McDonald’s reported its worst quarterly sales for the United States since the height of the pandemic in 2020, the latest restaurant chain to be affected by America’s turbulent economic environment.

The burger giant reported U.S. same-store sales fell 3.6%, the largest three-month drop since Q2 2020, when they plunged 8.7%. Forecasts had been for a decline of just 1.7%.

‘Consumers today are grappling with uncertainty,’ McDonald’s Chairman and CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a statement, as the chain cited lower guest counts.

In a follow-up call with investors, McDonald’s executives said that traffic among middle-income diners fell by ‘nearly double digits’ alongside an ongoing drop-off among low-income ones. As an example, they said more people appear to be skipping breakfast entirely to cut back on spending, or eating breakfast at home.

‘People are just visiting less,’ they said.

High-income traffic, meanwhile, remained stable, they said.

That reflects the economy writ large: While less-well-off consumers rein in transactions to focus on essentials, wealthy consumers continue to spend freely.

McDonald’s is the latest restaurant chain to report weak financial results amid signs that consumers are pulling back on discretionary spending. Chipotle, Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Shake Shack and Starbucks all saw slowing or declining sales in their quarter, with many citing particular weakness among lower-income consumers.

McDonald’s also reported revenues that missed forecasts for the third time in four quarters.

The more volatile economic environment that’s been accelerated by President Donald Trump’s tariffs policies is also being felt abroad.

On the call, company officials said that while the McDonald’s brand hadn’t been affected by worsening perceptions of the U.S. by overseas consumers, its internal surveys had picked up a notable uptick in anti-American sentiment, particularly among diners in northern Europe and Canada.

‘We have seen … an increase in people in various markets saying they’re going to be cutting back on purchases of American brands,’ they said.

It nevertheless maintained its full-year financial outlook, including plans to open 2,200 locations, which it said should help boost sales growth by slightly more than 2%. It said a promotional tie-in with the ‘Minecraft Movie’ had been a hit, and that its refreshed value offerings continued to position it strongly compared with competitors.

Still, officials said on the call that they remained “cautious about consumer sentiment.”

Shares fell 1.6% in early trading.

Tech is saving Hollywood — though not in the way you might think.

Back in 2022, e-commerce giant and relative upstart movie studio Amazon promised to spend around $1 billion each year on theatrical releases, a figure that would fund between 12 and 15 films annually. Today, it appears ready to deliver.

Earlier this month, the company, which operates the streaming platform Prime Video and recently acquired MGM studios, took the stage at CinemaCon in Las Vegas to tout its line-up of movies made just for the big screen.

Amazon’s inaugural presentation at the annual convention of Cinema United — previously known as the National Association of Theatre Owners — wowed exhibitors, marketers and media in attendance with flashy trailers and first-look footage from upcoming films like “Project Hail Mary,” “After the Hunt” and “Verity.”

It also brought some star power with the likes of Ryan Gosling, Andrew Garfield, Julia Roberts, Chris Pratt, Chris Hemsworth, Hugh Jackman and Michael B. Jordan set to headline these cinematic releases.

“I thought the presentation was incredible,” said Brock Bagby, president and chief content, programming and development officer at B&B Theatres. “For their first year out, they pulled out all the stops.”

While the studio won’t have a full slate of more than a dozen films until 2026, it has steadily invested in theatrical content over the last few years. Amazon had one wide release, a film that played in more than 2,000 theaters, in 2023 and five in 2024. This year Amazon has only four wide releases on the calendar so far, but the company is slated to have 14 in 2026 and 16 in 2027.

This surge of theatrical content is just what the domestic box office needs. While blockbuster franchise films have been abundant in the wake of the pandemic, the overall number of wide releases has shrunk over the last decade. Even before Covid and dual Hollywood labor strikes slowed production down, Hollywood was making fewer and fewer movies each year, according to data from Comscore. 

Mid-budget movies — often in the drama, comedy and romantic comedy genres — began disappearing in the mid-2010s as studios sought to invest in bigger budget franchise flicks that could result in higher profits. The comparatively lower-budget films have since been predominantly redirected to streaming platforms in an effort to stock these services with more affordable content. 

Analysts project that the domestic box office has lost around $1 billion each year in total ticket sales as a result of that shift.

At the same time that studios were altering their film slates, movie houses were merging. The most recent union between the Walt Disney Company and 20th Century Fox, first announced in 2017 and finalized in early 2019, resulted in the loss of between 10 and 15 film releases annually, according to data from Comscore.

In 2015, 20th Century Fox released 17 films. After its acquisition, the pandemic and the strikes, it has released fewer than a half dozen titles each year.

“With consolidation in the past of some of the studios, the output numbers have decreased over the past few years, and with fewer releases there is less potential for box office and concession sales,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “More importantly movie theaters need new films to draw customers into their auditoriums.”

Amazon’s commitment to theatrical, alongside the emergence of smaller studios like Neon and A24, should help to close the gap left by 20th Century Fox’s acquisition.

“They’ve filled the gap that we’re missing from Fox, which is so exciting, and it looks like a similar slate to Fox, where there’s a few big titles, but a lot of that mid-range,” Bagby said.

What industry experts have discovered is that the strength of the box office doesn’t just rely on the success of franchise films — superhero flicks, big-budget action fare and the like — but also on the sheer volume and diversity of content.

There is a direct correlation between the number of theatrical releases and the strength of the overall box office. During the pandemic, the decline in box office ticket sales largely tracked nearly in lock step with the percentage decline in film releases.

“The number of movies being released continues to trend in the right direction,” said Michael O’Leary, CEO of Cinema United. “When considering wide releases at 2,000 or more locations, we saw 94 last year, but we expect at least 110 in 2025. Beyond that, distributors have secured release dates as far out as 2028 for movies with plenty of commercial potential.”

Shares of Tesla were flat in premarket trading Thursday after the EV maker denied a Wall Street Journal report that its board was searching for a replacement for chief executive Elon Musk.

The report, citing comments from sources familiar with the discussions, said that Tesla’s board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding the company’s next CEO. Shares of Tesla fell as much as 3% in overnight trading on trading platform Robinhood following the news, before paring losses.

Tesla chair Robyn Denholm wrote on the social media platform X that the report was “absolutely false.”

“Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company,” she wrote.

“This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published). The CEO of Tesla is Elon Musk and the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead.”It comes after a sharp drop in the electric vehicle giant’s sales and profits, with its top and bottom lines missing estimates in the first quarter. Musk has admitted that his involvement with the Trump administration could be hurting the automaker’s stock price.

The mega-billionaire said on a Tesla earnings call last week that he plans to spend just a “day or two per week” running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency beginning in May.Tesla’s total revenue slipped 9% year-on-year to hit $19.34 billion in the January-March quarter. This falls short of the $21.11 billion forecast by analysts, LSEG data shows.

Revenue from its automotive segment declined 20% year-on-year to $14 billion, as the company needed to update lines at its four vehicle factories to start making a refreshed version of its popular Model Y SUV. Tesla also attributed the decline to lower average selling prices and sales incentives as a drag on revenue and profit.

Its net income plunged 71% to $409 million, or 12 cents a share, from $1.39 billion or 41 cents a year ago.

Since the start of the year, its shares have plunged over 30%.

Nvidia blasted Anthropic Thursday in a rare public clash over artificial intelligence policy with U.S. chip export restrictions set to take effect.

“American firms should focus on innovation and rise to the challenge, rather than tell tall tales that large, heavy, and sensitive electronics are somehow smuggled in ‘baby bumps’ or ‘alongside live lobsters,’ ” a spokesperson for Nvidia said.

Anthropic, the AI startup backed by billions from Amazon, argued for tighter controls and enforcement, saying in a blog post Wednesday that Chinese smuggling tactics involved chips hidden in “prosthetic baby bumps” and “packed alongside live lobsters.”

Chip restrictions from former President Joe Biden’s term, called the “AI Diffusion Rule,” are set to take effect May 15. The rule puts global export controls on advanced AI chips and model weights to prevent rival nations like China from gaining ground in an escalating AI arms race.

President Donald Trump is reportedly working on updating these restrictions, adding another layer of uncertainty to the already contentious policy.

Anthropic, which relies heavily on Nvidia hardware to train its models, is calling for tighter restrictions that could limit Nvidia’s overseas business and revenue from chip sales.

Anthropic argued that compute access is the key strategic chokepoint in the race to build frontier AI. The company proposed lowering the export threshold for Tier 2 countries, tightening the rules to reduce smuggling risks, and increasing funding for enforcement.

“Maintaining America’s compute advantage through export controls is essential for national security and economic prosperity,” Anthropic wrote.

In a sharply worded response to Anthropic, an Nvidia spokesperson blasted the use of policy to limit competitiveness.

“China, with half of the world’s AI researchers, has highly capable AI experts at every layer of the AI stack. America cannot manipulate regulators to capture victory in AI,” the spokesperson said.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who visited with Chinese trade officials in mid-April, said Wednesday in Washington, D.C. that China is “not behind” the U.S. in AI and praised Huawei as a top global tech company.

“They’re incredible in computing and network technology, all these essential capabilities to advance AI,” Huang said. “They have made enormous progress in the last several years.”