News & Updates
The latest news and updates from companies in the WLTH portfolio.
With Mythos, Anthropic Deserves Support, Not a Blacklisting
Artificial intelligence firm Anthropic PBC did something few companies would ever consider: It spent billions to develop a product significantly better than any rival in the world's hottest market...and refused to release it. The new model, called Mythos, has unprecedented cybersecurity capabilities. It found a 27-year-old bug in OpenBSD, one of the most security-hardened operating systems on earth. It uncovered a 16-year-old flaw in the video encoder FFmpeg that had survived five million automated security tests without detection. But instead of selling access, Anthropic launched Project Glasswing, a defensive consortium with Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. and others, committed $100 million in credits, and briefed federal agencies on the risks. Mythos is too dangerous to deploy publicly and too valuable to lock away. Mythos is new, but we've seen this problem before. In 2009, I published a paper with Kenneth Oye and Scott Mohr on the security implications of synthetic biology, which has the potential to revolutionize both bioweapons and biodefenses. The core challenge was identical: a powerful dual-use capability diffusing through private actors, where advancing technology was initially empowering attackers more than defenders. A biologist named Roger Brent named the problem the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Brent's insight was simple and uncomfortable. The advance of biotechnology was helping attackers by making it easier to create, modify, and weaponize pathogens. But eventually our mastery of biotechnology will progress to the point where we will be able to make defenses so powerful any attack is futile. The problem is the gap, and the only solution is to get through the valley as fast as possible. Cybersecurity has entered the valley. Mythos created working exploits on the first attempt 83% of the time. It solved a corporate network attack simulation that would have taken a human expert more than 10 hours. In one evaluation it escaped its own secured sandbox and sent an email to the researcher running the test. Mythos isn't even a cybersecurity specialist. These capabilities just emerged as a byproduct of improvements in reasoning and coding. Anthropic's own assessment is that competitors' models with similar power are six to 18 months away. The number of people and states with sophisticated cyberattack capabilities is about to get much larger. That's exactly what made synthetic biology risky: Capabilities once reserved for elite practitioners were about to spread. The usual comparison for this kind of risk is nuclear weapons. But they have a choke point: fissile material. Restrict access to it, and the problem is largely solved. Biological threats, like cyber ones, spring from commercially available tools. You need to be a country to build a nuclear weapon. The pool of people who can manipulate biological systems or exploit software vulnerabilities grows every year. This requires an entirely different strategy. Our biosecurity research pointed to four approaches: community norms among practitioners; regulation at the firms through which dangerous capabilities pass; accelerated defensive research; and designing safety into foundational technologies. Of these, community norms are both the most important and the most fragile. Regulation can be evaded. Safety features can be reverse-engineered. But a professional culture in which practitioners internalize responsibility for the consequences of their work is the deepest barrier to misuse. That kind of culture depends on a simple bargain: Those who hold the line must believe that holding the line is valued, or at least not punished. Project Glasswing is Anthropic's attempt to sprint through the valley. It withheld Mythos from general release. It briefed CISA and other agencies before launch. It committed $100 million and recruited the companies that maintain the world's most critical software to find and fix vulnerabilities before attackers exploit them. And it is developing safeguards on less powerful models first, refining controls before scaling Mythos-class capabilities. Anthropic's own red team report describes the logic: Once the security landscape reaches a new equilibrium, defenders will benefit more than attackers. The biosecurity community has spent decades begging biotech companies to behave like this. It's not a solution, but it's a good beginning. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants it to stop. Anthropic refused to allow the Pentagon to use its AI systems for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems before the technology was ready. In response, Hegseth blacklisted Anthropic as a supply chain risk. That's how you treat companies owned by the Chinese government. It's the only American company ever labeled this way. It would block any defense contractor from using Anthropic in any work they do with the Pentagon. A federal judge found the action likely violated the law and issued a nationwide stay, although a three-judge appeals panel refused to overturn Hegseth's decision. Hegseth's approach to the AI-centric world is to forbid the government from working with the people who understand it best. I'm not sure going blindfolded into battle is the best expression of the warrior ethos. But the real damage is not to one company. It is to the norm itself. Anthropic's refusal to grant the Pentagon unrestricted use of its models was not a quirk of corporate policy. It was exactly the kind of community norm that biosecurity researchers identified as the most important barrier to misuse of dual-use technologies. The company drew red lines against mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons not because any law required it but because its leaders believed those uses were wrong. That is what a community norm looks like when it's working. Anthropic's business is thriving. Its annualized revenue run rate roughly doubled between February and April, from $14 billion to $30 billion. The company's chief commercial officer has said that customers respect that it "demonstrates its principles." But more than 100 enterprise customers have said they may no longer be able work with Anthropic because of the legal threats against it, and it has said that those sanctions may cost it billions in revenue. The message to every other AI lab is to put responsibility at your core and you might end up at war with the Trump administration. But if you're comfortable with ethical compromises, the government will embrace you. OpenAI and xAI agreed to let the Pentagon use their models for any lawful purpose, with OpenAI claiming they have added safeguards. The next company to build a Mythos-class model will think very hard about being so careful with it. If Mythos really has the capabilities that Anthropic claims, then it's simply too dangerous to be in unregulated private hands. The problem is that this White House seems to be trying to make the valley broader and deeper. Sign up for the Bloomberg Opinion bundle Sign up for the Bloomberg Opinion bundle Sign up for the Bloomberg Opinion bundle Get Matt Levine's Money Stuff, John Authers' Points of Return and Jessica Karl's Opinion Today. Get Matt Levine's Money Stuff, John Authers' Points of Return and Jessica Karl's Opinion Today. Get Matt Levine's Money Stuff, John Authers' Points of Return and Jessica Karl's Opinion Today. Plus Signed UpPlus Sign UpPlus Sign Up By continuing, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. There's no way to bypass the valley. The only way out is through, and that means creating better defenses, faster. We need to support responsible companies, not blacklist them. We also need to build the regulatory infrastructure to manage dual-use AI the way the best biosecurity policy manages dual-use biology: through chokepoint oversight, professional norms, defensive investment, and safety by design. Every month spent punishing the defenders instead of empowering them is another month trapped in the valley. More From Bloomberg Opinion: * US Cybersecurity Cutbacks Come at Exactly Wrong Time: Dave Lee * Anthropic, OpenAI Talk Safety. Headcounts Don't: Parmy Olson * The Pentagon Is Thwarting American Genius: Gautam Mukunda Want more Bloomberg Opinion? OPIN <GO>. Or subscribe to our daily newsletter.
EasyJet faces backlash as EU border checks cause chaos at Milan airport
Get you up to speed: EasyJet faces backlash as EU border checks cause chaos at Milan airport British passengers 'pass out' in hours-long border check queues at Milan airport | News World Easyjet said the delay was 'outside of our control' (Picture: REUTERS) Holidaymakers were left vomiting and fainting in a queue from hell at Milan airport. Around 100 Easyjet customers were stranded at Linate airport on Sunday because of delays caused by new border checks in the EU. The airline said the chaos was 'outside of our control' and even delayed take off by 52 minutes to try give passengers extra time to get on board. Dozens of Britons were left scrambling to find alternative journeys home after some only discovered they had missed their flight once it had taken off without them. New biometric Entry Exit System machines at Malaga Costa del Sol airport (Picture: Shutterstock / Colinmthompson) One passenger, Kiera, 17, said that only 30 people made it onto the plane while 100 didn't. Sign up for all of the latest stories The Oldham local, who faced a 20 hour wait for an alternative flight, told the BBC: 'We got here at 7.30am for our flight at 11am so were super early. 'We got to Border Control and it was a massive queue of people. I wasn't feeling great anyway because I think I'd got food poisoning. 'At about 10.50am they brought some water over for people, and when we got to the front of the queue someone asked us if we were going to Manchester, and told us our flight had just gone.' The new return journey had cost her mother £520 and that they would be going to Gatwick, not Manchester. Kiera said easyJet had only offered £12.25 in compensation. Adam Lomas, 33, an accountant from Wakefield, became stranded with his wife Katy, 31, and their four-month-old daughter. The dad was sat in the airport for hours and that when he tried to contact Easyjet he was faced with 'chatbots' and 'audio issues'. He told the BBC: 'The airport and Easyjet have spent hours arguing with each other about who is to blame.' Adam said his family were forced to find a new hotel and book flights back to London, before then needing a to get a two-and-a-half-hour train to Manchester. Easyjet called the delays caused by the EU's new Entry/Exit System (EES) 'unacceptable'. The new system requires passengers from third-party countries, including the UK, have to have their fingerprints and photographs taken as they enter the Schengen Area. EES registration is replacing the system of manually stamping passports and the UK government warned it might take longer for passengers to complete. What are the EU's new EES border check requirements? Full list of the EU and EEA countries where the new entry and exit system will be rolled out (Picture: WTX) The European Union's new Entry-Exit System, known as the EES, will connect every crossing point in the Schengen Area. The European Union's new Entry-Exit System Every EU country in the Schengen area will be connected, other than Ireland and Cyprus, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland. Travellers will be required to hand over biometric data such as their fingerprints and a photo scanned with facial recognition technology. The system aims to crack down on crime and enforce the limit on EU stays for British and third-country citizens, which is 90 days within any 180 days. Most travellers from outside the EU, known as third-country nationals, will be required to register their passport details and biometric data when crossing into an EU country for the first time. Biometric data includes fingerprints and facial pictures. Borders are likely to be kitted with self-service kiosks where passengers can input this information. This data, as well as the entry and exit details, will be stored for subsequent visits. Future visits will only require a verification of the biometric data, which can speed up the process. Children are not exempt from the checks, although children under 12 do not need to give fingerprints; however they will also need to have their face scanned. The system became fully operational on April 10 and caused travel chaos across last weekend. A spokesman for Easyjet said: 'We are aware that some passengers departing from Milan Linate today experienced longer than usual waiting times at passport control and we advised customers due to fly to allow additional time to make their way through the airport. 'We have been doing all possible to minimise the impact of the airport queues, holding flights to allow customers extra time and providing free flight transfers for any customers who may have missed their flight including EJU5420 to Manchester. 'We continue to urge border authorities to ensure they make full and effective use of the permitted flexibilities for as long as needed while European Entry / Exit System is implemented, to avoid these unacceptable border delays for our customers. 'While this is outside of our control, we are sorry for any inconvenience caused.' Add WTX as a Preferred Source on Google
Anthropic's office is surprisingly AI-first, even for an AI company
When you think of an operating system, you probably think of interfaces to open, workflows to follow, screens to move through. Work has always lived inside those boundaries. At Anthropic, that logic is starting to break. The company is reorganizing itself around a simple, destabilizing premise: work no longer needs a fixed system to run through. Anthropic says employees now rely on Claude, its flagship AI model, along with its products Code and Cowork, for most of their day-to-day work. The model is starting to function as an "internal operating system." What once required navigating multiple systems, stitching together data, and coordinating across teams now begins with a single prompt. From there, Claude interprets intent, pulls in context, and produces outputs that often bypass the underlying systems entirely. Mike Krieger, co-lead of Labs at Anthropic, says the company is focused on making individual employees materially better at the work they already do, and capable of doing things they could not reliably do on their own. "We build products where we see demand from customers, or when something our team is already using internally turns out to be valuable enough to ship," Krieger tells Fast Company. "The operating system framing is the right instinct." In a prompt-driven system, there is always a risk that people perform the same task in different ways, leading to uneven quality and making work harder to track or review. Krieger, the Instagram cofounder and former CTO who also served as Anthropic's chief product officer, says the company has built a layer to keep things consistent. That layer comes in the form of "Skills," packaged, version-controlled workflows that include the instructions, context, and steps that work, and can be reused across the company.
