President Donald Trump is on stage as gunshots ring out at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC, on April 25, 2026.
Hello, I am Hui Ji writing to you from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.
The attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner made headlines over the weekend, and details continue to emerge.
Meanwhile, employment concerns continue to grow Meta and AI-fueled job losses at Microsoft – but ironically, OpenAI has been reported to be the new favorite destination of tech executives.
What you need to know today
The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner is one of the most high-profile events for Washington journalists.
The incident took a worrying turn after a man armed with multiple weapons appeared He was attacked at a security checkpoint during a dinner on Saturday before being captured by US Secret Service agents.
The suspect in the attack was 31-year-old Cole Allen, from Torrance, California, and according to a New York Post report According to Allen’s writings, US administration officials were their primary targets.
US President Donald Trump said that one officer was shot, but that he “survived due to the fact that he was obviously wearing a very good bulletproof vest.”
Outside the US, Trump is completely preoccupied with dealing with the Iran conflict. Plans for a second round of peace talks fell through after the US President canceled plans to send US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan for talks with the Iranians – who had already expressed reluctance to engage with the US.
The development fueled energy concerns, sending oil prices soaring. Brent futures rose 2% to $107.37 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate futures rose 1.86% to $96.13. US futures for all three major indexes slipped.
However, Asian markets started the week mostly higher, with Japanese and Korean benchmark indexes hitting record highs in early trading, with the focus on China’s industrial profits data for the first quarter of the year due later in the day.
In tech news, AI-fueled job losses have heightened employment concerns as Meta and Microsoft announced more than 20,000 job cuts last week.
These are the same companies that are collectively spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year to build artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The irony is that many top software executives have been poached by AI giants, who are looking for talent with sales and go-to-market experience, according to sources.
Executives from Salesforce, Snowflake and Datadog have moved to OpenAI and Anthropic, multiple sources told CNBC.
– Lim Hui Ji
And finally…
South Korea’s ‘ant investors’ flock to US equities even as domestic markets hit record highs
South Korean stocks have been hitting record highs over the past year, but that hasn’t diminished the attractiveness of US equities for its residents.
The country plans to buy a net $73.6 billion in US stocks in 2025 – almost five times more than in 2024.
The rally in US stocks continues even as South Korea’s benchmark Kospi stock index returned 75% last year, hitting new highs this year.
– Lim Hui Ji, Blair Beck
