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• Trump has called for a 10% cap on credit card interest rates.
• Bilt is rolling out a new suite of 3 credit cards offering 10% interest for the first year.
• The move is voluntary. Trump would need to go through Congress to force credit card companies to cap rates.

President Donald Trump wants credit card interest rates capped at 10%. At least one company has already moved to do so.

Bilt Rewards announced a new suite of credit cards on Wednesday called “Bilt 2.0,” which will offers new cardholders 10% interest rates for their first year.

Bilt is known for allowing users to earn rewards on rent and mortgage payments without the related fees associated with other credit cards.

The company unveiled three cards, including:

• The Bilt Blue Card, with no annual fee;
• The Bilt Obsidian Card, with a $95 annual fee;
• The Bilt Palladium Card, with a $495 annual fee.

After one year, interest rates for new cardholders will increase to between 26.74% to 37.47%, depending on the card.

Trump called for the 10% cap in a Truth Social post on Friday, saying that he will “no longer let the American Public be ‘ripped off’ by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%, and even more.”

For now, any action taken by credit card companies is voluntary. Trump can’t make the change by himself — he’ll need an act of Congress in order to do so.

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri have introduced a bill to cap credit card interest rates at 10% for a period of five years. Trump also called Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts on Monday to discuss the issue.

However, House Speaker Mike Johnson has thrown cold water on the idea, saying that Trump “probably had not thought through” the potential downsides of the policy, including the possibility that credit card companies would “just stop lending money” or “cap what people are able to borrow at a very low amount.”

Business leaders have offered mixed reviews of Trump’s proposal, with some making the same argument as Johnson.

“An interest rate cap is not something that we would, or could, support, frankly,” Citi’s chief financial officer, Mark Mason, said on a call with reporters. “At the end of the day, I think an interest rate cap would restrict access to credit to those who need it the most, and frankly would have a deleterious impact on the economy.”

• A service outage on Monday hit tens of thousands of Verizon users.
• Verizon said the outage is affecting its wireless voice and data services.
• The emergency management offices in Washington, D.C., and New York City have issued alerts.

Verizon outages are affecting tens of thousands of customers.

The telecommunications company said it was aware of the problem but did not give further details.

“Verizon engineering teams are continuing to address today’s service interruptions,” the company told Business Insider in a statement. “Our teams remain fully deployed and are focused on the issue. We understand the impact this has on your day and remain committed to resolving this as quickly as possible.”

Downdetector, which provides real-time updates on various services and websites, showed that Verizon customers began reporting issues on Monday at about 12 p.m. Customer outage reports reached almost 180,000 by 12:39 p.m.

The majority of reports made to Downdetector were coming from cities along the eastern seaboard, though there were also widespread outages reported in Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon.

Some X users shared memes during the service outage.

Additionally, two major cities cities issued alerts as the outages dragged on.

In an X post, New York City’s Emergency Management office told residents it is “working closely with our partners at OTI & various utility providers to assess any potential effects on city agencies & essential services.”

“We are also gathering information and updates from the affected network providers. The cause and scope of the outage are still being investigated,” the post said.

Washington, D.C.’s public safety office said the outages were “nationwide.”

“OUC is aware of a nationwide Verizon outage affecting some users trying to reach 911,” the agency said in a post on X. “If you have an emergency and cannot connect using your Verizon device, please connect using a device from another carrier, a landline, or go to a police or fire station to report the emergency.”

T-Mobile also responded to the outage on X, writing that it’s network is operating normally.

“However due to Verizon’s reported outage, our customers may not be able to reach someone with Verizon service at this time,” the post said.

• Saks Global’s Chapter 11 filing reveals that it owes hundreds of millions to big-name brands.
• Major unsecured creditors include Chanel, LVMH and Christian Louboutin, and Burberry.
• Google and Meta are also among the list of unsecured creditors.

