The AI boom requires a lot of power — and consumption is expected to more than double in the next five years.
At that pace, American data centers will consume at least 10% of total domestic electricity by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs. That could be cause for alarm, but others are more optimistic that the grid can step up. “Rapid demand growth should be good news,” writes Joseph Majkut, director of energy security at CSIS.
Some data center developers are building on-site power generation, while natural gas will power about 60% of the new demand. Longer term, a nuclear renaissance could help ensure adequate electrical capacity.
ElevenLabs, a small Polish startup founded by 30 Under 30 alumni, is competing against giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI to become the de facto AI voice generator. Despite controversies like fraudsters impersonating loved ones’ voices, the firm has raised more than $300 million, soaring to a $6.6 billion valuation and making it one of Europe’s most valuable startups.
The price of bitcoin continued to slide in early trading on Monday, falling more than 5%, briefly dropping below $86,000. U.S. stock futures also slumped early Monday in a downbeat start to December.
Legacy chipmaker Intel saw its stock pop 10% over Friday’s abbreviated trading session after an analyst report indicated increased odds of a partnership with Apple. Intel’s share price is up more than 102% since January, following the announcement of deals with the U.S. government as well as Nvidia.
In the years since Forbes launched its inaugural 30 Under 30 list in 2012, countless listmakers have gone on to see financial success in business, science, technology and beyond. But only 46 alumni have reached the rarified ranks of the World’s Billionaires, including Sam Altman, Vivek Ramaswamy and Taylor Swift. Remarkably, 19 of these super-rich alums have become billionaires just since the start of 2025.
Anthropic, the AI giant behind Claude, is making a serious push to tilt its business toward the lucrative enterprise market, racking up customers like L’Oreal, shopping rewards company Rakuten and tax-filing software Intuit. It’s making inroads, becoming the most popular vendor in the enterprise language model market, which hit $8.4 billion this year.
Billionaires and future Cabinet members were among the 46 donors who poured a combined $14 million into President Donald Trump’s second transition team, which released its donor list this week in the wake of criticism over keeping it under wraps. Some of the biggest names include now Commerce and Education Secretaries Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, though the transition team did not disclose how much each individual donor gave.
AI has made upgrading consumer gaming setups and computers more costly, as the memory industry operates with limited manufacturing capacity. An outside share of the supply is going to large, high-margin orders tied to generative AI, and prices for RAM, a computer’s short term memory, have jumped over 100% in the past few months, PCWorld estimates.
Prediction markets like Polymarket let thousands of ordinary people bet on future events — the unemployment rate, for example, or when bitcoin will hit an all-time high. In aggregate, prediction market bets have proven to be something of a crystal ball with the wisdom of the crowd often proving itself more prescient than expert opinion.
In October, New York Stock Exchange parent company Intercontinental Exchange announced it had invested $2 billion for an up to 25% stake in Polymarket, with 27-year-old founder Shayne Coplan announcing investments from other billionaires at the same time, including Figma’s Dylan Field, Zynga’s Mark Pincus, Uber cofounder Travis Kalanick and hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin.
Thanks to the deals, Polymarket’s valuation quickly shot to $9 billion, making the 2025 Under 30 alum the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, with an estimated 11% stake worth $1 billion. His reign was short: Twenty days later, he was overtaken as the youngest by the three 22-year-old founders of AI startup Mercor.
Still, Polymarket’s rapid rise has drawn critics. Dennis Kelleher, cofounder and CEO of Washington-based financial advocacy group Better Markets, told Forbes in an email that the Trump Administration’s deregulation around prediction markets has unlocked a regulatory “loophole” to enable “unregulated gambling” under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “which has zero expertise, capacity or resources to regulate and police these markets.”
WHY IT MATTERS Despite flashy investors, partnerships and a record $2.4 billion of trading volume in November, Polymarket has yet to launch in the U.S. or turn a profit. Coplan and his investors have hinted at ways the company could make money one day — selling its data, charging fees to users, launching a cryptocurrency token (similar to ethereum or bitcoin) — but decline to confirm any specifics. For now, the only thing that’s certain is the bet Coplan is making on himself.
MORE Why Billionaires Are Piling Into Prediction Markets
Despite persistent economic concerns and a dip in consumer confidence, Americans spent nearly 10% — or $1 billion — more on online deals this Black Friday than last year, according to Adobe Analytics:
$11.8 billion: How much shoppers spent on online shopping for Black Friday this year, up from $10.8 billion in 2024
7.1%: How much overall spending during the month of November has increased over last year, with the categories of electronics, apparel and home goods all seeing bumps in 2025
$253.4 billion: How much Adobe expects holiday spending will total this year, up from $241.1 billion in 2024
With two interest rate cuts this year so far, mortgage rates have fallen from 6.91% on average at the beginning of 2025 to 6.23% for a 30-year loan as of late November. Current rates have likely already accounted for an expected third cut by the Federal Reserve before the end of the year, so while 2026 mortgage rates are expected to trend lower, it may not be by much.
For the 10th year, Spotify is expected to launch what’s now called Spotify Wrapped to its more than 700 million active users this week. Based on recent launches, which day is Spotify Wrapped most likely to drop?
Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire and Chris Dobstaff.
