Author: admin

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Elon Musk has appointed former Morgan Stanley banker Anthony Armstrong as the new chief financial officer of his artificial intelligence group xAI, marking the latest shake-up to his executive ranks. 

The financier, who advised on the Twitter takeover, has emerged as a key lieutenant to Musk in recent years, including during the billionaire’s time in Washington at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).

He will head up the finance function for both xAI and social media platform X, according to several people familiar with the matter. Musk merged X and xAI in March, valuing the combined group at $113bn.

The change of CFO at xAI comes as Musk contends with a spate of senior departures across his businesses. Linda Yaccarino, chief executive of X, resigned in July. xAI’s general counsel Robert Keele and its previous CFO Mike Liberatore also left over the summer.

Armstrong has been working with xAI for several weeks and was formally appointed chief financial officer of the company in recent days, one of the people said.

His X account now carries an xAI logo by his name signifying that he is an employee of the company.

Armstrong and xAI did not respond to requests for comment.

Musk has doubled down on his bet on AI, racing to build sophisticated models to compete with the likes of OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind, while pouring investment into costly infrastructure to support those ambitions.

xAI has recently been discussing a new funding round that would value the company at around $200bn, according to investors in the group, who added that the round had not yet closed.

Armstrong will also be tasked with returning the social media business to financial health following an exodus of advertisers, after Musk relaxed its content moderation standards and told marketers who disagreed with his approach to “go fuck” themselves.

As head of global technology mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley, Armstrong was part of the team hired by Musk to facilitate the $44bn acquisition of X, then Twitter. Armstrong and Musk grew close as the deal, for which Morgan Stanley provided financing, was hashed out, the people said.

More recently, Armstrong worked for the Trump administration as a senior adviser to the Office to Personnel Management as Musk enacted his Doge cost-cutting efforts before falling out with President Donald Trump. Armstrong left the administration over the summer.

Armstrong will replace Liberatore as CFO, who defected to OpenAI after three months in the role. Liberatore left after clashing with some of Musk’s inner circle over corporate structure and tough financial targets, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Armstrong will also take up the duties of X’s chief financial officer Mahmoud Reza Banki, who is leaving after less than a year into the role, according to three people familiar with the matter. Banki did not respond to a request for comment.

Additional reporting by George Hammond in San Francisco

7 October 2025

The letter of indemnity would be a familiar instrument to those involved in the shipping and commodities trade. These are typically used to procure the discharge and delivery of cargo from a vessel when the bills of lading are unavailable for presentation at the discharge port. Through the letter of indemnity, the risks of a claim for misdelivery are transferred from the carrier to the party issuing the letter of indemnity (typically the shipper/charterer), provided the letter of indemnity is properly worded and valid. Such letters of indemnity are often referred to as discharge letters of indemnity.

A less familiar use of the letter of indemnity would be in commodity finance where the letter of indemnity is issued by a beneficiary of a letter of credit (“LOC”) and tendered in lieu of original bills of lading in order to draw on the LOC. Such letters of indemnity, known as payment letters of indemnity (“Payment LOIs”), are not a recent innovation. They are commonplace in the oil trade and were mentioned in the UK Law Commission Report on Rights of Suit in Respect of Carriage of Goods by Sea issued in 1991.

However, it is only in recent years that Payment LOIs have received attention from the Singapore courts. This has come about in cases brought by trade financiers to recover their loans following the insolvencies of major oil traders. The judgment by the Singapore Court of Appeal in The Maersk Katalin [2025] SGCA 42 is the most recent of these cases.

This article discusses the High Court and Court of Appeal decisions in The Maersk Katalin – decisions which go a long way towards restoring faith in the bill of lading and the presentation rule in Singapore.

Allen & Gledhill Partners Corina Song and Daniel Liang represented the successful bank in The Maersk Katalin.

To read the article, please click here.