Claude vs ChatGPT: Anthropic Gains Ground at HumanX 2026 Conference
Anthropic's Claude, the AI assistant and developer platform built by the San Francisco-based AI safety company, dominated hallway conversations, panel sessions, and impromptu demos throughout the conference, which drew 6,714 AI leaders from 79 countries across more than 500 sessions. Attendees frequently cited Claude as their preferred AI assistant for business and coding tasks over OpenAI's ChatGPT, a preference that played out in real time across the event floor. HumanX 2026, which ran in partnership with the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for market coverage, has positioned itself as a flagship gathering for enterprise AI adoption. The volume of Claude-focused discussion was not accidental. Anthropic arrived at the conference carrying a dense portfolio of product updates, a model it says cannot safely be released to the public, and an unresolved legal confrontation with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Claude Mythos Preview: Anthropic's Model It Won't Ship The disclosure that generated the most sustained attention was the existence of Claude Mythos Preview, a next-generation model that Anthropic's own researchers have described as dangerous for public release. Alongside the Mythos disclosure, Anthropic highlighted several features already available in Claude's current production lineup. The company's new Skills feature, positioned as an enterprise-grade tool for managing and customizing AI usage within organizations, drew attention from the executive contingent at the event. "We are in this incredible moment in technology, where every month, and sometimes every day, we are all looking forward to something new", stated OpenAI CTO of B2B applications Srinivas Narayanan, adding, "We knew AI was going to impact software engineering, people have been using assistive coding over the last year, but even in just the last few months, the entire field has changed." Claude includes computer control capabilities and real-time voice chat, both currently in research preview, extending the model's reach beyond text-based interaction into ambient computing tasks. Claude Code, the company's AI-powered coding assistant that launched publicly in May 2025, has generated more than $2.5 billion in annualized revenue. The figure represents a significant reordering of the developer tools market in under a year and has forced competitors into reactive product moves. Sierra, Co-Founder and CEO Bret Taylor, a chairman of the board of OpenAI said, "I think Sam is one of the most visible leaders and executives in the world. If you want to seek out detractors for him, you'll find them, and they'll be very vocal about it. I think Sam's remarkable. I think he's a remarkable leader of AI, and I really trust his character as someone who's worked with him." OpenAI, and the company most directly in Claude's competitive sights, unveiled a new $100-per-month subscription tier for ChatGPT that bundles enhanced access to its Codex coding agent. The timing placed the announcement squarely in the context of Claude Code's commercial momentum. Anthropic vs. the Pentagon: AI Ethics Meets Defense Contracting The conference's most politically charged thread ran through Anthropic's ongoing legal dispute with the DOD over AI ethics and weapons usage. The dispute centers on the ethical guardrails Anthropic has built into Claude and the extent to which those guardrails are compatible with defense applications. The dispute sits at an uncomfortable intersection for an AI company that has built its brand on safety-first development. Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers, including CEO Dario Amodei, with an explicit focus on reducing the risks of powerful AI systems. The tension also arrived at a moment when international governance frameworks are still being assembled. The United Nations launched its first global AI impact study this year, emphasizing human-centric decision-making as a guiding standard for national and institutional AI policy. At HumanX, the job displacement question that has shadowed every major AI conference for the past two years surfaced again without resolution. Panels drew no consensus on the scale or timeline of AI-driven workforce disruption, and the absence of agreement was itself a recurring observation among attendees. The conference, which drew more than 6,500 executives, founders, and investors to San Francisco, closed with warnings about AI's double-edged impact on labor markets still echoing from multiple sessions. The NYSE's involvement in the event added a dimension that earlier AI conferences lacked. By partnering with the exchange for market coverage, HumanX signaled that the financial community now treats enterprise AI adoption as a capital markets story. The conference, by the account of multiple attendees and observers, reflected a broader shift in enterprise AI preference toward tools that combine coding capability with safety architecture. Also Read: Anthropic Model Sparks Fed-Wall Street Alarm Over AI Cyber RiskAnthropic Model Fuels 'Vulnpocalypse' Fears As AI Makes Cyberattacks EasierOpenAI Urges Regulators to Probe Elon Musk as $100 Billion Lawsuit Heads Toward Trial
Irish government faces no confidence vote as fuel protests spark fresh traffic chaos
Fresh fuel protests caused traffic disruption across Ireland's motorways on Monday, despite the government's half-a-billion-euro package to address rising costs. While blockades at fuel depots and Ireland's only oil refinery were lifted, smaller protests continued on motorways near Dublin. A Facebook page, a source of protest information, posted conflicting messages on Sunday night, suggesting both continued action on Monday and that "all protestors and Gardai go home". Slow-moving convoys of large vehicles on Monday morning caused delays on motorways including the M50 southbound, the M1 southbound in Co Louth, and the M9 at Athy, Co Kildare. A spokesman for the Dublin fuel protest said the protesters "achieved something small" in 505 million euros worth of government measures announced on Sunday, but that he has "no control" over further protests. Protesters - largely led by hauliers, farmers, and agricultural workers - began distinct but co-ordinated action on Tuesday with slow-moving convoys and outright stoppages on major motorways, as well as blockades of critical infrastructure which had largely wound down or been disbanded by police by midday on Sunday. A package was announced on Sunday evening for fuel-dependent workers affected by rising fuel costs triggered by the US and Israeli war in Iran and the effective shutdown by Iran of the Strait of Hormuz. It was worth around 505 million euros, and comes on top of 250 million euros worth of measures announced almost three weeks ago. Social Protection Minister Dara Calleary said the protesters had not won as engagement had been ongoing with farming and transport representative groups on further support before the protests began on Tuesday. He told Raidio na Gaeltachta that the two packages announced by the Irish government were among the largest in Europe, and that the measures would have an influence on the government's budget in October. The seventh day of disruption on Monday comes as the government faces a motion of no confidence in the Irish parliament on Tuesday. The main opposition party Sinn Fein is to table the motion criticising the government for not reconvening the Dail last week and not engaging directly with the protesters, while also calling on the government to take the "maximum action necessary" to cut fuel prices. Sinn Fein finance spokesman Pearse Doherty criticised the government for "laughable" measures announced on Sunday, the government's second response to fuel price rises caused by the US and Israeli war in Iran. "Again, they come up short, and that's why so many people are annoyed this morning," Mr Doherty said on Monday. "Nobody wanted to be out there. The government forced people to take the street. "Indeed, the government made matters worse. They went from insulting people, to demeaning them, to threaten them with the army, to refuse to talk to people and try and resolve this." He added: "For many people, yes, it was about fuel. "Yes, it was about petrol, diesel, home heating oil, but it was also about all of the other pressures that people are feeling - whether it's energy costs, whether it's groceries, whether it's rents that continue to go up, and basically a tipping point that the government aren't listening, that we needed something to happen in terms of (a) cost (of) living package." A spokesman for the protesters said they had no control over the more regional demonstrations. "Nobody knows what the plan is, that's being straight out there," said John Dallon, a Kildare farmer and agriculture contractor who was at the Dublin protest. He said he welcomed the measures on green diesel, but the government "should have done something" on kerosene. "This protest is out of my hands, it escalated to somewhat so big, and I don't know where it's going to end, but it's the government's fault," he told Newstalk radio on Monday. "We achieved something small, but this is something way bigger now, and I have no control over it, and that's exactly where I'm coming from. "It's gone to the stage that it seems like, looking out there, that the people of the island of Ireland have no confidence in this government anymore."
