On April 17, 2026, a group of Syrian billionaires with deep ties to the Assad regime met privately in Washington D.C., invoking the name of former U.S. President Donald Trump to seek intervention in lifting sanctions that have frozen billions in Syrian assets abroad. Their appeal, framed as a humanitarian gesture to ease civilian suffering, has instead ignited a firestorm over the weaponization of personal diplomacy and the resurgence of transactional foreign policy in an era when global markets remain hypersensitive to Middle East instability. This isn’t just about Syria’s frozen wealth—it’s a test of whether the post-Trump international order can resist the pull of patronage networks that bypass institutions, and what that means for investor confidence in emerging markets from Beirut to Baku.
The Sanctions Web: How Syrian Assets Became a Geopolitical Lever
Since 2011, the U.S., EU, and UN have imposed layered sanctions on Syria targeting the Assad regime’s revenue streams, including oil exports, financial transactions, and the assets of designated individuals. Over $10 billion in Syrian state and elite-held assets remain frozen in Western banks, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. These measures were designed to pressure Damascus into political concessions, but they’ve also crippled legitimate trade, worsened humanitarian conditions, and pushed the regime toward illicit economies like Captagon production. The Syrian billionaires’ ask isn’t for regime legitimacy—it’s for access to liquidity that could stabilize their own holdings while indirectly bolstering the state’s capacity to function.
What makes this moment distinct is the explicit invocation of Trump’s name. During his presidency, Trump signaled openness to engaging with Assad—a stark departure from Obama-era red lines—and his inner circle included figures who viewed sanctions as blunt instruments harmful to U.S. Business interests. Though no evidence suggests Trump is directly involved in these 2026 meetings, the mere association carries weight in circles where personal loyalty still trumps protocol. As one former U.S. Treasury official noted off the record, “In certain networks, a name drop isn’t nostalgia—it’s a signal that the classic rules of engagement might be reactivatable.”
Geopolitical Ripple Effects: From Beirut Banking to Global Supply Chains
The implications extend far beyond Damascus. Syrian elites have long used Lebanese banks as conduits for moving capital, a practice that intensified after 2019 when Syria’s own banking system collapsed under sanctions pressure. Any easing of restrictions could trigger a surge in cross-border flows, testing Lebanon’s fragile financial recovery and potentially reigniting tensions with the IMF, which has tied its $3 billion bailout to strict capital controls. Meanwhile, European energy firms eyeing Syrian phosphate reserves—a key ingredient in fertilizers and a potential alternative to Russian supplies—could see renewed interest if sanctions loosen, altering agricultural supply chains across the Mediterranean.
More broadly, this episode underscores a growing trend: the use of personal diplomacy to circumvent multilateral frameworks. When high-net-worth individuals from sanctioned states leverage former U.S. Presidents’ names to access Washington, it erodes the predictability that global investors rely on. “We’re seeing a shift from rules-based to relationship-based access,” warned Dr. Lina Khatib, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, in a recent briefing.
“When asset holders believe they can bypass institutional channels through personal connections, it undermines the very sanctions regimes designed to enforce accountability—and that creates market volatility no hedge fund can model.”
This dynamic isn’t unique to Syria; similar patterns have emerged in Venezuela and Myanmar, where diaspora elites seek political intermediaries to unlock frozen wealth.
Historical Echoes: When Personal Diplomacy Trumped Policy
The Trump administration’s approach to foreign aid and sanctions was often transactional, exemplified by the 2020 decision to suspend $70 million in health aid to Zimbabwe over minerals and data concerns—a move later reversed but indicative of a broader willingness to tie assistance to bilateral concessions. While current U.S. Policy under the Biden administration has sought to reassert normative frameworks, the persistence of backchannel appeals reveals the durability of Trump-era norms in certain elite circles. As noted in a 2023 Brookings Institution analysis, “The legacy of personalistic foreign policy isn’t in treaties signed, but in the expectations it created among foreign actors about what leverage looks like.”
This context matters as Syria’s economic future is increasingly tied to regional reconstruction efforts. The World Bank estimates that rebuilding Syria will require $250–$400 billion over the next decade—a figure far beyond what Damascus can raise domestically. If sanctioned assets remain locked, reconstruction will rely on alternative financiers, including Gulf states and China, potentially shifting Syria’s long-term alignment away from Europe and toward Beijing-led initiatives. Conversely, any sanctioned asset release—even conditional—could accelerate Western re-engagement, but only if paired with verifiable political steps, a condition the billionaires’ current appeal notably lacks.
IndicatorPre-20112023 EstimateSourceSyrian GDP (Billion USD)$60.2$6.2World BankFrozen Syrian Assets (USD)$0$10+ billionCarnegie EndowmentSyria’s Share of Global Phosphate Exports~5%<0.1% (sanctions-impacted)USGS Mineral Resources ProgramLebanon-Syria Cross-Border Deposits (Est.)$20–25 billion (pre-2019)$3–5 billion (2023)IMF Staff Report
The Real Test: Can Institutions Withstand the Pull of Patronage?
What’s at stake here isn’t just Syria’s balance sheets—it’s the credibility of the sanctions architecture itself. If personal appeals succeed where structured diplomacy has stalled, it risks creating a two-tier system: one for those with access to former presidents’ names, and another for everyone else subject to the full force of coercive economics. That distinction matters for global markets, which depend on consistent rule application to assess country risk. As CSIS fellow Jon Alterman observed in a March 2026 panel, “The danger isn’t that sanctions fail—it’s that they succeed unpredictably, rewarding connections over compliance.”
For now, the Biden administration has not indicated any shift in policy. Treasury sanctions remain in place, and State Department officials continue to tie any relief to irreversible political progress toward a UN-facilitated solution. But the mere fact that these meetings occurred—and that they were framed as viable—suggests a deeper erosion in the norms that once made such appeals unthinkable. In an age where geopolitical risk is priced in real time, the perception of backdoor access can move markets as surely as an actual policy shift.
