OpenAI is taking its ChatGPT chatbot to the next level, adding a feature to automate tasks like planning vacations, filling out forms, making restaurant reservations and ordering groceries.

The tool, announced on Thursday, is called Operator. OpenAI describes it as “an agent that can go to the web to perform tasks for you” and added that it’s trained to interact with “the buttons, menus, and text fields that people use daily” on the web.

It can also ask follow-up questions to further personalize the tasks it completes, such as login information for other websites. Users can take control of the screen at any time.

“Operator is one of our first agents, which are AIs capable of doing work for you independently,” OpenAI wrote in a blog post on Thursday. “You give it a task and it will execute it.”

For now, Operator is only available to ChatGPT Pro users. It can be accessed at Operator.ChatGPT.com. OpenAI said it eventually plans to expand to Plus, Team and Enterprise users and to integrate Operator into ChatGPT. The company also said it currently has trouble with some tasks, such as managing calendars and creating slideshows.

OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, said users can opt out of some of the company’s training data collection by turning off the “Improve the model for everyone” setting in ChatGPT, meaning data in Operator will not be used to train its models. The company also said users can delete all browsing data and log out of all sites “with one click” in the privacy section.

Operator directly competes with an earlier release from Anthropic, the Amazon-backed AI startup behind the Claude chatbot that was founded by ex-OpenAI research executives.

In October, Anthropic introduced “Computer Use,” a capability that allowed its AI agents to use computers like humans to complete complex tasks. Anthropic said it can interpret what’s on a computer screen, select buttons, enter text, navigate websites and execute tasks through any software and real-time internet browsing.

The tool can “use computers in basically the same way that we do,” Jared Kaplan, Anthropic’s chief science officer, told CNBC in an interview at the time. He said it can do tasks with “tens or even hundreds of steps.”

The generative AI market, which includes OpenAI and Anthropic as well as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta, is predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.

Google recently agreed to a new investment of more than $1 billion in Anthropic, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to CNBC this week. Anthropic is in late-stage talks to raise a funding round of $2 billion at a $60 billion valuation led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, CNBC reported earlier this month.

OpenAI is pushing towards a potential future of artificial general intelligence. AGI is a vaguely defined benchmark referring to AI that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks.

Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, whose company provides training data to key AI players, said Thursday in an interview with CNBC that he defines AGI as “powerful AI systems that are able to use a computer just like you or I could.” He said it will likely take two to four years to reach that level of the technology.

The California mom who pleaded guilty to running an organized retail crime ring that stole millions of dollars in beauty products from Ulta Beauty and Sephora to resell on Amazon will now have to pay those retailers back as part of her sentence.

Michelle Mack, who began her five-year prison sentence on Jan. 9 following her arrest outside of San Diego in December 2023, was ordered to pay $3 million in restitution to Ulta, Sephora and a number of other retailers after striking a plea deal with prosecutors last year. 

As part of the deal, Mack, 54, forfeited her 4,500-square-foot mansion in Bonsall, California, which was sold in December for $2.35 million, property records show. 

Any funds left from the sale, after bank debts were satisfied, will go toward restitution, while Mack and her husband Kenneth Mack, 60, will pay back the remainder “over time,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said. 

It’s not clear if Mack had a mortgage on the property, but she originally purchased it for $2.29 million in 2021, according to property records.

It’s also not clear how the restitution will be divvied up among Mack’s victims. The crime ring she admitted to running primarily targeted Ulta stores, but it stole from other retailers, including Sephora.

When compared with the net income that retailers like Ulta bring in annually, the restitution is likely a drop in the bucket — but it would still be a small windfall. Ulta declined to comment on the restitution, including how it would use the funds or account for them in financial statements. The company did say it was proud to have partnered with law enforcement officials on the investigation and was grateful for their efforts. 

“This case demonstrates that through close partnerships between retailers, law enforcement and prosecutors, as well as legislative support, we can make a meaningful impact on organized retail crime and hold the criminals perpetuating this problem accountable,” Dan Petrousek, senior vice president of loss prevention at Ulta Beauty, said in a statement. 

Sephora didn’t return a request for comment. 

David Johnston, vice president of asset protection and retail operations at the National Retail Federation, said restitution is common for retailers, victimized by theft, but the amounts only recently started reaching the millions.

