived in July, called it a “steady-as-she-goes budget” that was to be expected. Many Labour MPs were happy, cheering measures for their area and pointing toward a bigger bang later on. Industry lobby groups could grasp onto something in their area of expertise.

But with U.K. growth struggling, others were less generous. Joe Shalam of the center-right Centre for Social Justice think tank called it the “fudge-it budget.” Tory leader Kemi Badenoch asked: “Is that it?”

Perhaps the trickiest response for Burnham was from Mainstream, the left-wing campaign group that helped propel him to the Labour leadership this year. “Ending 40 years of neoliberalism can only be delivered by radical action,” read a statement by the group’s interim council.

POLITICO looks at five other takeaways from Wednesday’s budget.

1) We’re in the holding pen

The chancellor’s big bazooka was to slap a much-anticipated tax rise on banks — but he surprised many by saying it will last only 15 months. It will raise less than £1 billion in its peak year.

It wasn’t the only temporary measure Healey unveiled on Wednesday. He extended existing cuts to fuel duty, a tax cut on household energy bills and a £2 cap on bus fares, but only until 2027. They will all need to be reviewed again before his next annual budget.

Likewise, some of Healey’s spending plans thin out after a few years, which suggests they may need topping up later. This applies even to the areas closest to Burnham’s heart. Budget documents suggest support to end rough sleeping will total £1.1 billion in the two years from April 2027 but only £270 million in the three years after that.

There were plenty of changes, of course, such as to writing-down allowances, property income taxes and tax on savings. Whitehall will have to find more administration cuts while tax inspectors hunt down another £3.2 billion a year. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a non-partisan economic think tank, called it all a “hodgepodge” of “fiddly measures” that would do little to affect growth.

Many of the more fundamental decisions were kicked down the road. Healey has committed to spending 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035, but will only spell out how to fund it in a spending review at some point in 2027. Major reforms to the welfare system — spending on which is still rocketing — will only be decided after two reports by the Labour grandees Stephen Timms and Alan Milburn are published in November.

Healey published a “fiscal devolution roadmap” that spelled out a path to handing regional mayors full control of the business rates raised in their areas by the end of the decade, but this has an element of wait-and-see too.

Healey had a narrative for his cautious approach. “I decided on an early budget to give the country a bit of breathing space and to provide stability and direction in the face of speculation,” he told MPs Wednesday. “We’ll continue to map out that direction for Britain through the prime minister’s 10-year plan and the spending review.”

This is not the Burnham who complained Britain was “in hock to the bond markets” last year.

2) Everything is terrible, so blame the White House.

Burnham and Healey can blame Trump — up to a point.

The chancellor said the headwinds that once faced Britain are now “global economic storms,” fueled above all by the U.S. conflict with Iran. “We did not want this war,” Healey told MPs.

Journalists spent Wednesday trawling through the usual gloomy parade of numbers about the U.K. economy produced by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. Britain’s projected growth in 2027 was cut from 1.6% to 1% (though Treasury officials insisted GDP per person will rise overall by the end of the decade).

Healey chose to leave himself with a smaller fiscal buffer than his predecessor Rachel Reeves, telling MPs he had used it to “absorb the impact of the Iran war.” He also raised net taxes by £7 billion a year, though this was far less than the £26 billion in Reeves’ last budget.

But the situation is so volatile that these numbers, based on market energy prices in mid-August, are probably already out of date. The OBR’s “severe shock scenario” had oil prices peaking at around $115 a barrel in the first half of 2027. They already hit that level this week.

Healey insisted that Britain is doing well in the circumstances; his ministers all point to an International Monetary Fund prediction that the U.K.’s deficit will be the lowest in the G7 by 2029.

Opposition parties, however, paint a picture of a nation where everything is just getting gloomier. The tax take was already on course to rise to a record high; Healey broke that record again on Wednesday. (It is now due to reach 38.6% of GDP.) Britain’s spending on debt interest has almost tripled since 2020.

3) Defense spending is still a big, big headache

Healey resigned as defense secretary under former Prime Minister Keir Starmer in June to protest the lack of military spending — but now faces mounting unanswered questions about his own plans.

Healey did two big new things on defense spending on Wednesday. First, he confirmed an open secret in Westminster: he plans to reach 3% of GDP by 2030 — on a path to NATO’s 3.5% by 2035 — but repeated that the details of how he’ll pay for it will only be spelled out in next year’s spending review.

Secondly and more significantly, he outlined his plan to plug a ​​£1.8 billion-a-year gap in Starmer’s defense investment plan — but provided only scant details. 

