UnitedHealth Executive Brian Thompson Gunned Down in New York City
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Police say they're still searching for the suspect who gunned down a UnitedHealth executive today in Midtown Manhattan.

And the incoming Trump administration could bring looser regulations for banks and high tariffs. We don't necessarily know that tariff hikes are going to lead to higher rates or the tariffs will end up getting put through. But there are scenarios in which higher interest rates down the road could lead to problems for banks. Plus, the French government collapsed after losing a vote of confidence for the first time in more than half a century.

It's Wednesday, December 4th. I'm Tracey Hunt for The Wall Street Journal. This is a PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. We begin today with a developing story. The CEO of UnitedHealth Group's insurance unit, Brian Thompson, was shot and killed this morning in New York. Here's the city's police commissioner, Jessica Tisch. In midtown Manhattan early this morning, 50-year-old Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare,

was shot and killed in what appears at this early stage of our investigation to be a brazen targeted attack.

This does not appear to be a random act of violence. Police are still searching for the suspect, who remains unidentified, but said they didn't believe there was a threat to the public. Thompson was in New York to attend UnitedHealth's annual investor meeting. He was on his way to attend the event when police say the suspect approached Thompson and shot him in his back and leg before fleeing on foot. Thompson was later declared dead at a local hospital.

Police said they were searching Thompson's hotel room and interviewing his colleagues and family members to see if he had received any threats. Thompson's wife, Paulette Thompson, told NBC News that her husband had received threats but did not know details.

The company appeared to remove profiles of its executives from its website following the attack. In a statement, UnitedHealth expressed shock over Thompson's shooting and said the company was working with the NYPD. Ana Wildey-Matthews covers health insurance for the Wall Street Journal's health and science team. She says Thompson was well-liked among his colleagues. Brian Thompson was the chief executive of UnitedHealth Care, which is the largest health insurer in the United States.

and part of the parent company, UnitedHealth Group. He'd been with the company since 2004. He became the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in 2021. He rose through the ranks. He had originally come in with more of a finance background, but again, obviously moved into bigger and bigger.

roles. He was a longtime leader in the company. Obviously, many, many people knew him. It's been reported that the chief executive of UnitedHealth Group, Andrew Witte, choked up in speaking about the death in a session with employees. In terms of the success of the business, UnitedHealth is likely to be fine. The

perception among investors and analysts is that they have a deep bench of excellent executives. But that said, the emotional impact is very meaningful. For more on this developing story, go to WSJ.com. The French government of President Emmanuel Macron has collapsed. In a vote of no confidence, the country's National Assembly forced the Prime Minister Michel Barnier to resign. It's the first time in more than 60 years that French lawmakers have ousted a prime minister.

The move is a sign of the political gridlock that has paralyzed the country and left its public finances in limbo. Macron's attempt to ward off the rise of Marine Le Pen's far-right national rally by calling snap elections this summer instead saddled the country with a hung parliament. The National Assembly, which is divided between Macron loyalists, Le Pen's ranks, and an unruly alliance of leftist parties, splintered over its first order of business.

approving the government's budget for 2025. President-elect Donald Trump today picked conservative lawyer Paul Atkins to run the Securities and Exchange Commission. Atkins, who has a reputation as a regulatory skeptic, will be expected to cut red tape and rein in the agency's enforcement division.

Atkins, well-known in Congress and on Wall Street, served as a Republican member of the SEC during the Bush administration. WSJ reporter Dave Michaels covers corporate law enforcement and says Atkins has also questioned the SEC's crackdown on cryptocurrency firms. Paul Atkins has been a proponent of the SEC trying to be more welcoming of cryptocurrency, not trying to

put up barriers to the market. It's been a huge fight between the cryptocurrency market and the SEC for several years. And the crypto market now expects that Atkins is going to find some way to create a truce. Paul Atkins is a institution in the world of financial regulation. He has been around it for probably 30 years. He has led kind of the conservative wing of

of the financial regulation world for the last couple of decades. He's not someone that you see in the news a lot, but he has been very influential behind the scenes for many years. ♪

All three major U.S. stock indexes closed at record highs today after a batch of better-than-expected tech earnings bolstered investor confidence. The Dow rose 0.7 percent, closing above 45,000 for the first time, a milestone that appeared implausible a little more than two years ago. The S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed 1.3 percent.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell today said the economy looks better now than it did when the central bank began cutting interest rates in September, which means the Fed can move more slowly in reducing borrowing costs.

Speaking at a moderated question and answer session hosted by The New York Times, Powell said the Fed's independence is vital to its interest rate decisions. That gives us the ability to make these decisions for the benefit of all Americans at all times, not for any particular political party or political outcome. We're supposed to achieve maximum employment and price stability for the benefit of all Americans and keep out of politics completely.

