The war on D.E.I. intensifies

Even before Donald Trump won in November, the conservative backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion policies was going strong.

But new revelations about the next Trump administration’s efforts to constrain what’s commonly known as D.E.I. — and corporate titans’ willingness to put such programs aside — suggest just how strident the pushback will be.

Elon Musk’s cost-cutting initiative is eyeing big cuts to federal diversity programs, according to The Washington Post. The nongovernmental panel, the Department of Government Efficiency, is said to be considering a report by a right-wing civil rights group that claims to have identified more than $120 billion in potential cuts in D.E.I.-related programs.

Among them, according to The Post, are ending programs to benefit Black farmers and businesses, as well as a Biden-era executive order reserving 15 percent of federal contracts for minority-owned businesses. (Separately, the F.B.I. confirmed that it had closed its Office of Diversity and Inclusion, prompting Trump to express anger that it had existed at all.)

The Times shed more light on Mark Zuckerberg’s move to unwind D.E.I. at Meta. In a meeting with Stephen Miller, the influential Trump aide, Zuckerberg signaled that he would do nothing to obstruct the president-elect’s agenda of cracking down on corporate D.E.I. culture. The tech mogul said new guidelines were coming — and soon after announced a rollback of content moderation rules and an end to Meta’s D.E.I. efforts.

Moreover, Zuckerberg blamed Sheryl Sandberg, his former longtime lieutenant who was known for cultural advocacy programs like Lean In, for encouraging employee self-expression in the workplace, The Times adds. (The revelation stoked outrage online.)

The news underscores how defenses of D.E.I. are faltering. Many companies had already been rethinking their commitment to diversity programs before Trump’s victory, especially after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action at universities. But several corporate giants, including Amazon and McDonald’s, have ended or scaled back such programs post-election.

For some corporations, work on diversity will still take place, using language that isn’t as politically charged. But as corporate leaders respond to pressure from ascendant right-wing activists and seek to get on Trump’s good side, the pressure on D.E.I. isn’t going away.

• In related news: Meta’s chief technology officer said the company had mishandled how it rolled out changes to diversity policies and content moderation. And for some workers whose careers haven’t advanced how they like, diversity programs may have simply been an excuse to sugarcoat the real reason they were passed over, according to a Wall Street Journal column.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

Israel’s security cabinet meets to approve the cease-fire deal. The vote is taking place after Israeli and Hamas negotiators resolved remaining disputes, with ministers expected to clear the agreement this weekend. If approved, Israel would withdraw eastward and both sides would release hostages or prisoners, potentially paving a path to ending the 15-month war.

China’s economy grows, but its population shrinks again. New data showed that the Chinese economy grew 5 percent last year, with increased exports and investment in manufacturing offsetting a slump in construction. But Beijing also disclosed that China’s population fell for a third straight year, despite an unexpected rise in births, portending a longer-term challenge to economic growth.

The Biden administration files a final flurry of regulatory actions. Regulators including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department struck settlements with companies including American Express, Block, General Motors and Toyota, and recommended charges against the parent of Snapchat. They’re a last burst of oversight actions before the Trump administration, which is expected to take a lighter hand in regulating business, takes office next week.

Markets feel reassured by Bessent

Bitcoin, stock futures and government bonds — all are rallying modestly on Friday, the final trading day of the Biden era.

Their fortunes appear to be buoyed by renewed bullishness for the next Trump administration, with investors feeling relieved about what they’ve heard from the president-elect’s Cabinet picks on how they intend to operate.

Markets were especially heartened by Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary pick, Scott Bessent. In his confirmation hearing on Thursday, Bessent played down the inflationary risks of Trump’s agenda.

Here are the highlights:

• Bessent called for renewing and extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts to avert “economic calamity.” But while he said cutting fiscal spending was also important, he was noncommittal about repealing the country’s debt ceiling and said entitlement programs like Medicare would be safe.

• He said tariffs should be imposed on select countries to fix trade imbalances or used as leverage to negotiate favorable trade deals. A new round directed at China seems inevitable. In response, China is zeroing in on American chipmakers.

• Bessent said that Fed independence is key to American fiscal stability. But he warned that Trump, who has long grumbled about high interest rates, was still “going to make his views known.”

• He demurred on the idea of the Fed creating a digital currency. Still, Bloomberg reports that Trump is expected to designate crypto as a national priority. Speculation is also growing that Trump will greenlight a federal Bitcoin reserve.

Other confirmation hearings raised questions about how the second Trump administration was shaping up. Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, the choice for interior secretary, criticized renewables as part of a wider national “electricity crisis.” The country needed to refocus on fossil fuels to maintain its global lead in energy-intensive sectors like artificial intelligence, he added.

