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America’s largest public utility just appointed a new CEO less than a week after Trump mysteriously fired one of its board members without explanation

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The nation’s largest public utility on Monday promoted one of its top executives to CEO, putting Don Moul in charge of the Tennessee Valley Authority as President Donald Trump has cast renewed attention on the federal entity.

The utility announced that its board picked Moul as president and chief executive to replace Jeff Lyash, who said in January that he would retire no later than September. The move comes less than a week after Trump removed one of the utility’s board members without indicating why. With the firing of Michelle Moore, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, the board currently has five members and four vacancies.

The board firing and CEO hiring come after Tennessee’s two Republican U.S. senators urged officials to opt for “an interim CEO trusted by the president” before hiring someone long-term.

Moul has served as TVA’s executive vice president and chief operating officer since June 2021. In a news release announcing his selection, TVA focused in part on Moul’s leadership in the advancement of nuclear energy technologies and his experience as a licensed senior reactor operator. He starts in the new role on April 9.

“TVA needs a steady hand right now,” Moul said in the news release. “I will build on the momentum that Jeff and our team have created -– making sure we continue to invest in new generation, strengthen our grid and enhance system reliability.”

Earlier this month, U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty wrote a guest column arguing that the TVA board was bogging down a project that seeks to build a small modular reactor with studies and hurdles.

Blackburn and Hagerty also said that hiring a CEO from within would forgo the chance to recruit a “top-quality leader” from outside the utility, which provides power to 10 million people across seven Southern states.

In part, advocates for nuclear energy have called for its expansion to help meet the demand from companies to power their artificial intelligence technologies, and do so without carbon emissions that speed up climate change.

Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, called the op-ed by Blackburn and Hagerty “reckless interference.” He said they don’t understand the “risk of rushing nuclear technology before it’s ready for prime time both economically and safety-wise.”

Clean energy advocates have also criticized TVA’s decision to replace several of its aging coal plants with another fossil fuel, natural gas.

Trump put TVA and the outgoing CEO Lyash on the hot seat in his first term.

In 2020, Trump fired the former TVA board chairman and another board member and drove TVA to reverse course on the hiring of foreign labor for information technology jobs.

He also called for Lyash’s replacement and the position’s pay to be capped at $500,000.

In response, TVA has noted that the CEO pay ranks in the bottom quartile of the power industry. Lyash’s total compensation topped $10.5 million in the 2024 budget year, including various pension and performance incentives worth millions of dollars. Additionally, the utility has stressed that it doesn’t receive federal taxpayer money and instead is funded by electricity customers.

A TVA spokesperson has said Lyash’s retirement was not related to the administration or current politics and that Lyash had begun talking to TVA board members last fall about considering retirement.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



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IRS to lose billions in revenue if migrants stop filing taxes

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The Internal Revenue Service is projected to lose more than $313 billion in revenue in the coming decade as undocumented workers are poised to pay fewer taxes after the agency struck a deal to share data with U.S. immigration authorities.

The IRS is expected to lose $12 billion in revenue for the remainder of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, according to a report out Tuesday by the Yale Budget Lab. The group estimates unauthorized workers paid about $66 billion in federal taxes in fiscal year 2023, with about two-thirds of that coming from payroll levies.

The Treasury Department—which oversees the IRS—earlier this week reached a deal with the Department of Homeland Security to share taxpayer information in response to law enforcement requests related to migration. While federal officials say the agreement includes safeguards and applies only to criminal matters, it reverses longstanding IRS privacy policies.

The report underscores the role undocumented workers play in paying into Social Security and Medicare benefit programs that they can’t draw from in retirement because of their immigration status. 

“The IRS has historically made clear to the undocumented immigrant population that their tax information is confidential and would not be used in such ways,” the report said. Tax compliance could fall among that group “if they become concerned that filing taxes could expose their personal contact information to law enforcement and be used to facilitate their deportation.”

President Donald Trump has enlisted the IRS and other government agencies in his efforts to crack down on undocumented immigration. He’s vowed to carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history, and so far is ramping up raids and encouraging undocumented immigrants to “self-deport.”

The report notes that there’s “considerable uncertainty” around the estimates, as they will depend strongly on the behaviors of undocumented immigrants and their employers. The 10-year loss in revenue could be as low as $147 billion and as high as $479 billion, according to the Budget Lab.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



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Why Chipotle won’t raise prices even in the event of tariffs, according to CEO Scott Boatwright

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Walmart CEO says ‘there will be a Christmas’ despite lingering fears of a trade war

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Despite the midday decision on Wednesday by President Donald Trump to pause most of his controversial tariff hikes, the risk to retailers remains very present that duties can be once again imposed in a few months, maintaining uncertainty over how they operate even as they begin to plan buying for the holiday season.

But Walmart Inc CEO Doug McMillon told investors that the world’s largest retailer has navigated many periods of uncertainty before, such a the tariff hikes of 2018 and the post-pandemic inflation surge, assuring them the company had a strategy moving forward.

“We have a plan to execute. There will be a Christmas, and people will celebrate Christmas, and they will buy items, and we will sell them those items,” McMillon said during a media briefing at the conclusion of the company’s 2025 investor day in Dallas.

Those plans include keeping a robust inventory and stocked shelves despite trade uncertainty. That’s possible in part because of Walmart’s clout with vendors, which allows it to absorb a significant part of any cost increases.

“Some of the confidence that we’ve been expressing is really founded on: we know who these buyers are,” he said. “They have great tools to manage this long-standing supplier relationship, and we believe that they will execute well.”

To be sure, the retailer is still navigating a tricky path. Although the major grocer only imports one-third of what it sells, China is the biggest source of that inventory. And China was not included in Trump’s tariff pause—in fact, it was singled out for higher tariffs. That means Walmart is still at risk from higher duties for a big chunk of its products.

But McMillon, who for years was a buyer at Walmart and Sam’s Club, said that higher tariffs can be managed by having higher margin, higher priced products subsidize lower margin items. In other words, the higher costs stemming from a tariff can be offset by a higher price imposed on an item with low price elasticity, or items whose demand is not particularly price sensitive.

The company also has a big advantage over many rivals is that many of its goods are replenishable, so it doesn’t carry the same potential risk of being forced to clear out as much discounted unsold seasonal merchandise at other retailers. Instead, it can just stop ordering new inventory, or decrease the size, if demand softens.

“Right now, our merchants are thinking about quantities,” McMillon said. But he was clear that the company had “not canceled anything yet.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



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