President Donald Trump walks on stage after gunshots are heard at the White House Correspondents Dinner on April 25, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Hello, my name is Hui Jie from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.
The attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner dominated headlines over the weekend, and details continue to trickle out.
Meanwhile, jobs at Meta and Microsoft are on the rise due to job losses due to AI, but ironically, OpenAI is reportedly the new favorite career choice for tech executives.
What you need to know today
The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner is one of the most high-profile events for reporters in Washington.
The incident took an alarming turn after a man armed with multiple weapons stormed a security checkpoint at a dinner party on Saturday in the United States and was subsequently arrested by agents of the US Secret Service.
The suspect in the attack was Cole Allen, 31, of Torrance, California, and his main targets were U.S. government officials, according to a report in the New York Post, a collection of Allen’s books.
US President Donald Trump said one police officer was shot but was saved by the fact that he was “obviously wearing a very good body armor.”
Outside the United States, President Trump has his hands full dealing with the Iran conflict. Plans for a second round of peace talks fell apart after the US president canceled plans to send US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan to negotiate with Iran. Iran had already expressed reluctance to engage with the United States.
This development has fueled energy anxiety and pushed up oil prices. Brent futures rose 2% to $107.37 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate futures rose 1.86% to $96.13. All three major US indexes fell.
However, Asian markets started the week mostly higher, with Japan and South Korea’s benchmark indexes hitting record highs in early trading, with all eyes on China’s first-quarter industrial profit data to be released later in the day.
In tech news, AI job losses are fueling job insecurity as Meta and Microsoft announced more than 20,000 layoffs last week.
These are the same companies that collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year building artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Ironically, several top software executives are being poached by AI giants looking for people with sales and go-to-market experience, sources said.
Executives from Salesforce, Snowflake and Datadog have moved to OpenAI and Anthropic, multiple people told CNBC.
— Lim Huijie
And finally…
South Korean “ant investors” are marching into U.S. stocks as the domestic market hits record highs
South Korean stocks have soared to record highs over the past year, but that doesn’t make U.S. stocks any less attractive to Korean residents.
The country made net purchases of $73.6 billion in U.S. stocks in 2025, nearly five times more than in 2024.
The rush into U.S. stocks continues even as South Korea’s benchmark Kospi stock index returned 75% last year and hit new highs this year.
— Lim Hui Jie, Blair Baek
