External headlines on July 22: Trump downplays the possibility of negotiations with Iran; Open AI intelligent agent users exceed 10 million; Space X welcomes epic stock lifting
Global financial media last night and this morning The headlines of common concern include: Trump downplays possibility of talks with Iran, says he will take action if Red Sea shipping is threatened The United States plans to impose new tariffs no later than Friday to bridge the expiring temporary 10% global tariffs OpenAI agent users exceed 10 million ChatGPT Work drives adoption rate to double Nvidia explains in detail the new generation of AI-specific Vera CPU, officially launching a challenge to AMD and Intel SpaceX’s grand unblocking is coming soon, and more than 100 billion US dollars of stock will be listed for trading Bank of America turns neutral on sterling, expects intensive news from new PM US President Donald Trump has downplayed the possibility of talks with Iran in the near future. The United States and Iran continue to launch attacks on each other, and the Houthi armed forces in Yemen threaten to block Saudi Arabia's Red Sea routes. Trump said on Tuesday the United States would respond if the Iran-backed group disrupted Red Sea waterways, but he did not elaborate. Before Trump made these remarks, the United States and Iran had been attacking each other for the 10th consecutive day, and the mediators continued to work hard to restart negotiations. "Iran desperately wants to negotiate, but we have no interest in negotiating until they are ready to have meaningful dialogue," Trump said during a meeting with the Lebanese president at the White House, vowing that the United States would keep fighting. U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing to impose new tariffs on goods from dozens of economies by no later than Friday, people familiar with the matter said. The move is aimed at ensuring that even if the temporary 10% global tariff expires, its tariff system can still be maintained. The Trump administration last month proposed imposing new tariffs of at least 10% on 60 trading partners. Trump's team is preparing to implement the tariffs by the end of the week, but it is unclear whether the final rates will deviate from the original proposals, people familiar with the matter said. Trump's temporary tariffs are set to expire on Friday. If the new round of tariffs is implemented by then, the White House will be able to avoid a gap between the two rounds of tariffs. However, the plan has not yet been finalized and may still be subject to adjustment. OpenAI announced on July 21 that the combined number of weekly active users of its AI agent products - the programming tool Codex and the general task tool ChatGPT Work - has exceeded 10 million, almost doubling from earlier this month. This milestone comes less than two weeks after ChatGPT Work was officially launched. The direct catalyst for user growth is the release of the GPT-5.6 model on July 9 and the integration of multiple products. On the same day, OpenAI merged the independent Codex application into the ChatGPT desktop and launched the ChatGPT Work agent mode for knowledge workers. ChatGPT Work can decompose complex instructions into multi-step tasks, independently generate spreadsheets, presentations and documents, and can be connected to third-party applications such as Slack and Google Drive. The user growth rate is amazing. Codex had less than 1 million weekly active users in February and reached 5 million in early June. The number accelerated after the launch of GPT-5.6, continuously breaking through from 6 million to 8 million in a single week. OpenAI internal data also shows that 97.9% of employees have used Codex, and the adoption rate among non-developers has increased 137 times in 8 months. On Tuesday, Nvidia officially released detailed information about its data center CPU Vera, including chip specifications, benchmark data and architecture information, allowing potential customers to fully evaluate it. Nvidia representatives revealed that Vera chips were delivered to customers in June, and purchasers include OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX. Laying out CPUs is another step in Nvidia’s vertical integration strategy: developing more core chips and technologies in the system year by year. NVIDIA's goal is no longer to simply sell chips, but to deliver whole-cabinet integrated computing systems to customers. NVIDIA said that this strategy can help engineers fully unleash GPU performance; as competition between AMD's self-developed chips and various customized computing power solutions intensifies, this move will consolidate NVIDIA systems' first choice in leading AI laboratories.
SpaceX has kicked off one of the largest stock unlocks in capital markets history, with up to $116 billion worth of shares becoming eligible for sale for the first time next month. Restrictions preventing some insiders from selling up to 911.5 million shares will be lifted on August 6, two days after the rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company reports quarterly results for the first time. This is just the beginning; billions of shares will be eligible for trading by the end of the year. Investors are assessing the likely impact of the unusual phased approach to lifting restrictions in the coming months. After SpaceX completed its largest initial public offering in history last month, its stock price has struggled to recapture the frenzy of the time. As stocks unlock, early investors and those who bought shares on private markets will be looking to cash in on huge returns, while short sellers can also add to their bearish bets. Strategists have softened their "more-than-consensus bullish view" on sterling, expecting the currency's recent gains to fall back as political uncertainty remains elevated. Strategists led by Kamal Sharma said in a report that their view on the pound has turned neutral in the short term after the pound's "sharp and rapid gains" this month. Sterling has gained more than 1% against the euro this month; it fell 0.3% on Tuesday to about 0.85, close to Bank of America's year-end target of 0.84.
SpaceX has kicked off one of the largest stock unlocks in capital markets history, with up to $116 billion worth of shares becoming eligible for sale for the first time next month. Restrictions preventing some insiders from selling up to 911.5 million shares will be lifted on August 6, two days after the rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company reports quarterly results for the first time. This is just the beginning; billions of shares will be eligible for trading by the end of the year. Investors are assessing the likely impact of the unusual phased approach to lifting restrictions in the coming months. After SpaceX completed its largest initial public offering in history last month, its stock price has struggled to recapture the frenzy of the time. As stocks unlock, early investors and those who bought shares on private markets will be looking to cash in on huge returns, while short sellers can also add to their bearish bets. Strategists have softened their "more-than-consensus bullish view" on sterling, expecting the currency's recent gains to fall back as political uncertainty remains elevated. Strategists led by Kamal Sharma said in a report that their view on the pound has turned neutral in the short term after the pound's "sharp and rapid gains" this month. Sterling has gained more than 1% against the euro this month; it fell 0.3% on Tuesday to about 0.85, close to Bank of America's year-end target of 0.84.