The Week: The Blue Tsunami, Alphabet’s Worst Day Ever, and How to Log Off

Democrats Take Congress in a Midterm Blue Tsunami

Funding and deals

• Meta. Meta, the social media company, plans a $95bn equity raise to help fund its AI data centre buildout.
• Microsoft. Microsoft, the software company, sold $25bn of bonds the day after earnings to fund AI data centres.

Guest interviews

• Jessica Tarlov, co-host of Fox News's The Five. Tarlov said the results do not prove the Democratic coalition lasts to 2028, since some voters may have no interest in the ticket then. She called the rural collapse a big story, especially in South Carolina, and flagged J.D. Vance's post blaming the Iran war and Israel. Every Republican gerrymander became a dummymander, she said, and the party still won no North Carolina seat.
• Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. Zakaria said other countries are buying insurance against another Trump-like US leader, naming J.D. Vance and Don Jr. as possibilities. Canada's Mark Carney is striking new trade deals in Asia and Europe to regain leverage, and 80% of Indian weaponry comes from Russia while India's big order this year went to French fighter planes. He said the US can stabilise the system but cannot return to the old one.
• David Brooks, New York Times columnist. Brooks traced his conservatism to Edmund Burke and Alexander Hamilton, and to reading Burke and Adam Smith at the University of Chicago. He described Laura Ingraham and Dinesh D'Souza as anti-left rebels in elite institutions rather than pro-conservative thinkers, and said conservatism today is not what Donald Trump produces. He called the 1986 Dartmouth Review editors who sledgehammered an anti-apartheid shantytown gestapo tactics.
• Ed Elson, host of Prof G Markets. Elson said Oracle, Meta, Amazon and Google all have negative free cash flow, with hyperscaler capital expenditure near $700bn over twelve months, up nearly 90%. Microsoft is the only hyperscaler with positive free cash flow, and even that fell 27%. He said the five hyperscalers plan more than $2tn of spending over two years against about $600bn of cash, a gap of roughly $1.5tn.
• Anna Lembke, Stanford psychiatrist and author of Dopamine Nation. Lembke said people must get out of their own heads and be suspicious of their own narratives. Instead of ruminating, they should pivot outward toward reality and action.

News

• Democrats take Congress in midterm sweep. Democrats won 54 Senate seats and 240 House seats, plus five new governorships for 29 total, with upsets in Kansas and South Carolina. Scott Galloway called it a blue tsunami, with men aged 18 to 29 swinging 38 points.