The Treasury said it will be paid for by shaving 1% off each Whitehall department’s capital budget in the coming years. However, those departments have not yet worked out what they will cut; that is a problem for another day. These questions will dog Healey for the next year.

At least one person was delighted: Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian president said the chancellor “made my day” with a £10 billion package of economic and military support to Kyiv. Part of the package needed special sign-off by ministers because civil servants warned they could not guarantee it would provide value for money.

4) There was something to make Labour MPs happy

Much of what Healey did unveil appeared to be aimed at preserving the “Burnham bounce” in the polls and with his own MPs. 

The chancellor called it a “budget for the working people of Britain” and Treasury analysis says it was redistributive, handing the biggest boost to the poorest households (albeit only raising their incomes by 0.6%).

Central to this was Healey’s closest thing to a “rabbit out of the hat” — a £100-per-household cash payment to people living in homes below a certain value this winter. One Labour MP enthused that the criteria for the payment (which Treasury officials say will capture 88% of the poorest households) was “absolutely brilliant” because it will capture working households and those on benefits at the same time.

There was another £1.5 billion for social and affordable housing, a “covenant” to govern new AI data centers and changes to mileage rates for self-employed workers. Burnham has prided himself on being a grassroots politician; it was a grassroots package.

How much voters will notice is another question. The IFS warned the package of “breathing space” measures was still “relatively small.” It could be swallowed by a rise in annual energy bills in January — predictions of which have recently ranged from £276 to £469.

The OBR warned there has been “virtually no growth” in real household disposable income per person over the last decade or so, and predicted “no real earnings growth in 2027” despite Burnham and Healey’s efforts to help.

5) MPs won’t stop chattering about an election

Burnham only has to call an election by mid-2029 and keeps trying to snuff out talk of going earlier — but every prime minister does this until they don’t.

His MPs were studying the budget Wednesday to work out if it makes an early general election more or less likely. It’s fair to say they couldn’t agree.

On the one hand, this cautious budget of temporary measures might suggest Burnham — who needs his own mandate for more radical changes to the electoral system or Britain’s relationship with the EU — is holding out for the country’s backing.

Others would say a cautious stepping-stone budget is hardly the eye-catching approach you would take if you were about to sell yourself to voters. Growth is set to be slow next year; Burnham needs time to turn the economy round and show he can change things.

Burnham told journalists on Wednesday: “I don’t know how many times I’ve done this now, but yes, I can rule out calling a general election in the next 12 months.” The speculation will continue anyway.

Esther Webber, Emilio Casalicchio, Sam Blewett and Charlie Cooper contributed reporting.

CORRECTION: This article was updated on Oct. 29 to better reflect the Centre for Social Justice’s ideological stance.

SAN FRANCISCO — Billionaire opponents of California’s proposed wealth tax have spent more fighting it than they ever have on a political cause in the state, according to a POLITICO analysis.

A record $612 million from more than 70 current and former California billionaires is flooding this year’s state elections, nearly half of it for groups working to defeat Proposition 40, the wealth tax initiative on Tuesday’s ballot, POLITICO found.

The fight over Prop 40 has brought California’s wealthiest residents — many from its native tech industry — together in an unprecedented show of political coordination, the new data reveals. Tech leaders say the wealth tax has accelerated plans for broader political engagement this cycle, building networks that could be the foundation for future campaigns.

It’s a particularly striking display of unity from Silicon Valley’s notoriously hard-to-organize donor class. Google co-founder Sergey Brin is by far the well-funded opposition’s biggest benefactor, with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, venture capitalist John Doerr, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison and crypto executive Chris Larsen also among those who have contributed the most dollars in trying to stop the billionaire tax.

The possibility of a tax on their assets has drawn more than $293 million from at least 30 California billionaires, the majority of whom made their fortunes in tech but otherwise span industries, from agriculture to real estate — as well as the political spectrum, from established Democratic megadonors to some Republican allies and first-time donors.

Frank Slootman, the billionaire board chair and former CEO of cloud data company Snowflake, said he only had a “moderate” interest in politics despite giving $5 million to an anti-Prop 40 group, arguing that the measure erodes private property rights and the state’s economic dynamism.

“This upends the most basic assumptions we have about being a taxpayer and a resident of a state,” said Slootman, who has no prior record of California campaign contributions. “I vote in most elections, that’s about it. This is not about politics for me — it is far more important than that.”

The other half of billionaires’ spending this year came largely from Tom Steyer, a rare billionaire endorser of Prop 40 who bankrolled his own failed gubernatorial bid — the most expensive primary campaign in state history.

Even longtime strategists who have worked for statewide candidates and California’s costly ballot battles struggled to find a historical parallel for the coordination or scale of billionaire spending against Prop 40.

