Musk Doubts Trump’s AI Venture & International Travel is So Back

0:00Tuesday on NBC, Jimmy Fallon and Bozma St John host the highly anticipated new competition show. I hired 10 creatives from all walks of life. They will be battling it out to see who can impress the world's biggest brands. This is a huge opportunity. This is the battle for the next big idea. This is not play play. We're spending millions of dollars. I'm so excited to embark on this adventure with all of you. Make the best I do win! On Brand with Jimmy Fallon. Series premiere Tuesday on NBC. Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, the founder of Silk Road is free after a presidential pardon.

0:38Why some are celebrating and others are alarmed. Then Elon Musk called BS on President Trump's first big tech investment, trouble brewing in the White House. It's Thursday, January 23rd. Let's ride.

0:55Well, it is still freezing out, not just in New York, but all over the country. Snow on Florida beaches, people ice skating down streets in New Orleans, winter is here, Neil. Not only is winter here, we are also in peak hoodie season. Nothing pairs with sub-zero temperatures quite like a comfy, cozy sweatshirt. And rumor has it that if that sweatshirt has the letters MBD on it, it doubles the comfiness coefficient. Lucky for you, we still have a few Morning Brew Daily hoodies available for purchase in the Morning Brew shop. To get hands on one just go to shop.morningbrew.com then click on top collections to find morning brew daily it's hard to miss then here's the biggest part the hoodies are 50 off right now so they're going to go fast supplies are limited and we're staring down at least a few more months of cold temps so take out your phone take out your laptop and head to shop.morningbrew.com to get your hands on an mbd sweatshirt while they're still available stay warm people now a word from our sponsor Yahoo Finance.

1:58Neil, have I ever told you about the first time I used Yahoo Finance? Somehow, even though we talk literally every day, you have not told me this story. It was my junior year of high school. We did a stock picking competition over the year where we would manage a virtual portfolio on Yahoo Finance. Okay, I take it back. You have indeed told me this story. Well, don't spoil it. Anyway, I tried to go the biotech route and looked for a company about to get approval for a new drug. Long story short, the drug did not get approved and I got dead last. But the moral of the story is that even when Toby was back in high school, Yahoo Finance was a great resource for learning and studying financial markets.

2:36Exactly. The interface wasn't as polished in 2014 as it is now, but Yahoo has a long track record of arming the financially curious with the tools and knowledge you need to grow your investments, whether real or fake stock picking competition. And whether you're a 17-year-old searching for under-the-radar biotech stocks or an investing pro looking for an edge, head to yahoofinance.com today. Yesterday.

3:02When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th, And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. We got some grade A gab from around the business world as everyone from Elon Musk to Jamie Diamond spoke their minds about Trump tariffs and TikTok. So for our top story today, we're going to pick some of the more notable quotes dropped by a cast of business characters as a jumping off point to talk about some news.

3:44Up first, Trump's cadre of billionaires are already fighting Real Housewives style. Elon Musk poured cold water on the Trump-backed Stargate initiative announced this week that aims to invest$500 billion into AI infrastructure. They don't actually have the money, he wrote in reply to an OpenAI post on the announcement. SoftBank has well under$10 billion secured. I have that on good authority. Now, Musk is not exactly a neutral party here. He has long had beef with Sam Altman and OpenAI after its for-profit turn, with Musk later posting that Sam Altman is a swindler. But, Neil, going out and publicly undermining a big announcement from Trump is one of the first public displays of friction between these two.

4:30Yeah, I do want to underscore that because it's a big deal. Trump hauled in Masayoshi's son, Sam Altman, Larry Ellison for this huge announcement that got a lot of press. We talked about it. It was$500 billion pledged. And then Elon Musk, one of his top advisors who helped him gain the presidency the next day, or actually the same day, it was 11.35 p.m., goes out and calls BS on it. That is a big deal, and we'll see how this plays out in the future. As you said, there is a background here, and it seems to be a continuation of the longstanding beef between Elon Musk and Sam Altman. Remember, they co-founded OpenAI together almost a decade ago.

5:09And then they had this very dramatic falling out when Sam Altman wanted to make the company turn it from a nonprofit to a for-profit. Elon Musk didn't like that. So now he started a direct OpenAI competitor called XAI. So now these two guys are going at it in industry and in politics. It's something to watch. It's something to watch. Elon doesn't have his hands in this particular pie, which is potentially why he is undermining the project in public. Or maybe they really don't have the money secured. We don't necessarily know at this point. But what we are seeing is what happens when you have a lot of billionaires in the henhouse.

