If you’re planning on flying soon, you may want to get to the airport early.

As the partial government shutdown drags into its second month, at least 366 TSA agents across the country have quit, according to the Department of Homeland Security—leading to staffing shortages and longer security lines. On Thursday morning, waits hit 90 minutes at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport and more than three hours at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental.

The next few days could be even worse. “This weekend will be the perfect storm—spring break and officers running out of money,” one TSA worker told Forbes, adding that officers “are at their breaking point” after missing a full paycheck last week.

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Fresh off of his experience as an executive at surveillance juggernaut Palantir, John Doyle launched an entirely different kind of startup: a privacy-first cellphone network. Cape provides calls, texting and data, but it won’t sell your data, track your location or leave you open to surveillance. The company announced a $100 million funding round on Thursday, and is now valued at $900 million.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos is aiming to raise about $100 billion for a new fund to buy up manufacturing companies disrupted by AI, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The fund is designed to be a “manufacturing transformation vehicle,” according to investor documents, and is likely connected to Project Prometheus—a secretive startup Bezos founded in November dedicated to using AI for engineering and manufacturing.

After a brutal morning in which all three major indexes stumbled to their lowest levels of 2026, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq and S&P 500 each recovered Thursday afternoon—though they all still ended the day facing losses. With a drop of roughly half a percent, the Dow finished below its 200-day moving target—used to track the long-term trend of an equity—for the second day in a row.

In its ongoing bid to compete with Alphabet-backed robotaxi firm Waymo, Uber announced Thursday that it would invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian through 2031, with plans to purchase 10,000 of the automaker’s upcoming R2 electric SUVs. An initial $300 million investment from Uber in Rivian is expected shortly after the deal’s signing, and Rivian’s shares were up nearly 4% on the day, after previously stumbling by more than 14% this year.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth didn’t deny a Washington Post report that the Pentagon is seeking $200 billion in additional funding for the war in Iran, telling a reporter Thursday that “it takes money to kill bad guys.” The reported figure comes after Pentagon officials told lawmakers that the war cost more than $11 billion in its first week alone, excluding the cost of personnel and other expenses.

SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT

The New York Yankees have topped Forbes’ ranking of MLB team valuations every year since 1998—but the franchise now faces some serious competition. While the Bronx Bombers still lead the pack with an estimated $8.5 billion valuation, the Los Angeles Dodgers are hot on their heels at $7.8 billion. And when it comes to revenue, the Dodgers are already outrunning the competition after posting an estimated $850 million in 2025.

ABC pulled the upcoming season of The Bachelorette—just three days before it was set to air—after TMZ published video footage on Thursday of the season’s titular star Taylor Frankie Paul being physically violent with her ex. The videos surfaced amid growing controversy surrounding a separate domestic assault investigation into the couple, and a Disney spokesperson said the company’s “focus is on the family.”

Qatar reportedly lost about $20 billion in future revenue this week, after Iranian strikes crippled the country’s liquefied natural gas export capacity. Hours after the strikes to Qatar’s facilities—which provide resources to ExxonMobil, Shell and other global energy firms—billionaire and former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani wrote that Iran’s attack threatens to push the “region toward the abyss of of a mad war.”

Why Wall Street’s 'Masters Of The Universe’ Are Losing Billions In Private Markets Pullback

Antony Ressler, the cofounder of private credit giant Ares Management, has spent decades building one of Wall Street’s most durable money machines. Now 64, he was an early and aggressive backer of non-bank direct lending, helping scale his firm into a $600 billion giant by lending to middle-market companies that were often neglected by traditional banks. The surge in assets—and the steady fee streams and dividends that came with it—propelled Ressler onto the Forbes 400 list of billionaire Americans in 2015 and financed a growing portfolio of assets, including the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks.

Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz rode a similar wave. The cofounders of Blue Owl built one of the fastest-growing firms in alternative assets by combining a scaled private credit platform with a booming secondaries business (buying stakes in other buyout firms), created through the merger of Owl Rock and Dyal Capital in 2021. The result: a $300 billion-plus firm whose rapid growth minted multibillion-dollar fortunes for its top executives, who purchased luxury real estate and stakes in sports teams.

These days, Ressler and the Blue Owl guys find themselves in an unfamiliar position—losing money rather than gaining it. Ressler’s net worth declined $3.3 billion between September and March as shares in Ares plunged 40%. Ostrover and Lipschultz lost around $1 billion between them as Blue Owl stock more than halved.

They’re in good company. Of the 19 wealthiest people who founded or are running publicly traded U.S.-based alternative asset managers, all of them saw their fortunes decline in the last six months. This small group collectively lost over $37 billion in wealth, according to data from Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires list (published last week) and the Forbes 400 list (published in September).

WHY IT MATTERS Driving the sector’s reversal are concerns about private credit portfolios and AI-driven disruption. Stress fractures appeared last summer after failures at subprime lender Tricolor and autoparts maker First Brands prompted Jamie Dimon to warn about hidden risks in the $2 trillion sector. The tipping point has been a broader reassessment of software borrowers as AI coding tools like Codex and Claude Opus threaten their economics, eroding valuations and debt-servicing capacity.

MORE How 3 Billionaire Investors Used AI To Double Their Fortunes In A Year

Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly’s experimental diabetes drug Retatrutide saw promising results with weight loss, blood sugar and overall cardiovascular health, according to a new study from the drug manufacturer:

15.3%: The percentage of body weight that patients taking the highest dose of Retatrutide lost after 40 weeks, an average of 33.3 pounds per participant

2.6%: How much of their body weight patients taking the placebo lost—about 6 pounds—over the duration of the trial

‘Meaningful improvements’: How Eli Lilly described the drug’s impact on cardiovascular health, including impacts to cholesterol, triglycerides and systolic blood pressure

If you’ve ever attended a symphony or orchestra performance, the person on stage with their back turned to the audience—their hands flailing in the air—is not so different from a C-suite leader trying to inspire and unite the many siloes of their business. Take it from Rafael Payare, music director and conductor of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra: “We are a hundred people on stage trying to channel a united vision. To portray a message, and it’s always about never losing the art of what we want to have.”

A world-famous pop group is expected to set music industry records as its upcoming comeback will include a new album, world tour and concert livestream on Netflix. Which band is returning to the spotlight?

Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire and Caroline Howard.

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