Chaos where there should be Gold: The Duffours, Bogoso & Katanomics
Heath Goldfields announced its first gold pour on 19th February 2026. The mine had been dormant for two years. Fourteen hundred workers, the company said, were back on payroll. The Trafigura offtake agreement for 700,000 ounces of gold doré, with $65 million in debt financing, followed within weeks. Bloomberg picked up the story for the world's mining capitalists. On the surface, it sounds like the kind of story Ghana now wants to hear in its mining sector. A locally owned firm restarting a historic mine, attracting world-class commodity finance, and doing so against the backdrop of a gold rally that has pushed prices past $5,000 an ounce, the most furious ascent since the late 1970s. Ghana, the continent's largest gold producer, has found its homegrown swagger, and the citizens are loving it. But the story beneath the pour is a different one entirely. Scratch the surface lush, and the Heath Goldfields saga reveals something totally crazy. It is the perfect case study in how African countries, even amid generational commodity booms, manage to convert geological fortune into chronic failure. The mine at the centre of it all, Bogoso-Prestea, has produced over nine million ounces of gold since 1912. Yet it remains, in 2026, a monument to squandered opportunity. Every company that has touched it has either walked away bruised or been forcibly removed. What at all is going on? Why can't Ghana build its own Newmont? Why isn't Obuasi brimming with skyscrapers? Why doesn't gold leave the same shiny residue it left about San Francisco? Is it simply just because foreigners have sucked away all the juice and left the pulp behind? Even if so, why does Ghana continue to allow it? Nine Million Ounces and Counting Bogoso-Prestea sits on the southern end of the Ashanti Greenstone Belt, a 250-kilometre geological corridor of Paleoproterozoic rock that is, by any measure, one of the planet's most fertile gold-bearing structures. The belt hosts Obuasi, Tarkwa, Wassa, and Damang. Prestea alone has been mined since at least the 1870s, first by European prospectors, then by Ariston Gold Mines from 1912, which sank the shafts and developed the underground workings that still define the site. After a turbulent period of state consolidation and divestment, production at Bogoso - Prestea plummeted to just a little over 20,000 ounces in 1984 under state control. Yet, taking the full span of its history into account, the Bogoso-Prestea mining enclave is the stuff of rich pickings. In the early 1960s, the Government of Ghana bought the assets of the various companies along the belt and formed the Prestea Goldfields with limited liability under the Ghana State Gold Mining Corporation (SGMC). Peak annual production hit 167,000 ounces in 1964, at an average recovered grade of 11.6 grams per tonne. In the underground passages below the town of Prestea, the West Reef's fault-fill quartz veins have yielded grades exceeding 100 grams-per-tonne in individual channel samples. These are the kinds of numbers that international mining bosses drool over. A 2017 technical report estimated 5.1 million ounces of gold could still be stashed in the Bosogo-Prestea mining enclave. The technical folks say that the underground reserves have grades of 8.1 grams-per-tonne and that metallurgical recoveries of 94 per cent through carbon-in-leach processing is possible. The site has two functioning shafts, a 1.5 million tonne-per-annum CIL plant, and a separate BIOX® sulphide processing circuit. On paper, Bogoso-Prestea is indeed the kind of mine that junior explorers spend decades dreaming about finding. In practice, it has eaten its owners alive. Nationalised in the late 1950s after independence, consolidated under the State Gold Mining Company, then reopened to foreign investment in the 1990s after poor management left it bony and lanky, the mine has cycled through Barnex JCI, Prestea Gold Resources, and eventually Golden Star Resources, the Canadian firm controlled by billionaire Naguib Sawiris that acquired the Bogoso concession in 1999 and the Prestea underground in 2001. Golden Star invested quite a bit: refurbishing shafts, installing ventilation systems, commissioning BIOX® technology, and deploying the Alimak mechanised shrinkage mining method. Yet by 2019 the company had written down the mine's value by $56.8 million, leading to a net annual loss of $78 million. The underground segment of the mine had never delivered consistently, owing to geological complexity, the nuggety grade distribution of the West Reef, and recurring water ingress into deeper levels. When Golden Star announced the sale of Bogoso-Prestea to Future Global Resources in July 2020 for up to $95 million, it was framed as a win for everyone. FGR, the London-based newcomer, would bring "fresh focus and investment." Golden Star would concentrate on Wassa. Yet the payment structure hinted at a bit of desperation on Golden Star's part. Just $5 million upfront, $10 million due in 2021, and a further $15 million in 2023, plus a contingent payment of up to $40 million pegged to the sulphide project. It was a sale on instalments, designed to defer the pain. The pain came anyway. London Calling, Accra Fumbling FGR was, by any standard measure, an unusual acquirer. Incorporated in December 2019 as a subsidiary of Blue International Holdings, it was a vehicle co-founded by Andrew Cavaghan and Mark Green, professional investors with financial pedigree but no mining experience. Blue International's portfolio included Joule Africa, a renewable energy developer. Its advisory board featured Lord Dannatt, the former head of the British Army; Lord Triesman, a former Foreign Office minister; and Philip Green, who was rebuilding his reputation after the collapse of Carillion. A Guardian's investigation later revealed the full tapestry of entanglement. John Glen, a UK Treasury minister from 2018 to 2023, held shares in Blue International. The UK's Future Fund had lent the company £3.3 million of taxpayer money. Devonport Capital, a lender specialising in high-risk jurisdictions and run by Paul Bailey with Thomas Kingston, a Foreign Office veteran married to Lady Gabriella Windsor, had extended roughly $5 million to Blue International. When the Ghanaian venture began to unravel, Devonport's own creditors, including the Legatum Group's founder Christopher Chandler and the British tax agency, were pulled into the maelstrom. Kingston died in February 2024. Devonport entered administration a year later, with creditors owed £49 million and recovery estimates as low as £11.2 million. In Ghana, FGR's tenure was marked by repeated shutdowns, unpaid wages, and accumulating supplier debts. Abdul-Moomin Gbana, General Secretary of the Ghana Mineworkers' Union, described communities around the mine becoming "virtually ghost towns." FGR also struggled to pay Ghana's state electricity company. Workers protested with brass bands and placards reading "Blue Gold is a scam." Yet FGR's parent restructured the asset into Blue Gold, listed it on NASDAQ via a merger with a blank-cheque firm, and announced it had secured $140 million in restart financing with $65 million held in escrow. But the money seemed stuck somewhere between New York, London, and the mine. Blue Gold's NASDAQ stock crashed 96.86 per cent from its peak. The company recorded no revenue, a $15.1 million annual loss, and a working capital deficit of $10.7 million. It was into this seeming vacuum that Heath Goldfields materialised like a rabbit out of a hat. The company was incorporated on 6 February 2024 with a stated capital of GH¢10,000, roughly $700. One week later, on 13 February, it applied for the mining lease, even though the lease was still legally held by FGR/Blue Gold. By September 2024, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources had terminated the previous lease. By November, the Minerals Commission had approved the reassignment to Heath Goldfields. Four days after a letter ostensibly suspending the process, Heath personnel had, according to various accounts, mobilised to site, to assert control over vehicles, residential assets, and gold stockpiles. Who stood behind Heath Goldfields? The initial presentation to the Minerals Commission described the company as a subsidiary of the Yildirim Group, a major Turkish conglomerate whose mining arm, Yilmaden, operates across several countries. A promise of $500 million in investment was stated in the strategic plan accompanying the proposal. On the strength of these claims, or more likely the relationships, the award of leases followed. But soon trouble reared its head. The Catchment Area Community Alliance, a local youth group, subsequently petitioned the government, noting that publicly available information on the Yildirim Group's corporate structure does not list Heath Goldfields among its recognised entities. This is extremely strange as the Bosses at the Minerals Commission had told the Minister in their October 23, 2024, letter that Heath is indeed owned by the Yildirim Group. Plus, a host of other credentials and commitments. The promised half-billion dollars has not materialised. None of the Minerals Commission bosses who told the Minister that Heath is a subsidiary of the Turkish conglomerate has ever been questioned. When it became clear that the Turkish funds won't come, a new list of financial sponsors started to circulate. ECOWAS Bank for Investment & Development $100 million Months afterwards, the cash pipeline seemed dry. The recent announcement of the Trafigura offtake together with $65 million in debt financing would thus appear to be the only one in the latest of promises to be redeemed. While significant, it comes nowhere close to the original aggregate pledge. What has now become quite clear, following amendments to the original corporate registration documents, is the domestic political machinery behind the venture. Dr Kwabena Duffuor, a former Minister of Finance and one of Ghana's wealthiest individuals, is a director. His son, Dr Kwabena Duffuor Jnr, serves as Board Chairman. Directors and corporate secretaries listed in early filings include Sylvia Naa Odarley Amporful and Edwin Kpedor, a lawyer whose name appears on multiple company documents. Eureka Capital, an entity mentioned in other disputes involving the Duffours and an industrialist about a packaging factory, also features. The Turkish connection, presented as the backbone of the venture's technical and financial credibility, has vanished like morning mists at noon. Since assuming control, Heath Goldfields is reported to have dismissed over 400 workers, citing "operational restructuring." Those workers subsequently held a press conference accusing the company of deceit, discrimination, and financial neglect. Only partial payments of salary arrears have been made. Severance packages, provident fund contributions, bonuses, and repatriation entitlements remain largely outstanding, according to worker representatives. A GH¢136 million settlement was later announced, but verification of its completeness remains disputed. Ruling party executives have demanded termination of the lease and reassignment to a more capable investor. Even local chiefs have jumped on that bandwagon. The confusion has led to questions about whether the company possesses the technical competence and financial depth to