Rob Stutzman, a Sacramento political consultant whose past campaigns have involved a billionaire gubernatorial candidate and record-breaking ballot spending over sports betting, said that Silicon Valley leaders see Prop 40 as an “existential threat to tech in California” and the innovation that has taken root in the region for decades.

“Having to defend against a direct assault is a more unifying principle,” Stutzman told POLITICO. “They’re known for their pet issues that are harder to organize their peers around, but you can circle the wagons to protect yourselves. There is nothing that focuses similar-situated people.”

Proponents of Prop 40 contend the measure is necessary to backfill federal health care cuts.

The last year billionaires in California came closest to spending at this level was 2010, when they dropped $147 million on state races and measures, according to POLITICO’s analysis — a total that’s just over half of what the current wealth tax proposal mobilized. Most of it was the result of billionaire Meg Whitman, a former CEO of eBay and Hewlett-Packard, self-funding her unsuccessful Republican campaign for governor.

Scott Ellis, a millionaire and Prop 40 supporter who formerly served as a senior director at HP, described the magnitude of billionaire spending to fend off the measure as “a completely different animal” than past examples of “a lot of money spent by a rich person to get themselves elected.”

“People with wealth and extreme wealth are getting much more brazen than they used to be,” Ellis told POLITICO. “These people have tremendous resources. They have an incredible range of choices to make, including choosing to oppose this kind of ballot measure.”

Representatives for several billionaire opponents of Prop 40, including Schmidt, Larsen and agricultural titan Stewart Resnick, declined to comment on POLITICO’s findings.

Others, like Doerr, referred POLITICO to Building a Better California, a new Brin-led political operation that has become the primary vehicle for billionaire money against Prop 40.

The group defended the importance of its cause, arguing the measure would “permanently devastate” the state tax base and budget while undermining the health care funding it’s intended to patch.

“We are fortunate to be supported by entrepreneurs and business leaders who have built their businesses and created hundreds of thousands of jobs here, and who share a deep commitment to advancing policies that will improve quality of life for all and protect the state’s economic, jobs, and innovation engine for generations to come,” Building a Better California spokesperson Abby Lunardini said in a statement.

Debru Carthan, vice president of the SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West union behind the billionaire tax, responded to the contributions, saying, “no amount of billionaire spending is going to intimidate us or turn us back.”

A reawakening

Tech leaders have told POLITICO that the wealth tax awakened a sleeping giant in California politics: their previously disengaged industry peers, who months ago suddenly started spending across the ballot to steer California in a more moderate, business-friendly direction. The threat injected the wider political organizing, some of which preceded the measure’s introduction, with a new sense of urgency.

“The tech community has wanted to become a bigger player in California politics,” said veteran Democratic strategist Steven Maviglio.

“They’re building an infrastructure, I think, for the long term because they’ve become a dominant player in our economy, and they now, after literally a decade of being hands-off, want to be very involved because they see the consequences,” Maviglio, who is working on a separate housing and environment-related ballot fight where Schmidt’s wife, Wendy Schmidt, has given $10 million, told POLITICO.

Earlier efforts to unify faltered amid strategic disagreements and overinflated fundraising promises. That was especially apparent in the push to rally Silicon Valley around San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, a business-friendly candidate with a background in startups, during the California gubernatorial primary.

Although Building a Better California wasn’t spared its share of donor turmoil, an initial patchwork of opposition efforts eventually consolidated resources under the Brin operation’s strategy, devised with the help of veteran ballot-measure consultant Ned Wigglesworth.

The group also brought on fundraisers associated with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s inner circle. Newsom has publicly opposed imposing a billionaire tax at the state level.

In addition to funding Prop 40 attacks, several billionaires claimed to have fled the state to avoid the tax. Brin, for example, registered to vote in Nevada. Because the one-time, 5% tax on assets would apply to billionaires who lived in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026, POLITICO’s analysis covers billionaires with recent California ties, based on information from Forbes, the progressive nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness and news reports.

Some of those billionaires made their moves quietly, highlighting a split over how they should respond to the possibility of the tax passing.

“This has been a point of friction between me and some of my other billionaire friends,” Palmer Luckey, the billionaire founder of defense tech giant Anduril, said on a call with reporters this week. “They’ve said things like, ‘Palmer, you have to have solidarity for us. You can’t enable these really bad policies. If you stay and if you don’t leave, it’s going to show them that there’s no consequences.’”

Luckey, a vocal critic of the tax who hasn’t donated to the opposition campaign, added, “I’m planning on staying in California. I’m going to keep fighting it. I’m hoping that this doesn’t pass.”

