Blog

But that figure doesn’t fully illustrate where the money is actually going or which schools have historically been left out. Between 2015 and 2019, the average Ivy League school received 178 times as much philanthropic funding as the average HBCU, according to a study by Candid. Total Ivy League gifts over that period topped $5.5 billion, while HBCUs collectively took in just $303 million.

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has stepped in to close that gap, especially as government funding for historically Black colleges and universities has been yanked by the Trump administration.

During the past five years, Scott has donated more than $1.2 billion to HBCUs, making her one of the most significant donors in that category. (In all, Scott has donated well over $26 billion to thousands of organizations.) In 2025 alone, she gave more than $700 million to more than a dozen HBCUs and affiliated organizations.

Scott has also expanded her higher ed giving to include community colleges, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges, many of which had never received a gift anywhere close to this size.

Scott’s largest donations to HBCUs

Many of the donations Scott has made to higher ed institutions are historic. Howard University, the alma mater of former Vice President Kamala Harris, Thurgood Marshall, and Toni Morrison, received $80 million in November 2025—one of the largest single donations in the school’s history, with $17 million earmarked for Howard’s College of Medicine.

This gift came at an especially critical time for Howard. As of Oct. 1, 2025, new grant awards from the Department of Education have been halted because nearly 95% of non-student aid staff were furloughed, leaving only essential staff to keep working.

That left key programs like the HBCU Capital Financing Program, which offers renovation and construction-loan subsidies, in limbo, even as the Education Department announced in September 2025 a $495 million increase for HBCUs and tribally controlled colleges and universities (TCCUs) for FY 2025. But experts say this action is hard to reconcile with the Trump administration’s desire to dissolve the DOE.

“If [the Trump administration] actually … cared about HBCUs and tribal colleges, then you would not see such a big attack on other sectors of higher education,” Mike Hoa Nguyen, an associate professor of education at UCLA, told The American Prospect in October 2025.

Other major gifts to HBCUs from Scott include a $63 million donation to Morgan State University (the largest gift in its history); Prairie View A&M also received $63 million, and Bowie State, Norfolk State, Virginia State, and Winston-Salem State each landed $50 million. In early April, Elizabeth City State University celebrated a $42 million gift on its Founders Day. That donation pushed Scott’s cumulative HBCU total past the billion-dollar mark.

Scott also gave $70 million to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) in 2025, aimed at strengthening pooled endowments for private HBCUs. She also gave $70 million to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which represents public HBCUs.

“MacKenzie Scott is rewriting the book on individual philanthropy, and she’s making a huge difference,” UNCF president and CEO Dr. Michael Lomax said in a PBS NewsHour interview following the UNCF gift.

Why Scott’s gifts come at the right time

The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal calls for a 14.4% reduction in Title III funding, which is the federal program that helps HBCUs, tribal colleges, and other under-resourced institutions improve their academic programs, management, and financial stability. This brings the budget down to roughly $668 million.

“The budget continues the illegal dismantling of the Department of Education, with no suggestion on how this downsized Department will be able to fulfill its statutory duties,” Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), said in a statement. “[By] eliminating programs that provide direct support services for disadvantaged students that promote college access, President Trump’s budget proposal does nothing to deliver for students.”

The White House also proposed cutting $64 million from Howard University‘s direct federal allocation, just days after the president told HBCU leaders during a NewsNation town hall they had nothing to worry about. The Trump administration responded that the reduction was necessary to “to more sustainably support the Nation’s only federally-chartered Historically Black College and University (HBCU).”

While the Department of Education redirected approximately $495 million in one-time discretionary funds to HBCUs and tribal colleges in September 2025, that money came at the expense of $350 million in grants redirected from Hispanic-serving institutions and other minority-serving institutions—programs the department called “ineffective and discriminatory.” The proposed budget would also slash the maximum Pell Grant by $1,685 and eliminate Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants entirely.

For schools that educate overwhelmingly low-income, first-generation students, the combination of cuts represents what higher ed researcher Terrell Strayhorn told Higher Ed Dive in May 2025 is threatening “the very presence and long-term sustainability of some HBCUs.”

Scott’s gifts don’t completely replace federal funding, but they at least offer some breathing room.

Beyond HBCUs: community colleges and tribal schools

Scott’s higher education reach extends well beyond HBCUs. In recent months, she has directed tens of millions of dollars to schools that rarely, if ever, make headlines in the philanthropy world.

Northern Oklahoma College, the state’s oldest public community college, where roughly 80% of students rely on financial aid, received $17 million—the largest gift in the school’s history. Carl Albert State College in Oklahoma received $23 million. Robeson Community College in rural North Carolina received $24 million, and neighboring Bladen Community College got $12 million.

Scott also made record-setting gifts to tribal institutions, including $22 million to Turtle Mountain College in North Dakota, $9 million to Bay Mills Community College in Michigan, and $5 million to Little Priest Tribal College in Nebraska, whose president said the money would help build an entirely new $60 million campus.

“This investment will not only expand our physical footprint, but also empower us to better serve our students, community, and generations to come,” Little Priest President Manoj Patil said in a statement.

The billionaire philanthropist also directed $50 million each to Lehman College at CUNY and Cal State East Bay, and $38 million to Texas A&M International, Texas A&M University–Kingsville, and UC Merced, all of which are federally designated Hispanic-serving institutions.

