Stardust Power Inks SPAC Deal to Go Public on Lithium Demand Opportunity

Stardust Power has set sights on taking advantage of the ever-growing demand for lithium, a metal primarily used in ceramics and pharmaceuticals. Amid the ever-growing interest and demand for Lithium in powering electric vehicles, there has been an increased focus and interest in companies with tremendous exposure to the critical mineral.

Stardust Power SPAC Deal

Likewise, Stardust Power is one company that has elicited strong interest on Wall Street. Similarly, the company has announced plans to go public through a merger with blank check company Global Partner Acquisition Corp. II in a deal valued at $490 million. The company has already entered into a definitive agreement for a business combination with the special purpose acquisition company.

Under the terms of the agreement, Stardust is to become a publicly listed company on the NASDAQ trading under a new ticker, SDST.  The transaction is expected to close in the first half of next year. The company remains focused on becoming a leading producer of battery-grade lithium products to take advantage of the increases in electric vehicle adoption over the next decade.

With demand for lithium expected to increase by over 5,000% by 2030 as lithium-ion batteries are needed to power vehicles, Stardust intends to be at the center of the supply chain. Consequently, the company plans to construct a lithium refining facility in Greater Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma refinery site is on course to come online as it already has access to existing power, water supply, and wastewater treatment. It also has connections to significant railways that can be used to transport the raw materials and the final products. The facility is expected to draw hundreds of employees, helping support the local economy.

The facility will have a production capacity of 50,000 metric tons per year of American battery-grade lithium. Stardust Power plans to leverage direct lithium Extraction technology to recover raw lithium. The process is more efficient than traditional brining pond methods of production and is environmentally sustainable.

In addition, the facility is expected to take advantage of the little lithium refining capacity in the US as more gigafactories crop up across the country amid the growing demand for battery-grade lithium. Amid the minimum refining capacity in the US, most of the worldwide lithium resources are sent to China for refining at 85%.

Growing Lithium Demand

Stardust Power’s proposed new battery-grade lithium refining facility is expected to address the US push to reduce its reliance on China for crucial metals. The country boasts some of the highest lithium reserves at 17%, which can benefit immensely from domestic refining.

The facility should expand the US domestic manufacturing while helping secure the country’s energy dependence by reducing supply chain dependence. Much of the world’s lithium comes from South America and China, which dominate the supply chain for lithium-ion batteries.

Demand for lithium batteries is expected to grow sixfold by 2030, reaching $55 billion per year. This increase is fuelled by climate-conscious customers who are increasingly purchasing electric cars and shunning fossil-fuel vehicles. In addition, the US needs far more lithium to achieve its clean energy goals.

By Jody Godoy

(Reuters) -Few people can force OpenAI to change governance at the crisis-stricken artificial-intelligence company, and the head of Microsoft, a major financial backer, is not one of them, according to legal experts.

The nonprofit board overseeing the maker of the popular ChatGPT chatbot sent shock waves through Silicon Valley on Friday by abruptly firing Chief Executive Sam Altman. Nearly all of the company’s 700 employees signed a letter threatening to resign if the board does not step down, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has called for governance changes.

Microsoft did not immediately return a request for comment made after business hours on Tuesday.

The turmoil has left investors weighing their legal options and illustrated a divide over how the potentially disruptive technology can be developed safely.

Because it is a nonprofit, the only people who could force the current board of OpenAI to step down or change are judges or state attorneys general, said Alexander Reid, an attorney at BakerHostetler who counsels nonprofit organizations.

Attorneys general oversee and investigate nonprofits, and have wide latitude to seek reforms.

“Even if they don’t go to court, their mere presence typically gets results,” he said.

Attorneys general can enact everything from leadership changes to complete shutdown of an organization, usually after finding fraud or illegal conflicts of interest.

Hershey Co is one example. The trust that controls the candymaker agreed in 2016 to replace certain board members after the Pennsylvania attorney general challenged the trust’s spending.

