Silence on Minnesota, public oil company graft, Grok’s children problem, where are investors

Let's start with the Bad News?

1. The ICE game

1. 3 UnitedHealth Group Minnetonka

2. 41 Target Minneapolis

3. 105 U.S. Bancorp; IR site not working: Minneapolis

4. 108 Best Buy Richfield

5. 115 CHS Inver Grove Heights

6. 174 3M Maplewood

7. 216 General Mills Golden Valley

8. 230 Ameriprise Financial Minneapolis

1. Anthony Saglimbene, Chief Market Strategist, Ameriprise Financial: Is Corporate America Up For Its First Big Test Of 2026? 1/12/2026

1. “geopolitical and Washington headlines have increased risk, from developments in Venezuela to broader policy noise, including the pending International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) decision which didn’t occur last week, affordability proposals in Washington, and unexpected policies and executive orders that could impact housing and defense companies”

9. 233 C.H. Robinson Eden Prairie

10. 262 Land O'Lakes Arden Hills

11. 274 Ecolab St. Paul

12. 319 Xcel Energy Minneapolis

13. 352 Hormel Foods Austin

14. 388 Thrivent Financial Minneapolis

The Good Game

1. The oil CEO who stood up to Trump is a follower of the disciplined ‘Exxon way’ with a history of blunt statements

1. Big Oil executives met at the White House to discuss investing billions to revive Venezuela’s oil industry.

2. Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods pushed back, calling Venezuela “uninvestable” without long-term reforms.

3. President Trump reacted angrily, calling Exxon “too cute” and signaling he may exclude the company from Venezuela.

4. Woods declined to appease Trump at the expense of Exxon shareholders.

5. Analysts said Exxon stock would likely have fallen if it committed billions to Venezuela’s uneconomic, high-risk environment.

6. Veteran analyst Jim Wicklund said Woods was the only executive willing to speak plainly.

7. Industry has little urgency to return to Venezuela, and no deal can offset the extreme political risk.

8. Even sweeter terms wouldn’t change the math: political risk outweighs potential rewards by “a factor of 10.”

1. Microsoft Pledges to Pay More for Electricity, Drawing Praise From Trump

1. A senior Microsoft executive on Tuesday addressed the impact data centers have on the electrical costs for home consumers, an increasingly touchy subject that became a political hot button in November’s elections.

2. In a blog post ahead of a speech on artificial intelligence, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, reiterated that Microsoft wants to pay for the electricity its data center use and avoid affecting everyday customers. “We’ll ask utilities and public commissions to set our rates high enough to cover the electricity costs for our data centers,” Mr. Smith wrote.

1. US Judge Allows Orsted to Resume $5 Billion Rhode Island Offshore Wind Project Halted by Trump

1. Revolution Wind is a $5 billion development co-owned by Orsted that aims to deliver renewable power to Rhode Island and Connecticut. It is the first of five offshore wind projects paused by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in late December over what officials described as radar interference risks identified by the Department of Defense.

1. Trump tries to reduce CEO pay and halt billions in stock buybacks at defense contractors

1. The executive order is creating a “new, government-mandated form of ESG,” referring to the environmental, social, and governance framework that grew prominent in recent years and prodded CEOs to focus on their companies’ broader stakeholder impact and not just shareholders.

2. Ironically, the prioritization of ESG was derided as “woke” by critics and the administration has been generally hostile toward ESG. The defense contractor order is conceptually similar in that it prods companies to prioritize a customer over maximizing value for shareholders.

3. President Donald Trump signed an executive order zeroing in on pay packages for executives at large defense contractors deemed to have underperformed on existing government contracts while chasing newer, bigger deals, according to the White House. At the same time, the order claims, these companies have bought back billions in stock, enriching both shareholders and executives.

4. “Effective immediately, they are not permitted in any way, shape, or form to pay dividends or buy back stock, until such time as they are able to produce a superior product, on time and on budget,” the order, titled “Prioritizing the Warfighter in Defense Contracting,” states.

