Frank Founder Gets 7 Years, YouTube Pays Trump $24.5M, Newsom Signs AI Bill, Shutdown Looms & Tilray’s 50% High

30th September 2025

Charlie Javice, the 30 Under 30 founder of fintech startup Frank, is headed to prison for seven years after defrauding JPMorgan Chase in a $175 million acquisition gone wrong. YouTube will pay $24.5 million to settle Donald Trump’s lawsuit over his account suspension, even funding part of his ballroom project. California Governor Gavin Newsom signs the nation’s first AI safety law, setting rules for OpenAI, Meta, and others. Washington braces for a government shutdown as Trump and Democrats hit a stalemate. Meanwhile, Trump’s CBD pitch for seniors sends Tilray soaring 50% in a cannabis market rally. All this and more in today’s Read It And Eat!

Major Headlines

• Frank founder Charlie Javice sentenced to 7 years in prison for defrauding JPMorgan Chase

  
  

Charlie Javice, founder of the financial aid startup Frank and Forbes 30 under 30 alumnus, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud. The fintech startup had been acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2021 for $175 million.

The bank later accused Javice of lying about its customer base; the founder claimed the company had 4 million customers, when it actually had 300,000. Evidently, JPMorgan Chase did not do its due diligence before agreeing to buy Frank.

During the trial, former Frank engineer Patrick Vovor testified that Javice had asked him to create fake user data prior to the sale; when he declined, Javice asked math professor and data scientist Adam Kapelner for help creating synthetic data. Kapelner provided key testimony for the prosecution. Along with her co-defendant, Frank’s chief growth officer Olivier Amar, Javice will be responsible for paying $278.5 million in restitution. TechCrunch

• YouTube to pay $24.5 million to settle Trump account suspension suit

Alphabet-owned (GOOGL.O), YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit that U.S. President Donald Trump brought against the company over the suspension of his account following the January 2021 U.S. Capitol riots, a court filing showed on Monday. The deal makes Google the last of the three big tech companies to resolve lawsuits Trump brought in July 2021 accusing them of unlawfully silencing conservative viewpoints.

Trump had also sued Twitter, now known as X, and Facebook owner Meta (META.O), as well as Alphabet's Google, and their chief executives in July 2021. Meta and X agreed earlier this year to pay to settle the lawsuits. Under the YouTube settlement, $22 million will be paid on Trump's behalf to the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit that the filing says is dedicated to the construction of a $200 million ballroom that Trump is building at the White House. Work on the 90,000-square-foot (8361.27 square meters) facility is expected to be completed "long before" Trump's four-year term ends in January 2029.

The remaining amount will go to other plaintiffs in the case, including the American Conservative Union, which sponsors the Conservative Political Action Conference, and U.S. author Naomi Wolf. YouTube did not admit wrongdoing and will not make product or policy changes under the settlement. Trump did not lose his YouTube account in 2021 but was suspended from uploading new videos; it was restored in 2023. In January, Meta agreed to pay about $25 million and X paid about $10 million in February to settle similar lawsuits by Trump. Meta's settlement designated $22 million for a fund for Trump's upcoming presidential library in Miami, Florida. Reuters

• California Governor Newsom signs landmark AI safety bill SB 53

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed SB 53, a first-in-the-nation bill that sets new transparency requirements on large AI companies. SB 53, which passed the state legislature two weeks ago, requires large AI labs, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google DeepMind  to be transparent about safety protocols. It also ensures whistleblower protections for employees at those companies.  

In addition, SB 53 creates a mechanism for AI companies and the public to report potential critical safety incidents to California’s Office of Emergency Services. Companies also have to report incidents related to crimes committed without human oversight, such as cyberattacks, and deceptive behavior by a model that isn’t required under the EU AI Act.  

The bill has received mixed reactions from the AI industry. Tech firms have broadly argued that state-level AI policy risks creating a “patchwork of regulation” that would hinder innovation, although Anthropic endorsed the bill. Meta and OpenAI lobbied against it. OpenAI even wrote and published an open letter to Gov. Newsom that discouraged his signing of SB 53.

The new bill comes as some of Silicon Valley’s tech elite have poured hundreds of millions into super PACs to back candidates that support a light-touch approach to AI regulation. Leaders at OpenAI and Meta have in recent weeks launched pro-AI super PACs that aim to back candidates and bills that are friendly to AI. Still, other states might look to California for inspiration as they attempt to curb the potential harms caused by the unmitigated advancement of such a powerful emerging technology. 

In New York, a similar bill was passed by state lawmakers and is awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature or veto. “California has proven that we can establish regulations to protect our communities while also ensuring that the growing AI industry continues to thrive,” Newsom said in a statement. “This legislation strikes that balance. AI is the new frontier in innovation, and California is not only here for it — but stands strong as a national leader by enacting the first-in-the-nation frontier AI safety legislation that builds public trust as this emerging technology rapidly evolves.”   TechCrunch

• Vance says US 'headed to a shutdown' after meeting with Democrats

U.S. President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponents appeared to make little progress at a White House meeting aimed at heading off a government shutdown that could disrupt a wide range of services as soon as Wednesday.Both sides emerged from the meeting saying the other would be at fault if Congress fails to extend government funding beyond a Tuesday midnight deadline (0400 GMT Wednesday).