Scott’s trust-based approach

Scott’s gifts to HBCUs and other underserved institutions are especially impactful because she practices trust-based philanthropy and makes unrestricted gifts.

That means schools can spend the money however they see fit, whether that means expanding scholarships, hiring faculty, fixing buildings, or growing endowments. That flexibility is rare in philanthropy, where major gifts often come loaded with restrictions, reporting requirements, and donor oversight.

“Her style empowers organizations like ours to determine how best to direct funds quickly and innovatively to address pressing issues,” Noni Ramos, CEO of Housing Trust Silicon Valley, told Fortune in 2024.

Early evidence suggests Scott’s approach is working. A 2021 analysis by Rutgers Graduate School of Education of the 23 HBCUs that received Scott’s initial 2020 donations found that the schools Scott selected already had median new-student enrollment more than 300 students higher than peer HBCUs that didn’t receive funding, and retention rates averaging 15 percentage points higher, suggesting Scott targeted institutions with demonstrated momentum.

“We do this research and deeper diligence not only to identify organizations with high potential for impact, but also to pave the way for unsolicited and unexpected gifts given with full trust and no strings attached,” Scott said, according to the report.

The higher ed philanthropy system was built to benefit schools that already had the most, and Scott is systematically redirecting her resources toward the ones that don’t.

Leo traveled to the western Cameroon city of Bamenda, where jubilant crowds clogged the roads, blowing horns and dancing. They were overjoyed that a pope had come so far to see them and put a global spotlight on the violence that has traumatized this region for nearly a decade.

Leo presided over a peace meeting involving a Mankon traditional chief, a Presbyterian moderator, an imam and a Catholic nun. The aim was to highlight the interfaith movement that has been seeking to end the conflict and care for its many victims.

In his remarks in the St. Joseph Cathedral, on land donated by the Mankon, Leo praised the peace movement and warned against allowing religion to enter conflicts. It’s a theme he has been echoing amid the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and the religious justifications for it by U.S. officials.

“Blessed are the peacemakers!” he said. “But woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”

He called for a “decisive change of course” that leads away from conflict and the exploitation of the land and its people for military or economic gain.

“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters!”

It wasn’t immediately clear if any of the separatist fighters, who announced a three-day pause in fighting to allow the pope safe passage, attended.

The pope was to celebrate a Mass for the people of Bamenda, located near Cameroon’s western border with Nigeria, before returning to the capital Yaounde.

A conflict rooted in colonial history

The conflict in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions is rooted in Cameroon’s colonial history, when the country was divided between France and Britain after World War I. English-speaking regions later joined French Cameroon in a 1961 U.N.-backed vote, but separatists say they have since been politically and economically marginalized.

In 2017, English-speaking separatists launched a rebellion with the stated goal of breaking away from the French-speaking majority and establishing an independent state. The conflict has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced over 600,000 others, according to the International Crisis Group.

Leo arrived to a raucous welcome in Bamenda, where blasting music from loudspeakers gave the event a concert-like vibe.

“We are so overjoyed, so overwhelmed,” said Felicity Cali, a Catholic student. “Say thank you, God, for this extraordinary day and for making us be alive to see this day.”

The separatist movement is believed to be backed by several actors abroad. In December, a federal jury in U.S. convicted two individuals for conspiracy to provide funds and equipment to the separatist fighters. Belgian authorities in March also announced they had arrested four people as part of investigations into Belgian residents suspected of being among the separatist leaders and raising money for them there.

“Those who rob your land of its resources generally invest much of the profit in weapons, thus perpetuating an endless cycle of destabilization and death,” Leo said. “It is a world turned upside down, an exploitation of God’s creation that must be denounced and rejected by every honest conscience.”

Cameroon sits atop significant reserves of oil, natural gas, cobalt, bauxite, iron ore, gold and diamonds, making resource extraction one of the pillars of its economy.

While French and English companies have long dominated the extraction industry in Cameroon, Chinese companies have established a significant presence in recent years, particularly in the gold mining regions of the east.

On the eve of Leo’s arrival, separatist fighters announced a three-day pause in fighting. A spokesperson for the Unity Alliance, Lucas Asu, said the pause “reflects a deliberate commitment to responsibility, restraint and respect for human dignity, even in the context of ongoing conflict.”

Though the number of deadly attacks by separatists has decreased in recent years, the conflict shows no sign of resolution. Peace talks with international mediators have stalled, with both sides accusing each other of acting in bad faith.

Morine Ngum, a mother of three whose husband was shot dead in 2022 by Cameroonian soldiers while fighting as a separatist, expressed doubt that the pope’s visit and peace meeting would lead to meaningful change. She said any real progress must begin with those in power.

“Nothing is going to change,” said Ngum, 30. “This conflict has turned my children into orphans and me into a widow. Many families have been rendered homeless.”

Testimony to pope about the toll of the conflict

The archbishop of Bamenda, Andrew Nkea Fuanya, told Leo that the people there had suffered from “a situation they did not create,” losing their livelihoods, homes and education: Children were not allowed to go to school for years.

“Most Holy Father, today that your feet are standing on the soil of Bamenda that has drunk the blood of many of our children,” he said.

Leo, the former Cardinal Robert Prevost, spent two weeks sitting with Fuanya at the same table during Pope Francis’ 2024 big meeting, or synod, on the family.

