FTI Consulting News Bytes – 24 April 2026

FTI Consulting News Bytes

This week’s news

Tim Cook bids farewell 

In the biggest news of the week, Apple announced John Ternus will become the new Chief Executive at Apple, bringing an end to Tim Cook’s 15-year tenure at the helm. Under his leadership, Apple went from around $350bn to roughly $4 trillion in market cap, with the iPhone becoming a global phenomenon, AirPods becoming a cultural signal, and services quietly growing into a $100bn+ business. According to the Financial Times, Ternus has risen through the ranks over the past 25 years and currently oversees the hardware engineering arm of the company. In Cook’s announcement, he stated that Ternus was “without question the right person to lead Apple into the future” and “he has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honour.” During the transition, Tim Cook will assume the role of executive chairman and continue to serve on Apple’s board as the company works to refine its AI strategy and manage ongoing trade tariff challenges.

Meta to study employee work patterns 

Meta is reportedly set to launch a new AI tracking software as part of an initiative that could see AI agents deployed to perform work tasks autonomously. Reuters reports that an internal memo was sent to employees explaining that the tool, called Model Capability Initiative (MCI), will run on work-related apps and websites and will also take occasional snapshots of the content on employees’ screens. While a Meta spokesperson highlighted that MCI would not be used for any performance-related assessments, it does point to a path to automate more functions. The tool will track mouse movements, button clicks, keystrokes and dropdown menus. The purpose, according to the memo, was to improve the company’s AI models in areas where they struggle to replicate how humans interact with computers, like choosing from dropdown menus and using keyboard shortcuts.

Microsoft hit with cloud computing lawsuit

The UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (‘CAT’) has ruled that a £1.7bn ($2.3bn) collective action lawsuit against Microsoft can proceed to trial, Bloomberg reports. The case, brought by Dr Maria Luisa Stasi, alleges that Microsoft overcharged businesses using its software on rival cloud platforms, potentially affecting around 59,000 companies and organisations. Tribunal judges found the claimants had “reasonable prospects of success,” citing concerns that Microsoft’s licensing practices may have distorted competition. Microsoft has confirmed it will appeal the ruling, with a spokesperson emphasising that the decision “makes no final determination on those claims.”

IMF warns of risk of AI circular financing 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that opaque “circular” financing deals between major AI companies pose a “systemic spillover” risk to the global financial system, as per The Times. These arrangements, in which tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon invest in startups that then use that capital to buy the investors’ own chips or cloud services, can artificially inflate revenues and obscure market fundamentals. According to the IMF’s global financial stability report, this high level of interconnectedness creates a dangerous environment where an isolated shock to one firm could be non-linearly amplified across the industry. While the massive hyperscalers currently possess strong balance sheets, the IMF projects that the estimated $3.4 trillion in AI capital expenditure required through 2029 could eventually exhaust their cash buffers. With comparisons to the 1990s dotcom bubble, the IMF cautions that these complex dependencies increase the likelihood of overstretched valuations and broader market volatility.

SpaceX looks to acquire Cursor 

SpaceX has reached a deal to potentially acquire Cursor, an AI-powered coding startup, for $60 billion. Prior to this, Cursor was finalising [KA1] a $2 billion funding round at a $50 billion valuation. Under the agreement, SpaceX will either complete the acquisition later this year or provide Cursor with $10 billion to collaborate on AI development. The move allows SpaceX, which recently merged with xAI, to challenge industry leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic in the lucrative AI coding sector, according to TechCrunch. SpaceX is delaying the final purchase until after its summer IPO to simplify financial filings and utilise its public stock for financing. Analysts have described the deal as mutually beneficial: Cursor secures massive capital and computing resources to compete with rivals, while SpaceX gains an established AI workforce and a strategic pivot. By integrating Cursor, SpaceX aims to transcend its status as a space company and capture the higher market valuations currently reserved for AI pioneers.

Top Tweets of the Week

• Merryn Somerset Webb, Senior Columnist, Bloomberg: The AI podcast you have been waiting for. I trailed it last week. 1.6m X impressions. So here it is. Why LLMs might be a false start and data centre capex the biggest misallocation of capital EVER. Free to listen. 
• Financial Times: AI chatbots misdiagnose in over 80% of early medical cases, study finds https://t.co/PfbPwqDcxd 
• Bloomberg: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that Anthropic’s Mythos breakthrough shows that the US should seek greater cooperation with China so AI researchers in the world’s two largest economies can agree on how to safely use the technology.

Number of the week

$600bn The amount U.S. hyperscalers’ AI infrastructure expenditure is set to reach in 2026, as reported in CNBC.