Looking Ahead: What So for Global Investors and Policy Makers
The Syrian billionaires’ gamble reflects a broader calculation among elites in sanctioned states: that in a multipolar world, personal networks may outlast institutional frameworks. Whether that bet pays off remains uncertain. But the attempt itself reveals a truth often overlooked in sanctions debates—that their effectiveness depends not just on design, but on perceived legitimacy and uniformity of application. When those erode, so does the deterrent value.
For global investors, the message is clear: monitor not just official statements, but the quieter currents of influence where names are dropped and favors are implied. For policymakers, the challenge is to reinforce that sanctions are not bargaining chips, but tools of accountability—whose power diminishes the moment they become negotiable over coffee in a Washington townhouse. The true test of the post-Trump order isn’t whether it can resist a name drop—it’s whether it can convince the world that it doesn’t need to.
Editor-in-Chief Prize-winning journalist with over 20 years of international news experience. Alexandra leads the editorial team, ensuring every story meets the highest standards of accuracy and journalistic integrity.CategoriesWorld
Then we see Jared Kushner and wife Ivanka Trump receiving Syrian billionaire funding for the Driatic pristine Albanian island project:
The Adriatic Grift: How Jared Kushner, Syrian Billionaires, and a Compliant White House Carved Up a Country
That framing, of course, belongs to his wife. On May 31, 2026, Ivanka Trump told a podcast audience that she and Kushner had “discovered” Sazan while sailing off a friend’s boat in the Mediterranean, as though the island had been waiting in darkness for someone with a private equity firm and sovereign wealth fund backing to illuminate it. In a country where Sazan had been public land for generations, that language landed like a verdict. It told Albanians, in the clearest possible terms, what kind of arrangement was being imposed on them.
Tens of thousands of them took to the streets.
The island was never for sale. That was always the point.
And
The network of companies and Qatari billionaires hiding behind Sazan, documents reveal the behind-the-scenes of Jared Kushner’s project
strategic investor status from the Albanian government.
The Al-Khayyat brothers are household names in the Middle East. They run the conglomerate Power International Holding (PIH) with activities in construction, real estate, agriculture and healthcare. PIH was one of the main contractors in building the infrastructure for the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
An investigation by The New York Times, published on April 19, 2026, pointed out the connection between the Al-Khayyat brothers, who are of Syrian origin, and Kushner as well as other members of the Trump family.
Regarding investments in Albania, Ramez Al-Khayyat confirmed to the NYT the partnership with Kushner.
“We are investing in the holding company to make sure it has sufficient capital. So it is a joint venture between the two companies, and we are actually managing it together,” he told the New York Times.
Albania’s Sazan Island has been fought over for millennia
Strategically situated where the Adriatic and Ionian Seas meet, a small rocky outcrop has once again become an object of desire for the wealthy and powerful.
Albania’s Sazan Island has served for decades as a military stronghold.
Hektor Pustina/AP
ByNoah Kirsch
Published June 12, 2026
For thousands of years, world powers have traded control over a small, lush isle off the southwestern coast of Albania. Sazan Island, a 2.2 square-mile spit of land, lies within the Strait of Otranto, a narrow channel separating Italy and Albania, and has served as a crucial base for powers seeking to dominate the Adriatic and Ionian Seas.
There are no permanent residents on Sazan, and yet it has played a key role in Albanian history for more than a century.
“The island no doubt has a long, complicated history,” says Theodora Dragostinova, a professor of history at The Ohio State University who researches the Balkans. With its strategic location at the edge of Albania’s Bay of Vlorë, different empires—including the Romans, Venetians, British, and Ottomans—have each controlled it.
Ishulli i Sazanit (Sazan Island): A Military History
Five point seven square kilometers of fortified rock at the mouth of the Bay of Vlore have been Ottoman, Italian, Soviet, and Albanian inside a single century.
By Enri Zhulati
National Albanian Registry · 501(c)(3) editorial deskCopy link
Albanian America is still being written down — by us. The Census records 230,000 of us; the real number is closer to a million. Add your name to the count in 2 minutes.Be counted →
Ishulli i Sazanit (Sazan Island) is a small place that has held a disproportionate amount of 20th-century history. The island covers roughly 5.7 square kilometers — about 2.2 square miles — at the mouth of the Gjiri i Vlores (Bay of Vlore), where the Albanian coastline turns the corner from the Adriatic into the Ionian. It is the largest island in Albania, and on most maps of the Balkans it is a single dot (Wikipedia: Sazan Island).
The dot has been Ottoman, then Italian, then Albanian, then a Soviet forward base, then Albanian again. It has been a coaling station, a fleet anchorage, a submarine pen, a closed military zone, and, in the last few years, a tightly chaperoned tourist destination. Most of the buildings on the island today were built by foreign militaries. Most of the underground was dug by Albanian conscripts during the Cold War. The island has more bunkers than residents, and that ratio has been true for sixty years.
This article is a heritage history of Sazan, written for an Albanian-American readership. The aim is not a tour guide. It is a single-page reading of why one rock in the Adriatic ended up carrying so much modern Albanian history, and why the diaspora should know it. For broader context, see albanian-history, the Cold War backdrop in operation-valuable, and the long arc of albania-us-relations.
Geography and the Bay of Vlore
Sazan sits about five kilometers off the tip of the Karaburun Peninsula, the long arm of mainland Albania that curves south from the city of Vlore and shelters the Bay of Vlore from the open Adriatic. From the air, the bay reads as a deep, almost enclosed harbor with one narrow opening to the sea. Sazan is the cork in the bottle.
The island itself is roughly 4.8 kilometers long and 2 kilometers across at its widest, oriented broadly north-south. The terrain is hilly, with the highest point reaching about 340 meters above sea level. Vegetation is Mediterranean scrub. There is no permanent civilian population. Fresh water is limited; for most of its modern history, water has been brought in by ship or collected in cisterns.