The Right Rev. Fonki Samuel Forba, emeritus moderator of the Presbyterian church in Cameroon, said the Vatican had joined other faith groups in trying to bring the separatists to the negotiating table with the government, and meeting with their supporters abroad.

Biya’s government has been accused of shunning dialogue with the separatists. The last time a peace meeting was held between the government and separatists was in 2022 during talks facilitated in Canada by the Canadian government.

“There is a proverb in Africa that ‘When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers,’” Forba said.

___

Akua contributed from Yaounde, Cameroon. Associated Press writer Chinedu Asadu in Abuja, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

In pursuing Powell, Trump has placed an obstacle in the path of Warsh, his own nominee.

Among Republicans, Warsh is seen as something an ideal candidate: He is a staunch advocate of Fed independence (a relief to both Wall Street analysts and D.C. policymakers); he knows the central bank, having served under chairman Ben Bernanke; and he has signaled a more optimistic outlook on the U.S. economy than the current incumbent at the Fed.

Warsh’s path back to the central bank includes Senate Banking Committee hearings, penciled in for April 21. The committee is held by a slim Republican majority of 13, two ahead of their Democratic counterparts. One of those Republicans, Thom Tillis, has made it clear he will block Warsh’s progression through the process if the case against Powell isn’t dropped.

It’s nothing personal. Tillis previously said: “My position has not changed: I will oppose the confirmation of any Federal Reserve nominee, including for the position of Chairman, until the DOJ’s inquiry into Chairman Powell is fully and transparently resolved.” 

Republican sources told Fortune that it was unlikely Warsh himself would be the cause of any vote against his candidacy, while Democrat sources say there is little he could do to convince critics that he isn’t a puppet for the White House.

If Tillis were to block Warsh, the committee would be split—indeed, it would only take one maverick vote among the remaining Republicans to nix his chance. It seems Trump is betting on Tillis to back down, telling Fox: “He’s on his way out … and I think he doesn’t want the legacy of stopping a great person who could be great … I know he said what he said, and maybe it’s true, in which case I’ll have to live with it.”

A hill to climb for Warsh

On the issue of Fed independence, the president hasn’t been hugely helpful. Markets and lawmakers are already sensitive to the suggestion that the influence of politicians may be seeping into the U.S. Federal Reserve: Trump has threatened to fire Powell a number of times, as well as insulting his character and policies. Meanwhile, Trump has been clear that whoever landed the nomination would have to be more dovish than Powell, and has piled praise on Warsh.

If and when Warsh does make it to the chairman’s office at the Fed (albeit not in the same building he previously served in) his job will likely be harder: He’ll have to convince colleagues who have built their careers on institutional credibility and independence that he is not the White House pawn naysayers fear.

Among a raft of reforms Warsh has previously indicated he’d like to see at the central bank, he has advanced a bullish outlook on the productivity benefits of AI, the strength of which could provide the basis for an argument to begin a rate-cutting cycle. Despite those opinions being public and stated for some time, selling them internally at the Fed may be harder due to heightened skepticism about his motives.

Yet despite the early snags, Trump’s preoccupation with the Fed building—in the event that Warsh makes it through the hearings process—may prove useful. Trump has brought his penchant for real estate development to the White House (just look at the East Wing), perhaps explaining his focus on the Fed’s bricks-and-mortar activities. If Trump’s focus on the Fed is drawn away from policy, it may give Warsh some much-needed breathing room.

While Powell and Warsh may disagree on the path of policy, they can agree on one thing: The Fed should be kept well away from politics, and even further away from the court system. “Stay out of elected politics,” was Powell’s advice to his successor.

That is precisely the plan. Warsh has continually advocated for the Fed to be scaled back to its core remit: An economist who wants to fundamentally reshape the Fed’s relationship with the bond market isn’t a man who wants the Fed tangled in the court system.

	Oil price per barrel	% Change
Price of oil yesterday	$96.83	+0.23%
Price of oil 1 month ago	$104.19	-6.84%
Price of oil 1 year ago	$66.17	+46.68%

Price of oil yesterday
Oil price per barrel	$96.83
% Change	+0.23%
Price of oil 1 month ago
Oil price per barrel	$104.19
% Change	-6.84%
Price of oil 1 year ago
Oil price per barrel	$66.17
% Change	+46.68%

Will oil prices go up?

Oil prices are inherently unpredictable. While many variables come into play, the basic push and pull of supply and demand is what ultimately matters. In times of heightened concern about recession, war, or other major disruptions, oil can swing suddenly.

How oil prices translate to gas pump prices

Each gallon you pay for at the pump bundles together several costs. Crude oil is one piece, but you also pay for refineries, wholesalers, government taxes, and the price markup set by gas stations.

Because crude oil usually accounts for more than half of the price per gallon, it tends to move the needle the most. Sharp increases in oil almost always show up quickly at the pump. Declines in the price of oil, on the other hand, often translate into slower, more delayed drops in gas prices—the “rockets and feathers” effect.

The role of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve

When an emergency arises, the U.S. has a reserve of crude oil called the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Its chief function is to secure energy during disasters like sanctions, severe storm damage, or war. It can also help take the edge off brutal price spikes when supply gets hit.

It’s not a solution for the long haul. It’s more of an immediate safety net to support consumers and keep crucial sectors of the economy running (think key industries, emergency services, public transportation, and the like).

