Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre is already unpopular with Donald Trump, who blames his government for not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize, and recently dismissed Norway as a “shithouse country.” 

Now Støre is casting doubt on the U.S. president’s bullish prediction that a “big, beautiful” peace deal is close to being signed to end nearly five years of Russia’s full-scale war with Ukraine. 

In an interview with POLITICO ahead of the restart of talks in Abu Dhabi, Støre gave a sober assessment of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s mindset and the chances of an imminent ceasefire. 

And as the White House touts plans to overhaul the established security order in Europe, Støre bluntly warned that the continent’s defenses must not become a bargaining chip in the negotiation to end the war in Ukraine.

“I would be cautious,” Støre said, when asked what he expected to come out of the latest talks scheduled for the United Arab Emirates. “Abu Dhabi is a stepping stone, and one output of it should be a follow-up quite soon after.”

According to Støre, the Abu Dhabi agenda will potentially include talks about a ceasefire for the Black Sea to allow grain to be safely transported, a ceasefire on energy infrastructure, a front-line freeze in the conflict, and other “confidence building measures” such as prisoner swaps. There has also been work on the question of security guarantees to ensure Putin does not attack again, he said.

Negotiating teams from Moscow and Kyiv are due to sit down with the United States in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 10-11. It is the first three-way meeting the sides have had since February, and comes after a month of intensifying diplomacy and increasingly impatient demands from Trump to deliver a deal. 

Norway’s leader has found himself at the center of the storm more than once in that time. Working with his close friend and regional ally, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, Støre tried to rescue the faltering peace process last month by hosting a meeting with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Oslo. 

That got Ukraine and America back on the same page and prepared the ground for the Abu Dhabi discussion. But a day after the Oslo meeting, Witkoff was in St. Petersburg praising Putin to his face as a “humanitarian,” a statement that horrified many of Ukraine’s European allies. 

Støre said he is too diplomatic to reveal how the remark made him feel. But he added: “It would not have been part of my vocabulary.”

Given Witkoff’s pivotal role in the negotiations, as well as Trump’s own recent declaration that Russia has been “fine” in Ukraine, does Støre trust these individuals as guardians of a fair peace process for Ukraine? Should Europe trust them, or not? 

For all his tact and experience as a foreign minister, the 66-year-old Norwegian’s reply is not a straightforward yes. “I trust that the U.S. is seeking a way to end this war,” he said. 

Hotline to the Kremlin

On Oct. 27, Støre and Stubb took matters into their own hands. Rather than wait for the U.S. to negotiate a deal with Putin that would have vast ramifications for Europe, they picked up the phone to call the Kremlin directly. 

It was a rare outreach from pro-Ukraine leaders to Putin, who has been frozen out by Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. Their 90-minute call stunned and dismayed some of the Nordics’ neighbors in countries such as Denmark and Latvia, who believed Europe should continue to isolate the Russian aggressor.

Støre rejected that idea and defended their decision to open up a line of communication directly to the Kremlin. “Let’s admit it. He is not isolated,” he said. “The only voice reaching Moscow comes from Washington.”

While Norway and Finland have good relations with the American negotiators, the war is happening in Europe, he said. “Living month by month … thinking that this war will end by Europe not talking to Moscow, I think, is an illusion … We believe that there should be European voices reaching Putin, with the message of why and how we support Ukraine.” 

Rational. Not a peacemaker

Having spoken to Putin, how would Støre characterize his state of mind? Did he seem rational in the conversation?

“I would describe it as professional. I would describe it as rational,” he said. “It was a conversation where we agreed the principles — we would not interrupt, we will keep [to] statements. His arguments were perfectly clearly transmitted.”

Some reports suggested that Putin used the call to lecture the two Nordic leaders on Slavic history as his justification for the war, an impression the Norwegian wants to correct: “I just have to say, you know, I was present. He didn’t.”

Does Støre believe Putin wants peace? “Well, if he had wanted peace, there would have been no war at the outset. If he had wanted peace during these five years, when he sees that his country is regressing, that neighboring countries are becoming members of NATO, that his people are being killed, and all these terrible things, the war would have ended. So that is one side to that.”

But at the same time, “the fact that he picks up that phone” to talk “I think that signals, at least that there’s a readiness to sit down.” And while Støre has not seen signs “so far” that Putin is genuinely open to a deal, sending a team to Abu Dhabi and being responsible for “not delivering anything” also has “a price.”  

Later this week, European leaders are due to debate who should represent them in Ukraine negotiations when they meet for an informal summit in Dublin. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is particularly frustrated that the EU has so far failed to make a plan for how to make sure its voice is fully heard when decisions are made. 

Støre said he had followed the debate about whether somebody should be “talking on behalf of a larger group” in Europe — “and I think there should be.”

It could be one individual, or a different arrangement, he said. Crucially, Europe needs to decide on its core collective messages and goals and then appoint a person or people to deliver those to Trump and Putin, he said. Increasingly, Støre said he had been looking to the so-called E3 to play this role — Europe’s biggest three economic powers, Germany, France and the U.K.

