Trump’s new $1.8bn fund under fire

0:00Thinking long-term about your investment career? Hear stories, advice, and lessons from seasoned leaders at Capital Group on the Capital Ideas Podcast. Subscribe and start listening today. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc.

0:17Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, May 21st, and this is your FT News Briefing. The chip group at the heart of the AI boom keeps on cruising, and critics say Donald Trump has created a fund using tax dollars that will reward his allies. Plus, the Ebola outbreak in Africa has health experts concerned. Suddenly, infectious diseases and the devastation they can wreak and the reminders of the COVID-19 pandemic that they provoke are in everyone's minds again. I'm Mark Filippino, and here's the news you need to start your day.

0:58NVIDIA reported quarterly earnings and the world's most valuable company did not disappoint. The chip designer saw an astounding 85 % growth in revenue year-on-year last quarter, bringing it to$81 billion. And the company said it expects$91 billion in sales for the current quarter. Now, I know I'm throwing a lot of numbers at you right now, but here's one you should definitely remember. $80 billion. NVIDIA said it's approving that amount in stock buybacks and that it's increasing its quarterly dividend. Just to give you a sense of how well NVIDIA is doing, it alone powered nearly a fifth of the S &P 500's gains since the beginning of the year.

1:43U.S. President Donald Trump has settled with the federal government over his tax returns, which were leaked in 2019. And the settlement is an unusual one. The Justice Department will set up a fund. And if you think the current or previous administration's wronged you, you can apply for a payout from it. But critics are calling the new so-called anti-weaponization fund an illegal use of taxpayer money. The FT's Joe Miller has been reporting on this financial vehicle, and he joins me now to talk through all this. Hi, Joe. Hi, Mark. So what is this fund? Who is it for? And who's footing the bill for it?

2:16Well, the last part of that is the easiest to answer. the American taxpayer is footing the bill, because this fund comes about as part of a settlement, as you just mentioned, in a suit that Donald Trump bought against his own government over the leaking of his tax records a few years ago. He sued for$10 billion, and the government, earlier this month, suggested a settlement, and this settlement would come in the form of this so-called anti-weaponization fund worth approximately$1.8 billion. And it would be used to pay people who were wrongly investigated or convicted by previous administrations.

2:59And what are critics saying about this, Joe? Well, the criticism is coming from many quarters. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, was up before Congress this week, And he was asked whether those involved in the January 6th riots on Capitol Hill in 2021 would be eligible for this scheme. And he declined to rule them out. He said anyone would be eligible to apply. And then a decision would be taken by the commission. So many Democrats are calling this a slush fund for the president's allies and essentially a way of paying off his donors and people who have been loyal to him over the years.

3:35Okay, that's a lot right there. How does it work, Joe? Well, we have very few details because the settlement agreement and the terms of this were filed to a court, and it's about a nine-page document. But what we do know about how it will work is that the fund will be administered by a five-member commission, which will be appointed by whoever's the attorney general at the time, so Trump's attorney general. with just one member of that commission chosen in, this is quotes, consultation with congressional leadership, and we're not quite sure what that means. But more strikingly, this commission would be able to decide who gets apologies, who gets cash awards without any congressional approval, and their decisions will not necessarily be made public and won't be subject to appeal.

4:32Wow. So is this legal? That is the question I've been trying to get to the bottom of. And I've been speaking to various constitutional law scholars throughout this week. And there are certainly areas of this that some scholars think are potentially illegal. And the most concerning part is if any of the fund ends up in the hands of Trump or his family, because that would seem to be a straightforward violation of the emoluments clause, which prevents the president from enriching himself from his own government. However, the administration has come out and said that none of the money will go to Trump and his family.

5:13We're now waiting to see whether any entities connected with Trump will apply for some of this money, because that could also potentially be a violation, even if he's not in charge of those businesses at the moment. But if he's the ultimate beneficiary of them, that could be unconstitutional. Is the White House saying anything else about this? The White House has said that there are other settlements in history for people who have been wronged by the Department of Justice or by the government. And they say that this will benefit the American people and will help keep the government accountable.