“The level of theft … has not been as substantial and as commonplace as we’ve seen over the last, you know, four years or so,” said Johnston. “This is going to be what we would expect to see when we start to get these organized retail crime groups through the judicial process. It is a substantial amount of loss, a complex organization, which involves a number of individuals, and then sentencing and restitution that meet the crime.” 

He cautioned that restitution rarely makes up for a retailers’ lost income in full, and it can take years for a defendant to pay back the fines entirely.

“Restitution is part of the judicial process, but it does not guarantee that the victim will receive all or any funds,” said Johnston. “It’s dependent upon the ability to obtain that restitution from the offender and the process in which that restitution is in fact paid and shared across multiple victims.” 

Last year, Bonta filed a slew of felony charges against Mack and her husband, alleging they ran what his office called a sprawling retail crime ring that led to an estimated $8 million in stolen beauty products, CNBC previously reported. The operation spanned at least a dozen states, CNBC reported.

Mack wasn’t accused of stealing the products herself. Instead, police said she recruited a crew of young women to take the items so she could resell the products on her Amazon storefront for a fraction of their retail price. 

The investigation, led by the California Highway Patrol, gained national attention and revealed the sophisticated nature behind some retail crime rings and how bad actors can use online marketplaces to sell stolen products. 

Last summer, Mack was sentenced to five years and four months in state prison, but was given a delayed sentence that began this month. Mack’s husband, Kenneth, was also sentenced in connection with the case, so the judge agreed to postpone her sentence so she could care for their children while Kenneth was incarcerated. 

Additional reporting by Scott Zamost and Courtney Reagan

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Wednesday that the looming tariffs that President Donald Trump is expected to slap on U.S. trading partners could be viewed positively.

Despite fears that the duties could spark a global trade war and reignite inflation domestically, the head of the largest U.S. bank by assets said they could protect American interests and bring trading partners back to the table for better deals for the country, if used correctly.

“If it’s a little inflationary, but it’s good for national security, so be it. I mean, get over it,” Dimon told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “National security trumps a little bit more inflation.”

Since taking office Monday, Trump has been saber-rattling on tariffs, threatening Monday to impose levies on Mexico and Canada, then expanding the scope Tuesday to China and the European Union. The president told reporters that the E.U. is treating the U.S. “very, very badly” due to its large annual trade surplus. The U.S. last year ran a $214 billion deficit with the E.U. through November 2024.

Among the considerations are a 10% tariff on China and 25% on Canada and Mexico as the U.S. looks forward to a review on the tri-party agreement Trump negotiated during his first term. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement is up for review in July 2026.

Dimon did not get into the details of Trump’s plans, but said it depends on how the duties are implemented. Trump has indicated the tariffs could take effect Feb. 1.

“I look at tariffs, they’re an economic tool, That’s it,” Dimon said. “They’re an economic weapon, depending on how you use it, why you use it, stuff like that. Tariffs are inflationary and not inflationary.”

Trump leveled broad-based tariffs during his first term, during which inflation ran below 2.5% each year. Despite the looming tariff threat, the U.S. dollar has drifted lower this week.

“Tariffs can change the dollar, but the most important thing is growth,” Dimon said.

Dimon wasn’t the only Wall Street CEO to speak of tariffs in a positive light.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, also speaking to CNBC from Davos, said business leaders have been preparing for shifts in policy, including on trade issues.

“I think it turns into a rebalancing of certain trade agreements over time. I think that rebalancing can be constructive for U.S. growth if it’s handled right,” Solomon said. “The question is, how quickly, how thoughtfully. Some of this is negotiating tactics for things over than simply trade.”

“Used appropriately, it can be constructive,” he added. “This is going to unfold over the course of the year, and we have to watch it closely.”

The creation of billions of dollars of digital wealth for the Trump Organization started with a social media post Friday. 

At 9:44 p.m. ET, the then-president-elect announced the creation of a new digital token: $TRUMP.    

“My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” Donald Trump’s X account posted. “Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW. Go to http://gettrumpmemes.com — Have Fun!”

The announcement came with little fanfare. But what would ensue in the coming days — including wild price swings and Melania Trump’s own digital token — would roil the crypto community, including some Trump supporters, just as he was set to return to the Oval Office.

The $TRUMP and $MELANIA tokens, as they’re referred to on social media, belong to the crypto category known as memecoins — digital assets that use blockchain technology similar to bitcoin. 