How oil and natural gas prices are linked

Oil and natural gas are two of the main fuels that keep the world running. A big change in oil prices can end up affecting natural gas. As an example, if oil prices increase, some industries may sub natural gas for certain areas of their operations wherever possible. This can increase demand for natural gas.

Historical performance of oil

The oil market typically tracks two benchmarks:

• Brent crude oil (the main global oil benchmark)
• West Texas Intermediate (WTI) (the main benchmark of North America)

Between the two, Brent offers a clearer view of global oil performance because it prices much of the world’s traded crude. It’s also often the preferred gauge for tracking historical oil trends. In fact, the U.S. Energy Information Administration now uses Brent as its primary reference in its Annual Energy Outlook.

Looking at the Brent benchmark over multiple decades, you’ll find oil has been anything but stable. It’s seen sharp rises due to factors like wars and supply cuts, along with steep declines tied to global recessions and oversupply (called a “glut”). For example:

• The early 1970s saw the first major oil shock when the Middle East slashed exports and placed an embargo on the U.S. and others during the Yom Kippur War.
• Prices fell in the mid-1980s for reasons including lower demand and the entry of more non-OPEC oil producers.
• Prices jumped again in 2008 with increased global demand, but then plunged alongside the global financial crisis.
• During the 2020 COVID lockdown, oil demand collapsed like never before—bringing prices below $20 per barrel.

Bottom line, oil’s historical performance has been anything but smooth. It’s hugely affected by wars, recessions, OPEC whims, evolving energy initiatives and policies, and much more.

Energy coverage from Fortune

Looking to stay up-to-date regarding the latest energy developments? Check out our recent coverage:

Frequently asked questions

How is the current price of oil per barrel actually determined?

The current price of oil per barrel depends largely on supply and demand, including news about potential future supply and demand (geopolitics, decisions made by OPEC+, etc.). In the U.S., prices also move based on how friendly an administration is to drilling, as it can affect future supply. For example, 2025 saw the Trump administration move to reopen more than 1.5 million acres in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas leasing, reversing the Biden administration’s policy of limiting oil drilling in the Arctic.

How often does the price of oil change during the day?

The price of oil updates constantly when the “futures” markets are open. A futures market is effectively an auction where people agree to buy or sell oil in the future. As long as people and companies are trading contracts, the oil price is changing.

How does U.S. shale oil production affect the current price of oil?

In short, shale is rock that contains oil and natural gas. Think of shale as energy yet to be tapped. The more shale the U.S. accesses, the more energy we’ll have—and the more easily oil prices can keep from spiking as much thanks to a greater supply.

How does the current price of oil impact inflation and the broader economy?

When oil is expensive, it tends to make everyday items cost more. This can be related to energy (your heating, gas utilities, etc.), but it’s also due to the logistics involved with making those items accessible to you. Shipping, for example, can affect the price of things at the grocery store, as it’s more expensive to get those products from warehouses and farms onto the shelf.

“We just don’t want to waste another 10 years in which our kids’ education is undermined,” Leonie Haimson, executive director of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, told Fortune. “It took more than 10 years to ban cell phones from schools. We can’t afford that again.”

Boston-based child advocacy nonprofit Fairplay is leading a coalition of more than 250 experts and organizations in calling for a five-year moratorium on all student-facing generative AI products in Pre-K through 12 schools in the U.S. and Canada. The group, made up of a coalition of mental health experts, parents, educators and groups geared towards protecting children online, warned that any product that fails safety testing during that pause should be permanently banned. The report, shared exclusively with Fortune, will be released right when advocates plan a rally in front of New York City’s City Hall to push for a two-year ban in the city’s public schools specifically.

Fairplay last month led a similar coalition of experts in penning a letter to YouTube and its parent company Alphabet to stop the spread of “AI slop” in YouTube Kids videos. The report was co-authored by members of the Screen Time Action Network’s Screens in Schools Work Group, including Emily Cherkin, a screen time consultant on faculty at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy along with other online and mental health experts.

“It’s an unproven, untested product, and we’re giving it to children in the name of improving education or equity or cognition, when none of those things have been proven,” Cherkin told Fortune. “If a local children’s hospital told parents, ‘We’ve got this new drug, it has potential to save lives, just trust us,’ people would be horrified. We have vetting processes for all kinds of industries, and yet somehow we’re allowing generative AI companies access to our most vulnerable population.”

The experts’ core finding is that AI doesn’t just distract children: it actively interferes with the developmental work they need to do. The human brain isn’t fully formed until the mid-20s, and the prefrontal cortex, used in planning, reasoning, emotion regulation, and critical thinking, is among the last regions to mature. “The problem with giving children generative AI is not just that they will cognitively offload the skill building,” Cherkin said. “It’s that they will displace the building of those skills even in the first place. If they’re never building skills, they have none to offload.”

The report pointed to a joint MIT and Harvard study finding that AI use accumulates “cognitive debt,” impairing independent thinking over time. Similarly, OECD research found that students who use ChatGPT as a study tool actually perform worse on tests than peers without access, even when the AI tutor has been programmed not to provide direct answers.

The mental health findings are equally apparent. Google and Character.AI are currently facing lawsuits alleging its chatbot contributed to user suicides and induced children to harm family members. The American Psychological Association issued a health advisory on AI and adolescent well-being. The report notes that teachers, therapists, and counselors must maintain licensure and follow ethics codes to work with children, but generative AI products face none of those requirements, and have been found to violate ethical standards in providing mental health support.

