5 things to know before the stock market opens Friday

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Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:

The richest man in the world is about to get a lot richer.

Tesla shareholders approved CEO Elon Musk’s nearly $1 trillion pay plan yesterday, with 75% voting in support of the proposal despite opposition from top proxy advisors. The pay package will grant Musk 12 tranches of shares if the company reaches certain milestones over the next decade. It also gives the CEO more voting power over Tesla, increasing his ownership from 13% to 25%.

One of those milestones is the delivery of 1 million Optimus humanoid robots, which Musk on Thursday said “will eliminate poverty” and be “bigger than cell phones, bigger than anything.” The robots are currently not available on the market, and Musk didn’t give a timeline for their development.

Stocks resumed their sell-off yesterday as traders continued to weigh fears about the elevated valuations of artificial intelligence stocks. Shares of Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Microsoft all closed lower, putting the three major averages on track for a losing week.

Here’s what to know:

• After Wednesday’s positive session, traders appeared to refocus on their concerns surrounding tech sector valuations and the role of AI stocks in a highly concentrated market.
• The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.9% yesterday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 400 points.
• A murky employment picture has also pressured stocks this week. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will not release its nonfarm payrolls report today due to the government shutdown, but data from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas yesterday showed that layoffs surged in October.
• Job cuts totaled 153,074 last month, according to the report, a 183% surge from September and 175% increase from a year ago.
• If the BLS had released its jobs report today, economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected to see a decline of 60,000 jobs in October and an increase in the unemployment rate to 4.5%.
• Follow live market updates here.

President Donald Trump announced deals with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk yesterday to drastically cut the prices of some of the pharma giants’ obesity drugs. The agreements also mean that Medicare will cover GLP-1 drugs for obesity for the first time, starting mid-2026.

The monthly out-of-pocket price of the popular drugs could range from $50 to $350 under the deal, depending on patients’ dosage and insurance. The list prices of obesity medications reach as much as $1,350 a month before insurance.

Here’s how much the drugs could cost you under the new agreements.

David Sacks, Trump’s AI and crypto advisor, said yesterday there will be “no federal bailout for AI.” His comments followed those of OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, who earlier this week said the company was seeking a government “backstop” or “guarantee” to help fund its investments.

But Friar walked back her comments yesterday: “I used the word ‘backstop’ and it muddied the point,” Friar said in a LinkedIn post. “I was making the point that American strength in technology will come from building real industrial capacity which requires the private sector and government playing their part.”

Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the AI startup expects to bring in more than $20 billion in annualized revenue this year “and grow to hundreds of billions by 2030.” The company has recently signed infrastructure deals worth more than $1.4 trillion, but investors are still unsure where it will get the money to pay for the commitments.

Shoppers aren’t happy with Target’s in-store experience. The company’s stores used to be the model for big-box retailers, but Target has been plagued by customer complaints about messy aisles, long lines and locked-up products.

So, it’s shaking up its website strategy.

Unlike its competitors, Target uses its stores as fulfillment centers for e-commerce orders. But under its new approach, the retailer will begin limiting which of its stores pick, pack and ship online purchases. Target executives are hoping the move will free up employees to focus more on the in-store experience.

Here’s what you might have missed this week:

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny, Pia Singh, Sean Conlon, Liz Napolitano, Annika Kim Constantino, Ashley Capoot and Melissa Repko contributed to this report. Melodie Warner edited this edition.