In the past few months, some of the largest banks and asset managers in the United States have quit net zero networks, the climate groups that encourage their members to set ambitious carbon reduction targets and collaborate internationally on sustainability efforts.

But the week after Donald J. Trump won re-election in November, NYCERS, a pension fund for New York City employees, went in the opposite direction. It joined a United Nations-affiliated climate action group for long-term investors, the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance.

The timing wasn’t intentional, said Brad Lander, the comptroller who oversees the city’s finances, including the pension fund, and is now running for mayor. But, he added, “we were pleased that the timing sent an important signal.”

“It is far more important than it was for pension funds and other big asset owners to take collective action at this moment,” Mr. Lander said.

At a time of growing backlash to environmental, social and governance goals and investment strategies, pension funds, particularly in blue states and Europe, have emerged as a bulwark against efforts to sideline climate-related risks.

The funds, which sit at the top of the investment chain, have stepped up engagement with asset managers and companies on climate goals and have kept public commitments to use their fiscal might to reduce carbon emissions. In some cases, that has meant shifting to European asset managers, which have not backed off on climate commitments as much as their American counterparts have.

Mr. Lander’s office oversees investments for five public pension funds for 700,000 of the city’s current and former employees. The funds are pushing ahead with engagement, bringing more shareholder resolutions to banks to disclose the ratio of their fossil fuel investments versus clean energy and to utilities companies on their climate targets.

They have been emboldened by a court decision earlier this month that upheld a dismissal of a lawsuit against three of the funds for divesting from some fossil fuel investments.

Mr. Lander and other pension fund managers say they aren’t motivated by political beliefs or a purely environmental agenda. Instead, their investments, which need to provide long-term sustainable returns for people who might not retire for many decades, keep climate risks at the forefront of their minds.

The net zero alliance is “the opposite” of an activist, Peter Stensgaard Morch, the chief executive of PensionDanmark and a member of the alliance’s steering group, said in a written response to questions. Its work is driven by the fiduciary duty of its members to seek the highest possible returns, he added.

Recent actions by pension funds stand in contrast with those of other institutions that are loosening their climate commitments. A net zero group for banks is considering dropping the pledge to align banks’ portfolios with a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Some big energy companies, such as BP, have pared back their renewable investments. Last month, the European Commission proposed relaxing climate reporting rules for companies, citing concerns that the regulation was too onerous and would impede economic growth.

The U.N. asset owner group, which includes pension funds, insurers, foundations and other long-term investors, has fared better than its counterparts. Asset managers, who are in a tug of war between customers in blue and red states, have pulled out of previous public commitments to climate goals. The U.N. group for asset managers, which used to include BlackRock, has suspended its activities, and the group for banks lost 17 big members in the past four months.

Intense political and legal attacks in the United States, notably from red states with anti-E.S.G. laws, have pressured asset managers to abandon climate action groups and simultaneously widened the chasm between Europe and the United States on sustainability efforts.

The People’s Pension, a British fund that has about £32 billion ($41 billion) in assets and manages pensions for nearly seven million people, recently shifted most of its assets away from State Street, the U.S. firm that was its only asset manager, to Amundi, a French company, and Invesco. The fund was seeking more asset managers with strong sustainability credentials in line with its own responsible investment commitments, said Dan Mikulskis, the chief investment officer.

“We don’t interact directly with companies,” Mr. Mikulskis said. “We rely on asset managers to do that for us.”

During the search, which lasted about a year, asset managers started to go “different ways” from one another, as he diplomatically put it. But that made it easier to determine those with the right approach for his fund.

Recently, a group of 27 pension funds, mostly from Europe, called on asset managers globally to improve their stewardship practices to address climate change risks and to stay in collaborative groups. They noted there had been a “divergence” between the expectations of asset owners and the actions of asset managers on climate stewardship.

This was backed up by a study by Principles for Responsible Investment, which found that among its 3,000 or so signatories, asset owners were much more likely to take a long-term approach to identifying climate risk and to use climate scenario analysis than the asset managers to whom they outsourced investing.