5:51Joe Miller is a special correspondent for the FT. Thanks, Joe. You're most welcome.

6:01open ai could file to go public as soon as this week and the listing is expected to be worth over a trillion dollars that's according to people familiar with the matter they tell the ft that the company's chief executive sam altman has his eye on a potential september ipo altman's been pushing the startup to go public before its main rival anthropic does anthropic's also planning to list as soon as this year. OpenAI spent the past year clearing any hurdles that stood in the way of a public listing. For example, it converted to a for-profit and in recent months cut back on costly, quote, side quests.

6:35Plus, we told you this week that the company also won a long-running legal battle with Elon Musk, the world's richest man. OpenAI declined to comment to the FT about the IPO filing.

6:52Health authorities are scrambling to find a vaccine for the deadling Ebola outbreak in Africa. The virus surfaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda at the end of April. Here to discuss the latest is the FT Science Editor Michael Peel. Hi, Michael. Hey. So tell me, what do we know about the current Ebola outbreak so far? Well, it's an outbreak that is already in two countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, and has killed at least 139 people, reportedly with more than 500 people infected. The crisis has already led the World Health Organization to declare this a public health emergency of international concern.

7:33And one of the problems is that the Bundy Bajo species of the virus does not have a vaccine. And so efforts are now underway to urgently hunt for a jab against this lethal virus, which has fatality rates of up to 50%. Wow. Wow. Now, you've been reporting that this outbreak went undetected for quite a while, and that allowed it to spread quickly to different areas, and it really got public health officials worried. What's the larger backdrop that this is happening up against? This is a very, very tough environment for global health efforts. A number of rich countries have cut back significantly on international health aid.

8:18The United States and Argentina have withdrawn from the World Health Organization. And all of these things obviously have a negative impact on efforts to surveil for lethal outbreaks, as we're already seeing with Ebola and indeed the Hantavirus aboard the cruise ship, which has been in the news over the last month or so, but also for diseases which have the potential to drive a new pandemic, which, of course, in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, is the thing that really scares people in the health world. Wait, so are you saying that Ebola or Hantavirus is not likely to cause another pandemic?

9:02Health experts say that these, thankfully, are not viruses that threaten to cause a pandemic. And the main reason is that they're much less transmissible than COVID-19. whereas COVID-19 was a disease you could catch in the air. Generally, with both the hantavirus and with Ebola, the contact has to be much closer. And so that does at least mean it can be, to some extent, contained. Michael, what are you going to be looking out for next? Could some of the countries that rolled back public health funding maybe restart some of it? Well, I think suddenly infectious diseases and the devastation they can wreak and the reminders of the COVID-19 pandemic that they provoke are in everyone's minds again.

9:49And I think we've now moved into a different stage of what one health expert described to me as a cycle of panic and neglect. What she meant by that was that during and after COVID, there was the panic stage where everyone said, well, we must stop this happening again. But then, of course, as the intensity of the event recedes and other politics and other financial priorities intrude, the funding gets withdrawn, people don't pay as much attention to these prevention measures until there's then another disease outbreak, or in this case, two in the last few weeks that have made headlines around the world.

10:26That's FT Science editor Michael Peel. Thanks so much, Michael. Thank you.

10:36Before we go, a quick correction. In yesterday's show, we said the Trump administration opened a lawsuit against Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell, we should have said that the administration threatened a lawsuit.

10:52You can read more on all these stories for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

11:38We'll see you next time. into performance. What does running your business feel like with Avalara, the agentic AI platform for global tax and compliance? You don't hover over the submit button. You don't ask for a second opinion. You don't wake up thinking about a filing. Because Avalara's agentic AI handles it. Calculating, filing, validating. With the accuracy and audit defensibility your team can stand behind. Avalara, Agentic AI tax and compliance with confidence.