But Lee Zeldin, Trump’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, dodged questions about Trump’s repeated vows to roll back or scrap the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate legislation.

And Scott Turner, the former N.F.L. player tapped to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, offered little detail about how he would address a housing crunch. His lack of clarity came as new Freddie Mac data showed mortgage rates hitting an eight-month high.

The surge is pricing some prospective buyers out of the market — despite the Fed having lowered borrowing costs — in a trend that has alarmed some market watchers.

The TikTok countdown continues

As TikTok nears a potential ban in the United States, elected officials are racing to find ways to delay a crisis that many of them helped stoke by backing the law behind the punishment.

Here’s where things stand.

President Biden is trying to make it Donald Trump’s problem. An administration official told NBC News that the White House was “exploring options” to forestall the app from going dark. Biden also does not plan to fine the companies that host the TikTok app, like Google and Apple, according to NBC News.

That would leave it up to Trump to enforce any punishments against TikTok and its partners. The president-elect has been weighing an executive order to let the app keep running until a U.S. buyer is found, though it is unclear how effective that would be.

Senate Democrats scrambled to arrange a delay. Lawmakers led by Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Cory Booker of New Jersey have sought to pass a bill giving TikTok more time to find a buyer. But Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, objected, citing concerns about dangers posed by the app.

A spokesperson for Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, told The Wall Street Journal that the minority leader spoke with Biden on Thursday about creating a delay.

TikTok’s C.E.O. is continuing to court Trump as well. In addition to sitting on the dais for the inauguration with top Cabinet picks and other tech moguls, Shou Chew is hosting a party for pro-Trump creators Sunday night, which will cost TikTok about $50,000 to throw.

Chew is also expected to attend a Trump victory rally on Sunday at the Capital One Arena, sitting in the suite of Raul Fernandez, a Trump donor and a partner at Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the sports team owner.

Musk’s gaming rank

Elon Musk has famously and unapologetically clashed with regulators and heads of state. But he is coming up against opponents who appear to have touched a nerve: gamers who have questioned his claims to video game mastery.

A recap: Musk has boasted lately on X lately about his gaming prowess, including soaring to the top of the global leader boards in Diablo IV and Path of Exile 2. Such feats require skills, sure, but also a lot of screen time, leading skeptics to question how the C.E.O. of six companies and a key adviser to Donald Trump finds the time.

Online sleuths increasingly believe they have found the answer: They’ve accused Musk of paying others to use his accounts and put in the hours to boost his rankings.

A popular YouTube gaming personality named Asmongold in particular accused Musk of being disingenuous about his rapid rise to the top.

Musk has taken those charges personally. The billionaire has shared videos of himself in action as a way to prove he’s the real deal. Musk also fired back at Asmongold, saying of the YouTuber, “he is NOT good at video games.”

Others came to Asmongold’s defense, using X’s Community Notes feature to annotate Musk’s posts.

Given the level of discussion online, this spat feels like it’s far from over.

THE SPEED READ

Deals

• Rio Tinto and Glencore reportedly held talks last year about a deal, which would have combined two of the world’s biggest miners, though discussions aren’t currently active. (Bloomberg).

• Junior investment bankers beware: Artificial intelligence tools can write 95 percent of an I.P.O. prospectus in minutes, according to David Solomon, Goldman Sachs’s C.E.O. (FT)

Politics, policy and regulation

• Meet Ken Howery, the tech investor and friend of Elon Musk who will spearhead any deal talks with Denmark over Greenland. (NYT)

• A group representing Capitol Hill staffers who work for progressive lawmakers is pushing for a 32-hour workweek. (Politico)

Best of the rest

• A SpaceX rocket broke up on Thursday during a test flight, forcing the F.A.A. to divert several commercial flights to avoid the debris. (CNBC)

• David Lynch, the director behind classic movies and TV shows including “Blue Velvet,” “Mulholland Drive” and “Twin Peaks,” has died. He was 78. (NYT)

We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.

To get its citizens to have more children and stop its population from shrinking, China has tried it all, even declaring having babies an act of patriotism. And yet, for the third year in a row, its population got smaller.

Not even a surprise uptick in the number of babies born, a first in seven years, could reverse the course of an aging and declining population.

China is staring down a longer term baby bust that is rippling through the economy. Hospitals are shutting their obstetrics units, and companies that sold baby formula are idling factories. Thousands of kindergartens have closed and more than 170,000 preschool teachers lost their jobs in 2023.

The country’s birthrate, as one former kindergarten in the southern city of Chongqing put it, “is falling off a cliff.” Enrollments in China’s kindergartens plummeted by more than five million in 2023, according to the most recently available data.