Because there is no asset like underlying cash flows backing memecoins like $TRUMP and $MELANIA, anyone who owns them will only make money if they sell them at a higher price than at which they bought them. 

That includes the coin creators — and Trump and his family — themselves. 

Though long a part of the crypto universe, memecoins have in recent months enjoyed a resurgence after Trump emerged victorious in November and promised to embrace blockchain technology and crypto markets. 

In the case of $TRUMP and $MELANIA, the coins were launched on Solana, a blockchain that collects fees to process transactions and is known for faster throughput, meaning it is less prone to seizing up when transaction volumes are high. It is not clear who knew about their launch before it occurred aside from the coins’ developers and the Trump Organization. 

The slew of recent memecoin launches have triggered fresh skepticism and warnings about scams due to the freewheeling nature of memecoins. Because they are not formal investment vehicles, they are almost entirely unregulated, and anybody can start one under any name at any time, often for free. Platforms like CoinMarketCap that track digital tokens showed dozens of duplicate TRUMP coins. 

Bloomberg News summarized memecoin sales as “the crystallization of ‘greater fool’ investing, of an asset that’s only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it at a given moment in time.”

“I’m not sure people quite grasp how much of the crypto world is reacting to the Trump memecoin launches,” Molly White, a software engineer and cryptocurrency chronicler, posted on X alongside screenshots from reactions that ranged from frustration to anger.

White later told NBC News that the launch of the coins seemed to dash hopes from some that Trump would help further legitimize the crypto industry.

“There’s now a fear that people who are not super familiar with this industry will see it as a cash grab and not see all the good uses of crypto that exist,” she said. “They worry this will give crypto a bad name.”

Part of that frustration centered on Trump’s recent emergence as a champion for all things crypto. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump made clear his support for crypto, speaking at the annual Bitcoin Conference and pledging to consider creating a “strategic bitcoin reserve” that would see the U.S. purchase billions’ worth of the cryptocurrency in a bid to encourage price support and adoption. Trump has also launched a line of NFTs, and his family launched a crypto banking platform last year. 

And Trump’s memecoin looked poised to be a major success, at least at first. The price of $TRUMP took off almost immediately, and by Saturday morning a single coin was trading at $75 — a 650% rise, at least, from its Friday launch price. Crypto enthusiasts who track transactions — many blockchains, including the one used by $TRUMP, are public-facing — reported some holders who had bought in early holding millions of dollars’ worth of the token. 

A Trump transition team spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The $TRUMP surge suddenly reversed when another coin came on the scene — from Trump’s own spouse.

On Sunday afternoon, Melania Trump’s X account posted that her $MELANIA memecoin was live. Donald Trump’s X account reposted that message.

The price of $TRUMP immediately plunged upon $MELANIA’s appearance, with some suggesting demand for one would eat into interest in the other.

“$MELANIA coin is being viewed as a competitor against $TRUMP coin,” market commentary group The Kobeissi Letter wrote on X. “This has resulted in a sharp drop in demand for $TRUMP.”  

Later Sunday, a $BARRON coin also started to trade, further adding to the market concerns. However, $BARRON’s connection, if any, to Trump’s youngest son, Barron, or the Trump family was not clear. No official Trump social media accounts have posted about it.

As the price of $TRUMP began falling, backlash ensued. 

“Dear @realDonaldTrump : Please fire whoever recommended going forward with the Melania launch today,” Ryan Selkis, a longtime crypto advocate and political conservative, wrote on X on Sunday as the price of $TRUMP began to fall. “1. They don’t know what they’re doing. 2. They cost you a lot of $ and goodwill. 3. They don’t have your interests in mind.”

By Tuesday, the price of $TRUMP had not recovered from the decline. Still, shortly after Trump’s swearing-in, the combined holdings among the Trump- and Melania-related corporations that launched the coins were worth tens of billions, at least on paper, according to crypto news website CoinDesk — and possibly worth more. 

Because all holders’ wallets, including those of Trump and the coin’s creators, are visible on the blockchain, any transactions they’re involved in will be closely watched. And a large sell-off from those wallets would likely trigger a major price fall, according to Ari Redbord, head of legal and government affairs at TRM Labs, a firm that monitors crypto projects.

But Redbord said Trump’s celebrity adds a factor that’s worth watching.

“Obviously Trump, because of who he is, elevates a memecoin launch like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” he said. 

Trump has released a voluntary ethics document designed to limit private financial interests from shaping his official policy agenda.  