5. The order further directs the Secretary of War to identify contractors that have underperformed the terms of their deals with the government and hatch a plan to resolve delays and production issues. If the resolution plan is insufficient, according to the secretary, future contracts will include provisions banning stock buybacks and dividends and will prohibit tying pay to “short-term financial metrics” such as free cash flow or earnings per share.

6. Trump elaborated in a post on his messaging platform Truth Social last week, railing against pay packages in the defense industry, claiming they are “exorbitant and unjustifiable” given the delays in delivering military equipment. Until those issues are remediated, “no Executive should be allowed to make in excess of $5 Million Dollars which, as high as it sounds, is a mere fraction of what they are making now,” the president wrote.

1. US oil lobby group backs repeal of climate rule for vehicles, not power plants

1. The American Petroleum Institute supports the Environmental Protection Agency's proposal to repeal the foundation of greenhouse gas regulations for vehicles but not for power plants and other stationary industrial facilities.

2. "We would not support repealing the endangerment finding for stationary sources," API President Mike Sommers told reporters, adding that the trade group believes it has "the greatest standing" from a regulatory perspective and it is clear the EPA has authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from those sources.

1. Judge: Trump violated Fifth Amendment by ending energy grants in only blue states

1. Court Rules Trump DOE Violated the Constitution When It Cancelled Clean Energy Funding in Specific States

2. Administration Action Violated Constitutional Guarantee to Equal Protection Under the Law

1. Norway Pushes Electric Vehicles to Nearly All New Car Sales in 2025

1. Electric vehicles accounted for 95.9 percent of all new car registrations in Norway in 2025, rising to almost 98 percent in December, placing the country far ahead of global peers.

2. A mix of targeted tax relief for low cost electric vehicles and rising charges on petrol and diesel cars has reshaped consumer demand and manufacturer strategy.

3. Norway’s approach contrasts with the wider European Union, where weaker demand has prompted a rollback of the planned 2035 ban on internal combustion engine vehicles.

1. Meet autistic Barbie: the newest Mattel doll launched in line intended to celebrate diversity

1. Mattel said it developed the autistic doll over more than 18 months in partnership with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the rights and better media representation of people with autism

2. The eyes of the new Barbie shift slightly to the side to represent how some people with autism sometimes avoid direct eye contact, he said. The doll also was given articulated elbows and wrists to acknowledge stimming, hand flapping and other gestures that some autistic people use to process sensory information or to express excitement, according to Mattel.

3. The development team debated whether to dress the doll in a tight or a loose-fitting outfit, Pervez said. Some autistic people wear loose clothes because they are sensitive to the feel of fabric seams, while others wear figure-hugging garments to give them a sense of where their bodies are, he said. The team ended up choosing an A-line dress with short sleeves and a flowy skirt that provides less fabric-to-skin contact.

4. The doll also wears flat shoes to promote stability and ease of movement, according to Mattel.

5. Each doll comes with a pink finger clip fidget spinner, noise-canceling headphones and a pink tablet modeled after the devices some autistic people who struggle to speak use to communicate.

1. Elon Musk’s X Under UK Investigation Over Grok’s Sexualized A.I. Images

1. A British regulator said it had started a formal investigation into Mr. Musk’s chatbot over the spread of illegal images.

1. Malaysia and Indonesia block Musk's Grok over sexually explicit deepfakes

2. Meta removes nearly 550,000 social media accounts under Australian age ban

3. This new crash test dummy could keep women safer in car accidents

1. While regulators have been testing crash impacts for decades, there’s a dearth of data on women, who face a higher risk of death in auto accidents. In November, regulators unveiled THOR-05F — short for “Test device for Human Occupant Restraint, 5th-percentile Female” — the first crash test dummy specifically based on a woman’s body.

1. Elon Musk's Lawsuit Accusing ChatGPT-Maker OpenAI Of Betraying Its Nonprofit Mission Can Go To Trial, Judge Rules

1. Trump calls for 1-year 10% cap on credit card interest rates

1. This is a mistake President': Bill Ackman responds to Trump's call for a one-year 10% cap on credit card interest

1. Activist investors set record number of campaigns in 2025

1. Last year's number of attacks marked a nearly 5% increase over 2024 and eclipsed the previous record of 249 made in 2018, the data showed.