Progress by some companies on climate action is slowing amid short-term pressure, such as a rise in energy prices, said Diandra Soobiah, the head of responsible investment at Nest, a British state-backed pension fund with £48 billion ($62 billion) in assets.

“These pressures have had an impact, but what we are trying to do as long-term investors is really talk about the importance in managing these long-term risks,” she said. “We still believe the world is going to have to transition, and want them to be prepared.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Elon Musk said he sold X to his A.I. start-up xAI. In an all-stock deal that shows how parts of Musk’s business empire can intertwine, xAI was valued at $80 billion and X was valued at $33 billion, which is $11 billion less than Musk paid for the company when he acquired it in 2022.

Resurgent inflation data sent markets tumbling. The closely watched Personal Consumption Expenditures report showed that inflation rose last month above Wall Street forecasts, driven by a surge in the prices of everyday items. Economists warn that President Trump’s trade war and his crackdown on immigration could accelerate inflation further. The report sent stocks sharply lower, with the S&P 500 on pace for its first losing quarter since 2023.

Trump unveiled new tariffs and vowed that more would go into effect next week. The latest — duties of 25 percent on the imports of cars and auto parts — were widely expected but still caught auto company executives, global leaders and investors off guard. That set off a diplomatic scramble with, the European Union reportedly identifying possible concessions ahead of negotiations to ward off the worst, according to Bloomberg. In addition, Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada held what the president called “very productive” talks yesterday.

Major law firms pushed back against Trump. Federal judges issued temporary restraining orders on Friday blocking executive orders that essentially bar WilmerHale and Jenner & Block from working with the federal government or even entering federal buildings. (A third law firm, Perkins Coie, sued earlier on similar grounds.) Trump’s attacks on Big Law have rocked the sector, with firms facing a dilemma: try to cut a pre-emptive deal with Trump or risk losing clients and having their partners poached by rival firms.

Philanthropy is under pressure

As the Trump administration slashes its way through Washington, nonprofit organizations are bracing for a big hit.

The federal government contributes about $303 billion a year to more than 100,000 U.S. nonprofit groups, ranging from neighborhood community projects to overseas aid, according to Candid, a research data organization that tracks the sector.

Many of those grants are now at risk from deep cuts at the United States Agency for International Development, the National Institutes of Health, and other federal agencies, as Trump and DOGE work to slash spending and end support for issues like climate action and diversity. Elon Musk this month called nonprofits “a giant graft machine.”

For weeks, nonprofits have wrestled in boardrooms and over Zoom with how best to maintain operations. The most obvious solution is to ask private donors and foundations to step up their giving — but those patrons can only do so much.

“Filling the gaps would be impossible,” Rick Cohen, chief operations officer for the National Council of Nonprofits in Washington, told DealBook. He estimates 30 percent of nonprofit revenues come from government contracts.

So what now?

Some philanthropy giants have increased their giving in response to Trump cuts. The MacArthur Foundation, whose $8.6 billion in assets supports programs in the arts, the environment and other areas, announced increases in grant spending for at least two years. Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, said the organization would make up the funding shortfall in climate projects, as it did during Trump’s first presidency.

But foundations, which now give nonprofits about $107 billion a year, according to Candid, cannot fully compensate for government cuts. And trying to do so could be seen as “surrender in advance,” Matthew Bishop, the author of “Philanthrocapitalism,” told DealBook.

Increasing private gifts risks creating an illusion of stability. Some nonprofit organizations and philanthropy experts told DealBook that they worry that donors could mistakenly convey to the public and the Trump administration that nonprofits can survive without government help.

“We cannot in any way create the conditions for the argument of ‘Send it all in our direction,’” said Jeff Moore, the chief strategy officer for Independent Sector, a coalition of U.S. corporate and nonprofit philanthropies in Washington. “There is not enough money in the philanthropic universe to do what the federal government does.”

Nonprofits are scrambling for funds. Even where federal grant programs remain in place, DOGE firings have hollowed out the offices that process grants, hugely complicating the work of nonprofits. “There’s nobody there to send their application for funding to,” Cohen said.