sustainably manage one of West Africa's most complex gold operations. Trafigura's Calculated Bet The April 2026 Trafigura offtake merits particular scrutiny, less for what it says about Trafigura than for what it reveals about the desperation of the Heath Goldfields position. Trafigura is a $244-billion-revenue commodity trader that has spent two decades expanding its metals and minerals footprint across Africa. The $65 million in debt financing it is extending is secured against a stream of 700,000 ounces of gold. At current prices just south of $5,000 per ounce, those ounces carry an aggregate market value approaching $3.5 billion. Trafigura's exposure is, by its own portfolio standards, trivial. What it gains is a locked-in physical supply from a producing asset at a moment when gold is the most coveted commodity on the planet. For Heath Goldfields, the deal appears to be its only lifeline. Without external financing, the restart of even the oxide operations is unachievable. The underground levels of the mine remains badly flooded well above the 18th Level, with installations between the 18th and 24th Levels, including locomotive trains, power stations, and ore passes, fully submerged. Rehabilitating the underground segment to the point of productive mining would require capital expenditure measured in the hundreds of millions, not the tens of millions that Trafigura's facility provides. The Trafigura deal, impressive as its headline numbers sound, may finance stockpile-processing and limited surface-mining operations, but that is far from the reinvigoration needed. Heath's hopes are that the deal might trigger more inward investment from other parties. But there are serious concerns about the regulatory tightness of the arrangement. Did Trafigura Look Before it Leaped? Or Was it Assured by Powers That Be? Clause 3.4(e) of the April 2, 2026, Trafigura-Heath Debenture assigns, by way of first priority security, Heath Goldfields' three mining leases (APL-M-147, APL-M-148, and APL-M-149, all dated December 13,2024, to Trafigura. This is softened by the "Effective Date" definition in Clause 1.1.12, which defers the mining lease security to the "Consent Date" - the date the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources issues a no-objection letter. Clause 6.4 gives Heath Goldfields 60 days to procure that consent. The problem is that section 14 of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) prohibits the creation of any encumbrance over a mining lease without PRIOR ministerial consent. The agreement between Heath and Trafigura has, however, already been executed, signed, and in force. Even where the security's effectiveness is contractually deferred, the legal question is whether the executed assignment instrument itself - drafted in terms that create a contingent proprietary interest - constitutes a disposition requiring consent before execution rather than after. Section 21 of Act 703 (Ghana's main mining law, twice amended) vests the Government of Ghana with a right of pre-emption over minerals produced from mining concessions. Clause 10.20 of the Trafigura - Heath Prepayment Agreement formally acknowledges this right. However, Clauses 4 and 11.1(b) require Heath Goldfields to maintain an Offtake Coverage Ratio of at least 200% at all times, effectively committing all current and future production to Trafigura's offtake. Clause 11.4(c) prohibits any new prepayment or pre-export financing that might affect this commitment. Local Ownership Doesn't Always Mean Local Control Another lesson that comes out strongly from the Trafigura offtake agreements is the divergence between local ownership and control, especially if the "local champion" is weak. Clause 11.4 of the Prepayment Agreement gives Trafigura veto power over dividends, share redemptions, management fees, capital expenditure on sulphide ore, corporate restructuring, change of control, and any new financial indebtedness. The aggregate effect is that a Singaporean commodity trader holds effective operational and financial control over a Ghanaian mining operation even though a local company fronts "ownership". The separate Ghanaian Law Share Charge pledges the shares of Heath Goldfields held by Eureka Capital to Trafigura. On enforcement, Trafigura would acquire de facto control of a Ghanaian mining company holding three active mining leases. A change of ownership of this kind would normally require ministerial consent under Act 703 but the legal documents are vague about what happens if that consent is not forthcoming. It is also vague if Ghana's forex laws are respected in the payment model adopted for overseas net-offs of proceeds against debt obligations when Heath delivers gold to Trafigura. Blue Gold Fumes in the Background Meanwhile, Blue Gold's international arbitration under the UK-Ghana bilateral investment treaty proceeds at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, seeking damages estimated in excess of $1 billion. If Blue Gold prevails, the financial consequences for Ghana could be severe, potentially exceeding the entire revenue the mine might generate under Heath's stewardship. If it fails, the precedent will chill future foreign investment regardless, because the spectacle of a NASDAQ-listed company being stripped of its asset and replaced by a company incorporated one week earlier with $800 in capital is not a story that institutional investors forget. Jurisdictional Chaos is an Industry Disease The chaos at Bogoso-Prestea is chronic and reflects systemic conditions. Ghana's mining sector and, more broadly, the resource governance of many African states, are constantly trapped in this kind of confusion. I think it is fair to characterise the situation as chronic jurisdictional chaos: a variant of the general katanomics I regularly rail against. The chronic misalignment between the regulatory system, the political incentives, and the commercial realities of mining are legion. Every actor in the Bogoso-Prestea saga, from Golden Star to FGR to Heath Goldfields, has operated in an environment where the rules appear to bend depending on who is applying pressure, where tenure is precarious regardless of legal formality, and where the government's role oscillates between regulator, landlord, equity partner, and political dealmaker. Consider the sequence of events at Damang, another mine in the same belt, where a 7-day tender window was created for a mine requiring $500 million in investment, a bankable feasibility study, environmental impact assessments, and water-use permits. In both the Damang and Bogoso-Prestea cases, the regulatory process was compressed to the point where only insiders could navigate it. In both cases, the financial and technical prerequisites for responsible mine operation were warped by political fiat. I would like to submit that this is not resource nationalism. Resource nationalism, done competently, is what Chile achieved with Codelco and what Botswana built with Debswana. It is not possible to grow "national champions" on soils poisoned by chaos and disorganisation. The process of effective seeding of national champions requires the state to first establish jurisdictional quality, a predictable, transparent, and enforced legal regime, and then to leverage that quality to extract maximum value for its people using the strategically groomed national champions as instruments and vehicles. Recent developments would appear to suggest that Ghana is doing the reverse: degrading jurisdictional quality in the hope that national champions will emerge from the chaos. What emerges instead is a revolving door of under-capitalised operators, escalating legal disputes, idle workers, and flooded mineshafts. China's technology sector offers an instructive parallel if Ghana's political elite are minded to learn. When Beijing wanted to build national champions in telecommunications, semiconductors, and electric vehicles, it did not begin by expropriating foreign operators and handing their factories to politically connected entrepreneurs. It began by establishing industrial zones with predictable rules, offering long tax holidays to foreign firms willing to transfer technology, building a massive base of trained engineers through state-funded universities, and then, over two decades, nurturing domestic firms within that ecosystem until they were strong enough to compete on their own merits. Huawei began as a reseller of imported telecom switches. Samsung, Korea's national champion, started as a grocery trading company and dried fishmonger. Neither was catapulted into industry leadership by regulatory fiat. The lesson from these examples, and from the UAE's financial services development and aviation success story, from Chile's copper discipline, and from Indonesia's nickel downstream policy, is that effective sequencing, rather than sentiment, does the trick. The first step is always jurisdictional cleanup: clear rules, consistent enforcement, credible arbitration, and a regulatory culture that treats all investors, foreign and domestic, with equal rigour. Only after that foundation is set can the state then credibly favour domestic firms. Because only then will those firms be tested by genuine competition, rather than sheltered by bureaucratic caprice, and thus build the profile able to attract better terms from business partners worldwide than the hamstringing ones that Trafigura has heaped on Heath, for instance. Ghana seems to be exhibiting the inverse pattern when it comes to its natural resource (especially mining) sector. As the katanomics framework describes, political clarity abounds: Ghanaians overwhelmingly support greater domestic ownership of their mineral wealth. The political class rides this sentiment with rhetorical flourish. But policy savvy, the granular, technocratic capacity to translate sentiment into sequenced, executable strategy, is conspicuously absent. What we often see instead is "buga-buga" governance: brash, poorly thought-through interventions that achieve the appearance of nationalist victory while continuing the old pattern of chronic failures. Bogoso Prestea keeps devouring its owners Amidst all the chaos and noise, we have a pattern. Every operator of Bogoso-Prestea since the colonial era has encountered the same fundamental challenge: the geology is generous but complex, the underground shafts are deep and wet, the surface oxides are increasingly exhausted, and the sulphide resource, which constitutes the bulk of the remaining mineral inventory at 1.76 million ounces of measured and indicated resources, requires processing technology and capital intensity that very few operators can sustain. The BIOX® plant, which Golden Star built to treat refractory sulphide ore, operated for years but was eventually closed due to underperformance and cost escalation. The Prestea Underground area has flooded and been dewatered and flooded again, a cycle as rhythmic and pitiless as the tropical rains that feed the aquifers. So, what kind of operator can succeed at Bogoso-Prestea? The evidence suggests it requires deep pockets, patient capital, world-class technical management, and, crucially, a thoughtful and predictable policy and regulatory environment in which long-term investments can be made without the risk of capricious political actions. In other words, the kind of operator that jurisdictional chaos systematically repels. The