5:47You're going to have these clashes, these public cashes, too, because Elon Musk owns X, which is where this exchange went down. One person, though, who is trying to remain above it all is Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. He was asked by CNBC, what do you think about Elon posting this? What do you think about him saying that the funding is not there? And he told CNBC that I'm good for my$80 billion, which is not a sentence that a lot of people in the world can utter, but Satya Nadella can do that. So it does look like there is some friction. Even the fact that Satya Nadella doesn't even know what's going on with this other funding stream shows that maybe Stargate isn't off to the best start.

6:24But he did say that$80 billion will be funneled into this project from Microsoft. And maybe they don't have the cash on hand. I guess I'm defending Stargate now. But they could raise money, right? They could finance it to get the amount of money that they need to build these huge data centers. So definitely a big story we're going for because, you know, data centers and AI infrastructure, yes, it's the subject of some catfights between billionaires. But also it's a big deal for the future of technology, future of U.S. national security. So building these data centers is important. Who builds them is obviously subject of a fight right now.

7:00Our next quote is get over it. That's the tough love delivered by J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, telling people who are worried about Trump's tariff threats to make like the 2003 Red Sox and cowboy up. In an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the head of America's largest bank said if tariffs are, quote, a little inflationary, but it's good for national security, so be it. National security trumps a little more inflation. It is a rare endorsement of Trump's tariffs than we've been accustomed to from the C-suite, who largely warned that tariffs would, yes, be inflationary and cause major disruptions to trade flows and the economy.

7:39Since taking office, Trump has announced plans to slap tariffs on the U.S.'s three largest trading partners, Canada, Mexico and China, on February 1st, a week from now. He's readying 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico and an additional 10 percent on China, countries that account for more than a third of the goods and services imported and exported by the U.S. and support tens of millions of jobs. But the question remains, until they do go into effect, whether it's a negotiating ploy to extract concessions or a real threat, at least in Diamond's case, he's not losing sleep at night either way.

8:15Right. The fear from a lot of economists have been that these duties, these tariffs could spark this global trade war and they could reignite inflation domestically. That's always been what we've been hearing. But they could also protect American interest, which is now the tune that Jamie Dimon is singing. He is saying that national security trumps a little bit of inflation. He also went on to say that he just views tariffs as a tool. That is it. They're not they can be a weapon depending on how you use them. They can be a tool depending how you use them. So he was just trying to provide a little bit of perspective on these things because tariffs has become such a boogeyman in a lot of these conversations.

8:52Another quote that came out of Davos as well was the director general of the World Trade Organization said, can we chill? when he was talking to CNN reporter in Davos. I think we shouldn't get overexcited about the issue of tariffs. Let's wait and see what actually gets done. So we're seeing a little bit of different tunes sung as we are kind of approaching the date when these things come into effect. It would be a big deal. I'm sorry, Jamie Dimon and World Trade Center, or not World Trade Organization guy. This is a huge deal. You know, 25 % tariff on things going over the border from the United States to Mexico, United States to Canada.

9:29I mean, just to put things in perspective, a car that is sold on a lot here in the United States, maybe you just go about a car. Just imagine that probably went across the border eight times, you know, with getting various parts on its way to being assembled. So if that is subject to a 25 percent duty every single time it goes across the border to become a little more of a car, then that raises prices everywhere. So I think maybe these CEOs are trying to get a little bit, you know, like a birdie in Trump's ear and saying, you know, you can apply tariffs, but just be strategic about it and don't do this broad, you know, broad swath of tariffs and hit everything universally because that would seriously knock the economy.

10:10One item that is very much in focus is crude oil. Sixty percent of all of America's crude oil imports come from Canada. If that gets taxed, then you're going to see gasoline prices go up. And those are the main factor in that bout of inflation we had last month. So we'll see what happens. The countdown is on February 1st. Here we go. Our last quote comes from a place of optimism, and that is, it's in everybody's interest. And I'll pause the beat to let you guess what that is in reference to. Yep, you probably got it. It's about saving TikTok. Speaking at Davos, Bill Ford, an American venture capitalist who's on ByteDance's board, is optimistic that the stars will align and a deal will get done to secure TikTok's long-term future in the United States.

