Daily Brew // Morning Brew // Update

April 29, 2026

Good morning to everyone, but especially to New York Mets fans, who’ve had a rough month. As of yesterday, the team’s 9-19 start was its worst in over 40 years.

On the bright side, going to the ballpark won’t break the bank: Tickets to a Mets game this week are cheaper than the price of a single Crunchwrap Supreme from Taco Bell. Live Más, Mets fans. Live Más.

—Sam Klebanov, Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Adam Epstein

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

Why UAE is leaving OPEC
OpenAI reportedly missing key targets
Taylor Swift trying to trademark her voice

MARKETS

Nasdaq

24,663.80

-0.90%

S&P

7,138.80

-0.49%

Dow

49,141.93

-0.05%

10-Year

4.354%

+2.0 bps

Bitcoin

$76,365.38

-0.77%

Spotify

$434.20

-12.43%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 4:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Stocks did an impression of a phone call in an elevator and dropped yesterday, after the UAE said it was leaving OPEC and the Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI missed some key targets (more on both of these later). Spotify, meanwhile, fell after investors were disappointed with its guidance.

UAEXIT

UAE leaves OPEC in a big blow to the oil cartel

Fadel Senna/Getty Images

The UAE is like the friend who just announced in the group chat that they’re taking their own car on the road trip. The Gulf nation announced yesterday that it’s leaving OPEC, the 12-nation oil cartel that accounts for half of global oil exports.

The oil-flush nation’s abrupt departure—which it said will happen on Friday—is a huge blow to the organization that coordinates countries’ oil outputs in order to control prices. The UAE is the third largest oil producer in OPEC, after Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

UAE-shaped hole

OPEC has already been losing its grip on the world’s oil supply in recent years, as the US fracking revolution floods global markets with American oil. But now, its sway will be even more limited.

The UAE said it’s leaving OPEC to have more freedom to decide how much oil to sell, and that it plans to gradually grow oil production as the world demands more of it:

Before the closure of the Strait of Hormuz forced the country to reduce oil shipments, it produced 3.6 million barrels of oil daily, maxing out its quota.
It seeks to boost production to 5 million barrels daily by 2027 by building pipelines or maximizing shipments once the strait reopens.

There are likely geopolitical reasons, too: The UAE is engaged in a regional rivalry with Saudi Arabia, which is the de facto leader of OPEC. The two countries have the most oil sloshing around beyond what OPEC allows to be exported.

Why now? The UAE says it made the decision to bid OPEC adieu now, amid the Iran war, when it would have the least disruptive impact, since oil prices are at multi-year highs.

Looking ahead: Experts say that while OPEC losing the UAE might not suppress oil prices in the near future it might make them more volatile in the long term.—SK

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WORLD

Tour de headlines

Elon Musk took the stand in his trial against OpenAI. On the first day of the blockbuster trial, Musk accused the company that he helped to co-found of stealing from the public. “It’s not OK to steal a charity,” Musk said, arguing that OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, abandoned its nonprofit mission after Musk left in 2018. In his opening statement, OpenAI’s lawyer, William Savitt, said, “We’re here because Mr. Musk didn’t get his way at OpenAI,” adding that the company’s nonprofit arm still oversees its for-profit business. Musk is seeking $150 billion in damages. Altman is also expected to testify in a trial that observers say could reshape the AI industry.

FCC moved to review ABC’s broadcast licenses. A day after President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump called for ABC late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel to be fired, the FCC made the rare move of ordering Disney, which owns ABC, to file license renewals for its broadcast TV stations years ahead of schedule. The agency did not mention Kimmel in its call for the renewals, which appeared to be tied to its investigation into Disney’s DEI practices. The Trumps had demanded Kimmel’s immediate firing after the late-night host joked that Melania had “a glow like an expectant widow.” Kimmel’s show was briefly suspended last year amid political pressure from the FCC, which objected to his monologue about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Trump’s DOJ indicted James Comey over an Instagram post of seashells. It’s the Justice Department’s second indictment of the former FBI director and President Trump’s political opponent, after charges brought against him last year for allegedly lying to Congress were dismissed by a federal judge. This time, the DOJ accused Comey of threatening Trump when he posted a photo to Instagram of the number “8647” spelled out with seashells on a beach. The number 86 can refer to tossing out or getting rid of something, while Trump is the 47th president of the United States. Comey removed the post the same day, saying he “didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence.” Legal experts told CNN that the case is likely futile.—AE

SWING AND A MISS

OpenAI reportedly missed some KPIs

Morning Brew Design, Photos: Adobe Stock

About a month after closing the largest funding round in Silicon Valley’s history, OpenAI’s cracks might be starting to show. The company recently missed internal targets for new users and revenue, according to the Wall Street Journal. The report of the whiffed growth goals sent related stocks nosediving yesterday with investors fearing that OpenAI is getting lapped by rivals.

What did all those “people familiar with the matter” tell the WSJ? The AI company had initially pledged to reach one billion weekly active users for ChatGPT by the end of 2025…but never announced hitting that target. Plus, the company missed yearly and monthly revenue targets as competitors Google Gemini and Anthropic grew. OpenAI’s CFO, Sarah Friar, has questioned whether the company would be able to afford its ~$600 billion in data center contracts if it can’t reach its revenue goals.

OpenAI dismissed the report as “prime clickbait” and said that the company was “firing on all cylinders” when it came to growth, especially in enterprise customers.

It didn’t do much to quell fears. Despite Sam Altman’s promise that everything at the office is chill, companies with OpenAI deals, including Oracle and CoreWeave, dropped by as much as 4% and 6%, respectively, yesterday. Chipmaker Nvidia briefly dipped, but bounced back.—MM

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LOOK WHAT AI MADE HER DO

Fighting AI deepfakes (Taylor’s version)

Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

Taylor Swift has filed three unique trademark applications to protect her voice and image from use in unauthorized deepfakes. It’s a new legal maneuver designed to give celebrities more protections against AI, though it has yet to be tested in court.

How would the trademarks defend against unwanted AI slop?

Swift moved to trademark two audio clips where she speaks her name, which falls under a lesser-known category called “sound marks.” That has historically been reserved for things like Netflix’s “tu-dum” sound and the giggle of the Pillsbury Doughboy.
The other filing is an image of Swift on stage in a sequined outfit and with a pink guitar.
The theory is if someone generates AI content with her voice or a similar image, Swift would have more standing in court if she filed a lawsuit against its creators.

The bar for violating a trademark is creating something that’s “confusingly similar,” kind of like The Rock’s action movies or The Bachelor contestants.

What about copyright? AI creations can be made without lifting a voice from a copyrighted song recording. These new types of spoken-word trademarks, which have also been filed by actor Matthew McConaughey, attempt to plug the gulf that allows deepfakes to flourish.—DL

STAT

Prime number: Most people lose money on Polymarket

Niv Bavarsky

If you’ve wagered your mortgage that MrBeast will be the next president of the United States, perhaps reconsider. According to a Bloomberg analysis, nearly every Polymarket trader either loses money or makes little to no profit:

More than 100k accounts lost $1,000 since the start of 2025—twice the number of accounts that made at least $1,000.
In aggregate, traders lost $131 million.
The tiny number of accounts that make lots of money appear to be mostly bots, Bloomberg noted.

A separate study found that since 2022, 69% of traders lost money, while three-quarters of total profits were won by only the top 1% of users.—AE

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Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: futile, meaning “having no effect or achieving nothing.” Thanks to Shawn from Fairfield, CT, for the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.

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