Meta revealed a plan last week incentivizing CEO Mark Zuckerberg to stay near the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters after the longtime California resident told a special committee of his board he was considering leaving over the tax. He also hasn’t challenged Prop 40 through political contributions.

DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, who poured almost $3.5 million into trying to prevent the wealth tax, was one of three members on the special committee negotiating with Zuckerberg.

Behind the money

Brin is single-handedly putting $102 million behind Building a Better California as it campaigns to sink Prop 40. This year, he’s also backed unsuccessful runs by Republican Chad Bianco and the moderate Mahan in the gubernatorial primary, plus Republican Steve Hilton’s campaign for governor. Federally, he’s given close to $450,000 to the Republican National Committee.

But before this cycle, Brin had been a sporadic donor, gone dark for many years. His last disclosed political donation in California was in 2010 — for $200,000 to join other Silicon Valley leaders in opposing an ultimately defeated ballot measure that would’ve suspended a state climate law.

Some of the billionaire donors — Slootman, Roblox CEO David Baszucki, Robinhood co-founders Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev, Figma CEO Dylan Field, fintech executive Max Levchin and software founder Andrew Karam — have no history of spending on California politics before this year, according to state campaign records.

Tenev said in a statement that he donated to Building a Better California to support one of two other measures the group has advanced, which is designed to invalidate Prop 40 and would prohibit new taxes on various forms of personal savings.

“Special taxes on retirement and unrealized investment gains run contrary to the intent of the investment vehicles that have helped millions of Americans build wealth for the long term,” the Robinhood chief executive said. “History shows us that taxes aimed at a few have often been extended permanently to include more taxpayers over time.”

Another Building a Better California donor, Doerr, on the other hand, was a pioneer in shaping how Silicon Valley engaged with politics and Washington. He co-founded TechNet in 1997, which launched a political action committee as a key part of its strategy. Today, the influential industry trade association manages both federal and state-level PACs on top of a vast bipartisan lobbying network, with Google, Stripe and Kleiner Perkins among its many corporate members.

The wealth tax has also brought former Sequoia venture capitalists, Michael Moritz and Doug Leone, onto the same side after they previously diverged on California’s partisan redistricting fight at the ballot last year. They spent $7.5 million and $100,000, respectively, on groups fighting Prop 40.

Leone is a prolific Republican donor who re-endorsed President Donald Trump in 2024, while Moritz has consistently criticized Trump and chided his supporters in Silicon Valley for making a mistake.

No less than a dozen of the billionaires spending on groups that oppose Prop 40 are current CEOs — including DoorDash’s Xu, Roblox’s Baszucki, Robinhood’s Tenev, Stripe’s Collison, Affirm’s Levchin, Schmidt of rocketmaker Relativity Space, Hemant Taneja of top venture capital firm General Catalyst, Field of design platform Figma and Parker Conrad of HR software provider Rippling.

Collectively, they’ve plowed at least $88 million into their cause.

Several more of the billionaires in POLITICO’s analysis chair influential companies and firms. The opposition effort has received $40 million from Doerr, the Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist; $17.5 million from Larsen at the crypto company Ripple; and $2 million from George Marcus at the Bay Area real estate titan Marcus & Millichap — to name a few.

Will they come together again?

Whether the campaign infrastructure built by billionaires and the tech industry for the midterms will endure is still an open question.

Other new tech-funded groups this cycle have promised to play the long game and framed their plans around at least a decadelong horizon. Building a Better California itself has also committed to sticking around for the foreseeable future.

California political observers point to the size of the Brin-backed operation, as well as its decision to focus on additional environmental and housing measures, in predicting it won’t stop after the election.

Still, the unprecedented nature of their mobilization raises questions about what cause would be able to activate so many of these individuals again. Donors and advisers to Building a Better California previously clashed over whether spending on non-wealth-tax issues, such as environmental policy, could jeopardize the group’s success.

In the past, “if you look at those big dollar campaigns, ballot measure campaigns, those were funded in general by an industry,” said Jim Ross, a Bay Area-based Democratic consultant. “Wherein this, it’s a bunch of individuals, very wealthy individuals, but they don’t necessarily have any commonality other than they don’t want to be taxed.”

“When you have a group of wealthy people all putting money into this, a lot of the challenge is going to always be: How do you manage that coalition? How do you keep everybody moving in the same direction?” he added.

One ready answer is a revived wealth tax effort.

Last week, Rippling CEO Conrad said in a social media exchange with Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna, whose early support for the wealth tax alienated some of his original tech backers, that he “absolutely cannot afford to stay” in California — reasoning the measure may soon be followed by another one-time tax in the next election.

