Good morning. In dealing with America’s biggest companies, the commander in chief has no qualms about acting as the micromanager in chief.

• Taking command of CEOs: President Trump took his penchant for telling corporate bosses how to run their companies to another level Thursday by publicly calling on Intel’s chief executive to resign. The move wasn’t out of character: Trump has told Detroit carmakers not to raise prices and demanded Walmart “eat the tariffs.” He has pressured the Washington Commanders football team to change its name and wants Coca-Cola to use cane sugar instead of corn syrup.
   
• Discomfort among execs: All of that intervention is creating a risk for business leaders who thought they had largely figured out the Trump playbook. Public flattery and splashy U.S. investment announcements were supposed to placate the president and keep companies out of his Truth Social posts. Instead, the Republican is weighing in on business decisions in unprecedented ways, in industries from pharmaceuticals to banking and manufacturing.
   
• What they fear: Now that the president has called for the head of one CEO, the fear is that he will target others who displease him, executives and corporate advisers say.

Also: Intel’s CEO, Under Attack From Trump, Is Already at Odds With His Board

Meta, Robby Starbuck settle AI defamation lawsuit.

Meta Platforms has settled a defamation lawsuit with conservative activist Robby Starbuck, who alleged the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot falsely asserted he participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Under the settlement, Starbuck will advise Meta, the owner of Facebook, on efforts to curb what they describe as political bias in its AI tools.

SEC, Ripple drop litigation, leaving $125 million fine in place.

Cryptocurrency firm Ripple and the Securities and Exchange Commission have dropped a yearslong legal battle, Max Fillion reports for Risk Journal, leaving in place a $125 million fine a federal district court imposed for violations of investor-protection laws.

The SEC and the company announced Thursday they would drop cross-appeals of a July 2023 ruling in which a judge issued a split decision over the SEC’s allegations that Ripple failed to register $1.4 billion worth of sales of a digital token known as XRP.

• The Trump Justice Department is intensifying its pursuit of some of the president’s most vocal Democratic critics, opening investigations into New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff of California.
   
• The Trump administration plans to release “updated” versions of government climate reports from the past, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said this week. His statements, along with a new Energy Department report that questions the long-established scientific consensus on climate, has raised alarms among some climate researchers.
   
• A former investment advisor and TV personality who made a big bet on a market collapse in 2020 has been sentenced to five years in federal prison for fraud.
   
• Disney has reached a settlement with actress Gina Carano over a lawsuit alleging the entertainment giant wrongfully fired her from Star Wars series “The Mandalorian” over controversial social media posts.
   
• The Trump administration is warning Harvard University that it could take over its patents, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if a review finds the university hasn’t complied with federal law.
   
• President Trump is considering reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug, according to people familiar with the matter, after pot companies have poured millions of dollars into Trump’s political groups.

How much damage can Trump’s campaign against Russian oil inflict on Moscow?

President Trump has imposed a 25% tariff on India for buying Russian oil and considers similar measures for China. The move is intended to increase pressure on Moscow to end the war in Ukraine by reducing oil revenues.

The fundamental question now is whether these secondary sanctions, combined with other steps such as increasing arms deliveries for Ukraine, would convince the Kremlin to accept a cease-fire in the foreseeable future.

• Why India Can’t Afford to Jettison Its Relationship With Russia
• Ukraine and Europe Counter Putin’s Cease-Fire Proposal

Why poor nations got hit with higher tariffs than rich ones.

President Trump’s tariffs barrage has landed the heaviest blow on the very nations that global trade was supposed to help: poor countries.

For decades, the U.S. and other rich countries have granted special trading privileges to many poor countries, cutting tariffs and boosting market access to lend emerging countries a helping hand.

That hasn’t been Trump’s approach. In a new era of gloves-off trade negotiations, these poorer countries had the least leverage with a country the size of the U.S.

• Chief Executive Tim Cook sought new factory locales outside China, particularly in India, a prescient move that along with a new $100 billion U.S. investment will shield the company—for now.
   
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the new war plan approved by Israel’s security cabinet includes dismantling Hamas in Gaza’s central refugee camps in addition to Gaza City, a broadening that comes as he faces criticism internationally for expanding the war.
   
• European powers and Ukraine responded to Vladimir Putin’s cease-fire plan with a counterproposal that they say must serve as a framework so that coming talks between President Trump and the Russian leader can gain traction, according to European officials familiar with the talks.
   
• China’s downward pressures remained elevated in July, despite Beijing’s recent pivot to curb excess capacity that has fueled cutthroat competition among businesses.
   
• President Trump has directed the Pentagon to prepare options to use military force against Latin American drug cartels, according to a senior U.S. official.
   
• A recent McKinsey report pegged the collective outlay needed to meet AI demand over the next five years at around $7 trillion. But that doesn’t mean experts share a consensus view on the impact that AI spending is likely to have on the world’s biggest economy.

• Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is set to visit the White House Monday after President Trump called for his removal last week over ties to Chinese businesses, according to people familiar with the matter.
   
• The Trump administration is interviewing candidates to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics including at least one longtime critic of the agency, according to a senior administration official.
   
• Leopold Aschenbrenner, a 23-year-old artificial intelligence influencer, started Situational Awareness, an AI-focused hedge fund that now manages over $1.5 billion.
   
• Alexei Navalny’s death in a Russian prison cut short a high-stakes swap advanced by a U.S. diplomat who went rogue.
   
• Jamie Dimon wants JPMorgan Chase to become the biggest bank in the American South. So he summoned his top executives, chartered a bus and set out to explore Dixie.

Follow us on X at @WSJRisk. Send tips to our reporters Max Fillion at max.fillion@dowjones.com, Mengqi Sun at mengqi.sun@wsj.com and Richard Vanderford at richard.vanderford@wsj.com.

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