Jeffrey Epstein’s web of influence
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Google said it plans to spend at least $55bn more on capital expenditure this year than Wall Street had forecast, US tech stocks were hit by a fresh wave of selling on Wednesday, and the FT’s Chris Cook talks about the challenges of unpacking millions of documents on Jefferey Epstein. Plus, OpenAI senior staff are leaving because the company is prioritising ChatGPT.
Mentioned in this podcast:
Google adds $55bn to capex plans as it boosts AI spending
US tech stocks hit with fresh wave of selling as chipmaker AMD tumbles
Police launch criminal investigation into Mandelson over Epstein scandal
OpenAI’s ChatGPT push triggers senior staff exits
Note: The FT does not use generative AI to voice its podcasts
Credit: NBC News
Today’s FT News Briefing was hosted and edited by Marc Filippino, and produced by Fiona Symon, Victoria Craig and Sonja Hutson. Our show was mixed by Kelly Garry. Additional help from Gavin Kallmann, Michael Lello and David da Silva. Our executive producer is Topher Forhecz. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s Global Head of Audio. The show’s theme music is by Metaphor Music.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning from the Financial Times. |
| 0:04.1 | Today is Thursday, February 5th, and this is your FTEE's briefing. |
| 0:08.8 | Alphabet is still putting a lot of its weight behind artificial intelligence, |
| 0:12.5 | and we'll talk about the challenges of unpacking millions of documents on Jeffrey Epstein. |
| 0:17.1 | Plus, why OpenAI senior staff are leaving the company. |
| 0:22.0 | I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day. |
| 0:33.9 | Google said it plans to spend at least $55 billion more on capital expenditure this year than Wall Street had expected. |
| 0:41.2 | The focus is on, you guessed it, AI. |
| 0:44.0 | That brings its CAPEX to as much as $185 billion. |
| 0:47.8 | Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said, quote, |
| 0:50.0 | We're seeing our AI investments and infrastructure drive revenue and growth across the board. |
| 0:55.7 | The spending spree overshadowed a second straight quarter with revenue of more than $100 billion |
| 1:00.1 | that was driven by strong earnings from the company's advertising and cloud computing divisions. |
| 1:06.3 | Shares were volatile in after-hours trading. |
| 1:19.1 | And speaking of U.S. tech stocks, they had another bad day yesterday. |
| 1:24.9 | The tech-heavy NASDAQ composite fell 1.5% and the S&P slipped a half a percent. |
| 1:29.2 | Disappointing results from the chipmaker AMD added fuel to the AI-related fire. AMD seemed to do everything right. It reported strong first-quarter sales guidance and |
| 1:35.1 | higher than expected revenue in the fourth quarter of last year, but investor expectations were |
| 1:39.9 | just too high in the run-up to its results. The sell-off spread to companies like memory manufacturer, sand disk, software group Oracle, |
| 1:48.5 | and the chipmakers broadcom, and invidia. |
| 1:51.2 | The same kind of wide-ranging sell-off happened on Tuesday |
| 1:53.7 | after Anthropic released AI tools that can help automate legal work, |
... |
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