Darryll Jones, a law professor at Florida A&M University, said the U.S. Internal Revenue Service is another source of accountability.

“There is a whole boatload of scholarship noting that nonprofit enforcement is severely lacking, but for the most part nonprofits are pretty good at self-policing if only to avoid scandal that would impact donations,” he said.

OpenAI’s for-profit arm was under the full control of a nonprofit, an arrangement meant to insulate decisions about a potentially powerful technology from being driven by corporate greed.

Because of that, investors who have collectively plowed billions of dollars into the startup face hurdles to suing the board over Altman’s firing, though sources have told Reuters some are considering legal action.

Under OpenAI’s bylaws, only directors can remove or elect new board members. The arrangement, known as a self-perpetuating board, is very common in the nonprofit world, said Reid.

There are currently four people on the board: three independent directors, and OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. The latter worked with the other board members to remove Altman and former President Greg Brockman, but has since said he “deeply regret(s)” the action.

Outside of government enforcers, Sutskever may now be the only person in a position to formally challenge the board’s decision.

Board members can sue other board members, either directly or on behalf of the organization, for failing to exercise their duties, said Reid.

But typically such court battles are fought only when there is suspected malfeasance connected with spending or compensation, he said.

In fights over organizational direction or control, the more common play is for the organization to split.

“You just form another nonprofit that does it slightly differently,” he said.

OpenAI has already survived one such break.

The cofounders of Anthropic, who were also executives at OpenAI until 2020, had broken from their employer over disagreements regarding how to ensure AI’s safe development and governance.

Whether OpenAI survives the rift between its board and employees will likely be determined in the next few days.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Tom Hals and Matthew Lewis)

By Chavi Mehta, Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis

(Reuters) -Chip designer Nvidia said on Tuesday it expects a steep drop in fourth-quarter sales in China – a key revenue generator – in the wake of new U.S. rules, but forecast overall revenue above Wall Street targets as supply-chain issues ease.

Nvidia, whose graphics processing units (GPUs) dominate the market for AI, is set to take a hit from the vastly expanded U.S. export controls on what the company can sell to China. Sales of the affected chips made up nearly a quarter of Nvidia’s datacenter sales in the past few quarters.

“Export controls will have a negative effect on our China business, and we do not have good visibility into the magnitude of that impact even over the long term,” Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said during a conference call with analysts.

Kress also confirmed reports that the chip giant is developing newly compliant chips for China but those won’t materially contribute to fourth- quarter revenue.

Nvidia stock, which has climbed more than 240% this year, slipped 1.5% in volatile after-hours trading.

The company also faces risks in Israel, whose military is embroiled in a conflict in Gaza and where Nvidia’s networking business is headquartered. Sales from that unit, whose gear is used in AI supercomputers, rose 155% from a year ago. Kress said the networking business exceeds a $10 billion annualized run rate.

The chipmaker said a significant portion of its employees based in Israel have been called up to active military duty, and if the war continues, their absence could hurt its future operations.

Nvidia forecast adjusted gross margins of 75.5% for the fourth quarter, above analyst estimates of 72.64%, according to LSEG data. But the company’s China troubles could make those margins hard to maintain.

“The company suggested the hit to sales from restrictions would be offset by other regions; however, there were scant details on this. It also begs the question, with margins so extraordinarily high currently, will these offsetting markets support such high margins?” Capital.com analyst Kyle Rodda said.

Still, Nvidia said it expects supply for its AI chips to improve as it prepays to make sure it gets factory priority. It outsources manufacturing to contract chipmakers like TSMC.

Demand for AI servers has grown rapidly. Research firm TrendForce estimates shipments to rise about 40% this year, thanks to their use in powering products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

BOOMING PROFITS

Nvidia forecast current-quarter revenue of $20 billion, plus or minus 2%. Analysts polled by LSEG expect revenue of $17.86 billion.

