Daily Brew // Morning Brew // Update

May 14, 2026

Smile. Turns out that dreading going to the dentist may be among our primal urges. New research suggests that Neanderthals used stone drills for cavities 59,000 years ago, in the earliest known example of dentistry. Unclear if they needed separate insurance to cover this.

—Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Molly Liebergall, Abby Rubenstein, Holly Van Leuven

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

President Trump’s trip to China
The confirmation of the next Fed chair
Spaghetti-smuggling baseball fans

MARKETS

Nasdaq

26,402.34

+1.20%

S&P

7,444.25

+0.59%

Dow

49,693.20

-0.14%

10-Year

4.481%

+2.0 bps

Bitcoin

$79,445.84

-1.39%

Alphabet

$399.04

+3.97%

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*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq kept doing their best Mondo Duplantis impressions yesterday and set records as chip and other tech stocks soared. All of the Magnificent Seven rose except for Microsoft.

BUSINESS TRIP

Trump gets down to business in China

China Pool/Getty Images

Before most of you finish your first cup of coffee, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will have wrapped a packed day of sightseeing, negotiating, and staying calm when someone brings up tariffs.

The president arrived in Beijing yesterday at 7:50pm local time for a two-day summit that could be the first of potentially four meetups between Trump and Xi this year. This is the first time a sitting president has visited China in nearly a decade, and the trip will test Trump’s rapport with Xi as the two try to stabilize a splintered trade relationship.

To show he means business, Trump gave Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang a ride on Air Force One. A whole slew of other Wall Street and tech execs also tagged along. In bilateral talks to kick off the event, Trump said of the business executives he brought, “They look forward to trade and doing business, and it’s going to be totally reciprocal on our behalf.”

In Xi’s opening remarks, he said of the two nations, “We should be partners, not rivals.”

The initial meeting between the leaders (and their delegations) lasted just over two hours.

What’s on the agenda?

Trump and Xi are expected to talk about Iran, AI, and trade. The trade war truce reached last October will likely be extended, and US officials have hinted that a new “Board of Trade” will be established.

As far as the US is concerned, the biggest wins could come in three categories: “Boeing, beef, and beans,” Montana Sen. Steve Daines, who was part of a congressional delegation that traveled to China last week, said.

Despite the detente, US soybean farmers and beef producers have been excluded from the Chinese market for the last year. US officials are also looking for China to buy some Boeing planes.
In a hopeful early sign, China renewed import licenses for hundreds of US beef plants, Bloomberg reported today.

What does China want? Xi is expected to press Trump on the US’ $14 billion proposed sale of weapons to Taiwan. The US has officially remained neutral on Taiwan’s independence from China, but Xi has asked Trump in the past to oppose it. Poor handling of the issue could put “the entire US-China relationship in an extremely dangerous situation,” Xi warned yesterday.

China also hopes to gain more access to advanced computer chips from US companies. Meanwhile, the US wants its access restored to China’s rare earth minerals and metals, which are needed to make goods like cars and electronics.

Best-case scenario: After a tumultuous year with retaliatory tariffs thrown around, officials and businesses are hoping that everyone stays cool.—MM

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WORLD

Tour de headlines

Tom Williams/Getty Images

It’s official: Kevin Warsh confirmed as Fed chair. After months of drama, Warsh was confirmed by the Senate yesterday to succeed Jerome Powell, whose term as the head of the central bank ends tomorrow. The vote was 54–45, with all Republican senators voting in favor and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman as the only Democrat to join them. The vote reflects concerns about Warsh’s commitment to the Fed’s independence after President Trump repeatedly threatened to fire Powell for not lowering interest rates. However, Warsh might have trouble delivering rate reductions amid the Iran war, which is driving up prices. Meanwhile, Powell plans to remain as a Fed governor until a criminal probe into his actions is fully resolved.

Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions overturned. Alex Murdaugh, the disgraced scion of an important South Carolina legal dynasty, will get a new trial after the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned his double murder convictions and life sentence. The court’s ruling said a clerk had “placed her fingers on the scales of justice” during his original trial over the murder of his wife and son by suggesting to the jury that Murdaugh’s testimony might not be credible. The court overturned his life sentence, but Murdaugh—the subject of numerous true crime miniseries, podcasts, and books—won’t go free. He’s also serving a 40-year sentence after pleading guilty to stealing $12 million from his clients.