Under-resourced schools are more likely to rely on AI as a substitute for human teachers while well-resourced schools retain them. Because AI training datasets contain historical bias, the report warns, these products are likely to amplify existing educational inequities rather than close them. A February 2026 Pew Research Center survey found that 60% of teenagers say students at their school use chatbots to cheat “very often” or “somewhat often.”

The report is also pointed about what remains unknown. There is no proven educational benefit to generative AI in schools: it is marketed purely on “potential,” which the authors define as “literally what something is not.” Long-term effects on children’s cognitive and social-emotional development are entirely uncharted. “Giving children untested generative AI products based on future potential is dangerous,” the report states.

“The precautionary principle must be employed,” Cherkin said. “The best preparation for a digital future is an analog childhood. If we want kids to navigate generative AI someday, we should be doubling down on the skills that help them think critically, and that’s not happening at all.”

In New York City, Haimson, who is also a member of the DOE’s own AI working group, said Mayor Zohran Mamdani has failed to deliver the break from the previous administration that advocates were promised. “We were hoping for a new attitude in the mayor’s office and at DOE, and we just don’t see it,” she told Fortune. “We see basically the same people running the show. Many of them EdTech enthusiasts, many of them Google fellows. We’re basically seeing our kids’ futures being sold out to EdTech.”

She had stark words for the new mayor, who recently celebrated 100 days in office. “He said he himself doesn’t use AI, which is good, but why is he foisting it on New York City public school students?”

Haimson said the DOE’s AI working group was stonewalled. Officials refused to provide a list of AI products currently in use in city schools, citing NDAs with vendors, and denied requests for teacher training materials. The AI guidance that finally emerged in March was reportedly produced by Accenture, the consulting firm, with no meaningful input from privacy experts or parents. The advisory council that shaped the guidance, she said, was stacked with industry representatives, a legacy of the Eric Adams era and former Chancellor David Banks, who resigned after an FBI investigation.

The coalition is also raising a structural contradiction at the heart of the industry’s school push: AI companies prohibit minors in their own terms of service while simultaneously marketing to schools. Anthropic’s Terms of Use bar users under 18, yet MagicSchool AI, one of the most widely used K-12 platforms in the country, is built on Anthropic’s models.

The five-year pause, advocates say, would allow time for independent third-party audits of AI platforms, a vetting process for new products, a public registry of every AI tool currently used in schools, and regulatory frameworks that don’t yet exist. Any product that fails that process, the coalition says, should not get a second chance.

The company said Tuesday that Karen Carter, Dow’s current chief operating officer, will become CEO on July 1, 2026, succeeding Jim Fitterling, who has led the materials science giant since 2018. Fitterling will become executive chair of the board, and Carter will join Dow’s board on the same date. Independent lead director Richard Davis will remain in his role. 

The handoff caps what Dow described as a multiyear succession process and puts one of its most seasoned operators in the top job as the company contends with weak industrial demand, geopolitical uncertainty, and investor scrutiny of sustainability spending, plastics recycling, and capital discipline. 

When Carter takes over, she will join a small group of women running Fortune 500 companies and an even smaller group of Black women leading them. As of the June 2025 Fortune 500, 55 women held CEO roles, a record high, and only two were Black women. 

Inside Dow, her rise reflects a practical calculation. The board chose an executive with deep operational roots, long tenure, and experience across manufacturing, commercial, and human capital roles.

Carter has spent more than three decades at Dow. As COO, she has helped steer the company through a period of pressure on earnings, a broader push to simplify operations, and a restructuring aimed at delivering a $2 billion annual earnings lift. Earlier in her career, she led packaging and specialty plastics, Dow’s largest operating segment and a key driver of core earnings. In 2025, that business generated $19.97 billion in sales, nearly half of Dow’s total revenue of $39.97 billion. 

Her leadership profile extends beyond operations. Carter also served as Dow’s chief human resources officer and its first chief inclusion officer, giving her a central role in shaping the culture of a company with more than 35,000 employees. That experience could matter as Dow carries out a restructuring that includes 4,500 job cuts, or about 13% of its workforce. 

In choosing Carter, Dow’s board is betting that she can carry forward the strategy Fitterling put in place while bringing a sharper operating focus to the CEO role.

Fitterling’s tenure has been one of the more consequential in Dow’s recent history. Since becoming CEO in 2018, he has led the company through its separation from DowDuPont and helped define its identity as a stand-alone materials science company. Under his leadership, Dow sharpened its focus on higher-value materials markets tied to packaging, infrastructure, and consumer applications. The company also pushed sustainability deeper into its strategy through investments in recycling technologies, circular product development, and lower-carbon production. 

Fitterling, who is widely recognized as one of the few openly gay CEOs of a Fortune 500 company, also won praise for pushing Dow toward greater openness on LGBTQ+ inclusion and diversity. 

In his move to executive chair, Fitterling will focus on long-term strategy, governance, and key external relationships, while Carter will take charge of execution across the business. That split follows a familiar succession model in corporate America, especially when boards want continuity for employees, investors, and customers during a leadership transition. 