Whoever ends up speaking for European interests, one urgent task facing the region is how to stop Trump and Putin carving up a new security plan, raising fears in Europe over cuts to the U.S. troop presence, or weakening NATO’s role — a longtime goal of Russia’s leader. 

Last week, Trump and his team suggested the U.S. was working on a major overhaul of European security that the president said might involve “the whole of Europe.” 

Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner said the goal was “to develop practical arrangements that address the security concerns of all sides.”

But rolling the future of America’s role in European security into a negotiation about ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is not acceptable to Norway, or Støre says, to other Nordic-Baltic countries. 

“Any issues relating to European architecture on security will have to be dealt with after the end of the war,” Støre said. “Russia keeps floating the ideas they had in the end of [2021] about where there could be NATO and where there could not be NATO. That is not for Russia to decide. This has nothing to do with this point in the negotiations.” 

In private, some European officials are resigned to the fact that Trump’s recurrent bashing of NATO allies has already weakened the effectiveness of the alliance as a deterrent against Russian aggression.

Støre insisted NATO remains in good shape. “We can discuss whether this or that statement helps,” he said. “I think sometimes it’s hard to say yes, they do help.”

BRUSSELS — As European leaders prepare to project urgency at their first joint meeting on artificial intelligence, their governments are missing important AI safety and infrastructure targets.

The bloc’s 27 leaders are meeting Friday in Dublin to discuss how to accelerate efforts to stay safe and be more competitive on artificial intelligence.

Yet 16 capitals have missed a deadline to appoint a national authority to enforce the bloc’s AI safety law, and Brussels has also pushed back an effort to support the buildout of data centers because of national administrative delays.

European Parliament lawmaker Sergey Lagodinsky, a German member of the Greens, said the delays are undermining capitals’ credibility when speaking about Europe’s AI ambitions.

“Stop blaming the EU for missing the race if you miss your own deadlines,” he said. “Europe’s AI ambitions cannot be delivered if national capitals cannot get their act together.”

In a letter seen by POLITICO, Lagodinsky asked the European Commission to start a formal procedure against capitals for failing to meet their legal requirements under the AI law.

Safety has been a growing concern for EU leaders amid a series of incidents of rogue AI agents over summer, more recent cyberattacks and ominous warnings of possible existential risk for humanity from those inside the industry.

Brussels has repeatedly pointed out that the EU has regulation in place — its flagship Artificial Intelligence Act — to guard against the threats.

With an August 2025 deadline to appoint the national enforcement authority, six countries — Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia and Hungary — have not selected an authority, while 10 other capitals have only made a provisional decision that still needs to be adopted, the Commission confirmed.

Beyond safety, European Council President António Costa said in his invitation letter to Friday’s meeting in Dublin that a key topic will be how to make Europe less dependent on the U.S. and China for the technology underpinning artificial intelligence.

But the EU has also delayed the infrastructure buildout necessary for Europe to be competitive, by pushing back plans to support seven AI compute hubs across Europe.

The department running that €30 billion investment project announced at the end of October that it would extend the deadline for consortia to express their interest in building these hubs that include massive AI data center projects in different countries.

The stated reason for the postponement was “to give member states the necessary time to complete their national budgetary process and submit financial commitments.”

It was the second delay in a row, after the initial November deadline moved to February.

Jan Kavalírek, who had a brief stint last year as the Czech government’s AI envoy and is involved in the Czech bid, posted on LinkedIn: “Apparently, some paperwork wasn’t submitted on time,” alongside a shrugging emoji.

“I think it’s very important, that it’s essential that we keep some timeline and condition that were presented at the beginning,” he told POLITICO.

“Of course, this also applies to the member states, which should be able to keep up with the deadlines and deliver all necessary documents in time to Brussels.”

Data is redefining modern defense operations. The ability to master and manage it is now a decisive factor in military victory or defeat. Few people know that better than Jean Charles Ellermann-Kingombe, assistant secretary general for cyber and digital transformation at NATO.

In a recent interview preceding NATO Edge 26, the Alliance’s annual defense innovation show, Ellermann-Kingombe is very clear on the kind of digital transformation effort it takes to get the right data into the hands of military leaders operating in high-pressure situations, at exactly the time and place they need it.

Data-sharing must be a core design principle, he says: “The bottleneck is often not technology, but permission: classification boundaries, national rules and trust decisions.” Once data is well managed, an even bigger opportunity arises to use AI as “an enabler of military effectiveness,” he says, assisting commanders and operators further.

He adds: “For NATO, the biggest difference AI can make is in decision advantage. Modern operations generate volumes of data that no human organisation can process unaided at the speed required. AI can help fuse information, detect patterns, support planning, prioritise scarce resources and accelerate staff processes, providing commanders with better insight, earlier warnings and more resilient options.”

As powerful as it is, AI can only reliably accelerate defense mission outcomes if it is built on vast, relevant and quality data. Data is the fuel that will power the shift to software-defined defense, an approach that delivers military capability through flexible, modular software rather than rigid, hardware-bound platforms.