Slootman made a similar calculation.

“In a one-party state with super majorities in both chambers, we are at risk for everything we own,” he said. “We are hunted animals in this state. They will be at it again in two years.”

Rosmery Izaguirre contributed to this report.

About this analysis

POLITICO’s analysis compiled records from the California secretary of state for 142 California billionaires that have contributed to state campaign committees, including 30 who had given to the following committees opposing Proposition 40: Building a Better California, Californians Against Tax Increases and Golden State Promise. Reporters reviewed donation records to verify names and employers matched with the billionaires who live in the state, as well as contacted each donor. Donations are as of Oct. 26.

Forbes estimated the wealth of the persons included in this analysis. Because billionaires often own properties in multiple states, we relied on Forbes to identify each person’s residence and supplemented with further data provided by the progressive nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness. We included people who have recently left the state, including cases when they said they were leaving to avoid the potential wealth tax.

Virgin Galactic's new spaceship is here, dubbed "Apeiron" by popular vote from a public poll. Apeiron is the first of the company's new Delta-class spacecraft, but it isn't slated to launch for nearly another year. Earlier this week, Virgin Galactic announced another delay in its launch timeline:

The lead Spaceship's first commercial spaceflight is now expected in early Q2 2027, and the second Spaceship is expected to begin commercial spaceflight operations in late Q2/early Q3 2027. The updated timeline reflects additional time for completing avionics software integration and validation, which uses an exhaustive testing process. That testi …

Read the full story at The Verge.

LONDON — John Healey wants to keep his debut budget low-key — but he’s also got to show the British public his boss really does feel their pain.

The chancellor delivers the first financial statement of the Andy Burnham era Wednesday. The pitch? “Breathing space for today” mixed with some “fresh hope for the future.”

But with war in Iran driving up costs worldwide, government borrowing at its highest level in a year, and businesses warning they’re taxed to the max, Healey is up against it.

Here’s how POLITICO’s team of reporters will be poring over the big fiscal moment, unveiled at 12.30 p.m. U.K. time Wednesday.

U.K. Political Editor Dan Bloom

I’ll flip straight to the big table two-thirds of the way through the ‘red book,’ where Treasury officials list the total tax rises and spending cuts, and then the “headroom” against Healey’s fiscal rules in the executive summary.

The briefing suggests these numbers will be smaller than the £26 billion in tax rises and £23.6 billion in headroom former Chancellor Rachel Reeves notched up in March this year.

The Treasury has turned this into its comms strategy, pointing to “everyday fixes” and non-tax measures like scrapping business red tape. But these numbers will also show how Donald Trump’s war in Iran has reined in Burnham’s ambitions.

And they are indicative of something else — the budget just isn’t the main event this time. In the next seven weeks or so we’re expecting [former minister] Alan Milburn’s review of the benefit system, a U.K.-EU summit, a “10-year plan” and a white paper on “rewiring the state.”

Then next year is the spending review. That’s when the really hard choices will come — and the budget will give us a sign of how hard, since it will map out a path for departmental spending over the next few years.

U.K. Political Correspondent Sam Blewett

Andy Burnham’s team has been speaking a lot about “everyday fixes” — cheapo policies that can rectify real-life niggles. 

Headphone dodgers? You’re fined. Being ripped off by parking fines? We’ve got your backs. Balking at the cost of the supermarket shop? Gone are the tariffs on your gherkins.

That will buy the government a fair amount of goodwill, building a sense that the government isn’t entirely a useless beast being buffeted by global horror shows. But it’ll only go so far.

Healey is under pressure to show bold action on what really matters too — actual interventions that bring down the cost of living. We know already there will be support for household energy bills, a fuel duty freeze, support for pensioners and a hike to the minimum wage. All eyes will be on whether Healey has any more surprises on this front.

As costly as any support is for the exchequer, will it all pale in comparison to the effects of the Strait of Hormuz-sealing war with Iran? This is a self-declared “cost of living government” after all.

First, I’ll scour watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts to see where the semi-official number crunchers reckon real household disposable income is headed. Then the analysts at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation will provide more insight.

After that, the voices that really matter will be those sitting down to ever-costlier dinner, nursing pricy pints and rolling their eyes at the petrol pumps. Will this budget give Brits enough reason to believe Burnham’s new government is a force for good, trying to ease the pain? Or will they deem the new-look administration just the same old ineffective bureaucrats who need sweeping away in favor of a more radical response?