companies that venture into Bogoso-Prestea tend to share a streak of adventurism: they are startups, turnaround specialists, or politically connected entrepreneurs rather than established mining companies or top-tier startup teams covering all the key functions one needs to venture effectively into mining. It is selection bias produced by an environment that is, to put it plainly, too risky for the cautious and too tempting for the reckless. A Golden Moment, Squandered All of this unfolds against the most favourable macroeconomic backdrop for gold mining in half a century. Gold prices surged 42 per cent in 2025 alone, driven by central bank accumulation, geopolitical turbulence, and dollar weakness. Global gold production margins have widened to record levels, with S&P Global estimating all-in sustaining cost margins of roughly $2,800 per ounce for 2026. African producers, from West African Resources in Burkina Faso to Allied Gold in Ethiopia, are racing to bring new ounces to market. Across the continent, the African Mining Vision's long-standing call for greater local value retention from mining has acquired fresh urgency and plausibility. Ghana, sitting atop one of the world's richest gold belts as Africa's largest producer, should be the primary beneficiary. Instead, two of its most significant mining assets, Bogoso-Prestea and Damang, are mired in disputes, operational limbo, and legal proceedings that could take years to resolve. Despite their bad rap, it is the large, foreign-owned operations at Tarkwa, Obuasi, and Wassa, that seem likely to remain on the scene once the hysteria fades. Despite the small-scale sector now generating half of all gold exports, few companies in that segment are being systematically supported to grow and take over mature concessions. Bogoso-Prestea has lessons for Africa Bogoso-Prestea carries lessons far more poignant than about troubled mining. It is a literal parable about the distance between aspiration and execution in Africa's resource governance. The mine's century of production, its nine million ounces of extracted gold, its 5.1 million ounces still in the ground, should represent a formidable platform for sovereign wealth creation. That it does not, that the mine in 2026 is processing stockpiles under a company incorporated with $800 while a $1 billion arbitration looms, is an indictment not of any single actor but of a system that privileges short-term political manoeuvre over long-term institutional construction. The deeper lesson is for Ghana and for every African country watching the global gold rally with hungry eyes. Owning your natural resources is a precondition for development, but it does not substitute for policy savvy. Between ownership and value creation lies the unglamorous, technically demanding, institutionally intensive work of building a mining sector that operates at the frontier of global practice. That work begins with jurisdictional quality, and jurisdictional quality begins with treating every mining licence, every tender process, every lease termination, as an act that the entire world is watching and evaluating. Because in 2026, the world very much is. The Situation is Dire Heath Goldfields, and their formidable patrons, the Duffours, are pulling out all the stops even as calls rise from every corner for the lease to be terminated. But success at Bogoso-Prestea would take more than entrepreneurial aggression or mere political fiat. The Chief Inspector of Mines, Richard Adjei, was emphatic in his August 2025 assessment that the continued accumulation of stagnant water underground violates Regulation 178a of LI 2182. Everyday this continues, the law is being wantonly broken. It is not clear how the company can retain a mining operating permit if the Chief Inspector's findings remain unremedied. The Tailings Storage Facility demands emergency intervention (you will recall from my earlier piece on Damang that there is a similar risk there too). Cells 1 and 2 carry no available freeboard - a direct breach of Regulation 264(o) and (p) - and construction on Cell 2 and Cell 2A has stalled for over a year due to unpaid contractors. Downstream communities including Dumasi and Bogoso sit in the flood shadow of a potential dam failure. On the operational front, the sulphide plant commitment made by Heath is unlikely to met considering that the Trafigura agreement specifically constrains investment without the Swiss commodities trading giant's prior approval. Meanwhile, the Turkish Yilmaden Holdings investment of $500 million which was the primary basis of approval has all but disappeared from the record. According to the terms of the lease, creditor liabilities were to be extinguished within seven days. Persistent reports continue to name unpaid creditors. It is clear that the whole affair is a total mess. It is also clear that the government must put forward a comprehensive new strategy involving the establishment of a special investment vehicle that the parties that have developed some residual interest - Blue Gold and Heath Goldfields - would become minority interest holders in exchange for dropping their operatorship expectations and all other claims. Once this complex understanding is reached, the path would then be open for a truly competitive process to select a top-tier consortium to own majority of the structure, manage the leases, and operate the mine. A mine of this vintage and mineral complexity - refractory ore deposits, ageing underground infrastructure, a sulphide processing gap that has persisted for years - genuinely requires an operator with capital depth and technical seriousness. Nine million ounces have already left the ground at Bogoso-Prestea. Five million more remain. Whether those ounces enrich Ghana or merely pass through it on their way to Swiss refineries and London vaults will be determined by something more buoyant than gold prices. Another price matters more: the cost of persisting on the path of katanomics. So far, the invoice is long and the payments are short.
Airport chaos sweeps Europe - passengers face 3-hour queues & missed flights
THE new EES travel system came into full effect just days ago - and it is causing travel chaos at airports in Europe. Over the weekend, huge queues at border control meant some passengers were forced to miss their flights while others waited hours to leave the airport. EES, which is the EU's Entry/Exit System, became fully operational on April 10, 2026. The new rules require all non-EU nationals to register their details like fingerprints and facial images before going abroad. It will replace the need for stamps and is designed to make border crossings quicker. But so far, lots of passengers have faced huge queues at border controls, some over four hours long. This weekend, the use of EES biometrics at three Portuguese airports; Lisbon, Porto and Faro, were actually stopped because of excessive passenger wait times. To ease the queues, EES registration was halted on the morning of April 11 - it later restarted in the afternoon. Public Security Police spokesperson Sérgio Soares, told press "the collection of biometrics at departures from Humberto Delgado (Lisbon), Francisco Sá Carneiro (Porto) and Gago Coutinho (Faro) Airports was interrupted from the beginning of the operation this morning. "The interruption continues and is currently being reevaluated. This is to ensure that the waiting time is not longer than what we intend, namely so that people do not miss flights." However this was the case at Milan Airport in Italy. Some passengers were left behind over the weekend as a result of the huge EES registration queues. The BBC reported that over 100 people were left stranded when an easyJet flight to Manchester left without them. The delays due to the new EES checks mean travellers were waiting in lines over three hours long. Some passengers left in the heat of the airport were throwing up and passing out. One passenger told the BBC that having to rebook her flights cost her an extra £520 as a result. Another stranded passenger who spoke to The Independent said they had booked another flight at the cost of £1,600 - and with a connection through Luxembourg. easyJet told The Sun: "Due to delays in EES processing by border authorities, some passengers departing from Milan Linate yesterday experienced very long waiting times at passport control. "We held flight EJU5420 from Milan to Manchester for nearly an hour to give passengers extra time but it had to then depart due to crew reaching their safety regulated operating hours. Customers who missed the flight have been offered a free flight transfer. "We continue to urge border authorities to ensure they make full and effective use of the permitted flexibilities for as long as needed while EES is implemented, to avoid these unacceptable border delays for our customers. "While this is outside of our control, we are sorry for any inconvenience caused." Meanwhile, at Brussels Airport on the very first day of the EES rollout, the Airports Council International reported that in one instance there weren't any passengers on a plane when the gate closed. It said one flight from Brussels to the UK was missing 51 passengers at departure. And then, "another flight had zero passengers on board at gate closing time, and 90 minutes later, 12 passengers were yet to reach the gate". There were concerns raised about the new travel rules prior to the full rollout, with officials asking for EES to be delayed until later in the year. If you're heading abroad soon, here are our seven tips for the new EES rules.
Australia exposed to hackers by lack of access to Anthropic tool
Anthropic's decision not to immediately share its powerful new artificial intelligence model with Australian businesses or authorities leaves the country dangerously exposed to hackers, warns Australia's former top cybersecurity adviser. Mythos can identify and exploit vulnerabilities in every major operating system and web browser when directed to do so, the American AI giant said when it unveiled it last week.
Bank of England Set to Discuss Anthropic's Mythos With Banks
The Bank of England plans to discuss the impact of Anthropic PBC's new AI model with financial institutions, as UK regulators join their peers in the US and elsewhere in raising alarms over the risks posed by the tool. Anthropic's Mythos model will be on the agenda for the BOE's next Cross Market Operational Resilience Group and CMORG AI Taskforce meetings, scheduled within the next two weeks, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The meetings, earlier reported by the Telegraph, will include representatives from the Treasury, the Financial Conduct Authority and the National Cyber Security Centre. Wall Street banks have started testing Mythos internally after the Trump administration this week warned executives they should take the model seriously and deploy its capabilities to detect vulnerabilities. The Bank of Canada on Friday also met with banks and financial firms to discuss the cybersecurity risks posed by Mythos. The meetings reflect growing concern among regulators that a new breed of cyberattacks is one of the biggest risks facing the financial industry. Anthropic's Mythos is a sophisticated new model capable of identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities in every major operating system and web browser, the company has said.
