A model of an oil pump is seen in front of a Venezuelan flag in this illustration taken January 9, 2026.
Image: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
Wake up to the shifts shaping the future.
From boardroom shakeups and billion-dollar bets to the latest tech breakthroughs rewriting the rules, The Company Brief is your front-row seat to the stories moving markets and mindsets.
We cut through the noise so you can stay ahead of the curve, one bold business move at a time.
Asia shares near record high on AI optimism
Asian stocks advanced on Friday as the artificial intelligence boom regained momentum, while the dollar held near a six-week high after upbeat U.S. economic data left traders trimming bets on rate cuts there. Oil prices were nursing losses, and safe-haven gold and silver fell after U.S. President Donald Trump adopted a wait-and-see posture towards the unrest in Iran, having earlier threatened intervention. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.5% and hovered near a record high hit in the previous session, as stellar results from Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC breathed new life into the AI trade. The U.S. and Taiwan also clinched a trade deal on Thursday that cuts tariffs on many of the semiconductor powerhouse's exports, directs new investments towards the U.S. technology industry and risks infuriating China. Overnight, gains in technology and financial stocks sent Wall Street higher, with Nasdaq futures up 0.22% in the Asian session. S&P 500 futures similarly tacked on 0.15%.
Musk dealt a blow over Grok deepfakes
Elon Musk's Grok chatbot is testing Europe's ability to clamp down on deepfakes and digital undressing of images online, even after regulators scored a rare win by forcing Musk's xAI to curb the creation of sexualized images. xAI said late on Wednesday it had restricted image editing for Grok AI users after the chatbot churned out thousands of sexualized images of women and minors that alarmed global regulators. The climb-down by Musk, who initially laughed off the trend, highlights the difficulty of policing AI tools that make it cheap and easy to create explicit content. It is the latest clash between Europe and Musk, following rows over election interference, content moderation and free speech. Many regulators are still scrambling to develop laws and rules to govern AI, with question marks over what constitutes nudity, how to define consent, and who bears responsibility: the user or the platform. "It's really a grey zone with regards to the creation of the nude images," Ängla Pändel, a Stockholm-based data protection and privacy lawyer with Mannheimer Swartling, told Reuters.
BlackRock's assets hit record $14 trillion
BlackRock's fourth-quarter profit surged past Wall Street estimates on Thursday while a rally in markets boosted fee income and lifted the company's assets under management to a record $14 trillion. Shares of the world's largest asset manager, which also hiked its quarterly dividend by 10% and raised its share buyback authorisation, jumped more than 4% on Thursday. U.S. stocks rallied last year on enthusiasm around artificial intelligence, easing interest rates and steady economic growth, prompting investors to pour money back into lower-cost index strategies. As inflation eased and the job market cooled, the Federal Reserve turned more dovish, driving strong inflows into BlackRock's fixed-income products.
Companies scramble to secure ships, assemble operations to transfer Venezuelan oil
Oil companies aiming to participate in new exports of Venezuelan crude to the U.S. following the ouster of President Nicolas Maduro are in hasty discussions to find tankers and put together operations to transfer the crude safely from vessels and dilapidated Venezuelan ports, four sources familiar with the operations said. Trading houses and oil companies, including Chevron, Vitol and Trafigura, are competing for U.S. government deals to export crude from Venezuela, sources said, after President Donald Trump said that Venezuela is set to turn over as much as 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to the United States. Trafigura said in a meeting with the White House on Friday that its first vessel should load in the next week. Faced with a U.S. blockade in recent months, Venezuela has been storing oil in tankers and has nearly completely filled storage tanks onshore. The vessels holding the oil are old, poorly maintained, and under sanctions. Other vessels cannot make direct contact with sanctioned ships due to liability and insurance requirements, even if the U.S. grants licenses, the sources said.