THE CHALLENGES OF MASTERING DATA

Software-defined defense, AI and the challenge of mastering the data that powers both, will be hot topics for attendees at NATO Edge 26, due to be held in Izmir, Türkiye, in November and expected to attract over 3,000 participants and more than 270 technology partners, including Elastic.

We will be there because we know that many attendees will be looking to better understand what software-defined defense will demand of them in data management terms.

As powerful as it is, AI can only reliably accelerate defense mission outcomes if it is built on vast, relevant and quality data. Data is the fuel that will power the shift to software-defined defense.

Bringing data together from many intelligent systems and smart devices demands real rigor. After all, in order to make critical operational decisions, military personnel need to be able to see the big picture, quickly searching for information in both structured and unstructured data formats across a vast array of different systems.

Defense data naturally lives wherever operations happen — across land, sea, air, space and cyber domains — and is stored in different formats like images, audio transcripts, documents and geospatial, reaching across thousands of different mission systems.

These can include communications systems that keep troops connected in the field; systems used to manage artillery devices; reconnaissance systems; radar stations; and geographical information systems that support military leaders in tracking assets, planning missions and routes, and analyzing risks and threats, including potential ambush sites and minefields.

In order to make critical operational decisions, military personnel need to be able to see the big picture, quickly searching for information in both structured and unstructured data formats across a vast array of different systems.

On top of all this, organizations like NATO face an additional layer of complexity. Building a common operational picture across the digital environments of 32 member nations requires multi-intelligence fusion of massive volumes of data held in disparate systems, from legacy databases and classified networks to cloud platforms and security tools.

OPERATIONAL ADVANTAGE

Addressing these challenges means turning all this data into operational advantage and mission readiness, accelerating the ability of armed forces to respond to situations by increasing their situational awareness and decision speed.

The answer is a data mesh architecture. Rather than consolidating everything into a traditional data lake, a data mesh approach manages data where it originates and lives, without moving or duplicating it; so it can be searched, queried and analyzed from multiple access points across the entire environment, including allied partners such as NATO member nations. That is what turns scattered data into one unified operational picture with near real-time insights, and context, giving commanders the situational awareness and decision speed that mission-readiness depends on. In my view, it is the most flexible and scalable way to get there.

It also speaks directly to the permission bottleneck Ellermann-Kingombe describes. Because data stays under the control of the nation or system that owns it, access can be governed by policy at the source, with classification boundaries and national rules enforced where the data lives rather than negotiated away in a central repository.

Rather than consolidating everything into a traditional data lake, a data mesh approach manages data where it originates and lives, without moving or duplicating it.

A data mesh approach is sustainable because of its reliance on open standards. They enable defense organizations to connect systems that were never designed to work together, from legacy platforms to dispersed infrastructure, so data stays findable and can be effectively analyzed across the environment. Interoperability stops being a barrier as new partners and data sources join, and new tools can be integrated without rebuilding systems or making major investments. The architecture scales alongside the Alliance’s growth.

Without a unified view, the risk of losing operational advantage to adversaries extends from the battlefield into cyberspace. Zero Trust depends on connecting authentication logs, network traffic and application telemetry where they already sit, so that traditionally separate domains can be visualized and analyzed together. When a user accesses sensitive data, the system must verify not only who they are but also their device status, network path, and the time and location of access. If those checks are slow or impossible, threats can remain undetected and escalate through systems. A data mesh built on open standards connects the pillars of a Zero Trust architecture, allowing organizations to accelerate implementation without replacing the tools they already have.

When the manual efforts of military data analysts struggle to keep pace with the scale and speed of events on the ground, AI can work faster and more accurately.

The same logic is already visible in large government organizations: CISA’s new SIEM-as-a-Service platform uses open standards to give US federal civilian agencies a consistent approach to threat detection and response.

As AI’s value in supporting human decision-making becomes increasingly clear, a data mesh architecture provides the foundation to apply agentic AI capabilities holistically. It enables complex organizations to analyze the vast amounts of data their systems generate, find actionable correlations and separate signals from noise. When the manual efforts of military data analysts struggle to keep pace with the scale and speed of events on the ground, AI can work faster and more accurately. It also lets analysts ask questions across structured and unstructured data and rapidly receive answers grounded in reliable sources.

The numerous tech challenges facing the modern military calls for closer NATO-industry cooperation, and that’s why NATO Edge 26 is such an important event. All 32 sovereign member states that make up the Alliance use different systems, yet they rely on secure, trusted data-sharing with each other as the foundation for cooperating on military operations and sharing intelligence. It’s vital that they can turn to industry innovators to support their operational needs.

At a time of great geopolitical uncertainty, with data increasingly considered a primary defense asset, NATO members face growing pressure to turn it into operational advantage and readiness before adversaries do. We look forward to discussing how at NATO Edge 26.

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LONDON — MPs are moving toward a vote next month on the first step in a major restoration of Britain’s crumbling Houses of Parliament, after Andy Burnham’s government lent fresh impetus to the long-stalled project.

The Palace of Westminster has been in limbo for more than a decade, with MPs, peers and parliamentary authorities in disagreement over the best way to repair the 19th-century building, which is plagued by leaks, fires, asbestos and antiquated plumbing and wiring.