The Fed's next meeting is December 17th and 18th. Investors in interest rate futures markets expect the central bank to lower rates by a quarter point at that meeting and then to slow down the pace of cuts after that.

Meanwhile, according to the Institute for Supply Management, the U.S. services sector continued to expand last month, though its growth was slower than economists expected. And the Commerce Department said U.S. factory orders increased in October, bucking two months of declines. Coming up, how Trump's proposed tariff hikes could affect smaller regional banks and what that could mean for your deposits. That's after the break. ♪

Meet Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, ready to transform how your organization works. Empower every person in your organization with AI that thinks like a teammate, not a tool. Securely upload your company knowledge and watch as Claude helps every department, from engineering to marketing, produce their best work faster. Your data stays protected while your teams reach new heights. Discover enterprise-grade AI at anthropic.com slash enterprise.

The S&P Regional Banks Index has gained 12% since November 5th. And that's understandable, as the industry anticipates the incoming Trump administration to loosen regulations and relax the requirements for how much capital banks must hold as a cushion against unexpected losses. But the aggressive tariff hikes floated by Trump would be inflationary and could lead to higher interest rates and bond yields. Jonathan Weil is a columnist with WSJ's Heard on the Street. Jonathan, why is it so important

And what would that mean for banks, particularly the smaller regional ones? The reason that Silicon Valley Bank failed was because it was too invested in government-backed mortgage bonds that had very low interest rates. And when interest rates suddenly spiked during 2022, the value of those plummeted. And once depositors figured this out, there was a run on the bank.

And that all happened because of the types of bonds that they owned and the amount that interest rates went up. We don't necessarily know that tariff hikes are going to lead to higher rates or the tariffs will end up getting put through, but there are scenarios in which

Higher interest rates down the road could lead to problems for banks. Now, Trump said that he wouldn't have bailed out Silicon Valley Bank or Signature Bank, which failed a few days later back in 2023. Is that his rule about all banks? How much does that tell us about his thinking? We really don't know how he would react today.

if faced with the exact same situation himself. But we do know what he said immediately after Silicon Valley Bank failed, and that is that he didn't approve of them getting bailed out. He called the executives at Silicon Valley Bank stupid for the way that they were investing. And he said the bank would have to fend for itself. Again, how would he react in the exact same situation if you're a president as opposed to just being an ex-president?

We don't know. He doesn't know. So what would that mean for depositors? The way the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., works is that, as a general rule, depositors are insured $250,000 per person per bank with some exceptions. The vast majority of people, as long as they don't have a single account with more than $250,000, they're not impacted.

But if you're over $250,000 or if you're a business that has more than $250,000 in a given bank and it goes bust and there's no too-big-to-fail bailout from the government, you're going to lose that money. And in fact, First National Bank of Lindsay, Oklahoma, failed in October. It was the first time in five years that you had uninsured depositors lose money.

So it's a reminder that it is possible to lose money if your bank goes bust if you are keeping too much there. That was Heard on the Street columnist Jonathan Weil. Thank you so much, Jonathan. Thank you for having me. OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company behind ChatGBT, is getting into the business of war.

The world's most valuable AI company has agreed to work with Andrel Industries, a leading defense tech startup, to add its technology to systems the U.S. military uses to counter drone attacks.

Our reporter Deepa Sitaraman told our tech news briefing podcast that it's the latest example of Silicon Valley's dramatic turn from shunning the Pentagon a few years ago to now forging deeper ties with the national security complex. One of the things that's really picked up over the last year is this discussion broadly in the AI industry about AI companies serving as a strategic asset for

for the United States and bolstering national security at a time when there is rising competition in AI between the U.S. and countries like China.

So the companies are trying to portray themselves as essential to the security backbone of the country. Besides OpenAI, we've seen its big partner, Microsoft, doing a lot of deals with the military. And then also Meta is now allowing the U.S. military to use

its AI models, and Anthropic, which is another big AI startup that was founded by a number of OpenAI co-founders and senior executives. That company is also embracing the military and allowing its AI tools to be used through a partnership with Palantir. And you can hear more about this story in tomorrow's Tech News Briefing podcast.

And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Pierre Bien-Aimé, Anthony Bansi, and Alex Osola, with supervising producer Michael Cosmitas. Additional sound courtesy of The New York Times. I'm Tracy Hunt for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.

Meet Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant, ready to transform how your organization works. Empower every person in your organization with AI that thinks like a teammate, not a tool. Securely upload your company knowledge and watch as Claude helps every department, from engineering to marketing, produce their best work faster. Your data stays protected while your teams reach new heights. Discover enterprise-grade AI at anthropic.com slash enterprise.