Adjusted third-quarter revenue tripled to $18.12 billion, ahead of an average estimate of $16.18 billion. Data center revenue jumped 41% to $14.51 billion, while gaming revenue rose 15% to $2.86 billion.

Excluding items, the company earned $4.02 per share, beating estimates of $3.37 a share.

In response to the newest round of U.S. export rules, Nvidia has already come up with three new products for the Chinese market.

But those China-focused chips could consume vital research resources at Nvidia and could end up banned just like its first round of China market chips, said Jacob Bourne, analyst at Insider Intelligence.

“Nvidia’s move to develop specialized chips for the Chinese market, while a strategic response to export restrictions, faces challenges,” Bourne said.

U.S. officials unveiled a new batch of restrictions in October and said they will continue to update them as needed.

Last week, the company also introduced a new AI chip called the H200, which will offer superior performance to Nvidia’s current top H100 processor.

The H200 includes additional high-bandwidth memory, one of the most expensive parts of the chip, which determines how much data it can crunch quickly.

Rival Advanced Micro Devices had earlier touted the quantity of high-bandwidth memory on one of its competing AI chips.

Major tech companies including Alphabet’s Google, Amazon.com and most recently Microsoft have announced AI chips produced by in-house design teams in addition to purchasing Nvidia’s hardware for their own data centers.

Building custom chips can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take years, but gives the major cloud companies the ability to include features tied specifically to their AI needs.

Microsoft unveiled a duo of custom-designed computing chips earlier this month, one of which can run large language models.

Chinese tech company Huawei’s AI chip is also gaining traction from local firms as U.S. pressure makes it hard to access Nvidia chips.

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru and Max A. Cherney in San FranciscoAdditional reporting by Stephen Nellis in San FranciscoEditing by Arun Koyyur, Sayantani Ghosh, Matthew Lewis & Shri Navaratnam)

By Chavi Mehta and Max A. Cherney

(Reuters) -Chip designer Nvidia forecast fiscal fourth-quarter revenue above Wall Street targets on Tuesday as supply-chain issues ease, but a cloudy outlook for China sales weighed on shares that have more than tripled in price this year.

Nvidia, which outsources manufacturing to chipmakers like TSMC, has said it expects supply for its AI chips to improve each quarter, with the company making prepayments and placing noncancellable orders to ensure suppliers prioritize its chips.

Demand for artificial-intelligence servers has grown rapidly, with research firm TrendForce estimating shipments to rise about 40% this year, thanks to their use in powering products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

But the red-hot market for AI chips is playing out in the context of vastly expanded U.S. export controls on what Nvidia can sell to China. While the company said on Tuesday that it expects those lost sales will be more than made up for by demand from other countries, shares slipped about 1% in after-hours trading following the quarterly results. The shares had risen more than 240% this year.

“Investors appear to be concerned over the negative impact of widening U.S. curbs on sales of its high-end chips to China,” said Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at Investing.com.

Despite the expanded China chip export curbs, analysts expect Nvidia’s order books to be full until at least August next year, as demand for its AI chips, especially in the United States, continues to outstrip supply.

The company expects current-quarter revenue of $20 billion, plus or minus 2%. Analysts polled by LSEG expect revenue of $17.86 billion.

Adjusted third-quarter revenue rose 206% to $18.12 billion, compared with estimates of $16.18 billion.

Quarterly data center revenue jumped 41% to $14.51 billion, while gaming revenue was up 15% to $2.86 billion.

Excluding items, the company earned $4.02 per share, beating estimates of $3.37 a share.

But the company also gave some warnings, saying that a quarter of the company’s data center segment sales come from China and that other regions such as the Middle East are now affected by new U.S. export controls.

“We expect that our sales to these destinations will decline significantly in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, though we believe the decline will be more than offset by strong growth in other regions,” Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said in prepared remarks.

The chip designer has already come up with three new products for the Chinese market in response to the expanded U.S. controls on exports, a source and analysts said.

U.S. officials unveiled a new batch of restrictions in October and said they will continue to update them as needed.