Senior Foreign Correspondent Esther Webber and U.K. Defense Reporter Mason Boycott-Owen

The number one thing we’ll be looking out for in today’s budget is how exactly Healey — who quit as defense secretary in the dying days of Keir Starmer’s government over exactly this issue — tries to demonstrate he is raising defense spending against a tough backdrop.

The chancellor has tried to manage expectations for the Ministry of Defence at the budget pretty closely, initially stating that he would only seek to cover a £4.7 billion pound shortfall in its already-unveiled Defence Investment Plan.

In recent weeks, however, the Treasury has suggested he could do more to show the U.K. is moving towards spending 3% of GDP on defense, something Healey sees as an important marker on the way to meeting the NATO target of 3.5%.

Media reports leading up to Wednesday suggest an increase will come from money funneled into the British Business Bank and National Wealth Fund.

But could he have something else in his back pocket? Healey is well aware of the potential for awkward questions about his commitment to follow through on the promises he made just four months ago that he said were crucial to U.K. security, now that he’s in charge of the money.

Financial Services Reporter Eleanor Myers

A hike in bank taxes is all but inevitable in today’s budget – but the City of London will be nervously watching how high the increase goes. Along with the lenders, I’ll be looking out for how much taxes are raised, whether any changes are temporary, and whether the City — Britain’s financial powerhouse — gets anything in return.

The easiest move for Healey is to increase the surcharge banks pay on top of corporation tax. That currently stands at 3%, after Conservative Chancellor Jeremy Hunt reduced it from 8% in 2023 to account for higher corporation taxes. Healey could simply reverse the surcharge to 8%, which would be unpopular with the banks and might not even go far enough for campaigners: the Trades Union Congress has called for an increase to 16%.

I’ll also be closely watching for how the bond markets react to the first budget under Burnham. Despite the prime minister describing Britain as “in hock” to the bond markets before he took office, odds are on for a “boring” budget, without any huge spending commitments that might spike borrowing costs.

But any cautious policy changes designed to placate the bond market will have to be tempered alongside demands from the Labour Party. It’s a tricky balance, and Labour MPs showed under Keir Starmer that they were willing to rebel when it mattered.

Senior U.K. Energy Correspondent Charlie Cooper

A sharp, painful spike in energy bills is coming for Britain; at this budget we’ll find out how much power Healey and Burnham have to help.

The latest energy price cap forecasts are brutal. Energy firms expect average, annual household bills to rise by more than £450 in January. They could go even higher in April. Why? Mainly because of gas. The fallout from the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has sent wholesale prices soaring to levels not seen since December 2022.

Healey knows how bleak things look, but he may not have the fiscal firepower to offer much help. Burnham has hinted at removing gas standing charges from bills, which could save an average household a modest £27, according to one estimate. Meanwhile, payments to around 6 million low-income households — the Warm Homes Discount — are likely to get a top-up of between £100 and £150.

Businesses, meanwhile, could get details of a 10-year plan to bring their energy costs into line with European competitors, according to two people familiar with budget preparations.

But with the cost of living and cost of doing business set to rise so high, will that be it?

There’s “strong awareness” inside government “of how bad it will get,” said one senior government official. Unfortunately, they added, there are “not the pockets deep enough to do all the things we might like to do.”

Elsewhere, we’ll be watching closely to see whether net zero schemes — like the rollout of electric heat pumps — could face cuts to cover shortfalls in defense spending. 

Technology Reporter Joseph Bambridge

Healey put AI and innovation at the heart of his growth plan in a pre-budget speech back in September.

In that vein, the government has trailed a £600 million spending package to protect the U.K. from AI risks while growing its own share of the sector, calling it a “distinctively British” approach to mitigating risks from the technology while capturing the benefits.

The question now is whether more measures to support the U.K.’s tech and AI sector will come on Wednesday, with trade groups calling for bold moves to lower energy costs, tackle energy and planning delays, and help firms invest in AI and upskill workers.

Startups are also hoping for tax relief and further reforms to regulation and procurement rules. A relief for founders who re-invest their earnings in the U.K. has been a particular demand from the startup community, which has already bagged a win after Healey ruled out raising capital gains tax.

AI is also likely to play a significant role in the government’s plans to make Whitehall more efficient, as it did under Reeves.

The sector is also closely watching how the chancellor plans to meet his defense spending targets, in the hopes that drone makers and military tech firms might benefit from the uplift.

Trade Reporter Caroline Hug

I’m looking out for the chancellor’s VAT crackdown on foreign sellers, who register as U.K. based companies to avoid paying the tax. Healey is expected to make online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and Temu responsible for collecting tax owed by all retailers.

We’re also waiting to see whether the government has more information on its de minimis crackdown, including whether it will introduce a handling fee for small packages below £135. The EU already has one in place.