But the president’s involvement in the crypto project also raises questions over potential use by illicit actors or foreign governments, Redbord said. 

Consumers need to realize that there are “far fewer” protections with memecoins than traditional stocks, he said.

“It’s highly volatile,’ Redbord added, saying ‘consumers really need to understand what they’re investing in, because you’re going to lose big and you could potentially win big.”

Mark Cuban, a technology investor and ardent Trump critic who has also been involved in crypto, warned on X that the Trumps’ direct foray into the industry would usher in a new era of fraudulent activity, with unsavvy investors the victims.

“Hello every scam targeted at everyone and anyone who has no clue about crypto,” Cuban said on X on Monday about the coins. “Good bye whatever hope the crypto industry had of legitimizing itself.”

Shares of Netflix soared more than 13% Tuesday after the company posted fourth-quarter results that beat on the top and bottom lines.

The company surpassed 300 million paid memberships during the quarter, adding a record 19 million subscribers. Netflix said the growth was driven by its content slate, improved product and typical fourth-quarter seasonality.

The company also shared that including “extra member accounts,” its global audience is estimated to be exceed 700 million.

Here’s how Netflix performed for its most recent quarter, ended Dec. 31, compared with Wall Street estimates:

Earnings per share: $4.27 vs. $4.20, according to LSEG

Revenue: $10.25 billion vs. $10.11 billion, according to LSEG

Paid memberships: 301.63 million vs. 290.9 million, according to StreetAccount

Net income for the period was $1.87 billion, or $4.27 per share, up from $938 million, or $2.11 per share, during the same quarter a year earlier.

Revenue in the fourth quarter jumped 16% year-over-year, reaching $10.25 billion, higher than the $10.11 billion Wall Street had predicted.

For the full year 2025, Netflix raised its revenue expectations to a range of $43.5 billion to $44.5 billion, around $500 million higher than its previous forecast to reflects improved business fundamentals and the expected carryover benefit of its stronger-than-expected fourth quarter performance.

The fourth quarter was the last for which Netflix will report quarterly paid subscriber counts, as previously announced. Instead, it will start reporting a bi-annual “engagement report” alongside its second- and fourth-quarter releases.

The streamer on Tuesday touted the success of its fourth-quarter slate, which included the release of season 2 of the hit series “Squid Game” as well as live sporting events like the record-breaking Jake Paul and Mike Tyson boxing match and National Football League games on Christmas Day.

This year, the company said it plans to improve its core business with more series and films, enhance its product experience and continue to grow its ads business. Netflix is expected to delve further into the live event space and games, as well.

The company also has the return of “Strangers Things” and “Wednesday,” two of its biggest hits, ahead for 2025. Additionally, the streamer will release a collection of new films from top directors and actors including Daniel Craig and Rian Johnson’s third “Knives Out” film, a Russo Brothers project called “The Electric State” starring Millie Bobby Brown, “Happy Gilmore 2” with Adam Sandler and a new take on Frankenstein from Guillermo del Toro.

“We’re fortunate that we don’t have distractions like managing declining linear networks and, with our focus and continued investment, we have good and improving product/market fit around the world,” the company said in its earnings report Tuesday.

Netflix also announced it would raise prices on some streaming tiers between $1 and $2 per month.

Netflix’s cheaper, ad-supported tiers accounted for more than 55% of sign-ups in countries where the option is offered, the company said. Netflix also noted that memberships on its ad-supported plans grew around 30% quarter-over-quarter.

“We’re on track to reach sufficient scale for ads members in all of our ads countries in 2025,” the company said. “A top priority in 2025 is to improve our offering for advertisers so that we can substantially grow our advertising.”

Goldman Sachs is rolling out a generative AI assistant to its bankers, traders and asset managers, the first stage in the evolution of a program that will eventually take on the traits of a seasoned Goldman employee, according to Chief Information Officer Marco Argenti.

The bank has released a program called GS AI assistant to about 10,000 employees so far, with the goal that all the company’s knowledge workers will have it this year, Argenti told CNBC in an exclusive interview. It will initially help with tasks including summarizing or proofreading emails or translating code from one language to another.

“Think about all the tasks that you might want to complete with regards to a variety of use cases for all those professions that can be now at your fingertips,” Argenti said. The Goldman assistant is a “very simple interface that allows you to have access to the latest and greatest models.”