Successive governments have been reluctant to champion renovating parliament amid fears of a public backlash over the enormous cost. The main options on the table for refurbishment have been estimated to cost between £11 billion and £39 billion.

But signs suggest Burnham, who entered Downing Street in July, is sympathetic to calls to speed up the process.

Government whips have discussed holding a debate and vote on starting “preparatory works” for restoration in early December, according to three people with knowledge of the plans.

Alan Campbell, leader of the House of Commons, told MPs in October:  “The longer we postpone it, the more it costs not just to keep this place functioning, but to eventually get round to doing something about it.”

A government aide, granted anonymity like others in this piece to speak candidly, said: “No-one wants to be holding the baby when disaster strikes.” But they also cited day-to-day concerns short of a full-scale disaster that could render the building inoperable.

They warned of a scenario in which the Palace could be certified as unsafe to enter due to fire or structural risk. That would see MPs and peers allowed in as normal but all other personnel — including office staff, caterers and reporters — blocked at the gates.

A parliamentary official briefed on internal discussions about restoration said Burnham’s senior advisers “appeared positive” about the opportunities provided by the project, which will call for specialist tradespeople and conservationists.

A December vote would allow contractors to begin a program of work, including procurement processes and building surveys, estimated to cost £3 billion over seven years. But it would not determine the final option for wholesale restoration, which will only be decided in 2030.

The eventual options will be a “full decant” where all MPs move to another building and a program known as “enhanced maintenance and improvement plus” which would allow the House of Commons to remain in the Palace throughout the works.

Two of the three people cited above said Conservative Party bosses intend to instruct their MPs to block preparatory works. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said earlier this year that restoration plans were “out of control” and had “turned into a basket case white elephant project.”

A report published Wednesday by the cross-party public accounts committee said: “Without action, at best the Palace will be in a process of managed decline. At worst, a catastrophic event could occur that endangers lives and interrupts the functioning of democracy in the U.K.”

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a Tory MP who chairs the committee, told POLITICO they were “very keen that the government gets on, has this debate, has a vote, and phase one starts.”

Corridors in the Palace’s sprawling basement are currently so packed with gas lines, water pipes, electrical wiring and redundant infrastructure that workers can only walk down them in single file. It has a misting system to mitigate the risk of fire, and extra safety measures have been introduced in recent years to guard against falling masonry that has come loose on several occasions.

The costs of ad hoc maintenance and repairs reached £1.56 million a week in 2025, up from £1.45 million a week in 2023.

The Cabinet Office declined to comment.

A U.K. parliament spokesperson said: “Work is already happening across the parliamentary estate to ensure the ongoing safety of those working here and visiting,” adding: “The [restoration] proposals are expected to be debated by all Members of both Houses to decide a way forward.”

Ask a 22-year-old and a 70-year-old in the UK today whether they use digital tools to manage their money, and the answer is increasingly the same: yes. Ask them whether they feel confident doing so, and you get two very different answers.

Financial empowerment is the term we use to refer to the knowledge, skills, tools and opportunities that allow an individual to take control of their financial life and improve their financial wellbeing over time.

Britain increasingly banks, budgets and borrows online — a shift made possible at scale by advances in digital technology and the data and analytics behind it. But how confident people feel doing it is the real story of financial empowerment in Britain right now, and it offers valuable insight for policymakers and industry alike.

Different lives, shared financial ambitions

For a decade, Lloyds Banking Group’s Consumer Digital Index has tracked how people across the UK engage with digital technology and the confidence they have in doing so. Its analysis shows that more than 75 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have used artificial intelligence (AI) for personal finance in the past year — the highest adoption of any generation. Yet they’re also the least confident using the tools they’ve adopted: just 64 percent of 18- to 24-year-old digital tool users feel confident using them, rising steadily to 85 percent among 65- to 74-year-olds.

Britain increasingly banks, budgets and borrows online — a shift made possible at scale by advances in digital technology and the data and analytics behind it.

Look across the UK and the picture shifts again. According to the index, London is the UK’s AI finance capital — 49 percent of digitally engaged respondents use it weekly, reporting the nation’s highest average savings of £562 after following AI-powered recommendations.^* Yet Londoners who use digital tools feel less confident doing so than anyone else in the country. Wales leads the UK on financial engagement and knowledge — how actively people manage their finances and how well they understand them — with the highest proportion nationally of those surveyed saying digital tools have helped them grow their pensions and investments. Yorkshire and the Humber leads on digital budgeting, and Northern Ireland shows some of the lowest adoption alongside some of the strongest outcomes among those who do engage.^** How people use digital tools to manage their money across the UK is as varied as the lives, places and ambitions behind it.

These insights insist that financial empowerment should be a national priority. While people across different generations and in different places are engaging with digital money tools differently, the ambition is the same — to have confidence, capability and control over their financial future.

It can’t be enabled in the same ways to everyone. A 20-year-old in Croydon, a 45-year-old in Leeds juggling debt and family costs, and a 70-year-old in Cardiff drawing down a pension will need different things to feel confident in managing their money online.