Finally, we’ll be looking out for any more detail on the government’s suspension of tariffs on more than 100 food, drink, fuel and fertilizer products.

Elon Musk claims Ukraine violated Starlink's terms of service before the recent slowdown, as reported earlier by Ars Technica. According to Musk, "Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week," however Ukrainian officials have denied that happened, or that it is actually possible for them to do.

The statement comes nearly two weeks after Ukrainian officials accused SpaceX of putting limits on the military's satellite internet service that disrupted its drone missions and operations. As reported by Axios, Ukraine uses Starlink for communications …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Two orbiters have long outlasted their expected lifespans and completely reshaped our understanding of the Red Planet, all while operating 140 million miles from Earth.

LONDON — The U.K. government is removing import tariffs on more than 100 products, including food, drink and fuel, to ease the cost of living.

In a pre-budget announcement on Monday night, the Treasury said it would suspend tariffs on a number of popular food items, including baked beans, chocolate and gherkins, as well as fertilizer and kerosene heating oil.

The announcement, which follows a consultation earlier this year, comes after the government said last week that it would suspend import tariffs on over 250 goods that were due to expire on Dec. 31 until Dec. 2028.

Collectively, the government said the tariff suspensions would reduce consumer costs by around £245 million to £595 million a year.

“Today’s everyday fixes are just a small part of what we are doing to give families a bit of breathing space,” Chancellor John Healey said.

“Conflict in the Middle East and Europe is hitting families here at home through higher everyday costs. We can’t control global events, but we can act where we can make a difference.”

LONDON — Liz Truss claims the U.K. would have managed successful missions to Mars within years — if only her 49-day premiership hadn’t been cut short.

The assertion comes in the former British prime minister’s new book “Bank Job,” which was published Monday and claims to explain “how the Bank of England broke the bond market and brought down the government” when her mini-budget in 2022 precipitated market turmoil.

In its closing chapter, the book paints a vivid picture of what Truss believes life in 2040 would be like if her policies had been given a chance to bed in. “Several missions to Mars have now been launched from Britain’s space port,” Truss’ book imagines.

The ex-PM also opts for some more grounded policy dreams.

She envisages a 2040 in which “there are now no European Union laws in Britain,” a “permissive regime for artificial intelligence” is in place, and tumbling energy costs and faster planning timelines have helped make the U.K. a leader in AI.

“Bitcoin received tax treatment consistent with its status as a form of money for commercial purposes,” she imagines. “No central bank digital currency was introduced.”

Since leaving office after a revolt in her own party, Truss has dismissed claims her economic decisions — which included a huge energy bills bailout and tax cuts funded by fresh borrowing — were responsible for crashing the pound.

She has instead pointed the finger at the central bank, the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog, accusing them of working against her. Her new book takes direct aim at the Bank of England, which proposed to sell £80 billion of gilts before the mini-budget, although delayed that sale amid market turmoil.

Truss lost her House of Commons seat at the 2024 general election, and has since been involved in launching the Conservative Political Action Conference in Britain.

Elon Musk reportedly ordered SpaceX to throttle Ukraine's Starlink access.

The Webb telescope sees tiny red dots everywhere. Astronomers can’t agree on what they are, but some believe they may be enormous stars with black holes inside.

Last week, Starshield - the version of SpaceX's Starlink used by the Ukrainian military - was throttled to block terminals traveling above certain speeds from accessing the service. The Ukrainian army's interceptors, which counter Russian drones carrying bombs, suddenly stopped working at high speeds, making it easier for Russia to attack the country's energy infrastructure and leading to a reported two deaths and at least 17 injuries.

The Ukrainian military reported receiving no advance warning about the Starshield speed restriction. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was a direct message from the US amid rising tensions b …

Read the full story at The Verge.

SpaceX plans to access at least 80,000 cell sites as part of efforts to compete directly with Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T, according to a report from Bloomberg. Sources tell the publication that SpaceX is in talks with Crown Castle Inc., one of the nation's largest cell tower owners.

The move would give SpaceX access to half of the 158,500 cell towers currently operational in the US, according to Reuters. When asked about a potential partnership with SpaceX, Amazon, or other satellite services during an earnings call on Wednesday, Crown Castle CEO Chris Hillabrant said, "I don't think I want to get into customer-specific detail, but you can …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The cloud has baffled astronomers since its discovery in 2018. Now, a new study offers a possible cause for its appearance.

THE HAGUE — The European Commission should act “as soon as possible” to give clear guidance on U.S. sanctions against the International Criminal Court, its top administrative official told POLITICO in an interview.