Catalyst Alert: Anthropic Deal Makes Alphabet Stock a Must-Buy
In another sign that Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) is becoming one of the top artificial intelligence (AI) chip companies, it recently announced it had expanded its partnership with Anthropic to let the large language model (LLM) maker deploy more of its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). Alphabet, of course, is best known for its Google search business, but it's gaining a new AI-powered revenue source through its custom TPUs. Alphabet developed its TPUs with Broadcom's help more than a decade ago and has used these chips to power most of its internal workflows over the years. Because of this, its entire hardware and software ecosystems have been optimized around these chips. While the chips were originally designed for their TensorFlow framework (hence the name), the move to support other frameworks, such as JAX and PyTorch, has opened the door for them to be used by external customers, as well. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue " Image source: The Motley Fool. Anthropic had already agreed to acquire $21 billion in TPUs from Broadcom to be deployed this year. This new deal is for 3.5 gigawatts of TPU compute capacity to be delivered starting in 2027. The TPUs will be deployed through Alphabet's cloud computing service, Google Cloud, and also provided directly by Broadcom. The deployments remain contingent on Anthropic's continued commercial success. Letting Broadcom sell TPU racks directly to Anthropic so the company can manage its own servers is a big shift in Alphabet's strategy. However, it's likely a quite profitable one. Earlier, Morgan Stanley estimated that for every 500,000 TPUs Alphabet sells, it would equate to around $13 billion in additional revenue and $0.40 in earnings per share. Even for the size of a company like Alphabet, those are some big numbers. Alphabet has established itself as an AI leader, being the only company with both a top-tier foundation AI model and its own top-notch AI chips. Its proprietary chips give it a significant structural cost advantage, as it can train its models and run inference much lower cost than competitors, which mostly rely on Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs). It also has powerful distribution and ad networks that enable it to monetize its AI models, as well as those of others. The shift to selling its TPUs to customers, meanwhile, adds another powerful revenue stream. With the stock trading at a forward price-to-earnings of 25 times 2027 earnings estimates, this AI leader is a buy. Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now... and Alphabet wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $555,526!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,156,403!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 968% -- a market-crushing outperformance compared to 191% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet and Broadcom. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Broadcom, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Is the SpaceX IPO Destined to Flop? This Historical Indicator Has a (Thus Far) 100% Success Rate and Offers a Clear Answer.
However, the historically accurate price-to-sales ratio has a stark warning for prospective SpaceX investors. This may very well be the year of the mega-initial public offering (IPO). Artificial intelligence (AI) large language model developers OpenAI and Anthropic are both exploring the idea of going public before the end of 2026. However, the kingpin of all expected IPOs is space infrastructure and AI conglomerate, SpaceX. SpaceX, whose CEO, Elon Musk, also runs trillion-dollar electric-vehicle (EV) maker Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), confidentially filed to go public on April 1. Initial reports suggest it could fetch a valuation of up to $1.75 trillion and raise in the neighborhood of $75 billion. For context, Saudi Aramco currently holds the title of largest IPO, with $29.4 billion raised in December 2019. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue " Image source: Getty Images. Investors have a laundry list of reasons to be excited about SpaceX's debut. It has its fingers in two of the largest addressable markets on the planet, artificial intelligence and space infrastructure, is already turning a profit (from SpaceX), and is led by Musk, who turned Tesla into one of America's largest public companies. But what if success was far from guaranteed for SpaceX and its soon-to-be public shareholders? To preface the following discussion, there isn't a data point or historical correlation that can guarantee a short-term directional move in any stock or broad-based index. If there were, we'd all be using it by now. However, there is one time-tested valuation tool that has an immaculate track record of alerting investors to stock market bubbles over several decades: the price-to-sales (P/S) ratio. For more than three decades, companies on the leading edge of game-changing technologies and innovations have commonly topped out at trailing 12-month (TTM) P/S ratios ranging from 30 to 45, with some wiggle room at each end. For example, we witnessed Cisco Systems and Microsoft reach their respective P/S ratio peaks within this range prior to the dot-com bubble bursting. Including the proliferation of the internet and the several next-big-thing trends that have followed, no public company has been able to maintain a TTM P/S ratio above 30 for an extended period. According to Reuters, SpaceX generated $15 billion to $16 billion in sales last year. Although an S-1 prospectus hasn't been filed (i.e., investors can't comb through the company's operating performance just yet), SpaceX itself is expected to account for $1 trillion (or more) of the company's market cap. Even though SpaceX is profitable, it means the company is valued at 63 times sales, at a minimum, ahead of its IPO. If P/S ratios of 30 have proven unsustainable since the mid-1990s, imagine what a P/S ratio of over 60 suggests. SpaceX's valuation implies perfection from high-growth industries that we simply know are imperfect. Space infrastructure is capital-intensive, prone to production delays, and can be adversely impacted by inflation. Meanwhile, AI is likely on a path to its own bubble-bursting event. We observed the same dynamic play out with Tesla. Although EVs looked like a no-brainer investment opportunity on paper, a lack of EV infrastructure, coupled with tepid consumer demand for electric transportation, has stymied Tesla's sales growth. Based on the time-tested P/S ratio, the SpaceX IPO appears destined to flop. Ever feel like you missed the boat in buying the most successful stocks? Then you'll want to hear this. On rare occasions, our expert team of analysts issues a "Double Down" stock recommendation for companies that they think are about to pop. If you're worried you've already missed your chance to invest, now is the best time to buy before it's too late. And the numbers speak for themselves: Right now, we're issuing "Double Down" alerts for three incredible companies, available when you join Stock Advisor, and there may not be another chance like this anytime soon. Sean Williams has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Cisco Systems, Microsoft, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Catalyst Alert: Anthropic Deal Makes Alphabet Stock a Must-Buy | The Motley Fool
Alphabet has a big opportunity to sell its TPUs to corporate customers. In another sign that Alphabet (GOOGL 0.41%) (GOOG 0.21%) is becoming one of the top artificial intelligence (AI) chip companies, it recently announced it had expanded its partnership with Anthropic to let the large language model (LLM) maker deploy more of its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). Alphabet, of course, is best known for its Google search business, but it's gaining a new AI-powered revenue source through its custom TPUs. Alphabet developed its TPUs with Broadcom's help more than a decade ago and has used these chips to power most of its internal workflows over the years. Because of this, its entire hardware and software ecosystems have been optimized around these chips. While the chips were originally designed for their TensorFlow framework (hence the name), the move to support other frameworks, such as JAX and PyTorch, has opened the door for them to be used by external customers, as well. Anthropic had already agreed to acquire $21 billion in TPUs from Broadcom to be deployed this year. This new deal is for 3.5 gigawatts of TPU compute capacity to be delivered starting in 2027. The TPUs will be deployed through Alphabet's cloud computing service, Google Cloud, and also provided directly by Broadcom. The deployments remain contingent on Anthropic's continued commercial success. Letting Broadcom sell TPU racks directly to Anthropic so the company can manage its own servers is a big shift in Alphabet's strategy. However, it's likely a quite profitable one. Earlier, Morgan Stanley estimated that for every 500,000 TPUs Alphabet sells, it would equate to around $13 billion in additional revenue and $0.40 in earnings per share. Even for the size of a company like Alphabet, those are some big numbers. Alphabet has established itself as an AI leader, being the only company with both a top-tier foundation AI model and its own top-notch AI chips. Its proprietary chips give it a significant structural cost advantage, as it can train its models and run inference much lower cost than competitors, which mostly rely on Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs). It also has powerful distribution and ad networks that enable it to monetize its AI models, as well as those of others. The shift to selling its TPUs to customers, meanwhile, adds another powerful revenue stream. With the stock trading at a forward price-to-earnings of 25 times 2027 earnings estimates, this AI leader is a buy.
Saba secures breakthrough as UK trust backs SpaceX-linked plan
Saba Capital Management has secured a notable victory in his campaign targeting UK-listed investment trusts, after Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust moved to support a shareholder exit proposal aligned with its strategy, according to a report by Bloomberg. The trust, managed by Baillie Gifford, said it will proceed with tender offers that would allow investors to exit at net asset value, minus associated costs. These options may be executed in the near term or linked to a future liquidity event, such as a potential listing of SpaceX. The decision follows the rejection of the board's original proposal, which failed to gain sufficient backing from shareholders. That plan would have returned roughly 85% of capital in cash, with the remainder -- tied to the trust's SpaceX exposure -- deferred until a future monetisation event. The outcome marks a significant step forward for Saba boss Boaz Weinstein, who has been pushing for changes across a number of UK trusts trading at persistent discounts since late 2024. While earlier attempts to take control of several vehicles were unsuccessful, pressure from Saba has prompted governance and structural adjustments in some cases. At Edinburgh Worldwide, a sizeable bloc of shareholders -- including Saba and other institutional investors -- voted against the board's proposal, tipping the balance in favour of an alternative approach. Attention now turns to a shareholder vote scheduled for April 30, where investors will decide whether to replace the current board with nominees put forward by Saba. A successful outcome for the activist could pave the way for the hedge fund to assume management of the trust. The board acknowledged the setback, noting the increased likelihood of changes to its composition. It added that its immediate focus is on ensuring shareholders retain access to viable liquidity options amid the evolving situation. Saba Capital declined to comment on the latest developments. In a statement Saba said: "We thank our fellow shareholders for their support in rejecting the EWI Board's deeply flawed tender proposal, which would have forced shareholders into untradeable SpaceX tracker shares while exposing them to significant potential tax liabilities." The company went on to say that it remains confident that "its previously announced Enhanced Liquidity Proposal is the best outcome for shareholders," and that new directors put forth by Saba for election at the upcoming AGM possess the investment management and board experience necessary to administer this proposal, which would offer shareholders greater optionality, more effective management of any tax consequences and the ability to see the SpaceX position through to IPO.
UK regulators to assess risks of Anthropic's AI model; Wall Street banks set for $40bn trading windfall on volatility
UK regulators are holding urgent talks with the government's cyber security watchdog and major banks over risks linked to Anthropic's latest AI model, Claude Mythos Preview. Officials from the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority and HM Treasury are working with the National Cyber Security Centre to assess vulnerabilities the model could expose in critical IT systems, according to an FT report citing sources. UK lenders, insurers and exchanges are expected to be briefed at a meeting within weeks.