Goldman’s move means that, along with JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, the world’s top three investment banks have aggressively released generative AI tools to their workforce, a remarkable development since ChatGPT went viral about two years ago.

Wall Street has embraced generative artificial intelligence faster than any other disruptive technology in recent years, experts say, because of how adept large language models are in replicating aspects of human cognition.

Today it can respond to queries, write emails and summarize lengthy documents, but expectations are high that future versions will exhibit so-called agentic abilities, meaning they can perform multistep tasks with little human intervention.

In speaking with CNBC about his vision for artificial intelligence at the firm, Argenti — who joined from Amazon in 2019 — repeatedly likened the AI program to a new employee that will absorb Goldman culture over the coming years.

Initially, the tool will mostly produce answers based on Goldman data that has been fed into AI models from OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Meta’s Llama, depending on the task, said Argenti. The bank is also looking at models from companies including Anthropic, Mistral and Cohere, he added.

“The AI assistant becomes really like talking to another GS employee,” Argenti said.

“As we progress, the second step is when you’re starting to have this agentic behavior, that is, ‘I’m completing a task on behalf of a Goldman employee, and I need to take a set of steps,’” he said. “That’s where the model is going to start to do things like a Goldman employee, not only say things like a Goldman employee.”

This helps explain why companies have forbid employees from using ChatGPT for work, instead moving to create their own platforms to tap the technology. It allows firms to not only keep their information secure, but to also craft AI platforms that increasingly resemble the best examples of their own workforce.

“For the AI to have a very specific identity that reflects the tenets, the values, the knowledge and the way of thinking of the firm is extremely important,” Argenti said.

In practice, that means that just as an experienced Goldman employee would know to double-check their work with multiple data sources or use a specific algorithm for a calculation, the AI will absorb those lessons, he said.

But Argenti says he is most excited by the prospect of what comes later, in perhaps three to five years, as AI models increasingly blur the lines between human and machine thinking.

This stage of AI at Goldman would have the model “actually reason more and become more like the way a Goldman employee would think,” he said.

So instead of being handed a run book, which is tech industry parlance for a set of step-by-step instructions for completing tasks or responding to incidents, the AI would be able to generate detailed plans “in the way that an experienced Goldman employee would do,” Argenti said.

The prospects of that future — and the fact that Wall Street’s workers are helping train a technology that may make some roles obsolete, while augmenting other jobs and creating new roles altogether — may send a fresh wave of anxiety through employee ranks.

Like at Goldman, other major investment banks are on target to give generative AI tools to their entire workforces in the coming months.

More than 200,000 JPMorgan employees currently have access to in-house generative AI tools, according to a person with knowledge of that bank who declined to be identified speaking about internal matters. Roughly 40,000 Morgan Stanley employees had access to it as of late last year, the bank said in October.

Finance and technology are seen as among the industries where employees are most prone to upheaval because of generative AI, allowing companies to potentially generate billions of dollars in additional profits. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told podcaster Joe Rogan earlier this month that its AI will be capable of writing code as well as mid-level software engineers this year.

Global investment banks may shed as many as 200,000 jobs in the next three to five years as the companies implement AI, according to a report from Bloomberg’s research arm. The report, based on a survey of tech executives at major banks, said that support and operations roles known as the back and middle office were most at risk.

At Goldman, however, the official stance is that AI will empower employees to do more, not necessarily result in the need for fewer humans.

“The importance of having a phenomenal human workforce is actually going to be amplified,” Argenti said.

“In my opinion, it always boils down to people,” he said. “People are going to make a difference, because people are going to be the ones that actually evolve the AI, educate the AI, empower the AI, and then take action.”

The Walt Disney Company’s box office domination continued over the holiday weekend.

“Moana 2” topped $1 billion during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, becoming the studio’s third 2024 release to reach the coveted benchmark after Marvel Studios’ “Deadpool and Wolverine” and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2.” No other Hollywood studio had a film cross $1 billion last year.

“Moana 2” snared $442.8 million at the domestic box office and $567.1 million in international markets, the company posted over the weekend. It is the fourth film from the Walt Disney Animation arm to surpass $1 billion in ticket sales alongside “Frozen,” “Frozen II” and “Zootopia.”

This feat is another feather in the cap for Disney, which had struggled in the years after the pandemic to gain tractions with its animated releases. Much of the company’s difficulties stemmed, in part, from decisions to debut a handful of animated features directly on its streaming service Disney+. This trained parents to look for new content at home even after theatrical closures ended and films returned to cinemas.