While people across different generations and in different places are engaging with digital money tools differently, the ambition is the same — to have confidence, capability and control over their financial future.

But strip away the age and the postcode, and what people want is remarkably consistent: the confidence to decide, the capability to act, and the control to plan ahead without being derailed by the next bill.

That’s the common connection between a Gen Z Londoner testing an AI budgeting tool and a Boomer in Edinburgh checking her pension pot on an app before bed.

Financial access is only the starting point

The UK has made big steps toward building digital access — nearly nine in ten digital tool users across the UK (88 percent) now manage their money online weekly. That’s a real achievement, but access was never the finish line and cannot be taken for granted.

A second goal is to turn that access into outcomes, in ways that reflect how differently people actually experience money. That means building financial education into schools and workplaces earlier and closing the trust gap around AI-generated advice for the younger users adopting it fastest. Places with the least developed financial habits should be given support designed for their circumstances, not advice scaled down from somewhere else.

As the UK’s largest digital bank, with around 22 million customers now managing their money through our apps, we have as much reason as anyone to get this right — and a role to play in doing it. Our ambition is to make finance simpler, smarter and more connected for every moment that matters, which is why we’re using AI, data and digital tools in practical, purposeful ways to help customers make better financial decisions and protect themselves from harm. By using our reach, technology and connectivity, we can help more people and businesses build stronger financial futures and realise their ambitions.

Financial empowerment is a national economic opportunity

The size of the prize is substantial. Independent research commissioned by Lloyds Banking Group and led by the University of Nottingham puts the value of turning digital access into financial confidence at up to £100 billion for the UK economy over the next decade — roughly £3,500 per household.

Our ambition is to make finance simpler, smarter and more connected for every moment that matters, which is why we’re using AI, data and digital tools in practical, purposeful ways.

Confidence changes what people do with their money. Instead of just getting through the week, they start to plan, adapt and invest in what comes next. Multiply that across millions of households, and the effect stops being personal and starts being national.

Digital access got the UK this far. Confidence, capability and control are what will get it the rest of the way — and building them should be a national priority.

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Notes:

^*Savings figures are self-reported estimates and are not verified against transactional data. They should be interpreted as perceived impacts rather than guaranteed outcomes.

^**The Northern Ireland outcome findings are based on a small sample, n<100, and should be interpreted as indicative rather than statistically representative of the wider population.

Night falls in the European capital. Everything’s quiet, but the nightmares are about to begin.

Viktor Orbán’s ghost haunts the Schuman roundabout; ash from the bonfire of red tape covers the Justus Lipsius building; Ursula von der Leyen’s chief of staff, Björn Seibert, chases after staffers demanding to know what “associate membership” for Canada actually means; and MEPs tremble at the prospect of construction workers uncovering the skeletons of political intrigues past during renovations.

Scared? You should be.

Here’s our guide to who is terrified of whom in the Brussels bubble. 

Everyone is scared of Marine Le Pen

The person haunting EU diplomats, officials and lawmakers is French presidential front-runner Marine Le Pen. Will she really halve Paris’ contribution to the EU budget, as promised? Will she pull Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni away from the Brussels mainstream? And will she demand von der Leyen’s head?

The bubble had warmed (slightly) to the idea of Jordan Bardella in the Élysée Palace, after his years leading the National Rally’s European operation revealed a certain pragmatism toward Brussels — only for those hopes to be shattered when a Paris appeals court cleared Le Pen to be a candidate for the presidency.

The next ECB chief is scared of Jean-Luc Mélenchon

The European Central Bank president is the euro’s last line of defense against unorthodox national economic decisions — but that could be tested by French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is on course to reach the runoff after vowing to set billions of euros of French debt “on fire.” His incendiary plan calls on the Frankfurt-based ECB to waive interest payments on a vast tranche of French bonds — an unorthodox, perhaps impossible, maneuver that critics warn could even see France kicked out of the euro.

Now that we know Christine Lagarde will step down as ECB president in February, what France’s presidential candidates want to do about its monumental debt pile will haunt the race for her successor, with Dutchman Klaas Knot and Spaniard Pablo Hernández de Cos as the two frontrunners.

Lobbyists are scared of ChatGPT

The number of amendments lawmakers have filed has exploded since generative AI arrived, with key EU laws now facing thousands of proposed text changes. Parliament officials don’t think it’s a coincidence, with some pointing to amendments written in suspiciously bot-like language, and others saying sometimes amendments cite legislation that does not even exist.

The growing pile of amendments is haunting lobbyists, parliamentary assistants and officials forced to track and sort through it all — along with the fear that AI could eventually replace them. Spare a thought, too, for the MEPs who may have to vote through the amendments one by one, with hands raised in plenary. 

Commission officials are scared of Austria’s Europe minister

Well-heeled Commission officials (and their families) are spooked by Austria’s Europe Minister Claudia Bauer, who has been leading a push to slash the Commission’s administration expenditure — which pays eurocrats’ salaries and offices — in the next seven-year budget. The campaign, backed by most EU capitals, resulted in an 8% cut to the admin budget in the latest budget proposal.

