Airbus Sets Higher Plane Delivery Goal
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Here is your Morning Brief for Thursday, February 20th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal.

European planemaker Airbus has reported an 8% revenue jump and 16% growth in adjusted earnings before interest and taxes for the fourth quarter. It also forecast it can deliver roughly 820 commercial aircraft this year, an increase from last year, even though it continues to suffer from supply chain issues and more than double what struggling U.S. rival Boeing managed to deliver in 2024.

President Trump says he's considering using part of the savings from Elon Musk's cost-cutting drive to provide direct payments to Americans. He said yesterday he was thinking about returning 20 percent to Americans and allocating another 20 percent toward paying back debt, but didn't offer further details.

The Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency says it's come up with $55 billion in estimated savings as of Monday through a combination of things including fraud detection, grant cancellations, contract renegotiations, and workforce reductions.

And we're exclusively reporting that in talks with ad conglomerate Interpublic Group. Elon Musk's ex has hinted at possible retribution from the Trump administration if they didn't get their clients to spend more on the social media platform.

Interpublic leaders have interpreted the communications from X as reminders that the company's recently announced $13 billion deal to merge with rival Omnicom Group could be torpedoed or at least slowed down by the Trump administration, given Musk's powerful role in the federal government. Interpublic said it doesn't make spending commitments on behalf of clients. X CEO Linda Iaccarino and representatives from X didn't respond to requests for comment.

Asian stocks have ended the day in the red. European stocks are mostly up in midday trading. And U.S. stock futures are edging lower ahead of earnings from Walmart, Alibaba, and Wayfair due out before the opening bell. And we've got a lot more coverage of the day's news on the WSJ's What's News podcast. You can add it to your playlist on your smart speaker or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.