“Inside Out 2” not only marked a return to form for Disney, but it helped jumpstart the overall domestic box office in June. It snared more than $650 million domestically and became the first film since Warner Bros′ “Barbie” to top $1 billion at the global box office.

It also marked the first time a Pixar or Walt Disney Animation film generated more than $480 million at the global box office since 2019. “Inside Out 2″ ultimately became the highest-grossing film of 2024.

“Deadpool and Wolverine,” “Inside Out 2″ and “Moana 2,” along with a handful of other theatrical releases, helped Disney reach more than $2.2 billion at the domestic box office last year, accounting for about 25% of the industry’s total haul, according to data from Comscore.

With “Moana 2” crossing the billion-dollar mark, Disney now has 32 billion-dollar movies — including three films it acquired when it bought Fox in 2019, according to the company. For context, there have only been 56 films that have topped $1 billion at the global box office, meaning Disney is responsible for nearly 60% of the highest-grossing films in cinematic history.

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said Tuesday that the U.S. banking industry will embrace cryptocurrencies for payments if regulators allow it.

The head of the second largest U.S. bank by assets was asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin about how the industry’s approach to crypto could change given President Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for digital currencies.

“If the rules come in and make it a real thing that you can actually do business with, you’ll find that the banking system will come in hard on the transactional side of it,” Moynihan said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

American banks have largely avoided letting customers use crypto for retail transactions, although their institutional trading and wealth management arms have participated in markets for bitcoin ETFs. Leaders in the industry, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, have lambasted bitcoin as a currency for criminals and fraudsters.

“If you go down the street here and you go in and buy lunch, right, if you can pay with Visa, Mastercard, a debit card, Apple Pay, etc, this would just be another form of payment,” Moynihan explained. “We have hundreds of patents on blockchain already, we know how to enter the field.”

The veteran Bank of America CEO didn’t address the idea of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin as an investment or store of value, saying it is “really a separate question.”

Many of the core issues in the labor dispute between the United Auto Workers and the Big Three U.S. automakers are familiar: salary increases, sick days and pay grades.

But lurking in the background is the transition to electric vehicles and away from cars and trucks with internal combustion engines — those that run on gasoline and motor oil. The change, which might be the biggest in the history of the auto industry, has major implications for the business and for its workers.

U.S. automakers say they sold almost 14 million new cars and trucks in 2022. For the first time, hybrid and all-electric vehicle sales topped 1 million that year, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

That’s a milestone, but it also shows that the shift to EVs is still in its early stages.

Present-day issues like pay for workers are obviously paramount in the negotiations. The current contract between the UAW and the Big Three expires at 11:59 p.m. Thursday, and the UAW has said it will strike if the two sides don’t agree on the terms of a new contract.

Since the expiring contract went into effect in 2019, annual gross profits have risen by 34% at Ford and 50% at General Motors. Stellantis, which formed when Fiat Chrysler merged with the French automaker Peugeot in 2021, reported that its annual gross profit rose by 19% from 2021 to 2022.

The UAW wants the new contract to reflect that growth — and, by extension, the growth in executive pay. The new contract, according to UAW president Shawn Fain, should also address the effects of inflation in the U.S.

‘I don’t think anyone would disagree that the union and the members should participate in the healthy environment of greater profits for the automakers,’ said Jeff Schuster, global head of automotive for GlobalData. Schuster added that the auto industry has seen ‘massive earnings because prices were up’ during the height of the pandemic.

That kind of profit growth can cure a lot of ills, and the Big Three have agreed to raise their employees’ pay. But Schuster says the companies are in a tricky position, despite their outsize earnings.

An uncertain future for Detroit’s Big Three

As EVs come to predominate, GM, Ford and Stellantis will have to build and revamp manufacturing plants, do more research and development, train new workers and source new raw materials, even as they continue to work on new car and truck models.

It’s very expensive to build an auto plant, and there are bound to be some bumps and mistakes in that process.

Meanwhile, the Big Three have a newer rival that is already doing a pretty good job at all of that.

‘I think everyone is trying to play a bit of catch-up with Tesla,’ Schuster said.

Erin McLaughlin, senior economist specializing in transportation and infrastructure for The Conference Board, said the UAW is trying to understand what that will look like for present and future union members.

