ChatGPT Goes to Congress, Tesla Ads Coming, & Liberating Taco Tuesdays

0:01Stop waiting for customers to fall into your funnel. It's 2025, and the same old strategies are, well, just kind of old. That's where Amazon ads can make a difference. Brands using four Amazon ad solutions saw dramatically higher growth compared to limited approaches. Our latest Marketing Brew article breaks down how they can help you reach customers everywhere they are, from prime video to Alexa to shopping with consistent messaging. Read the whole thing at marketingbrew.com slash amazon dash ads. Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. On today's show, we'll discuss the battle brewing over the phrase Taco Tuesday.

0:40That's not a joke. And we will talk about the notorious German thieves who've been described as a cross between Oceans 11 and Mr. Bean. Then I'll take us through some sound bites from Elon Musk's Tesla shareholders meeting before jumping to the sports world to see how much money Victor Wembenyama stands to make as a presumptive first pick in the NBA draft. Neil, it's Wednesday, May 17th. Let's ride.

1:08Neil, yesterday was a big day for soundbites and clips. We had a lot of certain tech CEOs talking to the news and the Congress. So let's jump into the first one. Sam Altman did kind of the tech CEO rite of passage yesterday and appeared before Congress. but it wasn't quite as spicy as some of the grillings we've kind of come to see. Still, we got plenty of soundbites, so I'll take us through some of them. First off, Senator Blumenthal opened the hearing by playing a fake AI-generated recording of his voice, reading an opening statement written by ChatGPT with the goal of kind of saying, oh my God, look at how good this thing is.

1:51This thing is really scary. And then we also got kind of this general sense that a lot of the lawmakers were desperately trying to get out ahead of regulating AI because they knew they kind of missed the boat when it comes to social media. So we kind of had this existential dread bubbling up. And then Sam Altman obviously pushed back on some of their lines of questioning. First, he likened the AI boom to the rise of photo editing software like Photoshop, saying that people really quickly developed an understanding that images might be Photoshop. So kind of giving the everyday person more credit and that they can discern what is real and what is fake.

2:28But then he also had some of his own ideas around regulation. The first being that he thinks that lawmakers should create a new agency that kind of doles out licenses in an effort to kind of ensure that AI companies will stay compliant with certain safety standards, kind of like maybe the Bar Association, how they give out licenses to practicing lawyers. So there was a lot. What else kind of stood out to you, Neil? uh just like the kumbaya aspect of it it's really weird to see a tech ceo not be on the other side other side of a grilling last month we had the tiktok ceo and he was considered basically an enemy of the state and i think you just saw that the lawmakers here were actually kind of at a loss for how to regulate ai because it is very complex and complicated and they were just kind of looking at sam altman and being like uh yo like what's what's your path forward here What are your thoughts?

3:23Because where this technology is moving so fast and and creating rules around something that is evolving, you know, from drippy Pope to, you know, creating like now there's auto chat GPT, which creates its own models of itself. It's just like replicating and cloning itself. It gets a little scary. So they you could just sense like a sense of tension and looking to Sam Altman for answers. And he's like, oh, hell yeah. Like, you know, I just got 10 billion dollars from Microsoft and you're asking me to create the rules for myself. He's like, sure, I got ideas. Yeah, it was definitely a different vibe from past.

4:02Like every time Zuckerberg appears, it's like extremely hostile. The TikTok CEO, extremely hostile. But yeah, Sam Altman was kind of guiding the conversation a little bit. And we actually have a clip of him kind of acknowledging the dangers that AI poses that will play for you right here. I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong. And we want to be vocal about that. We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening. But we try to be very clear-eyed about what the downside case is and the work that we have to do to mitigate that. See, I think that's a master class in kind of buttering up Congress right here.

4:39acknowledging the danger saying we want to work with the government on this thing like of course that's what congress wants to hear and he he gave them what they were looking for you know who also said that who did three initials sbf did he say that yeah he was a regular on capitol hill he was beloved by by lawmakers because he would go on capitol hill when cc of binance uh you know in this crypto world the binance guy hated government regulation and sbf was like i'm going down to Washington and I want to be buddy buddy with all these lawmakers and he said regulate us regulate us um and so you just you know obviously I'm not accusing Altman of being a fraudulent criminal but you did see CEOs in the past say the same kind of thing play nice when they actually want to write the rules of the road that they'll be going to be have to uh adhere to I know and it is similar to crypto in the sense that you can you get the sense that lawmakers don't quite understand how to regulate this thing.

