Crypto News: Europe to Trump: Don’t abandon Ukraine

President Donald Trump will get a one-two punch this week from European leaders hoping to preserve the US's role in protecting Ukraine. Ellen Milligan writes today about their goals. Plus: A big deal for a self-driving truck startup, a look at the future of graduate business schools and the new sector wanting your retirement money. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up.

To say Europe is worried about Donald Trump would be an understatement. The US president has threatened to pull American support for Ukraine. He has insulted the country's leader and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. And he seems increasingly prepared to turn his back on a 75-year-old trans-Atlantic alliance.

Seeking to steer Trump back, French President Emmanuel Macron will visit the White House today, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be in Washington on Thursday. Both leaders aim to placate the volatile president and persuade him to change tack. Whether they do so will likely determine the extent of Europe's role in shaping a peaceful Ukraine.

European diplomats privately say Trump's broadside against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last week—when he falsely said Ukraine started the war with Russia and labeled its leader a dictator—was disgraceful and reflected Russian disinformation. But the fragility of Europe's position boils down to this: A fifth of Ukraine's arms come from the US.

Sure, Ukraine itself has contributed more than half its military hardware, and a quarter comes from Europe and a handful of other places such as Canada. But the truth—and Europe knows this—is that US weapons are better than their own and that, without them, Ukraine would struggle to protect itself in the war and in any future breach of a peace deal.

Starmer and Macron last week at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg

The responsibility for delivering this message to Trump falls to the leaders of Europe's two nuclear powers. Macron is a seasoned but embattled politician who failed to persuade Putin to avoid war just before Russia surged across the border three years ago today. Starmer is a famously cautious center-left lawyer who's been in office for less than eight months.

Yesterday the two discussed a plan they've been crafting for weeks, what officials describe as a "reassurance force" to backstop any potential peace deal. It would entail fewer than 30,000 soldiers in Ukraine to protect cities, ports and critical infrastructure, including nuclear sites. Aircraft and expanded land forces would be stationed just across the border in Romania and Poland. Drones and surveillance aircraft would monitor Ukraine's border with Russia. Ships would patrol the Black Sea.

It's their way of demonstrating Europe's commitment to a stronger role in ensuring its own security. But it hinges on Trump's support. Macron says he will warn his US counterpart not to be "weak." And Starmer insists British troops won't be deployed without American participation. "A US security guarantee is the only way to effectively deter Russia from attacking Ukraine again," Starmer said last week at a meeting of European leaders in Paris.

Macron and Starmer don't simply seek to prevent Trump from rushing into negotiations with an untrustworthy Russia, particularly without Ukraine's consent. Just as important will be for the US president to commit to a postwar deal that would include American airpower protecting Ukraine's skies and US intelligence monitoring its borders.

If this week goes well, Europe might find a seat at the table in the negotiation room, with Trump bringing US security guarantees and declining to push Ukraine into a lousy deal. If it goes badly, Europe—and Ukraine—will continue to be left out.

In Brief

Elon Musk's demand that more than 2 million federal employees defend their work is facing pushback from within the Trump administration.
German conservative leader Friedrich Merz is almost certain to become the country's next chancellor.
Apple said it will hire 20,000 workers and produce AI servers in the US, as it seeks to avoid Trump's China tariffs.

Self-Driving Trucks Fuel Up

A Pronto-equipped self-driving dump truck at a quarry in Santa Rosa, California. Photographer: Balazs Gardi

Every weekday at a rock quarry northwest of Dallas, autonomous dump trucks roll down a dirt road and load up at the bottom of a 140-foot-deep mining pit. The trucks then drive a mile and a half to a rock crusher, where they lift their beds, drop the rocks, then turn around, heading back to the pit for the next load. The work is monotonous, repetitive and—because it involves huge quantities of heavy objects—potentially dangerous. That makes it a perfect job for a robot, says Anthony Levandowski, chief executive officer of Pronto, a San Francisco startup that equips heavy-duty trucks with cameras, GPS sensors and onboard computers that allow them to work without a person in the cab. "You're driving the same loop over and over again," he says. "It's extremely difficult mentally. People don't like doing it." At the Lake Bridgeport quarry, where Levandowski's seven dump trucks have been operating for the past year, workers have been freed up to focus on other tasks, such as operating the excavators that load rocks into the trucks.

