UK Budget, Bitcoin Rally, Meta EU Appeal, and OpenAI Funding Gap

27th November 2025

The UK budget freezes tax thresholds, raises gambling and EV levies, and introduces a mansion tax, ride-hailing VAT, and pension reforms while boosting defense spending. Bitcoin topped $90K but may face near-term resistance. Meta appeals EU antitrust data requests it calls intrusive, with a ruling expected next year. HSBC warns OpenAI won’t be profitable by 2030, facing a $207B funding gap to scale its AI operations. All this and more in today’s Read It and Eat! 

Major News

• Reeves’ Budget Aims for Stability as Tax Changes Take Shape

Rachel Reeves’ budget yesterday signaled a clear attempt to steady both the UK’s public finances and the political footing of the Labour government. While she didn’t close the door on future tax rises, the Chancellor laid out a £26 billion package intended to reinforce fiscal stability, an announcement that landed alongside an unusual apology from the Office for Budget Responsibility after its documents were released early. The overall message was one of tightening, but not shock, as Reeves and Prime Minister Keir Starmer work to maintain confidence through a challenging economic period.

A major part of the plan centers on tax thresholds, which will remain frozen for three more years from 2028. This means that as wages rise, more earners will gradually be pulled into higher tax brackets, a change expected to generate £8 billion. Additional revenue will come from targeted tax increases on gambling companies, with remote gaming duty jumping from 21% to 40% and online betting tax rising to 25%. Together, these measures are forecast to raise over £1 billion, though bingo players will see a small relief as bingo tax is scrapped from April.

Reeves also introduced a series of new measures aimed at modernizing the tax system and diversifying revenue. Electric vehicle owners will begin paying a mileage tax from 2028, 3p per mile for EVs and 1.5p for plug-in hybrids bringing in an expected £1.4 billion. Salary-sacrifice pension contributions above £2,000 will face national insurance from 2029, raising £4.7 billion. Savers will also see a change: the annual cash ISA allowance will fall from £20,000 to £12,000 to nudge more people toward stock and shares ISAs.

Other notable changes include the introduction of a mansion tax on properties worth more than £2 million, a new VAT requirement for ride-hailing companies like Uber and Bolt, and a temporary stamp duty break for firms newly listing on the London Stock Exchange. The government will also increase defense spending to 2.6% of GDP. Taken together, these measures reflect the government’s attempt to balance revenue generation with strategic investments, while signaling its priorities for public finances and economic growth. BBC 

• Bitcoin Pushes Past $90K, but Analysts Urge Caution

Bitcoin climbed above $90,000 on Wednesday as the broader market showed signs of renewed risk appetite, helped by expectations of a potential Federal Reserve rate cut in December. The move comes after the cryptocurrency briefly dipped to $81,000 last Friday its lowest point since April before beginning a steady rebound. Even so, some strategists warn that the recent uptick doesn’t necessarily indicate a classic V-shaped recovery.

Despite rising alongside a strong run in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, bitcoin has noticeably diverged from its usual tight correlation with tech stocks. Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo, noted that the crypto’s recent drop has been far steeper than that of equities. And while the fourth quarter is historically one of bitcoin’s strongest, analysts at 10X Research say those gains typically require a clear catalyst something they don’t yet see in the current environment.

A potential Fed rate cut remains top-of-mind for investors, but analysts argue it’s the central bank’s messaging not the cut itself that tends to drive bitcoin’s path. 10X Research also downplayed expectations that increased spending from the Treasury General Account will meaningfully lift crypto markets, pointing to earlier periods where bitcoin reacted with a noticeable delay, if at all. Their view is that bitcoin could continue to consolidate into early 2026 before liquidity effects become clearer.

Market watchers remain cautious in the near term. Compass Point analyst Ed Engel said the current pattern resembles a classic bear-market dynamic, where sharp relief rallies often give way to selling pressure. He expects resistance around $92,000 to $95,000 and sees the potential for bitcoin to retest the $82,000 level or even break below $80,000 before finding firmer support in the $65,000 to $70,000 range. 