Saks Global has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection — and court filings reveal that the luxury retailer owes hundreds of millions of dollars to some of the fashion industry’s biggest names.

The question is, will they get paid?

In US bankruptcy proceedings, unsecured creditors generally stand at the end of the line for repayment, behind secured creditors and lenders.

“There will be a lot of hardship for those brands,” Gary Wassner, the CEO of Hilldun Corp., which acts as a guarantor or insurer for brands, told Business Insider about independent designers who aren’t part of a big conglomerate or use factoring firms, like Hilldun.

Saks Global, which owns Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman, said in a statement on Wednesday that it expects to pay for future goods shipped as it restructures its debts.

Fashion industry experts, meanwhile, have told Business Insider that brands big and small are likely to keep doing business with Saks Global because they need the retailer and have few alternatives.

“In some cases, smaller brands, 40% or 50% of their business is done with Saks Global, so you can imagine what it’s doing to those companies,” said Wassner, whose firm represents about 140 brands that sell to Saks.

Documents filed by Saks Global in federal Texas bankruptcy court show the retailer owes its 30 largest unsecured creditors more than $700 million. Below is a breakdown of how much Saks Global owes some of its largest luxury suppliers, according to the retailer’s bankruptcy court filings.

Chanel Limited is owed just over $136 million

Kering SA, owner of brands such as Gucci and Balenciaga, is due about $60 million

Capri Holdings Limited, owner of Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors, is owed $33.3 million

Mayhoola LLC, which owns 70% of Valentino, is due $33.2 million

Zegna owner Ermenegildo Zegna N.V. is owed roughly $26.3 million

LVMH, owner of Louis Vuitton, Dior, Fendi, and Marc Jacobs, is due about $26 million

Cartier owner Compagnie Financière Richemont SA is owed about $30 million

Christian Louboutin is due about $21.5 million

The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. is owed roughly $16 million

David Yurman, Inc. is due about $11.4 million

Giorgio Armani SpA is owed $10.7 million

Burberry Group plc is due about $9.5 million

Dolce & Gabbana Srl is owed $9.1 million

Tech giants are also owed too, with Google at $9.6 million and Meta Platforms, Inc. at about $12 million

• Elon Musk’s xAI is now the subject of an investigation by the California Attorney General.
• Attorney General Rob Bonta is investigating reports that Grok is generating nonconsensual sexualized images of real people.
• Regulators around the world have pressed xAI over the instances.

Elon Musk’s xAI is now facing pressure from US regulators over Grok’s generation of nonconsensual sexualized images of real people.

On Wednesday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that his office was investigating the numerous reports of such images.

“The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” Bonta said in a statement. “This material, which depicts women and children in nude and sexually explicit situations, has been used to harass people across the internet. I urge xAI to take immediate action to ensure this goes no further.”

The news comes after officials in India, the UK, Indonesia, and Malaysia have taken their own varying actions against Grok. Indonesia and Malaysia went so far as to block access to Grok.

Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, announced its investigation earlier this week. Prime Minister Keir Starmer previously told lawmakers that X could “lose the right to self-regulate.”

In response to Business Insider’s request for comment about Bonta’s probe, xAI replied, “Legacy Media Lies.” Musk’s AI company frequently responds to media requests with that line.

Amid the backlash, xAI limited access to Grok’s image generation to paying subscribers.

Earlier Wednesday, Musk said he was unaware of “any naked underage images generated by Grok.” Musk had previously said anyone asking Grok to make illegal content “will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”

“Obviously, Grok does not spontaneously generate images, it does so only according to user requests,” Musk wrote on X. “When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state.”

Musk’s statement belies many of the instances that regulators were looking into. Namely, the investigations were sparked by concerns about users asking Grok to sexualize images, such as depicting a person in a bikini when the original photo did not show them in such a state of dress.

