Tariffs are coming for the cost of your morning cup of joe.
The U.S. price of coffee is already 39% higher than it was a year ago, and now the world’s two biggest coffee suppliers, Brazil and Vietnam, are facing President Donald Trump’s tariffs. While the idea behind the levies is to protect domestic industry, Hawaii is the only U.S. state where the conditions are right for growing coffee.
As Trump’s tariffs work their way through the courts, Congress may be brewing a solution: The bipartisan “No Coffee Tax Act” introduced this month would repeal the tariffs on all coffee products.
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FIRST UP
Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C.
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
YouTube will settle a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump challenging his suspension from the platform following the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, with the video streaming platform agreeing to pay $24.5 million. YouTube removed the president’s account after determining he violated its terms of service, and did not admit to any wrongdoing in the case.
Trump’s executive order declares that the new TikTok will have “no operational relationship” with its Chinese parent firm ByteDance, but the tech giant seems poised to retain control over a number of TikTok’s core business functions in the U.S. Much of the Trump plan for the app is similar to a draft agreement that ByteDance negotiated with the Biden Administration in 2022, which was ultimately rejected over national security concerns.
BUSINESS + FINANCE
In a deal that values one of gaming’s most iconic publishers at $55 billion, Electronic Arts will go private in an all cash buyout led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. The transaction would be the largest leveraged buyout on record, according to Dealogic, for the gaming titan whose catalog spans franchises like Madden NFL, FIFA (now EA Sports FC) and The Sims.
Vanguard’s late founder Jack Bogle was long a proponent of passive index fund investing, but a closer look at the index fund giant reveals that the firm is taking a much different tack. This year alone, Vanguard launched four new actively-managed bond ETFs, and its active fixed-income assets amount to $1.1 trillion of the firm’s $11 trillion—though a large portion of that is covered by low-risk money-market funds that are considered actively managed.
WEALTH + ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Pitt Hyde, the billionaire founder of car parts retailer AutoZone, has spent four decades investing in his hometown of Memphis: His foundation, which he runs with his wife Barbara, has given over $300 million largely to local causes, and the company has pitched in, too. Even as the city struggles with poverty, racial inequity and crime, and President Donald Trump’s national guard deployment looms, he says he’s united with local leaders, and doubling down on his mission.
TECH + INNOVATION
ChatGPT users can now directly purchase products from within a chat conversation through an “Instant Checkout” feature—though it’s only available for merchants on Etsy for now. The service will soon expand to more than a million Shopify merchants, and is free for users, but requires merchants to pay a small fee per completed sale, OpenAI said.
MORE: OpenAI unveiled new parental controls for ChatGPT after it was sued by the parents of a California teenager alleging the chatbot encouraged him to take his own life. The move comes amid greater scrutiny over the potential dangers AI chatbots pose to children, and the firm is among those being investigated by the FTC.
SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT
NBC content like Sunday Night Football and Saturday Night Live could disappear from YouTube TV as it remains in a carriage disagreement with NBCUniversal. The dispute comes just a month after the television streamer narrowly avoided the loss of Fox content on its platform with a last-second deal.
DAILY COVER STORY
Facebook Made Him A Billionaire. Now This Venture Capitalist Is Back With Another Grand Slam
Venture capitalist Jim Breyer became a billionaire in 2011 thanks to a very early bet on Facebook. Now, he just smashed another early bet out of the park, this time with the June initial public offering of Circle Internet Group, the creator of a stablecoin called USDC.
Circle’s market cap quickly zoomed to $55 billion as crypto enthusiasts scooped up shares. Breyer, the second largest individual shareholder after the company’s CEO and cofounder Jeremy Allaire, immediately more than doubled his fortune to $5.7 billion.
Since then, the frenzy around Circle has lost some of its initial fervor. But Breyer, who cashed out nearly $100 million in mid-August, still has an 8% stake worth more than $1.7 billion. Combined with his other assets, he’s got an estimated $3.8 billion fortune—double what it was earlier this year, and enough to put him back on The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans for the first time since 2021.
Now, he has a new investment focus, exploring ways to marry the advances of AI with those of life sciences and healthcare. One of Breyer’s most successful bets so far in that push is OpenEvidence, a ChatGPT-like free app for doctors to consult the latest medical research, and 40% of U.S. doctors have signed up. Breyer backed cofounder and CEO Daniel Nadler on his first startup, financial analysis company Kensho, which S&P Global acquired for $550 million in 2018.
WHY IT MATTERS “Getting early financing and counsel from a well-connected, savvy venture capitalist can be crucial for a startup’s success,” says Forbes assistant managing editor Kerry Dolan. “Jim Breyer has played a role in the success of dozens of startups over the decades, dispensing advice to founders, introducing them to board members and more.
MORE Forbes 400: The Definitive Ranking Of America’s Richest People 2025
FACTS + COMMENTS
President Donald Trump once again threatened tariffs on movies made abroad in an effort to boost the U.S. filmmaking industry. But he offered no details on how the tariffs would function or be implemented:
100%: The tariff Trump promised to impose on foreign-made movies
$7.5 billion: The size of the federal tax credit California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed for studios after the president’s first tariff threat
3.31%: The drop in Warner Bros. Discovery stock Monday
STRATEGY + SUCCESS
The impending government shutdown could have impacts on some student loan borrowers. Since the federal government contracts with private loan servicers, all loan payments will be due on usual schedules, but for current or new students, it could have a greater effect. The FAFSA should still be available, but it may take longer to resolve any issues that arise in receiving federal aid. And applicants for loan forgiveness programs could experience processing delays.
VIDEO
QUIZ
The NFL announced the headliner for next year’s Super Bowl halftime show, sparking right-wing backlash. Who is the artist?
A. Jay-Z
B. Bad Bunny
C. Shakira
D. Taylor Swift
Check your answer.
Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire and Caroline Howard.