What makes Sazan strategically important is not its size but its position. The Strait of Otranto, the narrow stretch of sea between Albania and southern Italy, is the gateway between the Adriatic and the Ionian. Any navy that controls Sazan controls the southern entrance to the Adriatic, and by extension the sea lanes to Venice, Trieste, Bari, Brindisi, and the Italian east coast. From Sazan, a coastal artillery battery can range across the strait. From the bay behind it, a submarine fleet can sortie into the Mediterranean unobserved. That is the single fact that has driven every owner of the island since the late 19th century.
The Karaburun-Sazan National Marine Park, established in 2010, includes the waters around the island and gives the area a layer of legal environmental protection. The marine park designation will become important again later in this article when we get to the 2024-2025 development controversy.
Donald Trump’s eldest sister, Maryanne Trump, who died before he won his second term, was recorded as saying:
Private criticism of Donald Trump
Barry made few public statements about her younger brother Donald Trump during his first term as president. She died before he was elected for a second term in 2024.[8] In August 2020, their niece Mary L. Trump revealed that she had surreptitiously audio-recorded 15 hours of discussions with Barry in 2018 and 2019. In those recorded discussions, Barry sharply criticized her brother.[8] Mary publicly released several transcripts and audio excerpts of the conversations, including content that did not previously appear in her 2020 book Too Much and Never Enough.[8]
In the recordings, Barry said of her brother, “All he wants to do is appeal to his base. He has no principles. None. His goddamned tweeting and lying… oh my god. I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit. […] It’s the phoniness of it all. It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel.”[8] She added that he did not read books and had someone take the college entrance exam in his place.[8] In the recordings, Barry also criticized the first Trump administration’s controversial family separation policy for deported migrants, and the bankruptcies of her brother’s businesses, adding that “you can’t trust him”.[8][32][33]
The Psychology Behind Violence, Cruelty, and Madness
When someone exhibits violence, cruelty, or madness, especially in a pattern, it’s rarely caused by just one factor. From a psychological perspective, a mix of biological, environmental, and personality-related factors can contribute to these behaviors.
🔹 Violence – Physical aggression, harming others. 🔹 Cruelty – Deliberate emotional or physical harm, often with enjoyment or lack of empathy. 🔹 Madness (Psychosis or Extreme Instability) – Losing touch with reality, paranoia, or delusional thinking.
Israeli settlers savagely attack journalists in occupied West Bank
Videos circulating on social media show Israeli settlers assaulting three foreign journalists, Andrey X, Adele Shoko and Jasper Nathaniel, near Hebron. Andrey reportedly lost consciousness, was taken to a police station and remained detained without receiving medical care.
Published On 29 Oct 202629 Oct 2026
Source: Aljazeera
US Journalist and Activist Detained After Israeli Settler Attack in West Bank
The activist Andrey X is seen on the ground after being attacked by Israeli settlers in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair in the occupied West Bank on October 28, 2026. (social media)
Jasper Nathaniel and Andrey Khrzhanovskiy recently came to the aid of Washington Post reporter Heidi Levine after she was beaten by Israeli settlers, and spoke out about the attack.
By Julia Conley, reposted from Common Dreams, October 29, 2026
[Editor’s note:The Committee to Protect Journalists has announced that it “condemns the detention of Russian-Israeli journalist Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, known professionally as Andrey X, and U.S. journalist Jasper Nathaniel by Israeli forces.”]
An American journalist and an activist who reportedly suffered a concussion from being beaten by armed Israeli settlers remained in detention Wednesday night, hours after Israeli police arrested them following the attack.
Adele Shoko, a Russian activist, reported that settlers had attacked her, Israeli-Russian activist Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, and US journalist Jasper Nathaniel late Wednesday in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair, in the Masafer Yatta area of the occupied West Bank.
“They beat us, threatened to shoot us, stole Andrey’s phone and my glasses, and pepper-sprayed Jasper,” Shoko said on the social media platform X.
According to Shoko, Khrzhanovskiy was denied medical treatment after losing consciousness “several times in front of police.” He and Nathaniel were taken to a police station, where they remained hours later.
Nathaniel was heard yelling, “I just got beat up!” while being led away by police.
“Andrey was severely beaten and lost consciousness several times in front of police,” said Shoko. “Despite this, he was denied hospital treatment. He was put in an ambulance—but instead of being taken to hospital, he was taken to a police station. He is still there, arrested and being denied medical care.”
One video appeared to show Khrzhanovskiy losing consciousness.
Drop Site News cited Shoko as she reported that Nathaniel and Khrzhanovskiy eventually were able to speak with a lawyer, but remained at a police station. They were reportedly “physically okay.”
“Israeli state terrorism knows no boundaries,” said historian Zachary Foster of the footage of the attack.
The assault came less than two weeks after both Nathaniel and Khrzhanovskiy came to the aid of Heidi Levine, a Washington Post journalist, after she was brutally beaten and robbed by Israeli settlers while she was covering an attack by dozens of masked men on Palestinian olive groves in the West Bank.
State-backed settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have ramped up significantly since October 2023, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also began a military campaign against Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in what leading human rights groups have called a genocide, and a United Nations commission said this week that at least 1,080 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the last three years.
Top officials in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have pushed to further annex the West Bank as the IDF has backed settler raids on villages and attacks on Palestinian communities as well as recent assaults on journalists, US lawmakers, and a group of European diplomats.
Nathaniel, who has spent years covering the Israeli occupation of the West Bank for outlets including Drop Site and Zeteo News, spoke recently to The New Yorker about the attack on Levine, emphasizing that Palestinians had thrown stones at her attackers to allow her colleagues to reach her.
“The IDF soldiers who have been there, who’ve been tear-gassing the Palestinians and providing cover for the settlers, stormed the village,” Nathaniel said of the assault on Levine. “Rather than go after the settlers who have just nearly killed a woman, they stormed the village and started firing their weapons, and they shot a Palestinian man in the leg.”