The US Senate unanimously passed a bill via voice vote on Tuesday that would give victims a federal civil right to sue users who ask AI to create such images. The text of legislation, called “The Defiance Act,” mentions the digital manipulation of a photo to “remove the clothing of the individual so that the person appears to be nude.”

Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, who wrote the bill, said it was aimed at stopping instances like the Grok images.

“Recent reports showed that X, formerly Twitter, can ask its AI chatbot Grok to undress women and underage girls in photos,” Durbin said on the Senate floor. “Grok will comply to show various states of undress with images I won’t repeat for the record, but they’re horrible.”

It is unclear if the bill will receive a vote in the House.

Last year, President Donald Trump signed bipartisan legislation into law that requires social media platforms to remove non-consensual photos, as well as AI deepfakes, within 48 hours of receiving a request to do so.

• Interior designers told us the top mistakes people make when styling and decorating a living room.
• They said it’s important to have enough lighting and surfaces within the space.
• Try to avoid mounting your TV too high above a fireplace and pushing your couch against a wall.

Even if your living room is pretty great, a few small details could be preventing it from looking even better.

To find out what mistakes we should be avoiding when styling these spaces, Business Insider spoke to several interior designers.

Here’s what they said could be sabotaging the look of your living room.

Buying a rug that is too big or too small for your living room can disrupt the entire space.

Gena Kirk, the vice president of design at KB Home, told BI that it’s important to ensure that a rug does more than just work within the design scheme of your home — it also needs to fit the room you intend to use it in.

“A rug that is too large will look overwhelming in the space and can make the room appear smaller,” she said. “A rug that is too small forces your furniture to be closer together, leaving the room feeling unbalanced and [creating] the feeling of wasted empty space.”

Kirk recommended using painter’s tape and taking exact measurements of the area rugs you’re considering to create mock outlines on your floor.

This way, you can envision how the rug might look in your space.

Having your couch up against a wall could be making the space look smaller.

Lauren White, the owner and principal designer of Ellen W. Interior Concepts, told BI that instead of placing your sofa up against the wall, you should consider “floating” it.

“Floating furniture means that you place pieces off the wall, sometimes in the middle of the room,” she said. “When you do this in your living room, it makes the room feel and look larger because you will be able to walk around it.”

Though this won’t work for all spaces — especially smaller ones with limited options for furniture placement — it’s worth trying.

Using pieces of furniture that are too “matchy-matchy” could make your home look like a showroom.

Walk into a furniture showroom, and you’re likely to find that almost everything is sold in sets — including living-room furniture.

“The easiest thing would be to purchase an entire set, but don’t do it,” White said. “A space that looks too ‘matchy-matchy’ isn’t a good thing.”

Using separate pieces instead of sets can make your space look “curated,” she said, which “elevates the style in your home.” 

Mounting your television too high up is impractical.

Design is more than having a home that looks pretty — you should also be taking ergonomics into account.

“I know that placing your TV over the fireplace is the ‘it’ thing to do, but it does a huge disservice to your neck,” White said.

“Your TV should be eye-level to where you are sitting,” she said. “You should not have to look up.”

Not prioritizing comfort could be making your living room feel cold.

You shouldn’t sacrifice comfort for style — and, if you do, your space might feel a bit unwelcoming or even sterile.

“Comfortability is one of the biggest factors that make a living room,” Sonja Rasula, a former interior designer on HGTV’s “Home to Go” who founded Unique Markets in Los Angeles, told BI.

Choose a couch that’s actually great to lounge on, a rug that’s soft enough to enjoy barefoot, and definitely add some comfortable touches to your space.

“Even if you are balling on a budget, adding a cozy blanket or a few plush pillows will make all the difference,” she added.

Without multiple light sources, your space could be lacking a cozy ambiance.

Living rooms are multifunctional, and your lighting choices should reflect that, Sara Ray, an interior designer based in Nashville, told BI.

“There should be overhead lighting on a dimmer that can be used to move throughout the space or dimmed to provide the right ambiance for a party,” she said. “You want to have plenty of secondary lighting so that tasks like reading can be done while sitting in the space.”