5:39So that's why potentially that they are looking to Sam Altman. And especially the thing that I wanted to see a little bit more push on from lawmakers was what to do with the source data that these models are trained on. And to be fair, some senators did push on this point, but I think that's the biggest thing that could, I don't know, tank the AI industry. If they say, listen, we know you're scraping the web, you're using, especially like to train your image algorithms or using artists work without their consent. If they just say like, Hey, you have to be more transparent about what data sets you're training your models on that could really like hamstring the progress of AI.

6:19So that was, that was one thing that I think lawmakers potentially could put their foot down on. Yeah. And that was notably absent from what Sam Altman proposed. Exactly. Yeah. So again, love the sound bites that we get out of these things. Just one last final thing on this is that another one that was going around the interwebs was Sam Altman revealed that he has zero equity in open AI, which is kind of wild because this company is potentially one of the more impactful ones of the modern age. And he said, listen, I'm doing this because for the love of the game, basically, no equity stake in the company that he's building.

6:55So, again, this is why he was kind of getting pats on the back from some of those lawmakers. The tide could turn very quickly. For sure. For sure. Um, okay, Neil, let's move on. Not to be upstaged by Sam Altman, Elon Musk also produced a couple of clips of his own yesterday. So it was the Tesla annual shareholders meeting yesterday, which means we got a sneak peek into what the automaker has planned for the upcoming year. Here are some of the highlights. First off, Elon said that Tesla will finally deliver its first Cybertrucks this year, which has been a long time coming and even said that once production is scaled, they'll be able to produce up to 250 ,000 to 500 ,000 units.

7:37Okay, but delivered to who? I know. Like, will anybody buy it? I think people will buy it. People have been on the wait list for so long for these things that the FOMO, I just think it's outrageous. Where in which state do you think people will buy this the most? Is it going to be like a southern? I think it's Texas. Southern, like texas f-150 kind of vibe or is it going to be like a california northern california that's a good question i i could see it in texas for sure uh elon actually did say that he plans to drive a cyber truck on a daily basis which seems like a pretty impractical thing to do but hey he's the ceo um he also kind of noted that he thinks the model y will probably be the best selling car on earth this upcoming year which has some chance to actually happen but obviously might be a little bit of him buttering his own company up.

8:24And then he did tease some future models that potentially could be released. He only revealed the silhouette of one, but people think it could be a$25 ,000 hatchback that he actually mentioned back in 2020. And so people, anytime you get a silhouette of a car, people start getting a little anxious and excited. So that was a win for people. And then finally, here's some of the biggest headline news that Tesla is kind of famous for traditionally shunning advertising. They don't spend any money on like those car commercials that you see constantly. But yesterday, Elon said they might try out a little advertising and see how it goes.

9:05So a lot to unpack there. Anything that stands out from those announcements? Everyone always comes back to advertising. I'm just thinking about Netflix recently. For years, they were like, we are not doing advertising. We're never going to do this. And then, you know, finances get a little tight and your growth slows and you're like, OK, I guess we got to get some new, got to gin up some demand here. And that's what we're seeing with Tesla. I think we talked about it a month ago where they used to have production problems. They couldn't make enough cars to, you know, satisfy the demand for them.

9:37That has flipped in the past few years where they're making plenty of cars. They got their production all set, but they need to get a little more demand for their cars right now. And they, you know, just like every other car company on the planet, they're going to have to spend some marketing dollars. I mean, the auto industry spent 17 billion on advertising last year alone. And so it was the fifth largest advertising spending sector overall. And for the biggest company, I mean, first of all, it's very impressive that they got this far without advertising in general, that they're the biggest automaker by a long shot without spending a dime on marketing spend and just elon being mark elon on twitter is their marketing yeah but i guess that's slowing down i can't wait to see a tesla ad too oh that's a good point uh so there was also a elephant in the room though because this is a shareholders meeting so shareholders get to ask like where the direction of the company is going and a lot of them was like listen are you done like messing around on twitter like do you understand how damaging it was to the brand like they they decided that the brand took a huge hit in terms of like the positivity around it and then also before elon musk brought twitter tesla shares closed at 228 per share on tuesday they closed at 166 dollars per share so that's a pretty big loss in value there and so he did straight up get asked like are you are you planning on either reducing the time you spend on twitter or even what are you planning on stepping down from being CEO of Tesla.

11:06And he basically said, yes, I'm kind of done messing around on Twitter. He just hired the new CEO. And then also he has no plans of stepping down from Tesla though. So there is no succession plans in place if people do want him out. So we'll see what happens there. But I think this is the juiciest soundbite was that he was asked about OpenAI and ChatGPT. So connecting our first and second stories here. Musk said that he's the reason OpenAI exists because of his past investment and support for the company. And so this like just deepens his rift with Altman even more. And so he does not really like Sam Altman right now.

11:48He thinks he sold out to Microsoft because of that$10 billion investment into OpenAI, which Musk originally said was supposed to be this nonprofit that's working towards artificial general intelligence, right? So even after that happened, Microsoft CEO Sadia Nadella pushed back on Musk being like, bro, we don't control open AI. That's a Sam Altman thing. I do love the little battle we have going between the two. And he did slide in the line that Tesla has by far the most advanced real world AI. So the jab - That is debatable. I know, of course, he can say anything he wants. This is shareholder day.

12:25But yeah, definitely interesting to see like the parallels between Sam Waltman and Elon Musk and their soundbites. All right. Huge retailers, Home Depot and Target reported earnings this week. And what have we learned? People are gravitating toward the bottom of the pyramid of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The nice to have stuff is getting replaced by the need to have. Let's start with Home Depot. So I'm ready to declare the COVID era home improvement boom donezo. So it's over. Sales fell in the first quarter at Home Depot and it projected its first annual revenue drop since 2009 this year. And that's because people are just not redoing their kitchens or doing their patios like they had been for the past few years when everyone was at home.

13:09And the company said the pace of those big projects has just slowed down considerably. It's not a complete shutdown of home improvement. So professionals such as contractors and electricians, which account for half of all Home Depot revenue, which is an interesting stat in and of itself, they said they still have backlogs and they still have business, but it's just more of this piecemeal thing where maybe you're just doing like a little bit, your, uh, your counter and you're putting the marble in, or you're just doing like a little patio furniture, but you're not like gutting out the whole thing.

13:38So that's what Home Depot is seeing in this space. Yeah. They did mention that there's kind of been this shift in consumer psyche for sure. Um, even though Home Depot, first of all, fantastic business, because yes, you have that professional side that supports half your business, but then also like your core customer are typically homeowners, which are typically more economic resistant to headwinds. So first of all, great business. I also, another thing that stood out to me is that, so even though that we're seeing a little bit of a damper on that COVID era boom, the boom that Home Depot has gone through over the last decade is crazy.

14:14their annual revenue was 70 billion in 2009 last year 160 billion and they haven't increased their store footprint all that much so that means the same amount of stores is making 90 billion dollars more just an absurd increase in business over the last decade for for home depot i mean i think a lot of the prices for their goods have gone up but also they probably just like got a lot better at online shopping, you know, delivery. And it's just, I mean, we were talking a few, like a few weeks ago about how there was zero Walmarts in New York city proper, like zero, zero. And I just Googled this morning.

14:50There's about 10 home depots, including one right around here. So home depot is like, they're not just a suburban thing. They've kind of taken over the urban market too, which is actually tremendous because who's lugging a two by four down fifth Avenue. Uh, we'll find out. Let's move on to Target. Also not great earnings over there. Sales didn't really grow at all because same thing. Customers bought less discretionary goods, which are those non-essential stuff and bought more necessities like groceries and everyday things. So we're seeing just like a gravitating away from, you know, like that fifth candle for your home and more just like toothbrushes and toothpaste.

15:28Yeah. They said that they're ordering more food. They're ordering more of those just everyday items for sure. The general vibe is the consumer's under a ton of pressure right now, like inflation, everything. So there's not enough money to spend. And so - They are spending. Retail sales did increase last month. They're just spending on different things. Right. And they're spending, also like the debt load is riding for consumers too. So like they are spending, but it looks like - Their composition is changing. Right, for sure. So I like your Maslow's hierarchy of needs reference right there. Okay, before we jump into the next story, we're going to take a quick break.

