Among Indian-born CEOs of Fortune 500, most came to the U.S. through higher education. Examples include Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Arvind Krishna of IBM, Raj Subramaniam of FedEx, Shantanu Narayen of Adobe, Nikesh Arora of Palo Alto Networks and Vivek Sankaran of Albertsons. More Indians come to the U.S. on student visas than any other nationality—with 422,335 foreign students from India in the U.S. last year, vs. 329,541 foreign students from China. The number of Americans studying in India is a fraction of that, almost too few to measure.
The importance of India to Fortune 500 companies will only increase in the coming years—the country boasts a young and well-educated population, anticipated GDP growth north of 6% every year for the next decade, and structural reforms that will boost the business climate in the world’s largest democracy.
It’s equally important that policymakers understand what’s going on. The rising importance of China over my lifetime spurred growth in scholarship—from experts at think tanks in both countries to the Schwarzman Scholars program at Beijing’s Tsinghua University that Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman launched a decade ago as an analog to Oxford’s Rhodes Scholarship.
Now, venture capitalist and philanthropist Asha Jadeja is investing in a similar academic infrastructure between the U.S. and India. (She and her late husband Rajeev Motwani of Stanford were founding stakeholders in Google.) I spoke to Jadeja this past weekend at a dinner marking the establishment of the Motwani Jadeja Institute for American Studies at OP Jindal Global University. She has also funded programs at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, U.C. San Diego, the Hudson Institute, the Center for a New American Security and, soon, Columbia University.
“When policymakers want information in making decisions, they pick up the phone and call Georgetown or Stanford. Similarly, if someone in Delhi wants to know how to deal with America on mineral rights or human rights, they need someone to call who has a serious understanding of those issues and access to data,” she told Fortune.
With Washington increasingly viewing China as not just a competitor but as an adversary, India is taking on a larger geopolitical importance. The next generation of CEOs and policymakers will need context and relationships created through education, familiarity and a shared understanding nurtured by deep scholarship.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top news
Trump strikes trade deal with Japan
Japan gets a 15% tariff rate—higher than the baseline 10% rate but lower than the 25% rate Trump had previously threatened in one of the tariff letters he sent earlier this month. Japan will lower its tariffs on car imports to 15% in return. The president also said that “Japan will invest, at my direction, $550 Billion Dollars into the United States, which will receive 90% of the Profits,” but he offered no specifics.
Indonesia gets lopsided trade agreement
Trump announced that a 19% tariff will be imposed on goods imported from Indonesia while Indonesia will drop all tariffs on imported American products.
DOJ to meet with Maxwell
The U.S. Department of Justice will meet with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, in the agency’s seemingly never-ending search for new material to release about the late billionaire pedophile. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence in Florida. The president is unhappy about it, of course. “We had the Greatest Six Months of any President in the History of our Country, and all the Fake News wants to talk about is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,” he told supporters on Truth Social.
McKinsey and Amazon pull AI research in China
McKinsey has ordered its China arm to stop working with clients in that country on generative AI issues. The company is worried that the Trump Administration will target companies that have Chinese clients in the AI sector. Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft have also pulled back from AI work in China, the FT reported.
Libor case overturned
The U.K. Supreme Court has quashed the conviction of Tom Hayes, the former UBS and Citi trader who was sent to prison for 11 years for manipulating the Libor interest rate (an interbank lending rate used as the benchmark for setting mortgage rates in the 2000s). The ruling will be closely read inside investment banks and other financial institutions that trade on interest rates. The key issue is whether it was criminal for Hayes to state a rate that was an advantage for his bank even if that rate was within the range that his bank actually traded. Yes, it’s complicated! There’s a summary of the ruling here.
GM’s tariff costs
In its earnings report Tuesday, General Motors reported that it lost more than $1 billion in profits due to tariff costs. That equated to just $1.9 billion in quarterly profits, down from $2.9 billion in the same quarter last year.
Halliburton warns of “softer” oil and gas markets
Halliburton Chairman and CEO Jeff Miller warned that “softer” oil and gas markets will continue throughout the year due to economic volatility around the globe. The company expects revenue from North America to drop more than 10% for all of 2025.
Inside Meta’s AI lead
Last month, Meta hired 28-year-old Scale AI cofounder Alexandr Wang as their first chief AI officer. Can the billions of dollars invested into Wang and his team make Meta the dominant AI force?
The markets
S&P 500 futures were trading up by 0.35% this morning, premarket. The index closed at another all-time high, 6,309.62, yesterday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 3.5% this morning. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.6%. The STOXX Europe 600 was up 1.2% in early trading. Bitcoin is still above $118K.
From the analysts
Deutsche Bank on who actually pays for tariffs: “There are specific industry examples of a greater impact. For now, however, the top-down macro evidence seems clear: Americans are mostly paying for the tariffs. Given gains in the US consumer price index have so far been contained, it follows that American importers are mostly absorbing the tariffs into their profit margins. We are therefore left with a few conclusions. First, exporters in the rest of the world are not yet feeling much pain from the tariffs,” per George Saravelos.
Wedbush on Tesla: “Now investors are seeing more of a ‘wartime CEO’ as Elon is laser focused on the Robotaxi expansion in Austin with more cities soon on the docket for this key autonomous initiative,” per Daniel Ives.
Deutsche Bank on predictions for rate cuts: “If we look at Fed funds futures as of last night’s close, we can see that just over 100bps of cuts are priced in over the next year to August 2026. That comes on top of 100bps already delivered between Sep-Dec 2024. So, if realised, that would be just over 200bps of cuts in two years. n But historically, getting 200bps of cuts in two years has almost always required a recession,” per Henry Allen.
ING on European bank lending: “Global uncertainty has increased significantly in recent months, but the European Central Bank’s lending survey does not indicate a material drop in borrowing appetite among businesses or consumers. Banks are also not tightening credit standards significantly on the back of it,” per Bert Colijn.
Around the watercooler
Cheaper AI like China’s DeepSeek are ‘very welcome,’ says Singapore’s digital minister Josephine Teo by Nicholas Gordon
OpenAI faces an ‘increasingly fragile moat,’ JPMorgan says, as Sam Altman braces for ‘OS war’ against Google, Apple and other Silicon Valley titans by Nick Lichtenberg
He won a victory for Tesla’s European owners—now one Elon Musk fan is pushing for FSD to finally come to Sweden by Christiaan Hetzner
Coca-Cola CFO says the company will launch Trump-backed cane sugar soda: ‘He is a big supporter of the option’ by Massimo Marioni
FBI drops probe of Kraken founder, returns dozens of seized devices by Jeff John Roberts
CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams and Jim Edwards.
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