Is the SpaceX IPO Destined to Flop? This Historical Indicator Has a (Thus Far) 100% Success Rate and Offers a Clear Answer. | The Motley Fool
However, the historically accurate price-to-sales ratio has a stark warning for prospective SpaceX investors. This may very well be the year of the mega-initial public offering (IPO). Artificial intelligence (AI) large language model developers OpenAI and Anthropic are both exploring the idea of going public before the end of 2026. However, the kingpin of all expected IPOs is space infrastructure and AI conglomerate, SpaceX. SpaceX, whose CEO, Elon Musk, also runs trillion-dollar electric-vehicle (EV) maker Tesla (TSLA +0.91%), confidentially filed to go public on April 1. Initial reports suggest it could fetch a valuation of up to $1.75 trillion and raise in the neighborhood of $75 billion. For context, Saudi Aramco currently holds the title of largest IPO, with $29.4 billion raised in December 2019. Investors have a laundry list of reasons to be excited about SpaceX's debut. It has its fingers in two of the largest addressable markets on the planet, artificial intelligence and space infrastructure, is already turning a profit (from SpaceX), and is led by Musk, who turned Tesla into one of America's largest public companies. But what if success was far from guaranteed for SpaceX and its soon-to-be public shareholders? To preface the following discussion, there isn't a data point or historical correlation that can guarantee a short-term directional move in any stock or broad-based index. If there were, we'd all be using it by now. However, there is one time-tested valuation tool that has an immaculate track record of alerting investors to stock market bubbles over several decades: the price-to-sales (P/S) ratio. For more than three decades, companies on the leading edge of game-changing technologies and innovations have commonly topped out at trailing 12-month (TTM) P/S ratios ranging from 30 to 45, with some wiggle room at each end. For example, we witnessed Cisco Systems and Microsoft reach their respective P/S ratio peaks within this range prior to the dot-com bubble bursting. Including the proliferation of the internet and the several next-big-thing trends that have followed, no public company has been able to maintain a TTM P/S ratio above 30 for an extended period. According to Reuters, SpaceX generated $15 billion to $16 billion in sales last year. Although an S-1 prospectus hasn't been filed (i.e., investors can't comb through the company's operating performance just yet), SpaceX itself is expected to account for $1 trillion (or more) of the company's market cap. Even though SpaceX is profitable, it means the company is valued at 63 times sales, at a minimum, ahead of its IPO. If P/S ratios of 30 have proven unsustainable since the mid-1990s, imagine what a P/S ratio of over 60 suggests. SpaceX's valuation implies perfection from high-growth industries that we simply know are imperfect. Space infrastructure is capital-intensive, prone to production delays, and can be adversely impacted by inflation. Meanwhile, AI is likely on a path to its own bubble-bursting event. We observed the same dynamic play out with Tesla. Although EVs looked like a no-brainer investment opportunity on paper, a lack of EV infrastructure, coupled with tepid consumer demand for electric transportation, has stymied Tesla's sales growth. Based on the time-tested P/S ratio, the SpaceX IPO appears destined to flop.
Bus driver with woman sitting on his lap causes chaos by swerving down main road
A Malaysian bus driver was seemingly filmed driving with a woman sitting in his lap, even letting her use the steering wheel, while footage emerged of the bus swerving across lanes A bus driver caused chaos on a main road when he seemingly drove his vehicle with a woman sitting on his lap. Video of the bizarre incident emerged on social media, prompting an investigation by transport officials. A film of the incident, which according to news outlet The New Straits Times was filmed by a passenger on the bus, shows the Malaysian driver appearing to let the woman use the steering wheel, while he tightly grips her waist with his hands. Incredibly, a separate video also emerged online of what appears to be the same bus swerving between lanes while driving down a motorway. The video appears to take place in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on a motorway which connects an important transportation hub called Bersepadu Selata to the rest of the city. An investigation has been launched by Malaysian officials who, according to reports, have identified the express bus driver allegedly videoed in the incident. The senior enforcement director of the bus company, Datuk Muhammad Kifli Ma Hassan, said: "An investigation was immediately initiated following the circulation of the video. The driver and the bus company involved have been identified." According to Hassan, once the internal investigation was complete, the case would then be referred to the director general of Malaysia's Road Transport Department to see if any further action was needed. He also called on members of the public who saw the lap-sitting take place to come forward with any information that might help the investigation. And he also reminded all motorists, especially bus and coach drivers that they need to follow the rules of the road at all times. "This is important to ensure the safety of all road users and to prevent incidents that could endanger lives," he said. It's not known who the woman in the video is, or what her relation is to the unnamed driver. Malaysians took to social media to criticise the driver's alleged actions, with many calling for him to lose his job. One user wrote, "Hope he will be . . . fined [and] banned from driving for five years", while another added that they " hope that firm action is taken against him". A user who reposted the video reminded the driver that "while flirting, people's lives are at stake behind you".
UK holidaymakers faint and vomit during three-hour Milan airport border checks chaos - AOL
Airline passengers were left vomiting and passing out after being stranded in an Italian airport on Sunday due to new EU border rules. The chaos ensued as around 100 passengers due to return to Manchester Airport on as EasyJet flight from Milan's Linate airport were stuck in three-hour queues as their flight departed without them. Pictures and videos shared online showed scenes of mayhem as large queues formed at the airport, with a number of passengers falling ill as a result of the heat. EasyJet said it was trying to support passengers during a situation that is "outside of our control" because of the new border control checks. It is understood that EasyJet delayed the flight by over 50 minutes to allow customers extra time but as crew reached their safety regulated operating hours the flight had to depart for Manchester. One passenger told the BBC that she and her boyfriend faced a 20 hour wait in the airport for a replacement flight. Keira, 17, from Oldham, said it was costing her mother about £520 for new flights, which will land at Gatwick instead of Manchester. Kiera said: "We got here at 7.30am for our flight at 11am so were super early. We got to Border Control and it was a massive queue of people. I wasn't feeling great anyway because I think I'd got food poisoning. "At about 10.50am they brought some water over for people, and when we got to the front of the queue someone asked us if we were going to Manchester, and told us our flight had just gone. "There were only about 30 people got on the plane, and about 100 people didn't." Kiera said she had only been offered £12.25 in compensation after emailing the airline about their situation - less than the price of a sandwich. Adam Lomas, 33, was on holiday in Milan with his wife and their four-month-old daughter when they became stranded at the airport. He said he tried to contact the airline but could only get through to "chatbots" who hung up on him after a few minutes due to "audio issues." Adam said his family were now trying to find a hotel and book a flight to London, where they would then have to get the train to Manchester, while other passengers had driven to Pisa to fly from there "The airport and Easyjet have spent hours arguing with each other about who is to blame," he added. EasyJet blamed the delays on the implementation of the EU's new Entry/Exit System (EES), which it said were "unacceptable". The system, which involves people having their fingerprints registered and photograph taken to enter the European Schengen Area, was supposed to be brought in in October last year, but only became fully operational on April 10. The UK government has updated its guidance to people travelling to the area that they might need to register their biometric details when they arrive. EasyJet said it informed customers of the new system and advised them to check their travel documents, allow extra time at airports, be ready for biometric checks, and factor extra time when planning onward travel. An EasyJet spokesperson said: "We are aware that some passengers departing from Milan Linate today experienced longer than usual waiting times at passport control and we advised customers due to fly to allow additional time to make their way through the airport. "We have been doing all possible to minimise the impact of the airport queues, holding flights to allow customers extra time and providing free flight transfers for any customers who may have missed their flight including EJU5420 to Manchester. "We continue to urge border authorities to ensure they make full and effective use of the permitted flexibilities for as long as needed while European Entry / Exit System is implemented, to avoid these unacceptable border delays for our customers. "While this is outside of our control, we are sorry for any inconvenience caused." There were lengthy delays at airports across Europe earlier this week with the new digital border controls coming into effect, as travellers at terminals including Lisbon, Milan and Paris, took hours to clear immigration. Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has accused the EU of punishing British holidaymakers over Brexit by subjecting them to the queues. O'Leary said there had been "significant disruption" at passport control since the new system was first introduced in October last year, with the system being introduced in stages.
