Trump Trade: DOJ using False Claims Act to probe DEI hiring

Catch up on the top industries and stocks that were impacted, or were predicted to be impacted, by the comments, actions and policies of President Donald Trump with this daily recap compiled by The Fly.

DEI HIRING PROBE: The Trump administration is using the False Claims Act to investigate the diversity initiatives of major companies, including Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Verizon (VZ), Lydia Wheeler of Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the investigations. The administration is probing companies in industries ranging from automotive and pharmaceuticals to defense and utilities, people familiar with matter told the paper. The Justice Department believes that holding a federal contract while considering diversity when hiring is fraud against the government that entitles it to recoup potentially millions of dollars, according to the Journal.

TRUMP TARIFFS: Bank of America (BAC) CEO Brian Moynihan believes the Trump administration will de-escalate trade tensions next year, Sarah Maddox of Bloomberg reports, citing comments made on CBS News’ Face the Nation. Bank of America sees “de-escalation, not escalation,” with an average 15% tariffs and higher rates for countries not committed to U.S. purchases. “To go from a 10% across-the-board to 15% for the broad base of countries – not a huge impact,” Moynihan said, according to Bloomberg. “And that’s where our team says it’s starting to de-escalate.”

LAPSED LICENSE: ALT5 Sigma (ALTS), a recycling business turned biotech turned blockchain firm which signed an agreement to purchase crypto tokens from the Trump’s World Liberty Financial (WLFI-USD) in August, has retained an auditor whose license to practice lapsed earlier this year, the Financial Times’ Stephen Foley and George Steer report, citing state filings. ALT5’s financial position has become murky as it failed to produce quarterly results on time and switched to auditor Victor Mokuolu, which has been fined by accounting regulators and failed an inspection under the industry’s peer review process.