Anthropic has more business customers than OpenAI, Ramp says. Based on its clients’ expense data, Ramp said yesterday that Anthropic has outpaced OpenAI with business users for the first time, with 34.4% of businesses paying for Anthropic’s services and 32.3% paying for OpenAI’s. While OpenAI said that presents an incomplete picture, since large enterprise clients don’t pay for their accounts via credit card, the data is still a sign that professionals are embracing Claude. And the Wall Street Journal reports that an even bigger win may be on its way for Anthropic, as investors are offering it funds at a $900 billion valuation—making it higher than OpenAI’s $852 billion valuation.—AR

CENTER OF ATTENTION

Utah is not jazzed about a potential AI data center

Gilbert Flores/Getty Images

Plans to build an AI data center that will span 40,000 acres in northwest Utah were approved by county commissioners last week, despite protests from thousands of local residents who believe the project will wreak havoc on the local environment and increase energy costs.

Almost 4,000 people filed complaints against the $100 billion project called Stratos that’s being helmed by Kevin O’Leary, a wealthy vampire and villain in his role in Marty Supreme.

O’Leary said Stratos will create 10,000 construction jobs and 2,000 permanent ones. (Business Insider reports that 4,000 construction jobs over 10 to 15 years and 1,350 permanent roles are more realistic.)
Environmentalists warn the facility—requiring 9 gigawatts of power, more than the entire state currently uses—could destroy the Great Salt Lake ecosystem and raise temperatures in the area by five degrees during the day and 28 degrees at night.

What’s next? A group called the Box Elder Accountability Referendum is trying to collect 5,422 signatures to trigger a vote in November that would give residents an opportunity to reverse the commissioners’ decision.

Zoom out: Big Tech is spending billions on AI infrastructure, but resistance to data centers is growing, with some states considering bans.—DL

READER POLL

Would you support a data center in your area?

Yes, AI needs the computing power, and I need AI.
Maybe, but I’d want reassurance about the environmental impact.
Nope, it’d be bad for the surrounding community.

HEY BIG SPENDER

The biggest midterm donor (so far) is not a person

Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Getty Images

It’s a venture capital firm. Andreessen Horowitz, one of the largest VCs in the world, and its billionaire founders have dumped $115.5 million into this year’s midterm election cycle, surpassing the contributions of individual billionaire donors including Elon Musk and George Soros, the New York Times reported yesterday.

According to the NYT’s analysis, since Election Day 2024:

Andreessen Horowitz has given $47.5 million to Fairshake, a super PAC network that supports crypto-friendly candidates on both sides of the aisle.
The firm has also donated $50 million to Leading the Future, another super PAC that similarly backs AI-friendly Democrats or Republicans.
Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and their eponymous firm have collectively given $12 million to President Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc. That includes $6 million in March—around the time that Andreessen was appointed to a White House tech council.

Why this matters: Individual venture capitalists have pretty much always whipped out their checkbooks during election cycles, but firms themselves typically stayed out of political fundraising. The tides changed in late 2023, when Andreessen and Horowitz said their firm would start backing politicians who were committed to “advancing technology.”

Elsewhere in Silicon Valley…AI lobbying is also heating up. Meta, Nvidia, and Alphabet collectively spent nearly $50 million to sway federal lawmakers last year, up 22% from 2024.—ML

MOLLY EXPLAINS THE INTERNET

Baseball fans are testing stadiums’ spaghetti policies

Nick Iluzada

The online world can be a beautiful yet confusing series of tubes. On Thursdays, the Brew’s Molly Liebergall untangles them for you.

In the latest reminder that free will exists, a group of Milwaukee Brewers fans recently went viral for enjoying a full pasta dinner they brought from home, complete with garlic bread, while watching their team demolish the Arizona Diamondbacks.

No sneaking necessary: The Brewers’ home stadium allows attendees to carry gallon-sized clear bags, so the spaghetti crew trusted that security would have no problem with their Ziploc-ed feast.

Taking inspiration from this stunt, sports aficionados from a college football fan community called the Sickos Committee have taken it upon themselves to figure out every MLB team’s spaghetti policy (hat tip to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia). They found that most stadiums will probably let you get away with it and bypass sky-high concession prices, as long as the food is in a clear bag.

All that to say, don’t take me out to the ballgame unless you’re bringing meatballs.—ML

Three Headlines and a Lie

Three of these headlines are real and one is faker than a normal mirror photo on Facebook Marketplace. Can you spot the odd one out?

Mississippi teen becomes one of youngest people ever to graduate law school
Police warn drivers of ‘drunk’ deer
The Neopets comeback is upon us—with a New York City pop-up arriving this summer
Glasses brand uses dogs to model spring line, only one pair were chewed up

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ANSWER

We made up the one about the dog models.

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: scion, meaning “a descendant of a wealthy, aristocratic, or influential family.” Thanks to Ben from Atlanta, whose suggestion got picked without any nepo connections. Submit another Word of the Day here.

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