Highlights for this morning: Trump's project passed Congress, Nvidia poised for record-breaking cost

Nvidia continues to set records: the company's shares reached an all-time high, bringing its market capitalization close to $3.9 trillion. Meanwhile, in the AI sector, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutzkever became the head of the Safe Superintelligence startup he founded. In addition, the U.S. House of Representatives approved Donald Trump's massive fiscal bill (One Big Beautiful Bill), which provides trillions of dollars in tax breaks and spending. On these and other topics - in our review of key events for the morning of July 4.

The House of Representatives, the lower house of the US Congress, has approved Donald Trump's sweeping fiscal bill. The final vote was 218-214, writes CNBC. 

Earlier, the bill passed the Senate by a margin of only one vote, with Vice President J.D. Vance casting the deciding vote. The bill will now go to Trump for his signature. The president has been pushing for months for congressional Republicans to give him the legislation by July 4.

The document, which Trump has called "One Big Beautiful Bill," provides trillions of dollars in tax relief and increased funding for immigration enforcement. The costs are offset by significant cuts to Medicaid and other social programs.

Nvidia shares ended trading Thursday at a record high, rising 1.3 percent amid a general market rally and bringing the company closer to the title of the most valuable in history, wrote Yahoo Finance.

During the shortened session ahead of the July 4 holiday, the AI chip leader's stock jumped more than 2%, giving Nvidia a market capitalization of $3.92 trillion. By the close of the session, that figure stood at $3.89 trillion - just slightly below Apple's record of $3.9 trillion set at the end of 2024. Apple's value has declined since then, with the company lagging behind other tech giants in the AI race and facing threats of duties on its products made overseas.

Investors have been actively buying Nvidia shares after a strong quarterly report at the end of May, which showed steady business growth, even despite U.S. restrictions on chip exports to China. Since the end of June, Nvidia shares have continued to update historical highs.

Thursday's rally added momentum to Nvidia's impressive 2025 stock price recovery - the stock is already up more than 19% since the beginning of the year.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said he expects Nvidia to reach a market value of $4 trillion as early as this summer, and it could exceed $5 trillion over the next 18 months. "We believe the technology sector will show strong momentum in the second half of the year," he wrote in a note to clients. - Our optimism is based on the fact that investors are still underestimating the scale of the upcoming spending - $2 trillion over three years - by business and government on AI development."

OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever has announced that he will become CEO of Safe Superintelligence, an AI startup he launched last year, reports CNBC.

The announcement comes after Meta poached Daniel Gross, an AI entrepreneur and investor who previously served as CEO of Safe Superintelligence.

In Social Media X, Sutzkever clarified that Gross' tenure at the company was "coming to an end." Safe Superintelligence co-founder Daniel Levy will now take over as president of the company. The tech team will continue to report directly to Sutzkever.

Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues his massive AI hiring spree. He spent $14 billion to invest in Scale AI, whose founder Alexander Wang and key engineers have joined Meta.

On Monday, Zuckerberg announced the creation of Meta Superintelligence Labs, a new division focused on AI development that includes top researchers and engineers. However, Gross' name was not mentioned among the new employees.

According to CNBC, Meta previously tried to buy out Safe Superintelligence, but Sutzkever turned down the deal. In April, the company was valued at $32 billion following a round of financing.

Sutskever reiterated that he intends to keep Safe Superintelligence independent: "You may have heard rumors of people wanting to acquire us. We are flattered by the attention, but are focused on realizing our mission," he wrote. - We have the computing resources, we have the team, and we know what to do. Together, we will continue to build a secure superintelligence."

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has temporarily shut down U.S.-based Jane Street Group's access to the Indian stock market, accusing it of large-scale market manipulation, reports CNBC.

According to an interim order published on the regulator's website, Jane Street entities are "barred from accessing the securities market and may not buy, sell or otherwise deal in securities directly or indirectly."

SEBI has also ordered the freezing of more than 48.4 billion Indian rupees (approximately $566.3 million) of Jane Street's allegedly illicit profits. Banks have been ordered not to make debits from accounts linked to Jane Street without SEBI's authorization.

The company disputed the findings of the interim order and said it will continue to engage with the regulator. A Jane Street spokesperson told CNBC that the company "adheres to all regulations in the countries where it operates."

SEBI alleges that Jane Street used various strategies to artificially influence the Nifty 50 index - India's main stock indicator - to capitalize on large positions in options. Specifically, the company aggressively bought stocks and futures on the BANKNIFTY index at the beginning of the trading day and then bet on its fall, selling off assets and capitalizing on options.

Although Jane Street's actions did not formally violate the regulations, SEBI found the scale and intensity of the transactions to be manipulative and devoid of "economic logic other than capitalizing on the simultaneous trading of options."

Even after a formal warning from the National Stock Exchange of India in February 2025, such actions continued. In this regard, SEBI called the company an "untrustworthy participant" whose behavior "jeopardizes the confidence of millions of private investors".

Asia-Pacific markets were mixed on Friday after the U.S. market rose on the back of a better-than-expected U.S. jobs report that eased investor fears of an economic slowdown.

- Japan's Nikkei 225 index and the broader Topix index added 0.2 percent in volatile trading.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index fell 1.2% and the Kosdaq small-company index fell 1.5%.

- In China, the CSI 300 index started the day down 0.2%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.4%.

- In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 index rose 0.2 percent.

- U.S. markets are closed on Friday due to the Independence Day holiday. The day before, U.S. stocks rose: the broad S&P 500 index and the technology-focused Nasdaq Composite hit new records thanks to a strong labor market report.  

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor