U.S. accuses India of profiteering from Russian oil during Ukraine war
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday accused India of profiteering from cheap Russian oil imports during the war in Ukraine, describing the practice as “arbitrage” and condemning it as unacceptable.
“They are just profiteering. They are reselling,” Bessent told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in an interview. “This is what I would call the Indian arbitrage — buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product.”
“They’ve made $16 billion in excess profits — some of the richest families in India,” Bessent said.
India buys Russian oil at a discount due to sanctions, refines it into gasoline and diesel, and then sells the product back to regions that have sanctioned Moscow such as Europe, said Matt Smith, an oil market analyst at Kpler.
India’s imports of Russian oil have surged since the Kremlin launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Prior to the invasion, India imported a miniscule amount of Russian crude.
New Delhi is now Russia’s biggest customer importing 1.5 million bpd in July, according to data from Kpler. China is the second largest buyer of Russian oil, importing about 1 million bpd last month.
President Donald Trump earlier this month ordered an additional 25% tariff on India’s exports to the U.S. to punish New Delhi for buying Russian oil. The tariffs take effect next week.
Trump is threatening what he calls “secondary tariffs” on Russian oil buyers like India to pressure the Kremlin to reach a negotiated settlement with Ukraine. So far, however, the U.S. has spared China from secondary tariffs over its imports of Russian crude.
When asked about China’s imports, Bessent suggested that Beijing’s imports were less egregious in the eyes of the Trump administration because it was also a major buyer before Russia invaded Ukraine.
But India actually started buying Russian oil in a major way at the behest of the U.S., said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy and a former advisor to President George W. Bush.
The Biden administration had asked India to accept Russian oil as other countries imposed bans in order to prevent a major oil price spike after the invasion Ukraine that would result in high gasoline prices in the U.S., McNally told CNBC.
“India played a key role in the price cap sanction mechanism designed by the U.S. and its European allies to ensure Russian oil still flowed while trying to crimp the revenue Moscow earned,” McNally said.
CNBC has reached out to the Indian embassy in the U.S. for comment.
Another one bites the dust. Hyundai Motor has halted production of another luxury EV in the US to focus on more popular models like its best-selling Tucson SUV.
Hyundai is shifting its EV production plans in the US
The move is part of a broader shift in Hyundai’s global production network as it gears up for upcoming policy changes, including higher tariff rates and the elimination of tax credits for electric vehicles in the US.
According to a new report from Business Korea, Hyundai has already ceased production of the Genesis Electrified GV70 in the US. Industry sources claim that Hyundai halted production of the luxury EV at its manufacturing plant in Alabama in June.
The Genesis Electrified GV70 marked a milestone as it rolled off the assembly line in February 2023, becoming Hyundai’s first US-made electric vehicle.
Hyundai invested nearly $300 million to upgrade the facility and boost SUV production, including under the luxury Genesis brand. However, sales have failed to live up to expectations.
In the first seven months of the year, Hyundai built just 1,367 Genesis GV70 EVs in Alabama, 18% fewer compared to the same period last year. Last month, sales sank to a record low with just 15 models delivered.
After halting production in June, Hyundai has been just selling down inventory rather than producing new models.
With the federal EV tax credit set to expire at the end of September, Hyundai is shifting production plans in the US and globally.
The Korean auto giant is expected to lean into higher-profit SUVs and hybrids, like the Santa Fe and Tucson, to offset the extra costs. With production of the Santa Fe Hybrid surging to 6,888 last month, Hyundai could replace the electric Genesis GV70 with more popular SUVs at the facility.
Will the Genesis Electrified GV70 still be made in the US?
Hyundai is currently reviewing a few different options. For one, it could relocate the GV70 EV to its new manufacturing plant in Georgia, to be built alongside the IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 9.
The Business Korea report claims Hyundai is “seriously considering” building the luxury EV in South Korea and exporting it to the US. Although it would get hit with the added tariffs, analysts believe it could be less expensive than creating a new production line.
Hyundai will do the same with the new IONIQ 6, which is set to launch later this year. Instead, the company is expanding production of its top-selling Tucson SUV.
In response to Trump’s 25% tariff rate on imports, Hyundai is shifting all Tucson production from Kia’s plant in Mexico to Alabama.
The news comes after Hyundai already pulled one luxury EV from its US lineup, the Genesis Electrified G80, earlier this month.
As the EV tax credit deadline approaches, Hyundai is offering some of the biggest discounts in the US. After cutting lease prices again last month, the 2025 IONIQ 5 is now listed starting from just $179 per month. Hyundai’s first three-row electric SUV, the 2026 IONIQ 9, can be leased from $419 per month.
Genesis is also offering generous savings with up to $18,000 off the Electrified GV70 and $13,750 off the GV60 to move inventory.