She suggested placing accent lighting on bookshelves, on a fireplace mantel, or above artwork to create layers of lighting in your living room.

Choosing furniture that’s too big or too small for your space can make the whole room feel off.

Picking out the right furniture is important, but where you put it is equally essential to designing a living room.

“Large pieces in a small space can make the room look even smaller, where small pieces in a large space can leave too much empty space,” Rasula told BI.

For larger living rooms, she recommends leaving 30 to 36 inches of space between furniture pieces. In smaller spaces, like apartments, you can probably get away with 18 to 24 inches between pieces.

“This amount of distance will ensure you’re not overcrowding your living room while at the same time will help maximize space for a smaller living room,” she said.

Although you should utilize any shelving you have, you don’t want to pack them with large items.

Whether you’ve got great built-ins or have added bookshelves or ledges to your living room, you’ll want to be careful when filling them up.

“You should utilize shelving space as much as possible, but try and avoid overhang, which could cause the space to look overcrowded,” she told BI.

She explained that overhang occurs when items are too large for the shelf or bookcase, causing them to stick out over the ledge. 

Not having enough tables and other surfaces to set your things on can be impractical.

Since a living room is often well-trafficked, you should probably have ample places to set down your drinks, books, and other items, Ray told BI.

“To create a functional living room, you should have a surface that you can easily reach from wherever you’re sitting,” she said. 

Consider including at least one or two side tables and a coffee table in your space — plus more surfaces if you’ve got the room.

This story was originally published in November 2019 and most recently updated on January 14, 2025.

• Tesla leads the US electric vehicle market with a 59% share, after the end of federal incentives.
• Ford, Rivian, and General Motors struggle with low EV market share and profitability issues.
• Several automakers scaled back or halted US EV plans due to high costs and low sales volume.

Federal incentives for electric vehicles disappeared at the end of the third quarter, leaving the US market to survive on its own merits.

So, how did companies perform in this new, realistic environment?

Cox Automotive, an industry data provider, has just released EV sales estimates for the fourth quarter on Tuesday, and the numbers reveal which companies thrive and which struggle without government assistance.

Tesla once again dominates the EV market in the US. Its market share surged to 59% in Q4, up from 41% in the previous quarter, Cox data shows.

One major reason is that EV companies in the US now have to make the numbers work without government help. A significant part of the equation is volume.

Despite a decline in sales recently, Tesla still sold 138,000 EVs in the US during the fourth quarter. That type of volume helps the company maintain relatively low prices while still making money.

Most rivals don’t have that volume, and their EV manufacturing operations just aren’t as efficient as Tesla’s because they still make other types of cars, which have way more parts than EVs. This can make them more expensive to manufacture and can lead to big losses.

“In the volume-driven business of automotive manufacturing, low volume is the enemy; EV profitability remains a distant dream for nearly every automaker,” Cox warned last year as federal incentives ended.

Ford’s EV market share was measly 6% in the fourth quarter, while Rivian’s stood at just 4%.

General Motors is performing somewhat better, with a market share of over 10%. Even here, the math just doesn’t add up. General Motors took $6 billion in fourth-quarter charges tied to scaling back EV plans in the US.

In December, Ford abandoned large EVs because it couldn’t make a profit on them. The company took a $20 billion write-down on its failing EV business. Rivian still loses a lot of money, although its cheaper R2 EV might improve things later this year.

In July, Mercedes stopped taking EV orders in the US. Stellantis recently shelved some of its EV plans, along with Porsche and Honda. Even Ferrari, which has juicy profit margins, dialed down its EV plans.

If EV operations can’t reach high-volume scale, they risk constantly losing money. At some point, they have to stop the bleeding. When incentives ended in the US, many players decided to give up.

Tesla remains the exception in the US. It’s proving that, in this industry, volume equals survival.

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.