CNBC

Voya Financial CEO Heather Lavallee explains to CNBC’s Sharon Epperson why caregivers and people with disabilities may be missing out on key financial benefits, such as ABLE accounts, and what employers should do to help meet these employees’ needs. Watch the full interview here: cnb.cx/4dpLWdR

A slew of tech mega-IPOs are ahead and traders expect they’ll push Warren Buffett aside on their first day of trading. SpaceX was valued at $1.25 trillion in February, and Polymarket traders think there’s a 56% chance it closes its first trading day above $2.2 trillion. OpenAI was last valued at $852 billion, and traders think there’s a 65% chance it ends its first public trading day above $1.4 trillion. More details: cnb.cx/42U7Ykb

Stephen Colbert's final appearance on "The Late Show" on Thursday marked the end of his 11-year run in his staple late night television slot. But one day later, he found a way back on TV: a Michigan public access station. Colbert was a surprise guest host Friday evening on Monroe Community Media's "Only in Monroe." The station services Monroe, Michigan — a town south of Detroit, near the state's border with Ohio — and the surrounding county of the same name. At 11:35 p.m. local time, viewers of the channel saw Colbert appear on their screens.

Lydia Holmes and John Clarke started small when they launched their restaurant business – really small. In 2021, the Orange County, California-based couple opened their first restaurant, LJ’s Lil’ Cafe, in a 200-square-foot shed in a Home Depot parking lot. They also opened a brick-and-mortar location in July 2025. The two restaurants together brought in $2.3 million in sales in 2025, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Learn how the couple built their restaurants into what they are today: cnb.cx/4tEU4xZ

U.S. consumers will shell out more for everything from fuel to hot dogs and hamburgers heading into Memorial Day weekend as the Iran War reignites inflation. Total inflation for shoppers rose 3.8% in April from the same month a year ago, the highest annual rate since 2023, according to federal government data released this month. Prices for travel, recreation and food saw especially sharp increases, draining Americans' wallets as they ring in the unofficial start of summer. "They're not going to be happy about what they see," said Stephen Juneau, senior U.S. economist at Bank of America. "There will be a lot of grumbling this weekend when people are driving and in the airports, or are going to the store to stock up."

Fully responsible, trustworthy technology is an almost impossible mandate in a tech landscape that prioritizes speed — but that doesn't mean some companies aren't trying. On the heels of the Trump administration's national AI legislative framework on March 20, in which "winning the AI race" remains paramount, tech developers face tension between the common ethos of moving fast and breaking things versus strategically implementing responsible tech frameworks from the start. Getting ahead has, in many instances, taken the driver's seat, the cost of which has become clear. Microsoft's self-admitted realization that AI-generated code often forgoes accessibility makes human oversight and iteration a must.

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Gigi Gonzalez has a new rule for herself: She doesn’t work Fridays. For the rest of the workweek, Gonzalez keeps her schedule tight, working Monday through Thursday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. That wasn’t the case one year ago, when Gonzalez says she logged a more traditional 40 hours of work a week as her own boss running The First Gen Mentor, where she’s a financial educator, content creator and author. It’s not that she’s landed a sudden windfall or considerably increased her rates. Rather, Gonzalez moved from Chicago to Valencia, Spain, with her husband in May 2025. Since then, her personal expenses have gone down enough to make a 16-hour workweek possible. Learn how the move has transformed her work-life balance, her finances and her outlook on a long-term future abroad: cnb.cx/4boF8O0

SUZHOU, China — Just over a week after the U.S. and Chinese presidents met in Beijing, the world's two largest economies are sending different messages about their priorities for Asia. First is tariffs. China's economy relies significantly on exports — and the free-flow trade — as it accounts for about 28% of the goods made globally, according to CNBC calculations of World Bank data.

South Korea must ensure that wealth created by artificial intelligence benefits the wider public, Deputy Prime Minister Bae Kyung-hoon said, even as the country grapples with labor tensions at Samsung Electronics and a stock-market rally increasingly powered by its biggest chipmakers. Speaking to CNBC's Lisa Kim on Friday, Bae said the AI era has raised broader questions over how wealth generated by the technology should be distributed, whether AI could worsen inequality and whether it could lead to job losses. "Recent labor-management conflicts can also be seen as part of this broader trend," he added, referring to Samsung Electronics, where a planned 18-day strike by unionized workers was suspended Wednesday after government officials stepped in at the last minute to head off a walkout.