At the same time, donors outside the federal government are being bombarded with appeals for help. Laetitia Cairoli, the director of development for Oasis Haven for Women and Children in Paterson, N.J., says she has looked to replace $500,000 in federal grants it expects to lose, but she has been told by New Jersey officials and private donors that they’re overwhelmed with requests. “They are seeing increased pressure on the funds,” she told DealBook.

Some private funding may also be in jeopardy. Executives have grown increasingly wary of even tangential politics, including which programs their companies support.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute canceled a $60 million program for student diversity in science and medical education. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Mark Zuckerberg’s for-profit philanthropy, scrapped funding for diversity and immigration-reform programs, citing “the shifting regulatory and legal landscape.” And this month, the Gates Foundation made sweeping cuts to its climate program, Breakthrough Energy, as Bill Gates works to repair his fractious relationship with Trump.

“There has been a big backing away from anything that could be seen as woke,” Bishop said. Even funding gay pride marches or local libraries could now be deemed too risky. “Companies don’t want to bring attention to themselves,” he said.

The looming tax battle could hit hard. As Congress tries to pass a budget bill this year, nonprofits’ tax status looks set to be a fraught issue, with philanthropic organizations arguing for a universal charitable deduction, allowing those who take a standard deduction on their tax returns to still write off donations, while the administration seeks to scrub projects considered political. Losing tax-exempt status is nonprofits’ worst fear. “That could cost them millions and millions of dollars,” Bishop said.

Nonprofits are in triage mode. Tweaking operations, as nonprofits did during Trump’s first term and the pandemic, is no longer enough. “The cuts are so broad and so deep, food banks cannot get the food they were promised,” said Cohen. His organization, the National Council of Nonprofits, which represents 30,000 nonprofits and donors, was part of a lawsuit that won a temporary injunction in January against Trump’s blanket federal funding freeze. The final outcome of that challenge has yet to be determined.

For now, organizations are most likely to do triage, salvaging what they can, as they winnow down operations. “Figuring out which programs you really need to survive is an important strategic question,” Bishop said. “It’s necessary to be ruthless in cutting free those you don’t feel are essential and doubling down on those that are right.”

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Ziggy Duchnowski spent Saturday morning car shopping along Northern Boulevard in Queens with two goals in mind.

He wanted to find a new small car for his wife, and he hoped to strike a deal before the new tariffs that President Trump is imposing on imported cars and trucks affect prices.

“The word on the street is prices are going to shoot up now,” said Mr. Duchnowski, 45, a union carpenter who voted for Mr. Trump, holding the hands of his two small children.

The tariffs — 25 percent on vehicles and parts produced outside the United States — will have a broad impact on the North American auto industry. They are supposed to go into effect on April 3 and are sure to raise the prices of new cars and trucks.

They will also force automakers to adjust their North American manufacturing operations and scramble to find ways to cut costs to offset the tariffs. And for now at least, they are spurring some consumers to buy vehicles before sticker prices jump.

Analysts estimate that the tariffs will significantly increase the prices of new vehicles, adding a few thousand dollars for entry-level models to $10,000 or more for high-end cars and trucks. Higher prices for new vehicles are also likely to nudge used-car prices higher.

Every automaker will feel some kind of impact. General Motors builds a large number of highly profitable pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles in Canada and Mexico. Toyota and Honda make popular S.U.V.s in Canada. Volkswagen assembles the Jetta sedan, Tiguan S.U.V. and other popular models in Mexico.

“Once the tariffs go into effect and people start receiving quotes that represent these 25 percent increases, that’s when it’s going to start to sink in,” said Bill Pacilli, the sales manager at Lynnes Hyundai in Bloomfield, N.J.

Close to half the cars that Hyundai sells in the United States are imported from South Korea, he said. “They’re going to be hit with the tariffs in about a month or two,” Mr. Pacilli said. “Of course we’re concerned. Any effect in pricing is going to affect sales volume.”

While many dealers did not see a noticeable increase in buyers on Saturday, Jeremy Gleason, general manager at McGrath Subaru Evanston in Skokie, Ill., said his dealership had its biggest sales day since it opened in 2021.

