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ONE BIG THING\u201cSomething sinister\u201d: FBI will look into dead and missing scientists<\/p>\n
Two of them simply vanished. One was found shot dead on his front porch earlier this year. Three of them left home without their phones. Two of them set out carrying handguns. But all of them were linked to the military-space industry, officials say. The FBI told Fortune\u2019s Catherina Gioino<\/a>, \u201cThe FBI is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state and local law enforcement partners to find answers.\u201d U.S. House Committee Chairman James Comer said, \u201cOnce you see the facts, it would suggest that something sinister could be happening and it would be a national security concern.\u201d<\/p>\n IRANCeasefire extended, but peace talks stall as White House officials complain about Trump\u2019s social media commentary<\/p>\n Ceasefire, kinda-sorta: President Trump extended the ceasefire<\/a> with Iran indefinitely, but the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Two ships in the Strait were fired upon by Iranian forces this morning<\/a>; one of them, a Greek container ship, suffered heavy damage to its bridge.\u00a0<\/p>\n Talks wilting. The ceasefire extension is intended to allow the fractured Iranian regime to regroup and organize its negotiating position. So many Tehran officials have been killed it has become genuinely difficult for the remaining leaders to figure out what their government\u2019s position should be.<\/p>\n JD Vance has not flown to Pakistan yet for the scheduled talks. \u201cHere in Islamabad, arrangements remain in place for another round of talks, with parts of the city still sealed off. But hopes of a meeting this week appear, for now, to have faded,\u201d the BBC says<\/a>.<\/p>\n Speaking anonymously, some White House officials say the president\u2019s continual Truth Social posts\u2014many of them saying things that contradict his previous posts\u2014are hampering the negotiations, Fortune\u2019s Jake Angelo reports<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n What Trump said yesterday on social media<\/a>: \u201cIran doesn\u2019t want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open so they can make $500 Million Dollars a day (which is, therefore, what they are losing if it is closed!). They only say they want it closed because I have it totally BLOCKADED (CLOSED!), so they merely want to \u201csave face.\u201d People approached me four days ago, saying, \u201cSir, Iran wants to open up the Strait, immediately.\u201d But if we do that, there can never be a Deal with Iran, unless we blow up the rest of their Country, their leaders included!\u201d<\/p>\n The war is a boon to oil companies. The closure of the Strait means that oil companies are scrambling to find new sources in the U.S. and anywhere that isn\u2019t the Middle East. Halliburton CEO Jeff Miller said Africa and South America are likely to see increased activity: \u201cIn North America, we already see the early signs of recovery. Outside of the Middle East, we expect our international business to grow.\u201d Fortune\u2019s Jordan Blum has the details<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0\ud83e\udd14 The Strait theory: Is Trump’s real target China, not Iran?<\/p>\n If you have ever wondered why President Trump was willing to risk the inevitable unpopularity of choosing a war with Iran, and then suffer the negative consequences of higher gas prices and falling ratings in the polls, then Macquarie analysts Thierry Wizman and Gareth Berry have a theory for you: It\u2019s about controlling all the maritime pinchpoints through which China\u2019s imports and exports are shipped. Here it is in their own words:<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe the economic war was part of the broader geo-strategic plan all along, intended to give the U.S. cover to control the Strait [of Hormuz] indefinitely,\u201d they wrote in a note seen by Fortune. \u201cControlling Hormuz also makes common cause with the U.S.’s recent attempts to control other critical ‘straits’, such as Gibraltar, Malacca, the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap (GIUK), and Panama. If so, the U.S.’s long-term ‘goal’ may be to prevent China’s hegemony by controlling all the physical nodes through which China’s economy depends for its flows. Against that goal, having lower oil prices is of secondary importance to the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n DAVID ZASLAVThe CEO who doesn\u2019t want his $550 million exit package<\/p>\n The Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance merger shareholder vote takes place on Thursday, April 23 at 10 a.m. Eastern time. There is some buzz around this, my Fortune colleague Amanda Gerut tells me, because WBD investor David Geffen said that even though WBD CEO David Zaslav is likely to walk away with more than $550 million, he’d rather have a job<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n MORE FROM FORTUNE<\/p>\n The housing affordability crisis isn\u2019t just crushing millennials\u2014it\u2019s squeezing out buyers in their 40s, 50s and beyond too<\/a> – Shawn Tully<\/p>\n Boards say the C-suite owns the AI strategy. The C-suite doesn\u2019t agree<\/a> – Amanda Gerut<\/p>\n Meet the film school dropout who became a billionaire quantum computing CEO in days thanks to Nvidia<\/a> – Sasha Rogelberg<\/p>\n Craving work-life balance is a huge red flag, says Fortune 500 CEO\u2014and like Barack Obama, he happily works through the weekends<\/a> – Orianna Rosa Royle<\/p>\n Palantir published a mini manifesto calling some cultures \u2018harmful and middling\u2019 and said Silicon Valley has \u2018a moral debt\u2019 to the U.S.<\/a> – Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez<\/p>\n CHART OF THE DAYThere’s a ceiling on the number of people willing to use crypto As the price of Bitcoin tanked late last year and in January, the percentage of consumers using it fell, according to research by Deutsche Bank\u2019s Marion Laboure and Camilla Siazon. But recently, adoption rates have ticked up again.\u00a0<\/p>\n Big picture: Over the last few years adoption rates have been broadly flat, rarely if ever going above 12%.<\/p>\n NUMBER OF THE DAY212<\/p>\n The number of Democrats that will win seats in the U.S. House in the upcoming midterm elections, as opposed to only 205 seats for the Republicans, according to polling from 270towin.com<\/a> and Christopher Hodge, chief U.S. economist at Natixis CIB. The data shows the Dems won\u2019t take the Senate though\u2014that will go 46-51 in favor of the GOP.<\/p>\n THE FRONT PAGES TODAY<\/p>\n It is not clear whether new Apple CEO John Ternus is 50 or 51<\/a> – FT<\/p>\n Anthropic\u2019s Mythos Model Is Being Accessed by Unauthorized Users<\/a> – Bloomberg<\/p>\n Hormuz is just a \u2018dry run\u2019 if China and U.S. go to war in the Pacific, Singapore foreign minister warns<\/a> – CNBC<\/p>\n SpaceX nears deal with Cursor<\/a> – Axios<\/p>\n No Peace Plan, No Problem: Why the Wartime Market Keeps Rising<\/a> – WSJ<\/p>\n
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