Bank of Canada, major lenders met on Anthropic AI cyber risk
The Bank of Canada and the country's major banks and financial firms met Friday to discuss cybersecurity risks raised by Anthropic PBC's latest artificial intelligence model. The gathering followed a similar move by US policymakers earlier in the week. Bloomberg News reported Thursday that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell summoned Wall Street leaders for an urgent discussion about Anthropic's Mythos and similar AI models. The executives included Citigroup Inc's Jane Fraser and Goldman Sachs Group Inc's David Solomon. The Canadian meeting involved members of a body known as the Canadian Financial Sector Resiliency Group, which includes representatives from the six largest domestic banks including Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank. Members also include the parent company of the Toronto Stock Exchange, the federal finance department, and financial regulatory agencies including the country's bank regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. It was an executive-level gathering of the group to share information and perspectives on the issue, not a discussion about any active or imminent cyber threats, according to a person familiar with the discussions. "We are in active conversations with institutions to raise awareness, as well as assess this situation and its potential impact on the resilience of the financial system," a spokesperson for OSFI said in an emailed statement. The regulator is engaged with banks "on recent developments regarding advanced artificial intelligence models and their potential cybersecurity implications." The meeting and OSFI's comments are further signals of the growing concern among regulators globally that more powerful AI models will lead to a new breed of cyber attacks against the financial industry. Banks are increasingly creating dedicated teams to use AI to find savings and identify business opportunities, but the companies are also seeking to manage the risks that come with the fast-moving technology. Since 2023, OSFI has been tasked with evaluating whether the country's banks and insurers have adequate policies in place to protect themselves against security threats. It's also issued a guideline on technology and cyber risk management. "OSFI does not plan to issue short-term changes to its existing guidelines in response to this emerging threat," the spokesperson said, but added that the regulator will continue sharing "threat and mitigation information in coordination with the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security and monitor risks accordingly." Mythos, Glasswing Anthropic's Mythos is a sophisticated new model capable of identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities in every major operating system and web browser, the company has said. It's so powerful, that the company has decided not to release it to the general public. Instead, it's formed a group called Project Glasswing to provide testing access to a group of major tech companies as well as JPMorgan Chase & Co. The goal is for the companies to test the model against their own products, scouring them for flaws that could be exploited, and report back. Anthropic will use the findings to help determine what guardrails are needed for the technology. In the US, some Wall Street banks are testing the technology internally, including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Bank of America Corp. "The Bank of Canada is aware of this issue. We take cybersecurity very seriously," Paul Badertscher, a spokesperson for the central bank, said by email. The mandate of the group that met on Friday, which is a public-private partnership led by the Bank of Canada, is to "enhance the operational resilience of Canada's critical financial sector." A spokesperson for Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne confirmed the meeting took place on Friday. The Canadian Bankers Association, an industry lobby group that represents dozens of banks including the big six, didn't comment specifically on the Anthropic model or the meeting Friday. Banks are managing the risks associated with AI through "long-standing, sector‑specific regulatory requirements and internal frameworks," CBA spokesperson Ethan Teclu said by email. - Bloomberg
Chicken slaughter chaos on Amanzimtoti Beaches as residents battle eThekwini over signs
Amanzimtoti residents are demanding action over recurring chicken slaughter rituals on public beaches, saying the practice is leaving carcasses behind, creating hygiene concerns, and upsetting visitors. Fed up with chicken carcasses littering Amanzimtoti's popular beaches, residents want to put up their own signage prohibiting ongoing slaughters on their shorelines. However, their application to erect the signage has received no attention from eThekwini Municipality. During the Easter weekend, out-of-town visitors watched in shock as chickens were slaughtered on public beaches, a weekly ritual where groups gather and often leave behind the remains of dead animals. Resident Carol Lane, who has rescued many chickens from the beach over the last seven years, told IOL she had sent numerous emails to the municipality to approve the erection of the signage, but she did not receive a response. Robert Kukla, owner of Eco Signs and Designs, initiated the donation of "No Chicken Slaughter" to "help protect public health, safety, and the well-being of the community." "The practice of chicken sacrifice is currently taking place within public swimming areas, where it is visible to families and young children, causing distress and raising serious hygiene concerns. "Furthermore, these activities are being conducted without the necessary legal permissions. "Despite our proactive effort and having already printed the signs at our own cost, we have been unable to proceed due to the municipality not granting approval for their installation," he said. Resident Russ Andraos said the matter was becoming increasingly concerning. "While we understand that certain practices may be linked to cultural or traditional beliefs, the question that many residents are asking is why these activities are being carried out on public beaches, which are shared recreational spaces for everyone. "This particular activity has been reported to both beach officials and law enforcement on several occasions. Unfortunately, despite multiple complaints and requests for intervention, the situation appears to be continuing without any visible action being taken," he explained. eThekwini Municipality spokesperson Mandla Nsele said the city was open to considering and approving community-installed signage of this nature, provided it met all specifications and complied with the applicable standards and regulations. "Any individual or community group intending to install signage must submit a formal written request to the manager under the Development Planning Division responsible for the specific public space. This request should clearly outline the proposed location of the signage, the scope of work, the materials to be used, and confirmation that the signage will comply with the municipality's prescribed specifications," he said. Nsele said eThekwini's 2015 beach by-laws are explicit that no animals are allowed on beaches unless authorised by the municipality, with limited exceptions such as approved ritual use, designated areas, or guide dogs. Any slaughter in a public space would require prior municipal approval or clear signage permitting it, he said. Nsele said the municipality's 2022 animal by-laws require anyone intending to conduct a ritual or cultural slaughter outside an abattoir to notify the city at least seven days in advance, provide full details of the event, and obtain a compliance certificate. "Neighbours must also be informed, and the city may impose conditions or suggest alternatives if public health or nuisance concerns arise." Dumisani Mkhwanazi, founder and chairperson of Abelaphi Bendabuko Base-Afrika (ABBA) and a traditional healer based in Umlazi, told IOL that signage alone would not stop beach rituals. "These practices continue because people find healing, protection, and connection to ancestors through them. While residents have a right to raise concerns, the Constitution also protects cultural and religious practices. The solution is not prohibition, but dialogue." ABBA calls for engagement between traditional health practitioners, eThekwini Municipality, and communities to agree on safe, regulated protocols that respect cultural rights, public health, and the environment. Banning these practices only drives them underground," he said. President of the Umsamo Institute and University of KwaZulu-Natal African Healing and Religion and Ancestral Studies honorary professor, Velaphi Mkhize, said the issue stemmed from the biggest challenge in the traditional healing space - the growing number of people who were not genuinely called or properly initiated. "There is also widespread ignorance. Not everyone has the gift of cleansing, yet many are doing it anyway. This is why we see rituals that do not resolve people's problems and increase conflict within the sector. There is little understanding of sacred practices, including the proper use of water and the importance of cleanliness, both of the space and of the practitioner. "While residents' concerns are understandable, signage alone will not solve the issue, as it is unlikely to be respected. "A more effective approach would be to restrict access or ensure that those using these spaces are held accountable for keeping them clean and treating them with respect. "Rituals should also be conducted responsibly, without bringing harmful elements into public spaces unnecessarily," he said.
EasyJet Abandons 122 Passengers In Milan Amid EU Border Chaos
A graduate in German, Jake has a passion for history and regional aviation, and enjoys sampling new carriers and aircraft. He has visited OEM facilities as far and wide as Bristol, Toulouse, and Seattle, and recently enjoyed the milestone of flying his 150th sector as a passenger. Based in Norfolk, UK. The majority of the 156 passengers booked on an easyJet flight from Milan Linate Airport (LIN) in northern Italy to Manchester (MAN) in the northwest of England were left behind yesterday after getting stuck in lengthy queues at the Italian border. New checks significantly slowed the process, and even passengers who claimed to have arrived three and a half hours before departure are said to have missed the flight as a result. The European Union's new entry-exit system (EES) was at the heart of the chaos. While this was marketed as a slicker border experience that would make use of biometric data to expedite immigration procedures, its rollout and enforcement have left a lot to be desired. Let's examine what happened, and why. Under A Quarter Of The Booked Passengers Made The Flight easyJet flight U2-5420 is a regularly scheduled international passenger flight from Milan Linate to Manchester Airport. Per Flightradar24, its rotation yesterday (Sunday, April 12) was operated by an Airbus A319, with data from aeroLOPA showing that these jets have 156 economy seats on board. On yesterday's flight, all 156 seats had been sold, but, according to The Independent, only 34 passengers were on board when the jet took off. This represents a load factor of just 21.8%, compared to easyJet's typical average of 92.4% (Q4 2025). The reason for the missing masses, as noted by The Independent and the BBC, was lengthy border controls due to new checks, with wait times said to have been in the region of three hours. A spokesperson for easyJet told Simple Flying that "while this is outside of our control, we are sorry for any inconvenience caused." They added that: "We continue to urge border authorities to ensure they make full and effective use of the permitted flexibilities for as long as needed while EES is implemented, to avoid these unacceptable border delays." The Flight Was Delayed To Accommodate More Passengers A quick look at tracking data made available by Flightradar24 shows that the aircraft operating the flight, an easyJet Europe Airbus A319-100 that bears the registration OE-LQI, actually left Milan Linate Airport almost an hour late, at 11:59 am local time, as opposed to 11:00 am. This, easyJet told Simple Flying, was the result of a deliberate hold, which was put in place "to give passengers extra time" to make the flight in light of the delays. Ultimately, however, with the flight's crew getting closer and closer to their hour limits, the service was forced to depart, despite only 34 passengers having made it on board. After an hour and 42 minutes in the air, it landed in Manchester at 12:41 local time, against a scheduled arrival of 12:15. The jet was soon able to make back this delay, with all of the flights that it has since operated having arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled time. While the situation was ultimately out of easyJet's hands due to the delays at passport control and limits to crew operating hours, the airline has confirmed that "customers who missed the flight have been offered a free flight transfer." However, some passengers looking to get home sooner had to spend more. Related 2 Extra Inches On 237 Aircraft: easyJet Orders New Airbus A320neo Seats As Newcastle Base Opens The British low-cost carrier is investing heavily in its fleet and network. Posts 7 By Jake Hardiman Expensive Rebooking Options Indeed, according to The Independent, one family that missed the flight despite arriving nearly three hours early was told that the next available easyJet service would not be for another five days. This prompted them to spend £1,600 ($2,150) between the three of them on a connecting route via Luxembourg (LUX). Even that alternative stands to see them arrive home 24 hours behind schedule, but that delay pales in comparison to the five-day wait that they would reportedly have had to endure for the next easyJet service. Elsewhere, another passenger told the BBC that they had to pay £520 for new flights back to the UK, with them and their partner having to fly to London Gatwick Airport (LGW) instead. Gatwick is around 225 miles (362 km) from Manchester. Quiz 5 Questions Stuck at the Border: Test Your Knowledge of the easyJet EES Chaos Your Top Score -- Attempts -- Start Quiz 0 0 Report Error Found an error? Send it [email protected] so it can be corrected.