Last week, the company also introduced a new AI chip called the H200, which will offer superior performance to Nvidia’s current top H100 processor.

The H200 includes additional high-bandwidth memory, one of the most expensive parts of the chip, which determines how much data it can crunch quickly.

Rival Advanced Micro Devices had earlier touted the quantity of high-bandwidth memory on one of its competing AI chips.

Major tech companies including Alphabet’s Google, Amazon.com and most recently Microsoft have announced AI chips produced by in-house design teams in addition to purchasing Nvidia’s hardware for their own data centers.

Building custom chips can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take years, but gives the major cloud companies the ability to include features tied specifically to their AI needs.

Microsoft unveiled a duo of custom-designed computing chips earlier this month, one of which can run large language models.

Chinese tech company Huawei’s AI chip is also gaining traction from local firms as U.S. pressure makes it hard to access Nvidia chips.

Reuters reported earlier this month that Baidu ordered 1,600 of Huawei’s 910B Ascend AI chips – which the Chinese firm developed as an alternative to Nvidia’s A100 chip – for 200 servers.

(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru and Max A. Cherney in San FranciscoAdditional reporting by Stephen Nellis in San FranciscoEditing by Arun Koyyur, Sayantani Ghosh and Matthew Lewis)

By Stephen Culp

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks dipped on Tuesday and gold touched a two-week high while minutes from the Federal Reserve’s most recent meeting showed the central bank is “in a position to proceed carefully.”

All three major U.S. stock indexes ended slightly lower, with the tech-laden Nasdaq down the most ahead of Nvidia’s results after the closing bell. The chipmaker forecast fourth-quarter revenue above estimates. Its shares were last slightly lower in extended trading.

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both snapped five-day winning streaks.

“We’ve had a very sharp rally, and some profit-taking was probably overdue,” said Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist Ingalls & Snyder in New York. “A lot of traders want to take money off the table on a day like today ahead of the holiday.”

The Fed’s minutes from its Oct. 31-Nov. 1 meeting showed the policy makers wrestling with conflicting signals and agreeing to continue with caution after voting to leave the Fed funds target rate at 5.25%-5.50%.

The minutes “confirm the statement from the last meeting and (Chairman Jerome) Powell’s news conference afterward that the Fed is likely on hold for now,” Ghriskey added. “If inflation re-accelerated they would likely have to act, but absent that, we’re in a period of higher-for-longer rates and we take them at their word for that.”

On the economic front, existing home sales tumbled to their lowest level in more than 13 years as rising mortgage rates and low inventories kept potential homebuyers on the sidelines.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 62.75 points, or 0.18%, to 35,088.29, the S&P 500 lost 9.19 points, or 0.20%, to 4,538.19 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 84.55 points, or 0.59%, to 14,199.98.

European shares closed slightly lower as banking stocks weighed ahead of the Fed minutes release.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 0.09% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.18%.

Emerging market stocks rose 0.25%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 0.42% higher, while Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.10%.

Benchmark Treasury yields inched lower after a poorly received auction of 10-year inflation protected notes and the Fed minutes failed to reveal any new policy decisions.

Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 3/32 in price to yield 4.4101%, from 4.422% late on Monday.

The 30-year bond last rose 6/32 in price to yield 4.5643%, from 4.575% late on Monday.

The greenback edged higher against a basket of world currencies, stemming the tide of its recent downturn after the Fed minutes suggested rates will remain in restrictive territory for some time.

The dollar index rose 0.16%, with the euro down 0.26% to $1.091.

The Japanese yen was flat versus the greenback at 148.40 per dollar, while sterling was last trading at $1.2534, up 0.24% on the day.

Crude prices pared earlier losses to settle nearly flat as investors looked ahead to Sunday’s scheduled OPEC+ meeting.

U.S. crude dipped 0.08% to settle at $77.77 per barrel, while Brent settled at $82.45 per barrel, up 0.16% on the day.