Osvaldo Zavala Giler, who oversees the day-to-day functioning of the Hague-based court as the institution’s registrar, said his job became “preparing for sanctions” as the White House imposed an escalating regime of restrictions against it.

The Trump administration targeted prosecutors and judges from the court first in February 2025 before announcing blanket sanctions on Oct. 9 this year. The EU has repeatedly backed the Court against Washington, but it has resisted calls to activate a mechanism that would forbid firms from complying with U.S. laws.

That has agonized senior figures in The Hague. Zavala Giler said the Commission’s “lack of clarity” left private companies and NGOs in the dark over whether they should comply with sanctions decided by Washington — and what risks they face if they don’t.

Zavala Giler’s call to the Commission adds to pressure from EU lawmakers for a swift response after the Oct. 9 announcement. Kallas told the European Parliament on Tuesday that Brussels would use the next few months “to open dialogue” on the issue. The new sanctions are set to take effect in April next year.

“What I would hope is that the space for dialogue is not interpreted as a space for waiting to protect the court,” Zavala Giler said, who spoke from his glass office on the eve of a visit to the Court’s headquarters by the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas.

Damocles sword

Anticipating sweeping sanctions, the Court spent six months abandoning U.S. tech providers and moving to an open-source software environment, and 20 months to make its financial transactions dollar-proof. That move has been a huge undertaking for Zavala Giler’s team, he said.

The Court initially deepened its reliance on U.S. technology after it was hit by a massive cyber attack in 2023, but what seemed a solution at that time became a problem in the face of sanctions. Even though the current regime includes a carveout for telecommunications, there is no guarantee it will remain the case.

“It becomes a sort of Damocles sword on top of our head that could be revoked at any time,” Zavala Giler said. “I cannot count on U.S. tech companies anymore.”

U.S. platforms operate as entire ecosystems, offering all-encompassing solutions under a single contract. To do without them, “you need to start creating your own architecture and systems that need to speak to each other,” the registrar said.

Financial autonomy was equally hard to achieve. The Court mapped all its suppliers’ transactions to ensure there was no U.S. nexus, meaning that no U.S. person, bank or currency is involved in a payment. “We made all of our staff members have European bank accounts. It was a very detailed process that we had to do, person by person, company by company, making sure that the contracts were in euros,” the registrar said.

The Court also went from working with tens of banks to only “a few,” since only a handful of institutions are comfortable with dollar-proof payments.

Chilling effect

That situation is likely to worsen without clear guidance from EU countries and the Commission. As Zavala Giler put it, “if the International Criminal Court cannot transact in Europe, in euros within the SEPA zone with no U.S. nexus, then there is a bigger question about European financial sovereignty.”

The Court has long called the EU to use a legislative shield — known as blocking statute — that would forbid EU firms from complying with U.S. sanctions. The request was backed by dozens of lawmakers at the European Parliament, which incidentally awarded the court its human rights Sakharov Prize on Thursday.

The blocking statute “becomes an instrument to reassert the minimum space that should not be affected by unilateral extraterritorial sanctions … that minimum space should be, at the very least, the eurozone,” Zavala Giler said. Even without it, the court needs “the reassurances that, at least within the eurozone, [it] can continue to operate,” he added.

So far, however, the Commission has taken a cautious approach, choosing dialogue with the U.S. as a way of “buying time,” as a EU diplomat put it to POLITICO.

In a balancing act, EU heads of state and government backed Brussels’ diplomatic effort at their summit last week, while also committing to do whatever is needed to support the Court.

“I hope that now that the European Council has opened this door, the Commission will feel more comfortable in taking an extra step. And at the very least, providing some kind of clear guidance,” Zavala Giler said.

As an intermediate step, the registrar suggested the use of “comfort letters” reassuring firms that they should not comply with the U.S. measures.

Zavala Giler stressed that sanctions were not only a matter to address for banks and tech operators, as the current uncertainty has already affected NGOs working with the Court. NGOs play a critical role in supporting the work of the Court, for instance “to provide reparations for victims in Uganda” or “to assist the work of the court in providing assistance to victims in Ukraine.”

“This has created an enormous chilling effect,” he said. “They don’t know if they have the legal protections or not, to continue supporting the work of the court.”

The registrar’s office overlooks the moat circling the court’s six towers across the compound’s 46,000 square meters. In one of these buildings, the trial of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte over alleged crimes against humanity is due to begin next month. Reporters who will cover the proceeds won’t be allowed to use their phones — only paper and pen.

It is Zavala Giler’s job to oversee this huge institution, which relies on secure communications, cross-border funding for investigations and the contribution of many NGOs.

“This court has for victims the promise of the never again,” Zavala Giler said.