“It’s been nuts,” Mr. Gleason said. “The tariffs have come up a lot and pushed people to move forward quicker.” He added that his dealership typically sells about 15 cars on Saturdays but sold 32 on this one.

Alvaro Duarte, an Ecuadorean immigrant who lives in West New York, N.J., went to Hudson Toyota in Jersey City, N.J., on Saturday to trade in his gas-powered car for an electric model, fearing prices would rise if he waited.

“Tariffs affect everyone,” said Mr. Duarte, 37. In his free time, he said, he often uses his car to earn money on the side as an Amazon Flex delivery driver. “If the prices go up, I need to pay more for my car, and that’s more expensive for me and my family,” he said. “I made the change because with electric cars there is no gasoline and less maintenance.”

Meanwhile, a salesman at Audi Manhattan in New York, Abdul Azeez, said traffic was no brisker than usual, and suggested it was because the people who live in the neighborhood usually have the means to buy new cars whenever they choose.

“Overall, I don’t think dealers in Manhattan are going to be as affected compared to dealers in other states or less busy cities, because even in the good economy, bad economy, there’s always going to be somebody who walks in the door to buy a car,” said Mr. Azeez, 24.

In Ann Arbor, Mich., on the strip of auto dealerships west of downtown on Jackson Avenue, customer traffic was pretty normal for a Saturday on the last weekend of the month — typically a busy time.

But a Tesla showroom drew a crowd: some 300 to 400 people gathered to protest the political activities of the company’s chief executive, Elon Musk.

Mr. Musk heads the cost-cutting initiative known as the Department of Government Efficiency, which has eliminated thousands of federal jobs and gutted several government agencies, including the Veterans Affairs Department and the Education Department.

Protesters carried signs calling for Mr. Musk’s firing and urged people to sell their Teslas.

“We’ve got to get some basic common sense back in this country,” said Harold Blake, 73, a retiree who drove 30 miles from Dearborn to participate in the protest.

“It’s so extreme, what’s going on in Washington,” he said. “I’m not taking it lying down.”

Over the course of an hour, no customers crossed the picket line to enter the Tesla showroom.

Protests were taking place at Tesla locations around the world, as part of the so-called Tesla Takedown movement. More than two dozen such demonstrations were scheduled across the United States on Saturday. Others were planned for Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

“I’m terrified for my kids and grandkids for what this world is coming to,” Kathy Sinnes, 67, said while protesting outside a Tesla showroom in Miami and holding a poster that read, “Tesla greed we will not heed.”

It remains unclear how soon prices on new vehicles will rise. Most automakers have enough tariff-free cars and trucks on dealer lots to last 60 to 90 days.

Juan Carlos Fagerlund decided not to wait. He was in a Toyota dealership in North Miami, Fla., to add window tinting to a Prius he had bought this month.

Although he had already been thinking about buying a new car, he said, the potential of higher prices prompted him to speed up his shopping, especially because he wanted a Prius. The car is made in Japan and will be subject to a heavy tariff.

The tariff increase “was not entirely the reason why we purchased in March,” Mr. Fagerlund said. “But it was definitely in our minds.”

Adria Pina, 60, a Dominican immigrant and a New Jersey Transit bus driver who lives in Bayonne, N.J., also decided to move quickly. Sitting in the Hudson Toyota dealership in Jersey City minutes after she bought a new car, she said she felt that she had just dodged a tariff pothole.

“My husband said we got lucky that we got a deal right before the tariffs,” Ms. Pina said. “If we didn’t get this done in time, it would have cost us about $10,000 more. That’s a lot of money.”

Sal Sellers, 57, the general sales manager at Hudson Nissan next door, didn’t seem overly concerned about the looming tariffs, noting that he had been through the pandemic and other serious economic downturns. But that didn’t mean his customers weren’t worried.

“Last week, we had a couple customers walking in saying: ‘You know what, I’m not waiting. I’m going to change my car now before the tariffs hit,’” Mr. Sellers said. “I’d say about 30 percent of my customers said that.”