The owner of the Lake Bridgeport quarry, Heidelberg Materials AG, has been impressed. Today the company plans to announce that it's bringing Levandowski's modified dump trucks to a dozen of its mines around the world. Heidelberg wouldn't disclose the financial terms of the deal, but Levandowski says it calls for Pronto to retrofit and operate at least 100 more trucks over the next three years. In a statement, Heidelberg Chief Technical Officer Axel Conrads praised Pronto's system for its ability to increase production safety and efficiency.

The deal will make Pronto one of the larger operators of an autonomous truck fleet. (The big construction equipment manufacturers Komatsu Ltd. and Caterpillar Inc. both offer their own driverless dump truck systems; last year, Komatsu said its fleet had grown to more than 750 trucks.) "Everything that has wheels is going to be automated—it's just a question of when and by whom," Levandowski says. "We're starting with the super-obvious applications."

Max Chafkin writes about the latest turn for a driverless-car-pioneer-turned-skeptic: Anthony Levandowski Keeps on Truckin'

Settling In at London Business School

Sergei Guriev in his office at LBS. Photographer: Laura Pannack for Bloomberg Businessweek

When London Business School named Sergei Guriev its dean in January 2024, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny offered congratulations to his friend from his Arctic prison cell, just five weeks before he died under suspicious circumstances. Navalny's death, Guriev wrote soon after, was "terrible news, not only for the future of Russia but also for Ukraine, Europe and the entire free world." Guriev had left Russia years before, when he resigned as a rector of Moscow's New Economic School in 2013, fearing for his safety after co-authoring a report critical of the treatment of oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

"I have never been a politician, and I am not a political refugee. I left Russia for personal reasons: I personally prefer to stay free," he wrote in the New York Times in June 2013, announcing why he would not return to his homeland (he was in Paris at the time). Guriev's lauded research has focused on political economics, including Russian economic history, and labor mobility. After leaving Russia, he continued to study and teach and served as provost of Sciences Po in Paris. He's also done stints as chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and as a visiting professor at Princeton University. We spoke with him in early February about this new role at LBS (he started in August 2024) and the direction that graduate business education is taking worldwide.

Read the Q&A with Dimitra Kessenides here: London Business School's New Dissident Dean

Private Equity Experiments With Retirement

Illustration: Nadine Redlich for Bloomberg Businessweek

Private equity has long been an exclusive club, a world of opaque funds and high fees where only the wealthiest and most sophisticated investors can gain a foothold. Its allure lies in its promise of blockbuster returns: daring financiers pile up mountains of debt to buy companies, then attempt to revive them—with scant oversight. Now those same firms want a piece of your nest egg.

Seeking to tap the trillions of dollars in brokerage accounts held by everyday investors, these companies are cozying up to traditional asset managers. Alternative investment shops, which specialize in asset classes outside public stocks and bonds, have been touring mutual fund houses to gauge their interest in tie-ups that would dramatically extend their reach. "There's a lot of conversations," says Russ Ivinjack, global chief investment officer at consulting firm Aon.

Collaboration makes sense for both sides, Loukia Gyftopoulou and Allison McNeely write: Why Private Equity Is Eyeing Your Nest Egg

Changes at Starbucks

10,000

That's how many corporate jobs Starbucks will eliminate in a move aimed at increasing efficiency and quickly enacting changes to revitalize the company. CEO Brian Niccol, who took over in September amid declining sales at the coffee giant, had announced the impending restructuring in January. Starbucks will also cut less-popular drinks from its menu to try to speed up service.

Awards Season

"Have I cried? Yes. Have I been yelled at? Yes. It's very rare that there's really crazy drama, but I've definitely had moments where there's a pile of couture on the floor of my studio, and I look around and think, 'What is my life?'"

A celebrity stylist

Welcome to the high-stakes and sometimes hectic world of celebrity styling. Although the result is undoubtedly glamorous, getting there can be anything but. Bloomberg Pursuits peeks behind the curtain at the fashion-savvy industry connections and endless schlepping required to get Hollywood's top names ready for their big night.