Bauer is so feared that EU officials joke they reduce their delegations’ size whenever they travel to Austria.

Jessika Roswall is scared of Stéphane Séjourné and Valdis Dombrovskis

Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall and her department have reason to fear industry boss Stéphane Séjourné, who is taking the lead on the upcoming Circular Economy Act, despite Roswall’s official title of Commissioner “for a Competitive Circular Economy.” Making matters spookier, Roswall’s environment department now shares the Breydel building with Séjourné’s internal market and industry department, setting the stage for some chilling corridor encounters as Roswall pushes for greater environmental protection while Séjourné prioritizes industrial growth.

Roswall is also under pressure from EU simplification chief Valdis Dombrovskis to cut red tape on several environmental laws. The Latvian commissioner, who oversees the omnibus packages, wants a deal before year-end. Meanwhile, the center-right European People’s Party continues to press the Commission to reopen laws on birds, habitats, and water — the EU’s oldest nature protection laws — so they can be simplified too.

Alexander Stubb is afraid of Kaja Kallas and António Costa

Kaja Kallas has not publicly addressed the call that Finnish President Alexander Stubb made to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, but the EU’s top diplomat has made clear she dislikes such outreach. Still, if Putin offered serious talks and concessions, Kallas would be the obvious person to answer: as coordinating EU foreign and security policy is her job. “Of course I will talk if such an opportunity presents itself,” she told Estonian media in September when asked about speaking with Putin or his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Also reaching for the phone: António Costa. EU diplomats note that the European Council president represents the bloc at the leaders’ level abroad. That institutional turf war may explain why Stubb stressed that he and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Støre spoke only for their own countries — not for Europe.

Manfred Weber is scared of his own group …

What keeps the leader of the European People’s Party — Europe’s largest political family — up at night? Divisions within his own ranks. So far, Weber has kept a tight ship and wants to reunite his troops ahead of the 2029 EU election, which he is casting as a battle against the far right. But that may prove tricky as the EPP’s national delegations increasingly clash over whether to work with the far right or isolate them.

… and the group is scared of Ouarda Bensouag

Central to Weber’s strategy is Ouarda Bensouag, the group’s secretary-general and his chief of staff. One of his most trusted lieutenants, she has a reputation as a smart but ruthless operator who EPP staffers fear when crossing paths in the Parliament’s labyrinthine hallways.

No one is scared of the Parliament … but they should be

Parliament’s attempts to spook capitals over the next long-term budget have been borderline tragic so far: It keeps threatening to kill the budget, but nobody seems to care or believe it will.

They should care. When it comes time to pass the budget, 361 of 720 votes will be needed, and the margin could be razor-thin in a fragmented chamber that’s hostile to plans to pool farm and regional funds. The louder MEPs protest — and the longer the Council ignores them — the more determined they become to prove the threat is real.

By Max Griera, Gregorio Sorgi, Kathryn Carlson, Nick Vinocur, Jakob Weizman, Fiona McNally and Eliza Gkritsi

SAN FRANCISCO — Billionaire opponents of California’s proposed wealth tax have spent more fighting it than they ever have on a political cause in the state, according to a POLITICO analysis.

A record $612 million from more than 70 current and former California billionaires is flooding this year’s state elections, nearly half of it for groups working to defeat Proposition 40, the wealth tax initiative on Tuesday’s ballot, POLITICO found.

The fight over Prop 40 has brought California’s wealthiest residents — many from its native tech industry — together in an unprecedented show of political coordination, the new data reveals. Tech leaders say the wealth tax has accelerated plans for broader political engagement this cycle, building networks that could be the foundation for future campaigns.

It’s a particularly striking display of unity from Silicon Valley’s notoriously hard-to-organize donor class. Google co-founder Sergey Brin is by far the well-funded opposition’s biggest benefactor, with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, venture capitalist John Doerr, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison and crypto executive Chris Larsen also among those who have contributed the most dollars in trying to stop the billionaire tax.

The possibility of a tax on their assets has drawn more than $293 million from at least 30 California billionaires, the majority of whom made their fortunes in tech but otherwise span industries, from agriculture to real estate — as well as the political spectrum, from established Democratic megadonors to some Republican allies and first-time donors.

Frank Slootman, the billionaire board chair and former CEO of cloud data company Snowflake, said he only had a “moderate” interest in politics despite giving $5 million to an anti-Prop 40 group, arguing that the measure erodes private property rights and the state’s economic dynamism.

“This upends the most basic assumptions we have about being a taxpayer and a resident of a state,” said Slootman, who has no prior record of California campaign contributions. “I vote in most elections, that’s about it. This is not about politics for me — it is far more important than that.”

The other half of billionaires’ spending this year came largely from Tom Steyer, a rare billionaire endorser of Prop 40 who bankrolled his own failed gubernatorial bid — the most expensive primary campaign in state history.

Even longtime strategists who have worked for statewide candidates and California’s costly ballot battles struggled to find a historical parallel for the coordination or scale of billionaire spending against Prop 40.