“A lot of the Big Three are opening EV plants in the Sun Belt, which are less pro-union states and where foreign companies have put their plants,” McLaughlin said. That can weaken the union, so it serves as a cost-saving strategy.

While union members likely want the largest wage increases they can get, Schuster said that the Big Three are mostly competing against non-unionized companies, where workers generally earn less. Tesla is the only U.S. car company whose workers don’t have a union.

If the automakers decide they’re paying too much for labor, they could move more jobs overseas, putting U.S. employees out of work.

Both of those factors are concerns for the union, because it could erode its membership or bargaining power over time. McLaughlin links that to a national trend of reduced union membership.

“One of the reasons we’re seeing these labor discussions now is a shrinking employee labor base, and we’re seeing an increase in manufacturing at the same time we’re seeing low unemployment,” she said.

Schuster said the negotiations are that much more complicated because new cars and trucks have grown more expensive in recent years. Kelly Blue noted the average transaction price of a new vehicle was $48,334 in July. EVs cost more as well, generally because the large batteries that power them are expensive.

The development and buildout of electric vehicles and the factories and infrastructure needed to ramp up production cuts into the automakers’ profits, but passing the cost on to consumer might be tricky when prices have already risen in recent years.

‘It really comes down to how much more can you add to the price of a vehicle where consumers are already struggling with vehicle pricing,’ he said.

This industrywide shift is certainly front-of-mind for many UAW members and the carmakers. How these challenges play out in the long term is unclear.

Delta Air Lines is changing how customers can earn elite frequent flyer status and is making it harder for many American Express cardholders to get into the carrier’s airport lounges, the latest reality check for air travel’s era of mass luxury.

Starting Jan. 1, customers will earn Delta Medallion status solely based on their spending, instead of a combination of dollars spent with the carrier and flights. The new model is similar to one that American Airlines adopted earlier this year.

Major airlines have continually raised the requirements to earn status as customer spending at the airline and on co-branded credit cards has surged in recent years, swelling the ranks of these high-paying customers. Elite status can come with a variety of perks, from early boarding to upgrades to first class and lounge access.

“We want customers to be able to receive status with activity beyond just air travel,” Dwight James, Delta’s senior vice president of customer engagement and loyalty, told CNBC.

Next year, Delta customers will earn 1 Medallion Qualifying Dollar for every $1 they spend on Delta flights, car rentals, hotels and vacation packages booked through the airline.

The ratio isn’t 1:1 for dollars spent through co-branded American Express cards. Delta SkyMiles Reserve and Reserve Business American Express card members earn 1 Medallion Qualifying Dollar for every $10 spent on the card, while Delta SkyMiles Platinum and Platinum Business American Express Card Members earn 1 Medallion Qualifying Dollar for every $20 spent.

Here are the new status requirements:

Silver Medallion — 6,000 MQDsGold Medallion — 12,000 MQDsPlatinum Medallion — 18,000 MQDsDiamond Medallion — 35,000 MQDsRaising the bar on Sky Club entry

Delta is limiting access to its popular Sky Club airport lounges through certain American Express credit cards after grappling with overcrowding at some of them, drawing complaints from travelers.

Instead of the current unlimited visits, starting Feb. 1, 2025, American Express Platinum and Platinum Business cardholders will get six visits a year, unless they spend $75,000 on the card in a calendar year.

Meanwhile, Delta SkyMiles Reserve and Reserve Business cardholders will get 10 Sky Club visits a year, a limit they can skirt by also spending $75,000 in a year.

Delta’s SkyMiles Platinum and Platinum Business American Express cards will no longer get club access through the cards itself, although customers can enter by buying a club membership or if they have elite status with Delta which allows them to pick a club membership as a perk.

“Some of the changes that we’re making ensures that we’re taking care of our most premium customers with our most premium assets, one of those being the Sky Club,” James said. He said the changes were made in conjunction with American Express.

The airline last year announced several changes to crack down on overcrowding at the clubs, including barring employees from using them when flying standby with company travel privileges, even if they had qualifying credit cards. It also raised prices for club memberships for regular customers.

Delta and its competitors are racing to build bigger and more modern lounges to accommodate customers. United Airlines, for example, on Wednesday opened a 35,000-square-foot club at its hub at Denver International Airport, the largest in its network, after opening a 24,000-square-foot club at the airport earlier this summer.