The choice of a homegrown executive may also reassure Wall Street. Dow is grappling with weak demand, restructuring, and a broader review of its global footprint. It is also reviewing European and noncore assets and plans to cut about 800 more jobs there by the end of 2027. For full-year 2025, net sales fell 7% from $43 billion in 2024 to $40 billion. 

What investors want now is a clear read on Carter’s playbook: how she will deploy capital, protect earnings in a soft market, and decide which recycling and sustainability projects still merit investment. They will also be watching to see whether she can keep Dow’s packaging and specialty plastics businesses growing while more cyclical chemical markets remain under pressure. 

Now comes the hard part for Carter: proving that she can turn operational credibility into growth.

The U.S. is once again locked in conflict in the Middle East, and Bilmes, a Harvard Kennedy School public policy lecturer and author of “The Ghost Budget: U.S. War Spending and Fiscal Transparency,” is once again sounding the alarm on the true cost of war. 

“I am certain we will spend $1 trillion for the Iran war,” she said in an interview this month at the Harvard Kennedy School. “Perhaps we have already racked up that amount.”

Bilmes’s 13-figure estimation dwarfs initial projections of spending on the conflict, at $1 billion per day. The Pentagon told Congress the first week of the war reportedly cost about $11.3 billion alone. If that rate of spending continued, the cost of the war would have exceeded $35 billion by April 1, according to think tank American Enterprise Institute. AEI economists suggested that the first month of war cost each American household $260—which seems small, but there are over 150 million taxpaying households in the United States. Currently, Bilmes estimates the U.S. is spending about $2 billion per day on the war.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the war could end “very soon” as the U.S. engages in peace talks with Iran as it continues to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has repeated this rhetoric over the course of the conflict. Last month, the Pentagon asked the White House to approve $200 billion in additional funding toward efforts in Iran, the Washington Post reported.

Bilmes said, just like 20 years ago, the U.S. is continuing to underestimate how much money will be required to fund the war and its aftereffects. In an interview with Fortune, she outlined the often-overlooked war spending that persists even years after the conflict is over, arguing the expenses could further burden America’s $39 trillion debt.

“Wars always have a long tail of costs,” she told Fortune. “Wars cost more than we expect. Wars take the cost to go on for longer than we expect, and some of these costs are very consequential.”

Short-term costs

When most people talk about the cost of war, they are thinking of the direct costs of munitions and combat, according to Bilmes, “which are themselves understated.” 

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington, D.C., think tank, estimated projected spending was $11.3 billion by the sixth day of the war on munitions alone, $1.4 billion on combat loss and infrastructure damage, and $26.5 million on operations, totaling about $16.5 billion by day 12. But this number increases when considering the cost to replace munitions, which could range from 50% to nearly double the initial cost, Bilmes said. And as a result of tariffs and supply-chain disruptions exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war, some U.S. munitions makers have warned the price to produce ammo has increased 8% to 14% since 2024.

Additional spending will depend on damage to key infrastructure in the Gulf, and with the U.S. operating 19 military sites in the region, some have already sustained damage, which CSIS assessed to cost $800 billion within the first two weeks of the war.

Some U.S. spending on the war may also be disproportionate to Iran’s spending. For example, the drones Iran uses are much less expensive than the weapons the U.S. needs to destroy those drones. A Shahed drone used by Iran can cost between $20,000 and $50,000, according to Reuters, while a Patriot interceptor used to shoot down the drone may cost about $4 million because it requires much more sophisticated technology to function.

“Not only are the costs high, but we have these in this imbalanced situation where costs are disproportionately high compared to the cost of producing drones,” Bilmes said.

The Pentagon declined to respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

Long-term impact

According to Bilmes, war spending calculations seldom touch on long-term expenditures, particularly the cost of disability benefits to veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs reported providing $195 billion in compensation to more than 6.9 million veterans and their families through fiscal 2025, according to the Government Accountability Office, an increase from $136 billion in fiscal year 2023.

Spending on veteran disability benefits increases in times of war, when more individuals are deployed and placed in conditions where they may be exposed to contaminants and chemicals leading to chronic health problems, Bilmes noted. There are now about 60,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East region. Since the Gulf War, about 50% of veterans claimed disability benefits, with 37% of Gulf war veterans receiving lifetime disability benefits of some kind, according to Bilmes.

But the Trump administration’s efforts to increase the Department of War budget amid the ongoing conflict presents among the greatest increase in spending, Bilmes argued. Trump has called for $1.5 trillion to be added to the military budget for 2027, up from the $1 trillion proposed earlier. Because of the war, she suggested, Congress is more likely to approve a budget increase, which likely means hundreds of billions of dollars in additional military spending each year, indirectly a result of the Iran war.

“Before this war, Congress was lukewarm toward this idea, but the obvious depletion of many, many stockpiles and inventories and munitions and so forth, is leading to an environment in which probably the president will secure a much larger increase to the defense budget,” Bilmes said.

The policy expert warned that because a lion’s share of that spending will be borrowed as the Trump administration slashes tax revenue, the Iran war will further weigh on the country’s $39 trillion national debt. Compared to the Iraq war in 2003 when nearly $4 trillion of the debt was held by the public and 7% of the total national budget was for paying interest, today about $31 trillion of debt is held by the public, with almost 15% of the total budget being spent on interest, Bilmes said.

“In this case, we’re borrowing [at] high rates, largely for things that will end up in the sand,” she concluded.