On Substack this week, Khrzhanovskiy wrote that “all the Palestinian villages in the West Bank are under siege,” and that Netanyahu’s government aimed to use a recent strike against Israeli soldiers “to start a war in the West Bank.”
“The only way to stop this is pressure from all directions. We know it works,” said Khrzhanovskiy. “Call your representative, hold a demonstration, organize direct action against the occupation’s assets abroad. Keep attention on the West Bank.”
Julia Conley is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
Now, on to some pretty grim news, but news that we must face. This Summer and Fall have seen a noticeable and continuing increase in the number of Ukrainian civilians being deliberately targeted and killed by Russian bombing. It is becoming more and more common to have mass casualty events on a weekly basis, and Russian ranged systems are being used to hunt out trains, buses, apartment buildings, etc.
Dead Ukrainian Civilians At Dnipro’s Main Rail Station
This needs to be understood and discussed more often. The Ukrainians are being targeted as a people now as a strategy of war. That this not being admitted in Europe or the USA as it should is astonishing. Europeans need to acknowledge that what is happening to Ukrainians could easily happen to them—and yet too often they speak as if this war is something that can easily be settled by some deal with this murderous regime. For the USA, the issue is more of admitting culpability as a nation. This rising slaughter is directly related to US policy.
Read more at Phillips P. Obrien at Substack, Nov 1 2026
Business idiots sign up to bigger and bigger deals – powerful confidence game full of hype – concepts offered you don’t understand…find out how this all unfolded……
I jottEd down some keywords before the Anthropic IPO meltdown….
Follow Ed Zitron Podcast Better off line
Nasdaq-100 lost over $2 trillion in October 2026, driven by AI spending concerns.
Alphabet erased $500 billion in one session as AI capital expenditures outpaced cash flow.
Amazon swung to negative $42.4 billion free cash flow, contrasting sharply with Microsoft’s positive position.
More than $2 trillion in Nasdaq-100 market value evaporated during October 2026. On October 30 alone, the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.9% and the S&P 500 dropped 1.8%. Amazon and Intel combined threatened to erase roughly $200 billion of that total.
AI Debt Nears $500 Billion in 2026: What It Means for Nvidia, Oracle, CoreWeave and AI Stocks
Written by
I/O Fund Team
Research Team
Published: October 23, 2026
In early October 2026, three large AI hardware financing deals made headlines. SpaceX is reportedly looking to raise $40 billion to acquire Nvidia processors, and Broadcom is reportedly turning to its private credit platform to raise $50 billion for OpenAI to purchase custom accelerators. At the same time, Oracle is said to be in talks with Apollo Global Management and Goldman Sachs to lease AI chips via a separate investor-funded entity.
AI compute is becoming a financeable infrastructure asset class. Instead of relying solely on operating cash flow, the sector is now turning to debt markets at an unprecedented pace. Getting a clearer understanding of what this shift means for the AI industry requires a deeper look at who is borrowing, how these financing deals are being structured, and where interest costs land across AI stocks.
The biggest AI builders spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on datacentres. Most of that comes out of cash flow, but not all of it. This page shows who is exposed, from their own SEC filings, and what the credit market charges the weakest borrowers over the strongest.
As at 15 October 2026 · All amounts US$ unless marked A$ · Marcus Today research
CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) sold a bond at a 9.625% coupon in June. This week it yielded 14.50%. On Tuesday the IMF named the AI financing loop as a top trigger for a market shock. The AI build-out is now running on borrowed money, and the bond market is starting to separate the borrowers who can pay from those who can’t.
In our view the big four hyperscalers – the giant cloud providers – can afford what they are borrowing. The strain sits further down the chain: Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), the neoclouds (specialist GPU cloud providers) and the project loans whose only real customer is an AI lab that still loses money. This is a companion to our AI Ownership Map. That piece showed who owns what. This one shows who owes what, to whom, and at what price.
How much has AI borrowed?
US$274bn
Investment-grade bonds sold by Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle in 2026, to late September. They averaged about US$30bn a year in 2020–24.
To 29 September 2026
US$1.2 trillion
Lease commitments held off balance sheet. More than US$820bn of it is for data centres that are not yet built.
July 2026
14.50%
Yield on CoreWeave’s 9.625% 2032 bond, sold at par in June.
Close, 14 October 2026
215–260
Oracle’s five-year credit default swap in basis points, up from about 57 in mid-2025. A credit default swap (CDS) is insurance against a default; the higher the price, the higher the perceived risk.
Late September to 7 October 2026
Hyperscaler bond sales are up about ninefold
Actual Forecast
~30
~121
~274
400–420
2020–24 avg
2025
2026 to Sep
2027 forecast
Bond issuance by Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle (US$bn). 2020–24 is the annual average. 2025 estimates range from US$108bn to US$130bn. 2026 is to late September. 2027 is a forecast of US$400–420bn.
Morgan Stanley expects about US$570bn of AI-related debt worldwide in 2026, counting bonds, loans and private credit. Goldman Sachs expects debt to fund about a third of hyperscaler capital spending this year, up from about a quarter in 2025.
Follow the debt from lender to AI lab
Read the map from top to bottom. The lenders come first. Next are the special purpose vehicles (SPVs) and project companies. These are separate legal entities that borrow for a single site, so the debt doesn’t appear on the tech company’s balance sheet. Then come the borrowers, and at the bottom the AI labs whose contracts are meant to pay it all back.
Tap a type to switch its links on or off. Tap a company to list its links, and tap it again to clear.
Tap any company below to list its loans, leases, contracts and stakes. JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and the bond market have the most links on the lending side. Oracle, CoreWeave and SoftBank have the most on the borrowing side, and OpenAI and Anthropic sit behind most of the riskier vehicles.