16:32and put American patients first. Visit phrma.org slash middlemen. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to move your business forward, but first you need to find the right team. Start your search with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It can help you reach qualified candidates fast, ensuring your listing is the first one they see. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs are 90 % more likely to report a hire than non-sponsored jobs. See the results for yourself. Get a$75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. All right, I never thought I'd say this for my job, but we've got an IP war brewing over Taco Tuesday, perhaps one of the best food promotions ever created.

17:21Taco Bell, which is a purveyor of tacos, you might have heard of it, asked the U.S. Trademark Office to cancel the Taco Tuesday trademarks held by two small arrivals in order to liberate the phrase for restaurants nationwide. In other words, Taco Bell is trying to free Taco Tuesday from its IP prison. So who owns the copyright to Taco Tuesday now? I mean, first of all, I don't know anyone owned the copyright, but apparently two people do or two companies do. You have Taco John's, which is a Wyoming-based taco chain. It's held a trademark in 49 states since 1989. And then in New Jersey, randomly, there's Gregory's Restaurant and Bar, which owns the copyright to Taco Tuesday over there.

18:03Each of these companies say they're just little taco joints trying to make it in a world of Taco Bell giants by capitalizing on an idea they came up with. But Taco Bell is like, come on. And so it's not seeking any damages or its own trademark, just that Taco Tuesday will forever be placed in the public domain. This is whose side are you on the little guys or the giant corporation? Well, when you phrase it that way, I'm on the giant corporation side here, Taco Bell side, because I do think you should liberate Taco Tuesday. It's just one of those things that it should bring joy to everyone and no one should own that that feeling of joy.

18:40I did do some digging though. And because you called it one of the greatest like promotions ever. And they did start it back in the 1980s because they wanted to increase sales on Tuesday, which was their worst day. And so it used to be Taco Tuesday, which was T-W-O-S day because they were selling two tacos for 99 cents. So that's what it was. And then eventually they evolved it to actually be Taco Tuesday, how you spelled the day. Yeah. And then trademarked it in 1989. So I do love a, although the$5 foot long might have a word. Okay. That is the main difference here. $5 foot long, you associate with Subway.

19:18Yes. Right. Taco Tuesday. No one, none of us had ever heard of freaking Taco John's before this. Right. And the reason, the definition of a trademark is that it has to come, it has to identify it from a particular source. And so Taco Bell is like, I, no one knows that the source of this is Taco John's. They surveyed their customers and they said 86 % of people believe that Taco Tuesday is a common name not associated with any particular company. And so it's argued that Taco Tuesday has become generic and informational and you cannot put a trademark on a generic term. I think they're totally right.

19:53Like that's just totally true. I know. We talked about LeBron James. Right. He tried to trademark Taco Tuesday back in 2019 because, first of all, LeBron was so cringy, man. Like he, of course he thought that like Taco Tuesday was like his thing. And they, the patent and trademark office said that the phrase was a commonplace term and rejected the trademark. So Taco Bell is probably like, you just rejected LeBron. Like what the heck? Reject Taco John's. Yeah. Like if, if Taco Tuesday is still copyrighted, what's next? You know, like. Neal's numbers? No, like 50 cent wings. Oh yeah. Happy hour.

20:29Buy one, get one. I don't know. You just got to, this madness needs to end now. And Taco Tuesday, totally on board with Taco Bell saying free Taco Tuesday. Yeah, let's do it. Let's also trademark Neil's numbers, though, because that has some serious IP value right there. Oh, yeah, totally. T-shirts. All right. So, Neil, yesterday, let's move to the sports world. The NBA equivalent of a Mega Millions lottery drawing happened. But instead of a million-dollar prize, the prize was a 7 '5 French teenager named Victor Wembenyama. So for anyone who's not super interested in the sports world or the NBA world, last night the order was set for the NBA draft.

21:09So the actual draft didn't occur. It was just the order was set. And the way the NBA draft works is that the worst teams from last year have the best chance of landing the top pick. So the three teams with the worst records last year were the San Antonio Spurs, the Houston Rockets, and the Detroit Pistons. San Antonio came out on top and now have the right to draft the best NBA prospect since LeBron James was up for grabbed. So this is a huge get for San Antonio. But honestly, one of the things I like to look at is like how much money did Victor Weminyama like set himself up for last night? And so I just want to look back at like other comparisons of first overall picks.