Outside Chicago, Enzo Costa oversees eight dealerships as director of sales for the family-owned Patrick Dealer Group.

In March, he said, he increased his orders for new cars to top off his inventory before prices rise, and his acquisitions team purchased 30 used vehicles — about three times the usual number.

So far, though, he hadn’t seen a spike in customer traffic. “On a normal Saturday, we set 80 to 100 appointments,” he said. “Today, we have 75.”

He added that his sales team was urging customers considering new cars to come to the showroom. “Everything in inventory is pre-tariff,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about that now. That’s something that is way down the road.”

At Silver Line Auto Group in Queens, which sells used Jeeps, Cadillacs and Mercedeses, many customers are immigrants or other people who have driver’s licenses but not Social Security numbers. Back in December, Silver Line sold 35 cars, but business had crashed since then, said a salesman, Silver Bautista. The company sold just eight cars this month and recently laid off four employees.

Mr. Bautista said he believed that customers were staying away not because of rising prices but because they felt a need to save money.

“They don’t care about tariffs,” Mr. Bautista said. “People are worried about being deported.”

Robert Chiarito, Ryan Hooper, Verónica Zaragovia, Anusha Bayya and Nate Schweber contributed reporting.

President Trump on Friday commuted the sentence of Carlos Watson, a co-founder of the now-defunct digital media company Ozy Media, on the day he was set to surrender to prison, three people familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Watson was sentenced in December to almost 10 years in prison for trying to defraud investors and lenders by lying about the company’s finances. He was sentenced after a federal jury last summer convicted Mr. Watson and Ozy Media of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. The jury also convicted Mr. Watson of identity theft, after a two-month trial during which witnesses detailed an impersonated phone call, fabricated contracts and misleading claims about Ozy’s earnings from 2018 to 2021.

A federal judge had also ordered Mr. Watson and Ozy to pay $96 million in restitution and forfeiture. Mr. Watson and Ozy also no longer have to pay those financial penalties, the people said.

Mr. Watson had pleaded not guilty and continued to assert his innocence up until he was sentenced to 116 months. His commutation was reported earlier by CNBC.

Mr. Watson said in a statement that he was “profoundly grateful to President Trump for correcting this grave injustice.”

Mr. Watson started Ozy in 2013, publishing news articles and newsletters before venturing into podcasts and television productions. The start-up secured commitments from prominent investors at a time when digital publishers, like BuzzFeed and Vice, attracted billions of dollars in investments that largely didn’t pan out.

Throughout the legal proceedings, Mr. Watson denied the fraud allegations. In court, his lawyers argued that his representations to investors had been based on good-faith assessments of Ozy’s finances, and they shifted the blame for any fraudulent activity onto other former Ozy employees. When he took the stand at his trial, Mr. Watson said he had not intentionally inflated revenue estimates, but rather had presented the types of service-based income typical of a “scrappy young company” in its early years.

Mr. Watson, at his sentencing hearing in December, reiterated his stance that the government selectively prosecuted him because he is a Black man.

Samir Rao, the other founder of Ozy, and Suzee Han, a former Ozy chief of staff, pleaded guilty in 2023 to fraud charges and testified against Mr. Watson.

At the heart of the case was a 2021 fund-raising call during which Mr. Rao misled Goldman Sachs employees by impersonating a YouTube executive, as first reported by The New York Times. Prosecutors contended that Mr. Watson had helped set up the call, citing text messages he sent to Mr. Rao that, they claimed, amounted to a script for what to say. Mr. Watson denied any responsibility.

Witnesses also testified that Mr. Watson had misrepresented Ozy’s finances to secure investments, inflating revenue figures and presenting misleading claims of commitments from Oprah Winfrey and Live Nation Entertainment.

Mr. Trump also this week pardoned the three founders of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, who had pleaded guilty in 2022 to violations of the bank secrecy act, one of the people familiar with the matter said, as well as Trevor Milton, who was convicted by a federal jury in 2022 of defrauding investors in the electric truck maker Nikola.