1. LENDERS AND BONDHOLDERS
Banks, bond funds, private credit, sovereign money
2. SPVS AND PROJECT LOANS
Off-balance-sheet vehicles that borrow for one site
3. BORROWERS
Hyperscalers, neoclouds, chipmakers and SoftBank
4. WHO PAYS THE RENT
The AI labs behind the riskiest contracts
marcustoday. · As at 15 October 2026
The cost of money has gone up, a lot for some
Every AI bond we tracked now yields more than when it was sold. Part of that is rates: the US 10-year Treasury yield is about 5.24%, near its highest since 2002. What separates the borrowers is the spread – the extra yield over Treasuries. Big Tech bonds have moved up 0.30–1.12 percentage points. Oracle’s have moved 1.69–2.45 points. CoreWeave’s have moved 2.77–4.88 points, into distressed territory.
Oracle and CoreWeave bonds have repriced the most
Coupon at issueBig TechMeta SPVOracleCoreWeave
Alphabet 4.80% 20365.88% (+108)
Meta 5.25% 20365.77% (+52)
Amazon 4.875% 20365.99% (+112)
Alphabet 6.50% 20666.80% (+30)
Amazon 6.05% 20766.95% (+90)
Meta 6.45% 20667.15% (+70)
Oracle 5.70% 20367.53% (+183)
Meta Hyperion SPV 6.581% 20497.55% (+97)
Oracle 6.85% 20668.54% (+169)
CoreWeave 9.25% 203012.02% (+277)
CoreWeave 9.75% 203113.88% (+413)
CoreWeave 9.625% 203214.50% (+488)
4%6%8%10%12%14%
Yield to worst (%), with the change since issue in basis points. The dashed line is the 10-year Treasury at 5.24% (1 October). Yields as at 12–15 October 2026. The Hyperion SPV is at about 91.6c on 7 October.
The cost of insuring Oracle’s debt has quadrupled
57
144
198
210
260*
Mid-2025Jan 2026Apr 2026Jul 2026Oct 2026*
Oracle five-year CDS (basis points). *October readings range from 203 to 260, so treat the top of the range as unconfirmed.
Which borrowers are under real stress?
No major AI data-centre operator or neocloud has defaulted. Character.AI’s Chapter 11 filing this month is an app business, not infrastructure. Bond and CDS markets are already pricing distress in a handful of names. The common thread is reliance on a few customers that don’t make money themselves. Free cash flow (FCF) below is operating cash flow less capital spending. Interest cover is EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) divided by interest expense.
Severe
Cash flow does not cover the interest
CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV)
CoreWeave has US$35.6bn of debt. Q2 adjusted operating income was US$128m against US$640m of net interest, so operating profit covered about 0.2x of it. FCF was about -US$10.5bn in the first half, and capex guidance is US$35–39bn. Its bonds yield 12.02–14.50%, and in July its CDS implied about a 50% chance of default over five years. Microsoft was about 67% of FY25 revenue. US$4.4bn falls due in the rest of 2026 and US$6.2bn in 2027.
Bonds at about 80c · CDS about 855 basis points (July) · S&P B+
Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ)
The coupon on its US$3.3bn of 7.75% 2031 notes costs about US$256m a year. Annualised adjusted EBITDA is about US$164m. CoreWeave rents about half its capacity, so this is CoreWeave risk at one remove.
Interest cover below 1x (our estimate)
TeraWulf (NASDAQ: WULF) and Cipher Digital (NASDAQ: CIFR)
Both have negative EBITDA against quarterly interest of US$56m and US$67m, on US$5.2bn and US$6.0bn of debt. Their secured notes are backed by Google’s guarantee of their tenant Fluidstack’s rent. That protects bondholders more than shareholders. Cipher fell 18% this week after selling an US$850m zero-coupon convertible bond.
Negative EBITDA · heavy dilution
Project Jupiter loan (Oracle, New Mexico)
The US$18bn bank construction loan trades at 89–91c in the dollar, and the site is about 26% built. Oracle served a force majeure notice on 24 September, citing power delays. Santander and Jefferies hold more of the loan than they planned to.
Loan at 89–91c (18 September)
Galaxy Helios II
US$3.5bn of 9.875% notes, priced at about 550 basis points over Treasuries. The 260MW site is 100% leased to CoreWeave for 15 years. Interest would take about 82% of projected 2028 net operating income.
Single tenant: CoreWeave
High
Negative cash flow, leaning on markets
Oracle (NYSE: ORCL)
FCF has been negative for five straight quarters, including -US$23.7bn in FY26. S&P expects about -US$42bn in FY27. Debt is US$125.3bn, plus US$288bn of leases signed but not yet started. Remaining performance obligations, or contracted backlog, are US$664bn. OpenAI, the largest customer, doesn’t start paying until 2027. Oracle has raised about US$25bn of new equity to protect its rating and says it will sell no more bonds this year.
SoftBank is borrowing to fund its US$64.6bn OpenAI stake. It sold the largest high-yield bond on record, US$11.1bn at up to 9.75%, and a ¥1 trillion retail bond, and it drew a US$40bn bridge loan. It also has margin loans of about US$10bn against its OpenAI shares and US$25bn against its Arm shares. OpenAI is about 30% of its investment assets.
S&P BB+ negative · CDS about 383–400 basis points
OpenAI (private)
OpenAI itself carries almost no debt beyond an undrawn US$4bn revolving credit line. It is, however, the tenant behind Oracle’s Stargate sites and much of CoreWeave’s backlog. It burned US$3.7bn in Q1 and has up to US$665bn of compute commitments. Projections put its FCF at -US$278bn over 2026–30.
Unrated · not expected to be cash-flow positive before about 2030
Applied Digital (NASDAQ: APLD)
US$6.4bn of project debt against Q1 FY27 adjusted EBITDA of US$64m. JPMorgan cut its project bonds to Neutral on 12 October, citing another US$7.8–13bn of supply to come. A roughly US$3.5bn deal for a Meta project was tested in September and never priced.
Trailing FCF about -US$2.8bn
Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ: SMCI)
FY26 operating cash flow was -US$6.8bn on revenue of US$39.1bn. It has US$8.7bn of bank debt and convertibles, plus US$4.2bn of 7% preferred shares. Its internal controls were reported as not effective, and there are subpoenas and an indictment of three individuals.