• Meta Pushes Back Against EU’s “Intrusive” Data Demands

Meta Platforms is pushing back hard against the European Union, criticizing what it calls “aberrant” and overly intrusive information requests made during two antitrust investigations four years ago. The company argues that the EU’s demands linked to probes into Facebook and its online classified ads business went far beyond what was reasonable, raising broader concerns about unchecked regulatory power. Meta has long compared these sweeping data requests to a “fishing trawler,” and says the core issue is whether regulators face meaningful limits and judicial oversight.

After losing its initial challenge before a lower EU tribunal, Meta has now taken its appeal to the EU Court of Justice. In Wednesday’s hearing, Meta’s lawyer told judges that the EU’s search terms captured deeply personal information, including family autopsy reports, children’s school records, and private security details material the company says should never have been swept into an antitrust case. Meta argues that regulators must respect principles of necessity, proportionality, and privacy, even during competition investigations.

EU officials strongly pushed back on Meta’s claims. Lawyers for the European Commission said the company had actually helped shape the search terms and that the number of terms used was in the hundreds, not the thousands Meta alleges. They also argued that it’s common practice for competition authorities worldwide to request documents based on predefined search terms, framing Meta’s objections as exaggerated.

A ruling from the Court is expected next year. The dispute unfolds as Meta continues to face regulatory pressure across Europe, including a €797.7 million fine last year over how it tied Facebook Marketplace to its main social network. The outcome of the appeal could set an important precedent for how far EU regulators can go when demanding data from companies under investigation. Reuters 

• OpenAI’s Massive Growth Plan Faces Huge Funding Gap, HSBC Warns

OpenAI may be the world’s most talked-about AI company, but behind the scenes, its financial picture is far more complicated than its breakout success suggests. According to new estimates from HSBC, OpenAI is unlikely to become profitable by 2030 even as its user base grows to nearly half of the world’s adults. The firm’s biggest hurdle isn’t demand, but cost: the sheer volume of computers needed to power ChatGPT and future models. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman even summed it up in one frustrated word on a podcast: “Enough.”

HSBC’s updated forecast lays out the scale of the challenge. The bank estimates that OpenAI will need at least $207 billion more in compute capacity on top of its existing commitments to keep up with growth through 2030. These commitments include massive multiyear cloud deals such as $250 billion with Microsoft and $38 billion with Amazon. At its current trajectory, OpenAI is aiming for 36 gigawatts of AI compute by decade’s end, a level of power consumption comparable to an entire U.S. state. Despite revenue projections that soar past $200 billion by 2030, the company’s costs are rising even faster.

That’s why HSBC projects that OpenAI’s cash flow will remain deeply negative, with a cumulative shortfall of $207 billion that will need to be filled by new funding, higher subscriber conversion, or a bigger share of digital ad markets. Even under more optimistic scenarios like doubling the conversion rate of paid users OpenAI would still need substantial outside capital. The challenge is happening at a time when financing for AI infrastructure is becoming more strained, with companies like Oracle and Meta already raising large amounts of debt and investors showing signs of concern.

These financial pressures are unfolding against a broader debate about whether AI will ultimately deliver the productivity boom many expect. Some economists argue that past tech waves haven’t meaningfully lifted productivity, while others say the 2020s will finally mark a turning point. In the meantime, OpenAI’s ambitions continue to raise the same fundamental question: how long can an entire industry be built on the promise of future returns especially when the cost of powering that future is unlike anything the tech world has ever seen? Finance.Yahoo 

Minor News 

• Intel rejects TSMC’s claims that a company executive leaked trade secrets. Reuters 

• Details still unclear after two National Guard members were shot near the White House. BBC 

• JPMorgan plans major new UK headquarters in London’s Canary Wharf. Reuters 

• Chinese tech firms shift AI model training abroad to secure access to Nvidia chips. Reuters 

• Alibaba launches Quark AI glasses in China, stepping into the global wearables market. Reuters 

• At least 55 dead in Hong Kong’s worst residential fire in decades, prompting renewed scrutiny of building safety. CNBC 

• Flutter warns UK gambling tax changes will reduce 2026 EBITDA by $320. Finance.Yahoo

• Guinea-Bissau soldiers detain President Embaló and demand annulment of recent elections, alleging a drug-linked plot to rig results. BBC