On Friday, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that 9.54 million babies were born last year, up slightly from 9.02 million in 2023. Taken together with the number of people who died over 2024 — 10.93 million — China’s population shrank for a third straight year.

The small bump in newborns, in part because it was the auspicious Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac, didn’t change the broader trajectory, experts said. China’s childbearing population is declining and young people are reluctant to have children.

“In the medium and long term, the annual number of births in my country will continue to decline,” said Ren Yuan, a professor at Fudan University’s Institute of Population Studies.

The lack of babies is adding to China’s economic challenges. A shrinking working-age population is straining an underfunded pension system, and an aging society is leaning on a creaking health care system. China also reported on Friday that the economy grew by 5 percent in 2024, a number that was in line with expectations but that many experts said did not fully reflect a crisis of confidence among households reeling from a multiyear property crisis.

To encourage people to have more babies, the authorities are offering tax benefits, cheaper housing and cash. Cities are promising to cover the cost of in vitro fertilization. In some parts of the country, they are even promising to get rid of restrictions that penalize single mothers.

The government has called on local officials to put in place early-warning systems to monitor big changes in population at the village and town levels around the country. Some officials are even knocking on doors and calling women to inquire about their menstrual cycles.

Companies are also getting involved. In 2023, the travel site Trip.com started paying employees nearly $1,400 a year for each newborn until the age of 5. Last week, the founder of electric vehicle maker XPeng said he would give employees nearly $4,100 if they had a third child.

“We want our employees to have more kids,” said He Xiaopeng, the founder, in a video posted on social media. “I think the company should take care of the money, so employees can have children.”

The problem is not unique to China, which in 2023 was passed by India as the world’s most populous nation. Falling birthrates are often a measure of a country’s move up the economic ladder because fertility rates tend to fall as incomes and education levels go up. But China’s sudden decline in population arrived much sooner than the government had expected. Many families are earning more money than they were a decade ago, but have lost income because of the housing crisis.

Officials have long feared the day when there will not be enough workers to support retirees. Now the government has less time to prepare. More than 400 million people will be 60 or older in the next decade.

China is facing two challenges on this front. Its public pension system is severely underfunded and many young people are reluctant — or are unable — to contribute. A low retirement age has made things worse. After years of deliberation, the government decided on a 15-year plan to gradually increase the official age to 63 for men, 58 for women in office jobs and 55 for women who work in factories. The changes took effect this month.

The party only loosened birth restrictions in 2015 to allow families to have two children, an easing that created a sudden boom. Hospitals had to add beds in the corridors because there weren’t enough.

But the moment was short-lived. By 2017, births started declining every year until last year.

In 2021, panicked officials loosened China’s birth policy again, allowing couples to have three children. It was too late. The next year, so few babies were born that the population began to shrink for the first time since the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong’s failed experiment that resulted in widespread famine and death in the 1960s.

China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, far below what demographers refer to as the replacement rate required for a population to grow. This threshold requires every couple, on average, to have two children.

Experts said the number of births would likely continue to fluctuate.

“For a country of 1.4 billion a half million more births is not much of a rebound at all,” Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine. “This is in comparison to the lowest year, in 2023 when the pandemic certainly put a pause on childbearing.”

Many young Chinese people are quick to rattle off reasons not to have children: the rising cost of education, growing burdens of taking care of their aging parents and a desire to live a lifestyle known as “Double Income, No Kids.”

For women, the sentiment is especially strong. Daughters who were the only children in their families received education and employment opportunities their parents often did not. They have grown up to become empowered women who see Mr. Xi’s appeals to them to do their patriotic duty and bear children as one step too far. Many of these women have said that deep-seated inequality and insufficient legal protections have made them reluctant to get married.

The steep drop in babies is having a drastic effect on health care, education and even the consumer market. Companies that once minted money selling baby formula to feed a baby boom are now making shakes with calcium and selenium for older adults with brittle bones.

Nestlé, the world’s largest food company, is shutting a factory for the China market that employs more than 500 people halfway across the world in Europe. The company will focus on selling premium baby products and expanding its offering in adult nutrition in China, a spokesman said.

The pressure on China’s health care system is even more pronounced. Dozens of hospitals and maternal health clinic chains have reported closing over the past two years.

On social media forums, nurses specializing in obstetrics have talked about low pay and lost jobs. One doctor told state media that being in obstetrics, once considered an “iron rice bowl” position with guaranteed job security, had become a “rusty iron rice bowl.”

And some smaller hospitals have stopped paying their staff, Han Zhonghou, a former official at a hospital in northern China, told a Chinese magazine.

“Life for maternal and child hospitals,” Mr. Han said, “is getting harder and harder by the year.”