FCF -US$7.0bn
Nscale (private, IPO filed)
Nscale filed for a US listing on 18 September. It has about US$4.9bn of secured loans at up to 750 basis points over SOFR, the US benchmark lending rate. It has US$24bn of equipment on order. Its Anthropic contracts of up to US$44.6bn have no committed financing yet.
Funding gap
Watch
Can pay, but the structure carries risk
Meta’s off-balance-sheet SPVs
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) has two such vehicles. Hyperion (Beignet Investor, US$27.3bn) hit a record low of about 91.6c on 7 October. El Paso (Sopaipilla Investor, US$12.5bn) priced at 7.534%, a yield more typical of junk bonds. Both are rated A+ because Meta guarantees what the sites will be worth (a residual value guarantee). Neither appears in Meta’s reported debt.
A+ · about US$41bn of guarantees
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), now including xAI
After its June IPO, SpaceX refinanced xAI’s 12.5% junk debt into US$25bn of BBB bonds. Q2 capex was US$18.4bn against EBITDA of US$3.5bn. It is in talks for another US$40bn, led by Apollo, to buy Nvidia chips. Its 2056 bond widened from 175 to 231 basis points over Treasuries within a month of issue.
BBB / Baa1 · about US$100bn of cash
Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) and Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) vendor finance
Broadcom is in talks on US$60–70bn of SPV debt that buys its chips and leases them to customers such as Anthropic, with Broadcom offering partial guarantees. Nvidia has guaranteed up to US$105bn of leases on an OpenAI campus in Ohio, and US$108.5bn in total. Ratings agencies don’t yet count either as debt.
Hidden leverage
Nebius (NASDAQ: NBIS) and IREN (NASDAQ: IREN)
Both fund themselves mainly with convertible bonds; Nebius sold about US$9bn in 2026. Customer prepayments flatter their operating cash flow. Nebius’s Q2 capex of US$5.7bn was about 24 times its EBITDA. IREN’s Microsoft-backed debt is rated A, but its Q4 EBITDA margin was only 14%.
Shares down more than 40% since July
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC)
Net debt is US$20.8bn and FCF is thin, at about US$2.8bn (our estimate). Q2 adjusted FCF was -US$8.4bn. It remains investment grade, with interest cover of about 14x, and the US Government owns about 8.4%.
BBB / Baa2
Low stress: Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta (corporate debt), Nvidia, TSMC, Micron, SK Hynix and Samsung hold net cash or close to it. Their bonds have fallen with rates and supply, not on credit worries. Alphabet’s first negative FCF quarter since its 2004 IPO (Q2 2026) and Amazon’s negative trailing FCF are worth watching all the same.
Who holds the debt?
Most of the money doesn’t come from tech. Banks write the construction loans and then try to sell them on. Bond funds and insurers buy the long-dated SPV paper. Sovereign wealth funds come in as equity partners and as investors in the private credit managers that do the lending.
TD, Pimco and Goldman are the biggest US data-centre lenders
BankNon-bank
TD26.8
Pimco23.0
Goldman Sachs16.5
Wells Fargo16.4
JPMorgan13.3
Bank of America12.8
MUFG11.8
SMBC11.5
Blue Owl11.0
Citi10.5
Morgan Stanley9.3
ING8.5
RBC8.3
Blackstone8.0
Mizuho8.0
US data-centre debt by lender (US$bn), as at March 2026, out of about US$1.3 trillion in total. Later deals, such as the Michigan bonds, are not included.
Banks
JPMorgan and MUFG led the US$38bn Vantage loans for Oracle’s Texas and Wisconsin sites. The sell-down took more than six months, and some of the loans went to non-banks at a discount. SMBC, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs and MUFG are agents on the US$18bn Jupiter loan, now at 89–91c. JPMorgan, Goldman, Mizuho, SMBC and MUFG lead SoftBank’s US$40bn bridge loan. Chicago Fed staff put large-bank commitments to “AI-adjacent” borrowers at about US$450bn. Several banks have explored significant risk transfers, which sell the credit risk to outside investors, to cut their exposure.
Private credit and fund managers
Pimco is the largest single buyer. It took about US$18bn of Meta’s Hyperion bonds and about US$10bn of Oracle’s Michigan bonds. Apollo and its insurer Athene lent about US$7bn against xAI’s GPUs, and Apollo co-led the US$35bn Anthropic chip SPV with Blackstone. Blackstone also anchored CoreWeave’s investment-grade US$8.5bn loan and leads Firmus’s US$10bn facility. BlackRock, GIP and HPS own 80% of Meta’s El Paso vehicle. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) puts private credit loans to AI firms above US$200bn.
Sovereign wealth funds
Gulf and Singapore money comes in mostly as equity, with indirect credit exposure. MGX led the US$40bn takeover of Aligned Data Centers with BlackRock’s GIP. ADIA and GIC put about US$3bn into Vantage. QIA has a US$3bn digital-infrastructure partnership with Blue Owl and a US$20bn partnership with Brookfield. Mubadala is an investor in Apollo’s direct lending. SoftBank is now seeking up to US$100bn from Gulf investors. We found no sovereign fund named as a direct buyer of a specific AI bond.
Insurers, retail investors and governments
Insurers buy the long, fully amortising private placements, such as Lambda’s US$1bn 6.78% loan. Japanese households bought SoftBank’s ¥1 trillion retail bond. Index investors own the rest by default. AI-linked debt is about 14% of JPMorgan’s main US investment-grade index, so most corporate bond ETFs hold it. The Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital is in talks to lend Fluidstack about US$5bn. Australia’s National Reconstruction Fund is putting A$200m into Macquarie Technology (ASX: MAQ).
Why the regulators are worried
IMF (13 October): named the AI financing loop as a top trigger for a market shock. Hyperscalers have put about US$300bn of equity and US$650bn of debt into AI firms, which have committed about US$1.4 trillion of revenue back to them. It warned of a “triple whammy”: equity losses, trouble servicing debt and commitments falling through, all at once.