Democrats say any agreement to extend that deadline must also preserve expiring health benefits, while Trump's Republicans insist health and government funding must be dealt with as separate issues. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the two sides "have very large differences." If Congress does not act, thousands of federal government workers could be furloughed, from NASA to the national parks, and a wide range of services would be disrupted. Federal courts might have to close and grants for small businesses could be delayed.

Budget standoffs have become relatively routine in Washington over the past 15 years and are often resolved at the last minute. But Trump's willingness to override or ignore spending laws passed by Congress has injected a new dimension of uncertainty. Trump has refused to spend billions of dollars approved by Congress and is threatening to extend his purge of the federal workforce if Congress allows the government to shut down. Only a handful of agencies have so far published plans detailing how they would proceed in the event of a shutdown.

The White House released an executive order Monday evening extending the life of more than 20 federal advisory committees through 2027. It remains unclear how these committees - which advise the president in areas including trade and national security - will be funded amid ongoing shutdown uncertainty. Reuters

• OpenAI partners with Etsy, Shopify on ChatGPT payment checkout

  
  

OpenAI on Monday introduced a feature that would allow users to make purchases through ChatGPT, in partnership with Etsy (ETSY.O), and Shopify (SHOP.TO). Merchants will have to pay a fee on completed purchases to OpenAI, and it doesn't affect their prices. There will be no charges for the Instant Checkout for users.

The move opens up a new source of revenue for OpenAI, taking advantage of the heavy user traffic on ChatGPT, in addition to its traditional subscription model. "U.S. ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and free users can now buy directly from U.S. Etsy sellers right in chat, with over a million Shopify merchants, like Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx and Vuori, coming soon," OpenAI said in a blog post. Starting Monday, Instant Checkout will support single-item purchases, but OpenAI said it will add multi-item carts and expand merchants and regions.

Shares of Etsy rose 7.3%, while U.S.-listed shares of Shopify popped 4.5% after the announcement. "Shopify merchants will be able to sell directly through ChatGPT conversations, no links or no redirects, just seamless commerce," the platform said on its website. Etsy's chief product and technology officer, Rafe Colburn, said that AI-powered and agentic shopping presents meaningful opportunities for the online marketplace. Colburn said that Etsy is working with a tech partner  without naming the company, to seamlessly integrate product discovery into mobile experiences. OpenAI said it will open-source the agentic commerce protocol, built with payments firm Stripe, which powers the checkout. Reuters

• Tilray Jumps 50% in Cannabis Rally After Trump Posts CBD Video

Cannabis stocks are on a high after Donald Trump shared a video on Sunday promoting cannabis use for seniors and Medicaid coverage of CBD products. The nearly three-minute-long video, posted on the president’s Truth Social platform, touts the usage of hemp-derived CBD as a “gamechanger” that is a pain and stress reliever for seniors.

Stocks for cannabis companies, including Canopy Growth, Tilray and Cronos Group jumped Monday when stocks opened for the week. MSOS, an AdvisorShares Cannabis exchange-traded fund (ETF), also soared on Monday, after Trump posted the video. The video was produced by the Commonwealth Project, a group promoting cannabis use for senior healthcare, and praised Trump for his 2018 farm bill that legalized industrial hemp. “Now it’s time to educate doctors … provide Medicare coverage for CBD and give millions of seniors the support they deserve,” the video said.

The cannabis industry has long hoped the White House would take further steps to decriminalize cannabis at a federal level. Under Joe Biden’s administration, the Department of Health and Human Services requested that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reclassify cannabis as a lower-risk substance. Marijuana is now classified as a Schedule I drug in accordance with the Controlled Substances Act, which means it has no accepted medical use and has a high risk for abuse. But the Trump administration had been silent about decriminalizing marijuana until August, when Trump told reporters that his administration is “looking at reclassification and we’ll make a determination over the next few weeks”.

“I’ve heard great things have to do with medical, and I’ve heard bad things having to do with just about everything else,” Trump said. “It’s a very complicated subject.” Currently, 40 states allow the use of medical cannabis products, and 24 states allow non-medical cannabis use. Tilray led a rally by industry stocks in New York on Monday, surging by more than 40% in the wake of Trump’s video. Advocates for cannabis for medical use say legalizing marijuana at a federal level will allow for better investment into research and broaden access. Bloomberg

Minor Headlines

• Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show Sparks Right-Wing Backlash Over Rapper’s Anti-ICE Activism Forbes

  
  

• OpenAI launches parental controls in ChatGPT after California teen's suicide Reuters

  
  

• Germany's Lufthansa airline to cut thousands of jobs by 2030 in AI boost Yahoo.Finance

  
  

• DeepSeek releases ‘sparse attention’ model that cuts API costs in half TechCrunch

  
  

• US Gold Reserves Hit $1 Trillion in Value After Record Rally Bloomberg

  
  

• DeepSeek releases ‘sparse attention’ model that cuts API costs in half TechCrunch

  
  

• Trump says US to impose 100% tariff on movies made outside the country Reuters

  
  

• Pandora CEO to retire in 2026, will be replaced by marketing chief Reuters