Rob Stutzman, a Sacramento political consultant whose past campaigns have involved a billionaire gubernatorial candidate and record-breaking ballot spending over sports betting, said that Silicon Valley leaders see Prop 40 as an “existential threat to tech in California” and the innovation that has taken root in the region for decades.

“Having to defend against a direct assault is a more unifying principle,” Stutzman told POLITICO. “They’re known for their pet issues that are harder to organize their peers around, but you can circle the wagons to protect yourselves. There is nothing that focuses similar-situated people.”

Proponents of Prop 40 contend the measure is necessary to backfill federal health care cuts.

The last year billionaires in California came closest to spending at this level was 2010, when they dropped $147 million on state races and measures, according to POLITICO’s analysis — a total that’s just over half of what the current wealth tax proposal mobilized. Most of it was the result of billionaire Meg Whitman, a former CEO of eBay and Hewlett-Packard, self-funding her unsuccessful Republican campaign for governor.

Scott Ellis, a millionaire and Prop 40 supporter who formerly served as a senior director at HP, described the magnitude of billionaire spending to fend off the measure as “a completely different animal” than past examples of “a lot of money spent by a rich person to get themselves elected.”

“People with wealth and extreme wealth are getting much more brazen than they used to be,” Ellis told POLITICO. “These people have tremendous resources. They have an incredible range of choices to make, including choosing to oppose this kind of ballot measure.”

Representatives for several billionaire opponents of Prop 40, including Schmidt, Larsen and agricultural titan Stewart Resnick, declined to comment on POLITICO’s findings.

Others, like Doerr, referred POLITICO to Building a Better California, a new Brin-led political operation that has become the primary vehicle for billionaire money against Prop 40.

The group defended the importance of its cause, arguing the measure would “permanently devastate” the state tax base and budget while undermining the health care funding it’s intended to patch.

“We are fortunate to be supported by entrepreneurs and business leaders who have built their businesses and created hundreds of thousands of jobs here, and who share a deep commitment to advancing policies that will improve quality of life for all and protect the state’s economic, jobs, and innovation engine for generations to come,” Building a Better California spokesperson Abby Lunardini said in a statement.

Debru Carthan, vice president of the SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West union behind the billionaire tax, responded to the contributions, saying, “no amount of billionaire spending is going to intimidate us or turn us back.”

A reawakening

Tech leaders have told POLITICO that the wealth tax awakened a sleeping giant in California politics: their previously disengaged industry peers, who months ago suddenly started spending across the ballot to steer California in a more moderate, business-friendly direction. The threat injected the wider political organizing, some of which preceded the measure’s introduction, with a new sense of urgency.

“The tech community has wanted to become a bigger player in California politics,” said veteran Democratic strategist Steven Maviglio.

“They’re building an infrastructure, I think, for the long term because they’ve become a dominant player in our economy, and they now, after literally a decade of being hands-off, want to be very involved because they see the consequences,” Maviglio, who is working on a separate housing and environment-related ballot fight where Schmidt’s wife, Wendy Schmidt, has given $10 million, told POLITICO.

Earlier efforts to unify faltered amid strategic disagreements and overinflated fundraising promises. That was especially apparent in the push to rally Silicon Valley around San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, a business-friendly candidate with a background in startups, during the California gubernatorial primary.

Although Building a Better California wasn’t spared its share of donor turmoil, an initial patchwork of opposition efforts eventually consolidated resources under the Brin operation’s strategy, devised with the help of veteran ballot-measure consultant Ned Wigglesworth.

The group also brought on fundraisers associated with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s inner circle. Newsom has publicly opposed imposing a billionaire tax at the state level.

In addition to funding Prop 40 attacks, several billionaires claimed to have fled the state to avoid the tax. Brin, for example, registered to vote in Nevada. Because the one-time, 5% tax on assets would apply to billionaires who lived in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026, POLITICO’s analysis covers billionaires with recent California ties, based on information from Forbes, the progressive nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness and news reports.

Some of those billionaires made their moves quietly, highlighting a split over how they should respond to the possibility of the tax passing.

“This has been a point of friction between me and some of my other billionaire friends,” Palmer Luckey, the billionaire founder of defense tech giant Anduril, said on a call with reporters this week. “They’ve said things like, ‘Palmer, you have to have solidarity for us. You can’t enable these really bad policies. If you stay and if you don’t leave, it’s going to show them that there’s no consequences.’”

Luckey, a vocal critic of the tax who hasn’t donated to the opposition campaign, added, “I’m planning on staying in California. I’m going to keep fighting it. I’m hoping that this doesn’t pass.”

Meta revealed a plan last week incentivizing CEO Mark Zuckerberg to stay near the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters after the longtime California resident told a special committee of his board he was considering leaving over the tax. He also hasn’t challenged Prop 40 through political contributions.

DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, who poured almost $3.5 million into trying to prevent the wealth tax, was one of three members on the special committee negotiating with Zuckerberg.

