CNBC Daily Open: Is cheap gas America’s Godot?

Hello, my name is Anique Bao from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.

In Samuel Beckett’s tragicomedy, two men wait by a barren tree for a character called Godot to arrive. As the midterm elections approach, Americans are waiting for a sustained drop in fuel prices, but the future remains uncertain.

US President Donald Trump has vowed not to attack Iran until voters have their say. That should ease energy prices, but speculators at prediction market platform Kalsi are not convinced, saying there is a more than 80% chance that gas prices will remain above $4 a gallon on Election Day next month.

Concerns also arose in AI trade. OpenAI told investors that its annual revenue reached about $50 billion, rather than the $68 billion that was widely reported last month, pushing other leading tech stocks down along with it.

President Trump said Thursday that the United States will not attack Iran before the midterm elections, adding that the two countries are having “productive discussions.”

The president, whose approval ratings have fallen to the lowest of his career, has sought to calm rising energy costs that are weighing on American household budgets. But speculators on prediction market platform Kalsi disagree, pricing in an 87% chance that average gas prices will rise above $4 a gallon heading into the November election.

The Pentagon recently directed U.S. Central Command to complete preparations to resume large-scale combat operations against Iran, according to a previous day’s report.

After this post, crude oil eased its high, but did not give up its rally. Brent crude oil futures, an international benchmark, rose 4% to over $104 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures rose 3.6% to settle at $91.49 per barrel.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned more than a dozen vessels it says are connected to a “shadow fleet” used to transport Iranian oil and gas out of the country. This comes as the US government seeks to further squeeze Iran’s economy to end the war, which is now in its eighth month.

Stock futures were mostly flat after OpenAI’s underwhelming earnings report spooked the AI ​​industry. S&P 500 futures rose 0.09% and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 0.05%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose 23 points, or 0.04%.

OpenAI told investors that annual revenue reached about $50 billion at the end of September, far short of the $68 billion widely reported late last month. Shares of Nvidia, Oracle, CoreWeave and other artificial intelligence stocks fell.

Vice President J.D. Vance announced that Microsoft, Adobe, and six IT services companies will be suspended from a program that helps skilled foreign workers obtain green cards.

“You’re a great American company, but you have to hire great American workers,” Vance said of Microsoft.

“So while we will continue to support Microsoft and build a strong relationship with them, we will also deny their applications for green card status until they show that they are serious about putting American workers first,” Vance said.

SpaceX has agreed to buy a nationwide spectrum portfolio to push its Starlink service deeper into the U.S. communications market.

The transaction includes the acquisition of a spectrum portfolio from digital infrastructure specialist Grain Management and is subject to Federal Communications Commission approval.

Elsewhere, Musk accused India’s “oligarchy” of blocking the launch of his Starlink satellite internet service to protect its market advantage. The country’s telecommunications and internet services market is dominated by Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani’s Jio and Sunil Mittal’s Airtel, with a combined market share of more than 80%.

“We are being held back by certain oligarchies to maintain their exclusive control over the people of India,” Musk said in a post about X in the US on Wednesday, without naming his rival. “You can guess who they are,” he said.

— Anique Bao

Indian billionaires investing in President Trump’s refinery projects are also buying more Venezuelan oil

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries has invested in a historic US refinery project proposed by President Donald Trump and has now emerged as the largest buyer of Venezuelan crude outside the US.

President Trump has asked India to buy more Venezuelan crude, but Reliance has been the main buyer while state-owned oil companies have made opportunistic purchases, according to Kpler data shared with CNBC. This shows that India is the largest supplier of these crude oils outside the US, and Reliance buys the majority of that crude oil.

“Reliance’s Jamnagar complex is a major destination for Venezuelan crude in India and we expect it to continue to be a major buyer,” Sumit Litoria, principal research analyst at Kpler, told CNBC.

— Priyanka Salve