Gold surged to a two-week high, and briefly broke through the $2,000 per ounce level on expectations that the Fed has reached the end of its tightening cycle.

“Gold’s been in a bit of a rally and part of that is geopolitical concerns and investors looking for a place to hide,” Ghriskey said.

Spot gold added 1.1% to $1,998.42 an ounce.

(Reporting by Stephen Culp; Additional reporting by Samuel Indyk and Ankur Banerjee in London; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Marguerita Choy)

By Anna Tong, Krystal Hu and Jody Godoy

(Reuters) -Some investors in OpenAI, makers of ChatGPT, are exploring legal recourse against the company’s board, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday, after the directors ousted CEO Sam Altman and sparked a potential mass exodus of employees.

Sources said investors are working with legal advisers to study their options. It was not immediately clear if these investors will sue OpenAI.

Investors worry that they could lose hundreds of millions of dollars they invested in OpenAI, a crown jewel in some of their portfolios, with the potential collapse of the hottest startup in the rapidly growing generative AI sector.

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

Microsoft owns 49% of the for-profit operating company, according to sources familiar with the matter. Other investors and employees control 49%, with 2% owned by OpenAI’s nonprofit parent, according to Semafor.

OpenAI’s board fired Altman on Friday after a “breakdown of communications,” according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

By Monday, most of OpenAI’s more than 700 employees threatened to resign unless the company replaced the board.

Venture capital investors usually hold board seats or voting power in their portfolio companies but OpenAI is controlled by its nonprofit parent company OpenAI Nonprofit, which according to OpenAI’s website was created to benefit “humanity, not OpenAI investors.”

As a result, employees have more leverage in pressuring the board than the venture capitalists who helped fund the company, said Minor Myers, a law professor at the University of Connecticut. “There is nobody exactly who is in the seat of an injured investor,” he said.

That is a feature, not a bug of OpenAI’s structure, which started out as a nonprofit but added a for-profit subsidiary in 2019 to raise capital. Keeping control of operations let the nonprofit preserve its “core mission, governance, and oversight,” according to the company’s website.

Nonprofit boards have legal obligations to the organizations they oversee. But those obligations, such as the duty to exercise care and avoid self-dealing, leave a lot of leeway for leadership decisions, experts said.

Those obligations can be further narrowed in a corporate structure such as OpenAI, which used a limited liability company as its operating arm, potentially further insulating the nonprofit’s directors from investors, said Paul Weitzel, a law professor at the University of Nebraska.

Even if investors found a way to sue, Weitzel said they would have a “weak case.” Companies have broad latitude under the law to make business decisions, even ones that backfire.

“You can fire visionary founders,” Weitzel said. Apple famously fired Steve Jobs in the 1980s, before bringing him back around a decade later.

(Reporting by Anna Tong in San Francisco and Krystal Hu in New YorkAdditional reporting by Jody Godoy in New YorkEditing by Tom Hals, Kenneth Li, Lisa Shumaker and Matthew Lewis)

By Stephanie Kelly

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil prices eased on Tuesday after rallying for two sessions, as investors turned cautious ahead of Sunday’s scheduled OPEC+ meeting when the producer group may discuss deepening supply cuts due to slowing global economic growth.

Brent crude futures was down 41 cents, or 0.5%, to $81.91 a barrel by 11:16 a.m. EST (1616 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell by 44 cents, or 0.6%, to $77.39.

Both contracts had climbed about 2% on Monday after three OPEC+ sources told Reuters the group, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allied producers, was set to consider whether to make additional oil supply cuts when it meets on Nov. 26.

OPEC+ is likely to extend or even deepen oil supply cuts into next year, eight analysts have predicted.

“We see some scope for the group to do a deeper reduction, but we would anticipate that Saudi Arabia would seek additional barrels from other members to share the burden of the adjustment,” said RBC Capital analyst Helima Croft.

Investors took profits ahead of the OPEC+ meeting and the U.. Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, which typically yields lower trading volumes in oil.