Behind the money

Brin is single-handedly putting $102 million behind Building a Better California as it campaigns to sink Prop 40. This year, he’s also backed unsuccessful runs by Republican Chad Bianco and the moderate Mahan in the gubernatorial primary, plus Republican Steve Hilton’s campaign for governor. Federally, he’s given close to $450,000 to the Republican National Committee.

But before this cycle, Brin had been a sporadic donor, gone dark for many years. His last disclosed political donation in California was in 2010 — for $200,000 to join other Silicon Valley leaders in opposing an ultimately defeated ballot measure that would’ve suspended a state climate law.

Some of the billionaire donors — Slootman, Roblox CEO David Baszucki, Robinhood co-founders Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev, Figma CEO Dylan Field, fintech executive Max Levchin and software founder Andrew Karam — have no history of spending on California politics before this year, according to state campaign records.

Tenev said in a statement that he donated to Building a Better California to support one of two other measures the group has advanced, which is designed to invalidate Prop 40 and would prohibit new taxes on various forms of personal savings.

“Special taxes on retirement and unrealized investment gains run contrary to the intent of the investment vehicles that have helped millions of Americans build wealth for the long term,” the Robinhood chief executive said. “History shows us that taxes aimed at a few have often been extended permanently to include more taxpayers over time.”

Another Building a Better California donor, Doerr, on the other hand, was a pioneer in shaping how Silicon Valley engaged with politics and Washington. He co-founded TechNet in 1997, which launched a political action committee as a key part of its strategy. Today, the influential industry trade association manages both federal and state-level PACs on top of a vast bipartisan lobbying network, with Google, Stripe and Kleiner Perkins among its many corporate members.

The wealth tax has also brought former Sequoia venture capitalists, Michael Moritz and Doug Leone, onto the same side after they previously diverged on California’s partisan redistricting fight at the ballot last year. They spent $7.5 million and $100,000, respectively, on groups fighting Prop 40.

Leone is a prolific Republican donor who re-endorsed President Donald Trump in 2024, while Moritz has consistently criticized Trump and chided his supporters in Silicon Valley for making a mistake.

No less than a dozen of the billionaires spending on groups that oppose Prop 40 are current CEOs — including DoorDash’s Xu, Roblox’s Baszucki, Robinhood’s Tenev, Stripe’s Collison, Affirm’s Levchin, Schmidt of rocketmaker Relativity Space, Hemant Taneja of top venture capital firm General Catalyst, Field of design platform Figma and Parker Conrad of HR software provider Rippling.

Collectively, they’ve plowed at least $88 million into their cause.

Several more of the billionaires in POLITICO’s analysis chair influential companies and firms. The opposition effort has received $40 million from Doerr, the Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist; $17.5 million from Larsen at the crypto company Ripple; and $2 million from George Marcus at the Bay Area real estate titan Marcus & Millichap — to name a few.

Will they come together again?

Whether the campaign infrastructure built by billionaires and the tech industry for the midterms will endure is still an open question.

Other new tech-funded groups this cycle have promised to play the long game and framed their plans around at least a decadelong horizon. Building a Better California itself has also committed to sticking around for the foreseeable future.

California political observers point to the size of the Brin-backed operation, as well as its decision to focus on additional environmental and housing measures, in predicting it won’t stop after the election.

Still, the unprecedented nature of their mobilization raises questions about what cause would be able to activate so many of these individuals again. Donors and advisers to Building a Better California previously clashed over whether spending on non-wealth-tax issues, such as environmental policy, could jeopardize the group’s success.

In the past, “if you look at those big dollar campaigns, ballot measure campaigns, those were funded in general by an industry,” said Jim Ross, a Bay Area-based Democratic consultant. “Wherein this, it’s a bunch of individuals, very wealthy individuals, but they don’t necessarily have any commonality other than they don’t want to be taxed.”

“When you have a group of wealthy people all putting money into this, a lot of the challenge is going to always be: How do you manage that coalition? How do you keep everybody moving in the same direction?” he added.

One ready answer is a revived wealth tax effort.

Last week, Rippling CEO Conrad said in a social media exchange with Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna, whose early support for the wealth tax alienated some of his original tech backers, that he “absolutely cannot afford to stay” in California — reasoning the measure may soon be followed by another one-time tax in the next election.

Slootman made a similar calculation.

“In a one-party state with super majorities in both chambers, we are at risk for everything we own,” he said. “We are hunted animals in this state. They will be at it again in two years.”

Rosmery Izaguirre contributed to this report.

About this analysis

POLITICO’s analysis compiled records from the California secretary of state for 142 California billionaires that have contributed to state campaign committees, including 30 who had given to the following committees opposing Proposition 40: Building a Better California, Californians Against Tax Increases and Golden State Promise. Reporters reviewed donation records to verify names and employers matched with the billionaires who live in the state, as well as contacted each donor. Donations are as of Oct. 26.

Forbes estimated the wealth of the persons included in this analysis. Because billionaires often own properties in multiple states, we relied on Forbes to identify each person’s residence and supplemented with further data provided by the progressive nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness. We included people who have recently left the state, including cases when they said they were leaving to avoid the potential wealth tax.