BIS: calls off-balance-sheet joint ventures and SPVs “shadow borrowing”. It says bank funding lines to these vehicles can pass shocks on to the banks.
Bank of England (July): said AI firms’ use of credit has “accelerated rapidly” while hyperscaler free cash flow is falling.
US Federal Reserve (May): flagged that capital spending is “increasingly funded by debt, creating leverage in the system”.
Morgan Stanley: sees US$2.9 trillion of data-centre spending to 2028 against US$1.4 trillion of hyperscaler cash flow. That leaves a US$1.5 trillion funding gap.
Goldman Sachs: estimates AI revenue is about US$230bn a year short of breakeven.
Bond buyers: hyperscaler order books fell from about 5x covered in February to under 2x by July. AI issuers trade about 115 basis points over Treasuries, against 78 for the investment-grade index. Tech used to trade tighter than the index.
GPU lifespans: lenders now assume GPU collateral lasts 3–4 years. Nvidia argues up to 10. Michael Burry argues depreciation schedules overstate 2026–28 profits by about US$176bn.
Where are the ASX links?
NEXTDC (ASX: NXT): A$3.35bn of drawn debt, A$7.1bn undrawn and pro forma liquidity of about A$9.8bn. In September it priced A$1.1bn of 1.75% convertible notes due 2031 at a 32.5% premium. FY27 capex guidance of A$5.25–5.75bn is about 14 times EBITDA guidance of A$385–410m. Liquidity is strong, but the S7 campus depends on OpenAI as anchor tenant.
Macquarie Technology (ASX: MAQ): a modest A$500m secured revolver and the A$200m NRF hybrid note. FY26 EBITDA was A$115.9m, against FY27 capex guidance of A$485–506m.
Firmus: Blackstone leads a US$10bn debt facility with Coatue. The ASX float was withdrawn on 9 October.
AirTrunk: owned by Blackstone and CPP Investments. It refinanced A$16bn with more than 60 banks in 2025 and is in talks for about S$2bn in Singapore.
Macquarie Group (ASX: MQG): lends to Applied Digital and Nscale. We could not confirm the big four banks’ shares of the AirTrunk, NEXTDC and CDC facilities.
What it means for investors
In our view the AI debt story has two halves. The big four hyperscalers can afford what they are borrowing. Their bonds are down because Treasury yields are near 2002 highs and supply is enormous, not because anyone doubts they will pay. The stress is further down the chain, in Oracle, CoreWeave, the former bitcoin miners and the project loans that depend on AI labs.
The debt is also less visible than it looks. Meta’s two SPVs, Oracle’s Stargate sites, Broadcom’s chip vehicles and Nvidia’s guarantees hold several hundred billion dollars of obligations outside reported debt. Most of it relies on the same two customers, OpenAI and Anthropic. If either stumbles, the losses fall on banks still holding construction loans, on bond funds like Pimco and on private credit funds that investors are already trying to leave.
For Australian investors the direct exposure is small: NEXTDC, Macquarie Technology and, through bank syndicates, AirTrunk. The bigger channel is bond funds, because AI-linked debt is about 14% of the main US investment-grade index. We are watching CoreWeave’s 2027 maturities, the Jupiter loan price, Oracle’s CDS and whether the Anthropic and OpenAI listings go ahead.
Every major AI debt deal we tracked
Each card is a bond, loan or credit facility. “At issue” is the coupon, or the margin over a benchmark, when it was sold. “Now” is the latest yield or price we could find. Figures in brackets are the spread over Treasuries in basis points. Search for a lender such as Pimco or MUFG, pick a sector, or show all deals.Search deals
0 of 65 deals showing
No deals showing. Search for a company or lender, pick a sector, or select Show all deals.
How big are the borrowers?
US$bn unless marked. Market values are around 14–15 October 2026 where available. Negative net debt means net cash. Oracle’s debt is at 31 August 2026; other measures put it at US$117bn or US$167bn on different definitions.
Basis pointsHundredths of a percentage point. 100 basis points equals 1%.Investment grade and high yieldBonds rated BBB- or higher by S&P (Baa3 by Moody’s) are investment grade. Anything lower is high yield, or junk.Yield to worstThe lowest yield a bond can deliver if the issuer repays early on the terms allowed. It is the standard measure of a bond’s current yield.Credit default swap (CDS)A contract that pays out if a borrower defaults. Its annual cost, in basis points, is a live gauge of credit risk.Special purpose vehicle (SPV)A separate company set up to borrow for one project, which keeps the debt off the sponsor’s balance sheet.Residual value guaranteeA promise by the tenant to cover any shortfall if the asset is worth less than the debt at the end of the lease.Delayed-draw term loan (DDTL)A loan drawn in stages as equipment is bought. CoreWeave funds its GPUs this way.SOFRThe Secured Overnight Financing Rate, the US benchmark that floating-rate loans are priced over.NeocloudA specialist cloud company that rents out GPUs for AI, such as CoreWeave, Nebius or Lambda.HyperscalerThe giant cloud providers: Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and, increasingly, Oracle.
General advice only. This content does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs.
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Something strange is happening to Donald Trump: He just threatened to ‘finish it off’ when it comes to the Iran war
Story by Stephen Silver
• 3d
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska – A U.S. Marine Corps F-35 Lighting II attached to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, takes off for a training mission during Northern Edge, May 2, 2017. Northern Edge 2017 is Alaskas premiere joint-training exercise designed to practice operations, techniques, and procedures as well as enhance interoperability among the services. Thousands of participants from all the services; Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Coast Guard personnel from active duty, Reserve and National Guard units, are involved. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communications Specialist 2nd Class Travis Litke/Released)
CNN reported this week on potential strike plans the U.S. could pursue if Trump chooses that route.
The report said U.S. forces are prepared for “new, potentially major, military operations” in the region if the president orders them.