“Traders are covering before the holiday,” said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group. “The market is getting back on track.”

Short-term speculators also took profits on WTI after several indicators were overbought on technical charts, Singapore-based OANDA analyst Kelvin Wong said.

Market participants awaited industry data later on Tuesday on U.S. crude supplies. Analysts polled by Reuters expected inventory reports this week to show crude and gasoline stockpiles rose. [API/S] [EIA/S]

Oil has fallen about 16% since late September as crude output in the U.S., the world’s top producer, held at record highs, while the market was concerned about demand growth and economic slowdown.

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly in New York; additional reporting by Alex Lawler in London, Florence Tan in Singapore and Yuka Obayashi in Tokyo; editing by Kirsten Donovan, Jason Neely and David Gregorio)

Nvidia Partners SandboxAQ to enhance Batteries and Drug Discovery Using AI

Nvidia has inked a strategic collaboration with   SandboxAQ to accelerate the development of new materials for medicines and batteries. As part of the strategic collaboration, SandboxAQ will help the chip giant enhance the capabilities of its CUDA software platform, which is at the heart of developing artificial intelligence applications.

Nvidia SandboxAQ Partnership

Nvidia is teaming up with the startup spun off Alphabet to accelerate the process of simulating quantum mechanics that is key to chemical, biological and material science. A combination of the startup’s AI simulation capabilities with the chip giant’s computing and quantum platforms is expected to accelerate the discovery of new materials and chemical compounds.

The chemical compounds and materials up for development are crucial to transforming various industries, especially the medical space. They are also expected to address some of the world’s biggest challenges, more so in the electric car space where the development of electric batteries that can support long range on a single charge is crucial.

The strategic collaboration comes against the backdrop of Nvidia updating its H100 artificial intelligence processor. The world’s most valuable chipmaker has added more capabilities to the chip as it seeks to affirm its dominance in the AI computing market. H200 is the new chip that will have the capability to use high bandwidth memory therefore able to cope with large data sets for developing and implementing AI

The updated chip will keep up with the growing size of data sets used to create AI models and services. It will also be much faster in bombarding software with data. While the current version is already famously in high demand, the updated version elicits strong interest from Amazon Web Services, Oracle and Google’s Cloud.

SandboxAQ is perfect for Nvidia as it boasts of a simulation technology that relies on quantum algorithms that have been too big and complex to run on computers. With the help of powerful chips like Nvidia’s A100 and H200, the startup should be able to address the underlying challenges and develop crucial materials.

In addition to focusing on developing materials for medicines and batteries, the collaboration could also lead to the creation of applications that will significantly help the services sector. The two also plan to redefine the energy industries with better innovation as part of their collaborations.

Quantum Computing Push

Nvidia’s collaboration with the $4 billion startup is crucial to the push for an error-free quantum computer. There is a need to have a technology that can process vast troves of data millions of times faster than most powerful supercomputers.

Companies like Alphabet’s Google are racing against time to build a practical quantum computer, hoping to leapfrog existing technologies. Faster information processing is also crucial in accelerating drug development. The US   is spearheading quantum computing development to stay ahead of China.

President Joe Biden’s administration has already imposed limits on US investments in Chinese quantum computing firms. The restriction is part of the US push to avert the possibility of China developing the next generation of surveillance technologies

By Chris Taylor

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Danielle Miura had a lot of dreams for what her life might look like at age 25. Then life stepped in.

Suddenly the financial planner from Ripon, California, was thrust into the role of caregiver for her beloved grandmother Neda who fell on a tile floor, broke her hip and faced mobility limitations.

For three years, Miura chipped in time, money and care, taking her grandmother to the emergency room so often that she got to know all the hospital security guards by name. That continued until Neda passed away at the age of 91.

“It was very stressful,” said Miura, now 28, who helps others in this situation at her advisory Spark Financials. “I neglected my own health in the last year of caregiving. It definitely took a toll on me.”

