A look back at the most important business stories of 2023

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried, the reassertion of union power and the unrest at OpenAI were just some of the big business stories in a year full of them.

DealBook has chosen photos of some of 2023’s biggest newsmakers, stories and trends.

The world is rushing to regulate AI

Artificial intelligence has had a good year. Investments were made in AI startups; major tech companies have leveraged their scale and cloud computing operations to build ties with the new leaders in the field; and Nvidia became the first chipmaker to reach a $1 trillion market cap thanks to demand for its AI semiconductors.

Investors’ enthusiasm was matched by concerns among lawmakers, who often struggled to keep pace with the companies developing the technology. But the first steps toward developing regulations for AI have been taken. President Biden issued an executive order focused on the technology’s implications for national security in October; China imposed restrictions on certain types of AI; and EU lawmakers adopted one of the first in the world regimes to regulate the technology.

But amid the varied efforts there was also an attempt to achieve some degree of international cooperation. Last month, more than twenty countries, including rivals the US and China, tech executives and researchers attended the UK AI Safety Summit. The event did not end with an agreement on a new set of rules, but governments warned of the dangers of the most advanced AI systems and agreed to keep talking.

The PGA Tour and LIV Golf agree to a merger

On June 6, the PGA Tour, the world’s preeminent men’s professional golf circuit, and LIV Golf, a Saudi-funded rival that poached top players and posed a serious threat, tentatively agreed to join forces. The decision was a stunning reversal for the PGA Tour and its commissioner, Jay Monahan, and was negotiated in secret, angering many of the tour’s top players.

The deal demonstrated Saudi Arabia’s growing power in sports. The kingdom has spent billions on football, boxing and golf as part of a bid to diversify its oil-dependent economy. But many questioned the logic of the deal, pointing to Saudi Arabia’s dismal human rights record. US lawmakers want to know whether the Saudi government is using sports to achieve its strategic objectives as a means of “sportswashing.”

‘Barbenheimer’ dominates the box office

In July, two films released on the same day provided the long-awaited signal that theaters had recovered from the pandemic. “Barbie” is a comedy based on the Mattel doll and directed by Greta Gerwig. “Oppenheimer” is a biopic about the creator of the atomic bomb, created by author-filmmaker Christopher Nolan. Together, they gave North American theaters their biggest weekend since “Avengers: Endgame” came out in April 2019. Some moviegoers even watched them back to back.

Bankruptcies of regional banks caused a crisis

On March 10, in the biggest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis, the government took over Silicon Valley Bank. A summary: The bank’s customers – shocked by news that the bank was strengthening its finances and that Moody’s had downgraded its bonds – had withdrawn more than $40 billion from their deposits. On March 12, regulators shut down Signature Bank, a New York-based lender.

The failure of the banks led to fears about the stability of other mid-sized lenders. Wall Street’s biggest banks agreed to give $30 billion to First Republic and Swiss authorities struck a deal for UBS to acquire its domestic rival, Credit Suisse. But even a multibillion-dollar intervention wasn’t enough to save First Republic: Federal regulators seized the lender in May and sold it to JPMorgan Chase.

The UAW is conducting a historic strike

On September 14, the United Automobile Workers union began its first strike, simultaneously targeting all three Detroit automakers: General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, the parent company of Ram, Jeep and Chrysler. The union broke with its traditional approach of halting most or all operations at one company, instead taking action at a limited number of locations at each company. After six weeks, workers reached tentative agreements with the three companies, giving workers the largest pay increase in decades while avoiding a lengthy work stoppage. The UAW’s success inspired it to go after non-union automakers, including Tesla and foreign-owned companies.

Taylor Swift is conquering the world

The Eras Tour, Taylor Swift’s career-spanning series of shows, was a blockbuster this year, selling $14 million in tickets each night, according to one estimate, setting the pace to reach total revenue by the time the tour was scheduled to begin of $1.4 billion. ends next year. Swift, who broke the record for most hit albums by a woman in July, also secured a new kind of deal for her concert film. She negotiated directly with theater chain AMC Entertainment to release “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.” This allowed her to bypass major studios and keep 57 percent of ticket revenue. During its opening weekend in October, the film earned an estimated three-day gross of $95 million to $97 million in North American theaters, easily becoming the biggest concert film opening ever.

Sam Bankman-Fried is convicted

On November 2, after four hours of deliberation, a jury found Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, guilty of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy for stealing billions of dollars from customers and investors. It was a stunning fall for Bankman-Fried, a one-off example of the cryptocurrency industry being worth $20 billion just a year earlier. After the FTX collapsed, many of his closest lieutenants and executives agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testified against him. At a trial in New York, he was portrayed as a brash young founder who funneled stolen money into his investments and used it for extravagant expenses.

Bankman-Fried, 31, is expected to appeal. He will be sentenced on March 28.

American companies are facing new pressures in China

President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping held their first face-to-face talks in more than a year last month on the sidelines of a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders near San Francisco. The conversations were cordial and intended to re-establish lines of communication.

But Xi also sought to reassure American business leaders during the trip. He organized a banquet for businessmen. Attendees included Apple CEO Tim Cook; Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock; and Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone. Xi sought to make clear that foreign companies were welcome in China despite growing challenges to operating there amid a crackdown on companies with Western ties and strained relations with the US. Yet the dinner showed that many American companies are not willing to give up their activities. doing business in the country.

Elon Musk criticizes advertisers who have fled X

At the DealBook Summit on November 29, Elon Musk made waves after using profane language to denounce companies that suspended advertising on X after Musk endorsed an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. He also said he didn’t mean to support bigots and apologized for his post. The 90-minute interview with Musk, the billionaire whose companies SpaceX, Tesla and