Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Microsoft wins big

Sam Altman will return to lead OpenAI less than five days after he was pushed out of one of the world’s most valuable startups. Returning as chief executive, Altman’s initial board will be led by Bret Taylor, a former co-CEO of Salesforce. But this isn’t the end of a saga that has broad, if not critical implications for artificial intelligence’s future and society at large. Indeed, Dave Lee writes in Bloomberg Opinion, the story has only reached the end of the beginning. For now, the simplest interpretation is that this is a huge win for Microsoft and CEO Satya Nadella, Lee writes. The $2.8 trillion tech giant, which relies heavily on OpenAI as its partner in the AI revolution, has successfully protected its investment without having to hire 700 OpenAI engineers. —David E. Rovella

Treasury yields rose after data showed a further increase in consumer year-ahead inflation expectations, with some traders taking profits on dovish Federal Reserve wagers. In a thin trading session ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, two-year US yields hovered near 4.9%. The S&P 500 edged higher. Meanwhile, applications for US jobless benefits fell last week after a run of increases, a slight reprieve in what otherwise has been a gradually cooling labor market. Here’s your markets wrap.

US mortgage rates dropped sharply, capping the biggest four-week slide in almost a year and spurring a fresh round of applications to purchase homes. Since reaching a 23-year high of almost 8% in mid-October, mortgage rates have plunged nearly half a percentage point. The effective rate, which includes fees and compound interest, dropped to a still-elevated 7.59%. In contrast, the five-year adjustable rate increased.

Two former Goldman Sachs bankers want to take the $1.6 trillion private credit revolution from Wall Street to Main Street. George van Dorp and Koen van Vlijmen have built a product that matches small businesses with alternative lenders. Alternative credit has boomed over the past decade, as record-low interest rates tempted investors down the credit spectrum in search of yield. 

George van Dorp, left, and Koen van Vlijmen Source: Fundflow

The breakthrough between Israel and Hamas that will see dozens of hostages and prisoners released from both sides—and more aid flow into Gaza—almost never happened. Talks over an agreement to free some of the captives held in Gaza began soon after Hamas’s forces stormed into Israel last month and took an estimated 240 hostages back with them, according to US and Qatari officials who briefed reporters as the latest deal was announced.

Mary Barra’s ambitious plan to double General Motors’s revenue to $280 billion by the end of the decade has a relatively simple premise at its heart: Turn the legacy automaker into more of a tech company. Barra is learning just how hard that pivot really is. This week, the founder and CEO of Cruise, GM’s autonomous-vehicle company, resigned after a series of high-profile accidents and missteps. It was a remarkable setback for a company that just two years ago was projected to bring in $50 billion in revenue by 2030. Now, Barra is pulling back on growth plans for the unit to make sure the cars are safe.

Mary Barra Source: Bloomberg

Elon Musk’s tweet endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory seemed to take his business partners by surprise. On Nov. 15 he responded to a social media user who articulated a version of the racist “great replacement theory,” which says that Jews are secretly conspiring with immigrants to destroy White culture. The idea was the inspiration for the deadly shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. “You have said the actual truth,” Musk wrote. His post, which triggered a firestorm that continues to this day, came after three years of increasing interaction with extremist content.

Far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders won the Dutch elections and said he plans to lead the country’s next government, after a late surge in the final days of the campaign catapulted his anti-European Union party past mainstream rivals. Wilders’s Freedom Party is projected to win 35 seats, more than doubling his representation from the previous parliament, according to an exit poll. Wilders has promised a binding referendum on leaving the EU. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was quick to congratulate him on his victory.

Geert Wilders  Photographer: Jens Schlueter/Getty Images

• Inside the coups and concessions that brought Altman back to OpenAI.
• OPEC+ meeting delayed as oil production talks hit turbulence.
• Bloomberg Originals: Why carbon capture is Big Oil’s climate solution.
• Officials probe “serious”’ vehicle explosion at US-Canada border.
• Boeing’s largest 737 Max model moves forward with FAA authorization.
• India’s government ignored recommendation over collapsed tunnel.
• North Korea says Kim saw photos of US bases from spy satellite.

Some of the most expensive major cities in the US—like San Francisco and Washington—also offer the best living standards for mid- and lower-income households, according to a new study of metro areas. The reason? Higher prices in those places are more than offset by higher wages. San Jose in California came out on top. Here are the rest, and the worst.

The Evening Briefing will return on Friday, Nov. 24.

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Bloomberg New Economy Forum: The sixth annual Bloomberg New Economy Forum returned to Singapore Nov. 8-10, where the world’s most influential leaders gathered to address the critical issues facing the global economy. This year’s theme, “Embracing Instability,” focused on opportunities to better understand underlying economic issues such as persistent inflation, geopolitical tensions, the rise of artificial intelligence and the precarious state of the world’s climate. Watch sessions on demand.