Indeed, one in five American adults provides uncompensated care for loved ones with health problems, according to a new report from the TIAA Institute and University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

On average, the expenses involved – from housing to healthcare to transportation – add up to more than $7,000 a year.

As a result, almost half of caregivers say they have suffered financially: withdrawing from their own savings, taking on debt, paying bills late, or cutting back on retirement contributions.

It is a quiet crisis, and a tricky one to solve.

“What stands out for me is the number of people who are not only caregivers, but financial caregivers too,” said Surya Kolluri, who heads the TIAA Institute. “They basically become the family bank, providing money out of their own pockets. That puts a lot of pressure on them.”

No wonder caregivers’ financial lives are impacted: On average they have fewer assets and higher debt than non-caregivers, the report found. A quarter of them have less than $1,000 in savings or investments.

Here are three ways caregivers can minimize the financial hit:

TWEAK SCHEDULES AND TAP BENEFITS

Caregiving takes not just money, but also a fair amount of time – 24 hours a week on average, the TIAA Institute report shows. That can lead to work issues like arriving late, leaving early, taking extended time off or even early retirement.

But you may not even be aware of workplace benefits that could help, including geriatric care management services, paid family leave and emergency backup care.

Even your workday could be tailored to your needs, with an increasing number of flextime and work-from-home options that bloomed during the pandemic.

“Benefits are critical, but people often don’t even know they exist or avail themselves of them,” said Mary Naylor, director of Penn Nursing’s NewCourtland Center for Transitions and Health. “There are lots of ways that employers can make the lives of their caregiving employees more productive.”

CRAFT A FINANCIAL PLAN

Introduce caregiving into the equation and financial planning becomes more complicated.

Now you are dealing with issues like when to use the loved one’s own assets to cover the cost of care; when and how to tap state or federal resources, which may be able to help with issues like assisted living; and how to choose the right insurance, for health coverage or additional policies like long-term care.

A growing number of programs pay family members who are assuming the caregiving role. One company that helps make that happen is called Aidaly.

DO NOT DO IT ALONE

You might be tempted to be the family hero and take on all the caregiving responsibilities yourself, but going solo is a recipe for emotional burnout and financial ruin.

To get a sense of whether you are pushing yourself too far, check out the Caregiving Intensity Index developed by the organization ARCHANGELS.

Remember that others could likely contribute money or time or both as well, including siblings, children, friends, cousins and in-laws. By spreading out responsibilities, you can ensure that the entire load does not fall all on your shoulders.

For advice and tools about where to go for help, check out the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Family Caregiver Alliance and National Alliance for Caregiving.

As costly as caregiving may be, both emotionally and financially, Danielle Miura said the experience was priceless.

“When my grandfather passed in 2015, the last thing we told him was that Neda would be comfortable until she passed away,” she said. “That was our promise to him – and we kept that promise.”

(Reporting by Chris Taylor; Editing by Lauren Young and Richard Chang)

By Jeffrey Dastin

(Reuters) – OpenAI’s board of directors approached rival Anthropic’s CEO about replacing chief Sam Altman and potentially merging the two AI startups, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei declined on both fronts, the people said.

The news, reported earlier by The Information on Monday, follows various reported calls to find Altman’s successor days after OpenAI’s board ousted him.

OpenAI declined to comment and board member Adam D’Angelo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Sunday the board offered ex-Twitch CEO Emmett Shear to be its interim chief, who accepted. Meanwhile, Altman agreed to join the startup’s backer Microsoft along with other key personnel from OpenAI. By Monday, nearly all of the startup’s more than 700 employees threatened to quit, including one of its executives on OpenAI’s now four-person board.

The co-founders of Anthropic, who were also executives at OpenAI until 2020, had broken from their employer over disagreements regarding how to ensure AI’s safe development and governance.

Anthropic has won investments from Alphabet’s Google and Amazon.com. Its Claude AI models have vied for prominence with OpenAI’s GPT series.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco and Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Sam Holmes)