21:51Zion Williamson, who was the first overall pick two years ago, signed a$44 million rookie deal that has since expanded to a five-year, $231 million extension. So just contract alone, he's looking right around$50 million. And then also the shoe deal is one of the big moneymakers for top picks. And so Victor Weminyama, his agent is saying that they're looking at a shoe deal in the range of$100 million, which would be the biggest shoe deal of all time. The second biggest is, of course, LeBron James, who signed a seven-year Nike deal for$90 million. Which shoe company is going to get it? It looks like Nike is...

22:34Yeah, they just have the deepest pockets. They have the deepest pockets. Nike still is the... We just saw Air, actually, the movie about signing Jordan. They still just have the rights to all the biggest players. Do you think his shoes are going to be so big that people won't be able to relate to his sneaker? No. Because he has size 15 or 16 shoes, and they're just like, well, that's not even my body. I mean, they do come in other sizes, but I do kind of see what you're saying a little bit. But yeah, so overall, Victor Reminyama set himself up for right around$150 million, which he was going to get no matter who drafted him.

23:11But it's kind of interesting to put into perspective. A 19-year-old. And it'll go farther in Texas where there's fewer taxes. And San Antonio is pretty, you know, relatively cheap real estate compared to if he was in, you know, the NorCal or the New York area. That's actually such a great angle. You're sitting there hoping that like, all right, low taxes, low taxes, low taxes. Maybe, but then you have to, you know, no shade against San Antonio, but it's not exactly the most happening place. Before we move on, the other two times the Spurs had the number one overall pick. Hit me. David Robinson and Tim Duncan.

23:44Didn't work out too badly. You know, Tim Duncan's been compared to. I've heard it. You look alike. All right. Our final story. We love a good high story, right? I love it. All right. So let's get into this high story. So yesterday, a German court convicted five men from a notorious crime family in the heist of a hundred million dollar royal jewelry collection from the basement of one of the most secure museums in Germany. It was the biggest loot in Germany since World War Two and kind of took over the country recently. So this 15-month trial gave us a look at how it all went down. So I just want to walk you through.

24:19I'm excited. Take it. Okay. So one week before the heist, okay, one of these guys breaks into a service room for the power supply for the city of Dresden. All right. This is the setup. At the same time, the other robbers cut a triangle out of a metal grate in the window of the treasure chamber that was out of the sight of the surveillance camera. They took it out and then put it back in as if it had never been cut out. So the day of the heist in 2019, they fire bombed that electrical supply station that cut out all of the streetlights to the area. And then they moved in and they entered the treasure vault through the pre-cut triangle and took hammers and just started hacking away at the cases of jewelry and took out a lot.

25:01And this is the craziest part. Two private security guards watched this all happen on surveillance video, but they are not allowed to engage with criminals because they are unarmed. Oh, they just kind of had to watch it happen. So this note, we're finally at the getaway part. They put the jewelry into a car with stolen plates, drove to a parking garage, jumped into another car in Mercedes while lighting the one they were in on fire. That garage fire spread to 60 cars in the garage and caused more than half a million dollars of euros in damage. Wow. So I feel like I just lived through an Ocean's 14 movie right there.

25:37So this is just a massive deal in Germany. is such a brazen uh heist and they finally convicted these guys i think they're not going to get more than six years in prison because they entered a plea deal yeah so it is just kind of a bizarre legal system they got over there but and a lot of the jewelry will be returned it's from the 17th and 18th centuries very dear to the germans um but a lot of it was kind of damaged in the in the process yeah honestly fantastic heist by the way like the setting the fire to distract They knew that they prepared. Yeah. And then honestly, a great look for law enforcement, too.

26:11Like they track. They sound like these are professional criminals and that they tracked them down and nabbed them all. I guess. It took a couple of years. I know, but still. They watched them do it. OK, that's a little bear. That's a bad look. They literally watched them do it. All right. That is our show. Don't steal any jewelry from anywhere. You can always email us and have any questions or comments at Morning Brew Daily at Morning Brew dot com. Big thanks to our entire crew who made this show possible. Bryce Beloff is our producer. Samantha Velez and Raymond Liu are the associate producers.

26:43Yuchenna Waogu is our technical director. Billy Menino is on audio. Hair and makeup is working from home. Devin Emery is our chief content officer. Our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.