CNBC Daily Open: Chips are down, OpenAI's woos the White House, and Russia strikes
Global stocks take their cue from a chip-led sell-off on Wall Street as OpenAI reportedly considers selling a stake to the U.S. government.
Fransebas
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Federal Reserve's Integrated Review of the Capital Framework for Large Banks Conference in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 22, 2025.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters
Hello, this is Leonie Kidd writing to you from London. Welcome to today's edition of the Daily Open newsletter.
The first full trading day of July has been marked by another bout of profit-taking in the chip space. Double-digit declines for stocks from Micron to Samsung come amid huge gains on the year.
But the rollercoaster ride for AI could get bumpier with the latest reporting on OpenAI looking for ways to appease the White House.
Read on...
What you need to know today
Meanwhile, Russia has launched a large missile and drone attack against Ukraine. Russia's Defense Ministry said that it carried out a "massive strike using long-range precision air, land, and sea-based weapons and attack drones." Both Poland and Finland reacted to the escalation by scrambling fighter jets and imposing aviation restriction zones.
The geopolitical tensions in Europe and the Middle East are continuing to drive price pressures. In his first public comments since the Fed decision, Chairman Kevin Warsh told CNBC on a panel in Sintra, Portugal that inflation is too high, but he declined to signal what the central bank could do with interest rates.
At the same event, ECB President Christine Lagarde said the U.S. and Europe "need each other" when it comes to AI investment, saying the blocs "are sort of hostage to each other" when it comes to making progress.
Today, Squawk Box Europe takes the show to Canary Wharf, the heart of London's financial district, as businesses in the capital and across the U.K. assess the impact of political uncertainty. Watch all that coverage here.
And don't miss CNBC's Joe Kernen's interview with President Donald Trump, taking place in Washington D.C. later today at 5 p.m. ET.
— Leonie Kidd
And finally...
Amazon is designing its own AI chips for Echo, Fire TV and future devices, exec tells CNBC
Amazon is focusing on building chips for its "critical" consumer devices, the company's top hardware executive told CNBC.
In a wide-ranging interview on CNBC's "The Tech Download" podcast, Panos Panay, the head of devices and services at Amazon, discussed, for the first time, the company's approach to semiconductors in its own hardware and how it's experimenting with different types of AI-enabled gadgets.
— Arjun Kharpal