Still, the incident, in which Moreno-Gama also went to OpenAI’s headquarters and tried to shatter the building’s glass doors with a chair and threatened to burn the facility, surfaced his activity on Pause AI’s Discord server and renewed scrutiny of Stop AI’s direct actions targeting OpenAI last year.

A movement built on slowing AI

Pause AI, founded in Utrecht, Netherlands, in May 2023 by Joep Meindertsma, aims to halt what it calls “dangerous frontier AI” and staged its first protest outside Microsoft’s lobbying office in Brussels. The group, whose name was inspired by an open letter from the Future of Life Institute in March 2023 (which is also now its largest single funder), has since grown into a global grassroots movement with local chapters. That includes a separate organization called Pause AI US, led by Berkeley-based Holly Elmore, who has a PhD in evolutionary biology from Harvard and previously worked at a think tank focused on wildlife animal welfare.

Moreno-Gama was linked to comments on Pause AI’s Discord server, including one post, dated Dec. 3, 2025, that read: “We are close to midnight, it’s time to actually act.” Pause AI said the suspect joined its server two years ago and posted a total of 34 messages, none of which “contained explicit calls to violence.”

Lea Suzuki—San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images

Elmore told Fortune that she had been on her way to Washington, D.C., last week to finish preparing for a peaceful demonstration on Capitol Hill and meetings with members of Congress when the attempted firebombing occurred. “When I landed, suddenly I was getting these questions about somebody who had attacked Sam Altman’s house,” she said. “It’s been back and forth between working on something that I feel really proud and positive about, and it’s just exactly the right kind of change to be making—democratic change through democratic means—and then having to comment on this horrible event and additionally being really smeared with a connection to this event.” 

The group has “no reason to think that this person had much to do with us,” she added, pointing out that Pause AI’s stance on violence “has always been incredibly clear” and explicitly prohibits it. She also emphasized that the activity occurred on a public, global Discord server distinct from Pause AI US’s organizing channels, and said the suspect “didn’t get any further in onboarding or having any official role.”

Elmore added that Pause AI deliberately vets volunteers and keeps tight control over its messaging to avoid being associated with extreme views.

But Nirit Weiss-Blatt, an independent researcher who has long-followed the two groups and writes the newsletter AI Panic, pointed to a 2024 documentary, Near Midnight in Suicide City, in which For Humanity podcast host John Sherman interviews Elmore, who holds up a sign reading, “Humanity can’t survive smarter-than-human AI.”

Weiss-Blatt said the film shows Elmore urging activists to understand what she describes as an urgent timeline toward potential human extinction. “She’s never advocating violence, but is raising the stakes about doom,” Weiss-Blatt said.

“When prominent AI doomers like Eliezer Yudkowsky—author of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies—keep insisting that human extinction is imminent, it should not be surprising when someone is driven to extreme action,” she added. “Young, anxious followers, looking for purpose, can be radicalized by apocalyptic AI rhetoric, even without explicit calls for violence.”

However, Mauro Lubrano, a lecturer at the University of Bath and author of Stop the Machines: The Rise of Anti-Technology Extremism, cautioned that there is a clear distinction between groups that seek to eradicate technology violently and those advocating for regulation or a pause. “I think it’s easy to conflate all of these groups and movements that are trying to raise awareness of some of the dangers of AI,” he said.

A break over tactics—and a turn to direct action

The incident at Altman’s home occurred about five months after OpenAI told employees at its headquarters to shelter in place because a 27-year-old man named Sam Kirchner threatened to go to several OpenAI offices in San Francisco to “murder people,” according to callers who notified police that day. Kirchner was a cofounder of Stop AI, a group he launched in 2024 with 45-year-old Guido Reichstadter, both of whom had previously been involved in Pause AI.

Drew Angerer—Getty Images

“I kicked them out,” said Elmore, who added the split stemmed from disagreements over tactics, with Stop AI’s founders pushing for civil disobedience that would involve breaking the law—something Pause AI explicitly rejects. After founding Stop AI, Reichstadter and Kirchner took part in protests targeting OpenAI, while Reichstadter also staged a hunger strike outside Anthropic’s headquarters (he had a long history of civil disobedience actions, including chaining himself to a security fence and climbing to the top of a Washington, D.C., bridge in protest against the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade in 2022.  

Reichstadter was booked into San Francisco County Jail in early December for allegedly violating a judge’s order barring him from OpenAI premises following a previous arrest. And Stop AI previously made national headlines in November when a member of its defense team served a subpoena to Sam Altman while he was onstage at San Francisco’s Sydney Goldstein Theater with Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr.

But the group’s momentum unraveled after cofounder Sam Kirchner disappeared following an alleged assault on one of Stop AI’s leaders, Matthew Hall, during an internal dispute in which he reportedly suggested abandoning nonviolence. He is still missing.

In a post yesterday on X, Stop AI wrote that both Reichstadter and Kirchner were removed from the group in 2025. The group said it “has always adhered to nonviolent activism” and that “the current leadership of Stop AI is deeply committed to nonviolence in both actions and statements.” 

To set the record straight about Moreno-Gama, Stop AI wrote that he had “joined the Stop AI public online forum, introduced himself, then asked, ‘Will speaking about violence get me banned?’ After he was given a firm ‘yes,’ he ceased all activities on our forum. This was several months before his alleged criminal activities.” 