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Ridgefield, Connecticut, just commissioned a sizable new solar carport at Ridgefield High School, and it’s set to pay big dividends for the town of around 7,000 residents.
The 1,038 kW system will generate around 1.3 million kilowatt-hours of clean electricity every year. That’s enough to power nearly 100 homes annually. Over the next 25 years, the installation is expected to save the school district about $1.5 million in energy costs while significantly cutting its carbon footprint.
The project was built in partnership with Davis Hill Development, the Connecticut Green Bank, and Patriot Renewable Energy Capital, with AEC Solar managing engineering, procurement, and construction. Crews pushed to finish the work on an accelerated summer schedule so it wouldn’t disrupt the school year.
Financing came through a mix of support from the Green Bank, a tax equity investment, and federal Investment Tax Credits made possible by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which shows how supportive federal policy can translate directly into local cost savings.
What makes the system especially interesting is how it’s wired. The carport ties into four separate town- and school-owned meters, maximizing the use of on-site solar while plugging into programs like Connecticut’s Non-Residential Renewable Energy Solutions (NRES), Zero Emission Renewable Energy Credits (ZRECs), and Class I RECs.
This isn’t Ridgefield’s first solar rodeo. The town began its sustainability push nearly a decade ago, installing rooftop solar across eight other schools and municipal buildings. The high school carport is its latest step forward.
Mariana Cardenas Trief, director of investments at the Connecticut Green Bank, said, “This is the latest of multiple solar projects that we have worked with DHD Renewables and the Town to complete, and we are proud to continue this support as they reduce their energy costs and move Connecticut closer to its clean energy goals.”
Read more: 500+ big-box rooftops are about to be covered in US-made solar
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, pictured, speaks with SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son at an event in Tokyo on Feb. 3, 2025.
Tomohiro Ohsumi | Getty Images News | Getty Images
GPT-5 just launched. GPT-6 is already on the way.
That’s the message OpenAI CEO Sam Altman delivered to reporters in San Francisco last week, offering a rare glimpse into the company’s evolving product road map, as well as its missteps.
Altman didn’t give a release date for his company’s next artificial intelligence model, but he made clear that GPT-6 will be different and that it will arrive faster than the gap between GPT-4 and GPT-5. It won’t just respond to users but will adapt to them, and allow people to create chatbots that mirror personal tastes.
He said he sees memory as the key for making ChatGPT truly personal. It needs to remember who you are — your preferences, routines and quirks — and adapt accordingly.
“People want memory,” Altman said. “People want product features that require us to be able to understand them.”
He said OpenAI has been working closely with psychologists to help shape the product, measuring how people feel while tracking well-being over time. The company hasn’t made that data public, but Altman indicated it might.
He also said that future versions of ChatGPT would comply with a recent executive order from the Trump administration that requires AI systems used by the federal government to be ideologically neutral and customizable
“I think our product should have a fairly center-of-the-road, middle stance, and then you should be able to push it pretty far,” Atlman said. “If you’re like, ‘I want you to be super woke’ — it should be super woke.”
He added that if a user wanted the model to be conservative, it should also reflect that as well.
Altman’s comments about GPT-6 follow a rocky rollout of GPT-5. Users took to social media to complain about the model being colder, less connected and less helpful than the prior version.
“I like the new one much better,” he said, acknowledging that the rollout was mishandled. He noted that OpenAI quietly pushed a tone update to GPT-5 that’s “much warmer.”
While Altman called enhanced memory his favorite feature launched this year, he said there are privacy concerns, particularly because temporary memory isn’t encrypted. That means sensitive information could potentially be exposed without stronger safeguards. Altman confirmed that encryption “very well could be” added, though there’s no timeline yet.
Queries involving legal or medical information, he said, need to be treated with adequate privacy protections that aren’t in place today.
“It’s in society’s interest for people to get good medical advice … good legal advice,” he said. “And if you can get better versions of those from AI, you ought to be able to have the same protection for the same reason we decided you could get them from a doctor or a lawyer.”
He’s looking to the future and brain-computer interfaces. Altman said he finds “neural interfaces a cool idea” and imagines being able to “think something and have ChatGPT respond.”
“There are a few areas adjacent to AI that I think are worth us doing something, and this is one of them,” he said, adding that he’s also interested in energy, novel substrates, robots and faster ways to build data centers.
For now, OpenAI’s core consumer product remains ChatGPT, and Altman said he’s focused on making it more flexible and more useful in daily life. He said he already relies on it for everything from work to parenting questions.
He said, however, that there are limits.
“The models have already saturated the chat use case,” Altman said. “They’re not going to get much better. … And maybe they’re going to get worse.”
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