The network cited two U.S. officials who said “sufficient forces” are now in the region to carry out the war plans. The officials told CNN that the new plans would go beyond any “mow the lawn” strategy for maintaining the status quo, and would entail “a big effort.”
October 16 – CoreWeave’s (CRWV.O), opens new tab mounting debt is raising fresh concerns about the AI boom, as investors question whether demand can justify the billions being borrowed to build data centres.
Shares and bonds of the Nvidia-backed (NVDA.O), opens new tab company have tumbled despite its CEO’s assurances of a strong contract backlog, fueling a broader selloff in technology stocks.
Jumpstart your morning with the latest legal news delivered straight to your inbox from The Daily Docket newsletter. Sign up here.
Here is why investors are worried and what its troubles could mean for the industry.
WHAT DOES COREWEAVE DO?
CoreWeave rents out computing power from Nvidia processors to companies developing and running AI, including Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and OpenAI.
It is one of the leading “neocloud” providers, a group of newer cloud companies that are growing rapidly to meet demand for scarce and expensive AI chips.
These neocloud companies give customers access to computing power without requiring them to build their own data centers. However, supplying such capacity requires heavy upfront investment in chips and infrastructure, often financed with debt.
CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) and other neocloud stocks fell in after-hours trading Wednesday after Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) reported lower-than-expected capital spending, raising fresh concerns about the pace of AI infrastructure deployment.
Binance’s hot wallets sent $6.3B to an attacker in under four hours. $2.7B is frozen. Most of the rest sits untouched in the attacker’s wallets
Billions in crypto left the world’s biggest exchange in a single evening. We followed every coin, chain by chain, to see how it got out and where it went.
CoinDesk called it the largest crypto theft on record, and the numbers back that up. The previous record, the Bybit hack of February 2025, took about $1.5 billion. This one took about four times as much. Even now, what the hacker still holds is more than twice what Bybit lost.
………..
If you use Binance
Binance says user funds are safe. It says it will cover all losses from its SAFU fund, an emergency pot it keeps for hacks, and from its own money. Deposits and withdrawals stay paused until its security checks are done, and it says it will publish an updated proof of reserves.
Rely only on Binance’s official channels for updates. Scams follow big hacks.
Do not sign anything or send coins to anyone who contacts you about the hack.
When withdrawals reopen, check the address you withdraw to before you confirm.
Tech stocks sell-off deepens, dragging Wall Street toward worst day since June
A sell-off for tech stocks is getting worse Friday on worries that Wall Street’s frenzy around AI sent prices too high, Reuters reported.
The S+P 500 dropped 1.9% and was on track to erase its gain for October, even though it set its all-time high during the month. The Nasdaq composite was likewise heading toward its worst day since June, as the weakness for technology stocks dragged it down 3.1%, as of 1:20 pm ET. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 511 points, or 1%.
The U.S. stock market remains only 3.1% below its record, which has boosted the value of workers’ 401(k) accounts, but the shakiness for stocks in the AI industry is coming just days before Tuesday’s upcoming US elections. Worries about AI in general have already become a general and bipartisan concern for voters, and Donald Trump has historically used the stock market’s performance as a measure of his own personal success.
In the cryptocurrency industry, meanwhile, stocks tumbled following a hack of Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange. The price of bitcoin fell toward $77,000 from more than $86,000 earlier this month, and a US-based blockchain intelligence firm said a North Korean unit was likely behind the attack that impacted more than $6 billion worth of crypto at Binance.
Binance said it tapped its coffers to replenish losses after hackers stole $6.3 billion in assets.
The company said it would allow withdrawals to begin again on Sunday.
The $6.3 billion heist was carried out by an elite North Korean group, analysts said.
Two days after analysts said North Korean hackers likely executed a brazen $6.3 billion crypto heist on the blockchain platform Binance, the company says it has replenished about $5.7 billion in the stolen assets.
In an update on Saturday morning, Binance said it tapped its corporate treasury to purchase billions of dollars in crypto from the market and private brokers.
“We’ve now replenished 90% of the stolen assets, and we’re committed to covering the remaining 10%,” Richard Teng, the company’s co-CEO, said on X. “Our users will not bear the financial impact of this incident.”
Binance already had an emergency fund of about $1 billion for situations like this, but the unprecedented scale of the attack rendered that piggy bank insufficient to cover the losses.
To remediate the heist, Binance also tapped into its Futures Insurance Fund, a regulatory requirement typically used to protect traders against losses suffered during extreme market conditions.
Binance said on Saturday that it plans to resume withdrawals on Sunday. Like a bank, Binance holds assets deposited by customers, who rely on the company to safeguard their funds and return them when requested
Alexander brothers each sentenced to 30 years for drugging and raping dozens of women
Oren, Alon and Tal Alexander sentenced to prison in New York after being convicted in sex trafficking case
………
Twins Oren and Alon Alexander, 39, and Tal Alexander, 40, were convicted in March on multiple charges after a five-week trial heard details of years of sexual assaults committed in Miami, New York and other high-end locations including the Hamptons; Aspen, Colorado; and on a Caribbean cruise.
A dozen of their victims spoke at the brothers’ sentencing hearing in Manhattan on Tuesday.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai.Karl Mondon / AFP via Getty Images
Oct 29, 2026, 11:34 AM GMT
Thursday, slashing Alphabet’s market capitalization by over $500 billion, from around $3.9 trillion to $3.4 trillion.
If the losses persist until the close, it would be the second-largest one-day loss of market capitalization ever. Only AI chipmaker Nvidia has lost more value in a single day, when it shed close to $600 billion on January 27, 2025, on fears that China’s DeepSeek would steal its lunch.
Alphabet’s shares slumped after its earnings report on Wednesday showed about $9.1 billion in negative free cash flow as it spent heavily on AI infrastructure, and profits that fell short of Wall Street’s forecasts.
Google’s AI search revenue also lagged expectations, despite CEO Sundar Pichai saying on the earnings call that AI helped search queries grow at the fastest year-over-year pace in five years.
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