CFOs might feel like they’re navigating a riskier and more unpredictable geopolitical landscape than a year ago. They’re not imagining it. World leaders are signaling a fundamental shift in the international order, with US military intervention in Venezuela and President Donald Trump’s fixation on taking Greenland serving as very loud exclamation points.

Geopolitical risks can become big financial burdens, as they can bite into revenues or increase the costs of doing business. Finding ways to be nimble in adapting to the changing international order will be a must in 2026, experts told CFO Brew.

The shift. They describe it as a move away from a rules-based order—a system of international laws and agreements, overseen by cooperative institutions—to one defined by nations’ struggles for power and influence.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, speaking recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, put the situation this way: “It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must.”

Keep reading.—AZ

It appears a price hike is just what Doc McStuffins ordered to give Disney a nice financial boost.

The Mouse House—which also just announced a successor to longtime CEO Bob Iger—reported a 5% year over year increase in revenue to $26 billion last quarter, but a 9% decline in operating income to $4.6 billion.

However, Disney reported that income from its Disney+ and Hulu streaming services increased 72% YoY to $450 million. This was “well above Wall Street analysts’ estimates and the company’s guidance,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Revenue from streaming-service subscription fees increased 13% over 2024, and revenue from streaming advertising and other sources increased 4%.

During a Monday earnings call, Disney CFO Hugh Johnston credited streaming revenue gains to price increases, domestic and international subscriber growth, and bundle promotions including one for Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max (which is owned by Warner Bros., and possibly Netflix soon). Disney has raised prices for one or both of its streaming services each year for the last five years, and most recently increased prices for both in October, Business Insider reported.

Keep reading.—AZ

TL;DR: SpaceX is buying xAI for $250 billion to—according to Elon Musk—build AI data centers in space. But skeptics say it’s really a financial rescue for Musk’s AI company, which is burning cash, facing regulatory heat, and dragging X’s debt along for the ride—right as SpaceX gears up for a potentially historic IPO.

What happened: It’s 2030, and you’re at the HQ of a company that does rockets, AI, and social media. That’s not science fiction—it’s the future that Musk is building. Yesterday, Musk announced that SpaceX had acquired another of his firms, xAI, for a whopping $250 billion. The merged firm might be the most valuable private company in the world, with a post-move valuation around $1.25 trillion.

The merger bundles an extraordinary collection of Musk assets under one roof: rockets, Starlink satellites, the social network X (which xAI absorbed in March 2025), and Grok AI. Musk’s companies are already a deeply intertwined corporate hydra sharing investors, data, infrastructure, and executives—with Tesla even investing $2 billion in xAI last year.

Why this happened (Musk’s version): As the CEO of the newly merged SpaceX—perhaps soon to be called SpaceXAI?—Musk says the move is about building AI data centers in space, a moonshot project other companies like Blue Origin and Google are also pursuing. “In the long term, space-based AI is obviously the only way to scale,” he wrote on the SpaceX website. The company recently filed an FCC application to launch up to 1 million satellites for this orbital data center venture.

Keep reading on Tech Brew.—WK

Skip the noise and cut to the jobs that matter. CollabWORK curates openings from top employers and shares them directly in trusted spaces like CFO Brew—click here to see the full list for readers like you.

• Senior Vice President, Chief Auditor at VISA
• Enterprise Valuation Advisory Associate - Leveraged Finance at SMBC
• Sr. Financial Analyst, North America Drivers at VISA
• Senior Tax Analyst at McAfee, Inc
• Chief Financial Officer at DFC