Valerie Sizemore, one of five coleaders for Stop AI, told Fortune that some of its members are now feeling anxious and worried about getting too associated with the OpenAI incident. “But personally, I think it’s all the more important for the nonviolent organizing we’re doing, to give people something other than violence to do,” she said.

The organization remains focused on its San Francisco–based efforts to protest at frontier lab headquarters, Sizemore added, and also participated in a local “Stop the AI Race” protest last month.

A broader debate over AI activism—and its risks

Lubrano, the University of Bath lecturer, pointed out that anti-technology activism, and anti-technology extremism, has been around for a long time—even as far back as the Luddites, the 19th-century English textile workers who opposed machinery and industrialization.

JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP via Getty Images

For many, AI represents the sum of all fears when it comes to technology, he explained. “Technology is viewed as a system, and all parts are dependent on one another,” he said. “With AI being deployed in warfare, to monitor worker performance, to monitor people taking part in demonstrations or to ensure that they behave—there’s an element of this technological oligarchy wanting to control us and converging thanks to AI.”  

He advised engaging with anti-AI groups rather than dismissing them as technophobes or anti-technology. “The Luddites were not against technology—they were against the unmitigated introduction of technology because it was disrupting their lives. And these concerns were not heard, and eventually the Luddites turned to violence.”  Ignoring those concerns, he warned, can fuel resentment and, at the margins, lead to more extreme behavior—though it would be wrong to blame acts of violence on the mere existence of such groups.

Still, independent researcher Weiss-Blatt insisted that the views and actions of groups like Pause AI and Stop AI can still lead to radicalization, which can, in turn, lead to bad outcomes.  

“The warning signs were there all along, including the November 2025 lockdown at OpenAI’s offices,” she said. “The real question is how long the people fueling AI panic expect to avoid responsibility for where that radicalization leads, especially for the most vulnerable.” 

Pause AI’s Elmore said she believes public understanding of AI issues is likely to deepen, making it harder to conflate peaceful activism with isolated acts of violence. While the topic is still new and often viewed as a single, undifferentiated space, she expects it to become a major focus of national attention. 

“People will see it’s not so easy to paint [all of us] with one brush,” she said. 

Many companies, from Walmart to United Airlines, have been heavily touting their use of artificial intelligence to get some more love from Wall Street during this AI boom—and some have successfully boosted their stock’s value. Now Allbirds has joined the fray: The shoe company announced on Wednesday it would reinvent itself as an AI computing infrastructure company, despite having no history whatsoever there. Investors bit, driving shares up 600% in afternoon trading.

Warren grilled H&R Block and Inuit on their lobbying efforts when the two left the Free File Alliance in 2020 and 2021 respectively. She grilled them again in 2023 and again in 2024 on their lobbying efforts and on their alleged loose data collection methods. Again in 2025 when their successful lobbying led to the death knell of the IRS’ Direct File service, and as early as this morning, on social media, ahead of her introduction of the Direct File Act. 

Over two decades, Intuit and H&R Block alone spent over $103 million in federal lobbying efforts to stop IRS modernization and proposed bills that would pre-fill taxpayers’ returns. The Senator shared her remarks with Fortune ahead of her introduction of the Direct File Act, an effort to bring back the IRS’ short-lived but highly popular free tax filing service. 

“To Republicans who say that making filing your taxes for free with the IRS is too expensive: for just one day of bombing Iran, we could pay for 20 years of Direct File.” 

She pointed to the lobbying by these two companies specifically as why the Direct File came and went.

“For years, giant tax prep companies like TurboTax and H&R Block have rigged our system so they can cash in on your hard-earned dollars,” Warren’s prepared remarks say. “It’s amazing that anyone could oppose this–especially when filing your taxes is something that Americans are required by law to do each year.”

There are two different kinds of free filing services the IRS has offered in the past. One is the Free File portal, launched in 2003 through a private-public partnership (dubbed the Free File Alliance) between the IRS and private tax preparers like H&R Block and Intuit. That is still around today: anyone making $89,000 or less in 2025 can use the service to file their taxes for today’s deadline. 

Separately, there’s the Direct File program, a short-lived but highly rated program that lasted for only two years. Following ProPublica’s reporting on the issue, the IRS ran a feasibility study to see how easy it would be to create an in-house direct filing program. With the results positive, the agency created a pilot program in 2024, reaching over 140,000 people in 12 states. A survey later conducted by the Treasury found that those filers claimed more than $90 million in refunds and avoided about $5.6 million in filing fees they otherwise would have paid to private providers, and roughly 90% of users rated the experience favorably. 

The following year, the IRS said the pilot would be permanent, and would expand to 25 states, ultimately resulting in roughly 296,000 filers. This is when lobbying from H&R Block and Intuit intensified: the two companies alone spent over $20 million since 2023, according to OpenSecrets, and combined, spent a record high of $7.1 million last year alone. 

“The Direct File pilot project was a huge success, so why was it dropped?”

“Tax prep companies hated it because it hurt their bottom line. Why would you pay for TurboTax if you could easily file your taxes for free? That’s why for years, big tax prep companies have lobbied the government to keep people from using a program like Direct File,” Warren’s remarks say.

“This story tells you all you need to know about why Republicans will block my bill today. This is all about money and power. It’s about letting big corporations donate to politicians and then politicians letting those companies rip off American families.”