10:55Ford went on to say that the Chinese government, the U.S. government, and ByteDance would likely meet by the end of this week to begin negotiations as time starts ticking on the 75 days Trump's executive order gave the app to work out a change of control deal. Neil, inevitably, one's mind wanders to potential buyers once again, and Trump has tabbed Elon Musk and Larry Ellison as to potential options he wants to get involved, while a joint bid from Kevin O 'Leary of Shark Tank fame has also been floating around. What do you think, though, about this board member's optimism about this potential TikTok deal?

11:29I mean, he obviously has more insight into I do, but it seems well placed. The Chinese government has said that it might take off, take a more hands off approach to selling TikTok or to have ByteDance sell TikTok than previously thought. We thought that the Chinese government would block a deal. And earlier this week, it signaled that it would it would be a little more laissez faire about it. Yeah, we have some interesting potential buyers here. Frank McCourt is a billionaire, former owner of the Dodgers. Kevin O 'Leary. I don't think I don't think Mr. Wonderful is in the running. I'm sorry, Mr.

12:01Wonderful to you know, one one company that I think has a pretty good chance here is Oracle. It already works with TikTok hosting its servers here in the United States. Larry Ellison, who is the founder and CEO, has a good relationship with with President Trump. So I think Oracle is absolutely in the running. They already have a relationship. And then Elon Musk is also high on the list of people who would be able to buy TikTok should it sell because Elon Musk is favored by the Chinese government. He's gone to Shanghai. He's built a plant there. He has a good relationship. They sell Teslas in China.

12:36So that might be another name to watch here. Moving on, Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind the infamous Silk Road that let you buy everything from hard drugs to fake IDs using cryptocurrency, has been granted a full pardon by President Donald Trump. It ends in over decade-long imprisonment tied to him operating the dark web's Amazon, a marketplace that at its peak saw$200 million worth of illicit activity flow through the site. Ulbricht was jailed in 2015 for creating and running the Silk Road, which resulted in two life sentences plus 40 years on charges including drug trafficking and money laundering.

13:12But freeing Ulbricht became a campaign talking point for Trump as he aimed to curry favor with the crypto and libertarian crowds who always champion Ulbricht for his role in demonstrating Bitcoin's effectiveness as a currency that can operate outside of the traditional finance system. Neil, Ulbricht has been a martyr in these communities for his advocacy for privacy and free market principles. The editor of Bitcoin Magazine told the New York Times that it's hard to argue Ulbricht isn't the most successful, influential entrepreneur of the early Bitcoin era. And now that entrepreneur and that martyr is finally free.

13:46Yeah, let's dig into his philosophy. Apparently in college he developed an interest in libertarian economic theory, which advocates for criminal justice reform. Basically just get government away from the free market as possible. No intervention. Let people exchange good and services that they want to. In a letter to the trial judge in 2015, he said he didn't create Silk Road for financial gain, but he believed at the time that people should have the right to buy and sell whatever they wanted so long as they weren't hurting anyone else. The problem with that is in this case that they brought before the jury was that they said people were hurt by Silk Road.

14:28There was, you know, heroin and other illicit hard drugs being exchanged in the millions of dollars. They linked six deaths to Silk Road. And then in another instance, they also accused Ulbricht of doing some murders for a hire. And they didn't that wasn't a part of the case because they couldn't find any evidence. But that was a part of the conversation that he literally hired hitmen to kill people who he thought were going after him. So there was some, you know, while he wasn't prosecuted for that, wasn't charged for that, there was, you know, there was this undercurrent of violence that pervaded the whole thing.

15:05Yeah, the judge who eventually sentenced Ulbrich back in 2015, she did not view him as this figure that was fighting for digital libertarianism. Instead, she said that he was no better a person than any other drug dealer and passed down this pretty extreme sentence, life in prison, two times life in prison without parole, which ended up having – she was trying to discourage people from following in his footsteps. It almost had the exact opposite effect. It turned him into a martyr. It turned him into this figurehead that the crypto community and the libertarian community kind of put on a pedestal.

15:41And it became a very good political, you know, talking point for Trump, who wanted to court the crypto community, who wanted to court the libertarian community. So he kind of took it and ran with it. He said in one quote at a Libertarian Party convention back in May when he's still campaigning, If you vote for me on day one, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht. So he became kind of a political, you know, instrument for Trump to use. And he followed through on his word. And soon after he was elected, he did, in fact, commute Ulbricht's sentence. All right, Neil, I've been waiting all week.

16:17I've been waiting months for this one, actually. It is Neil's numbers.

16:25Race the rudders! Raise the sails! Raise the sails! Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait, is that an enterprise sails solution? Reach sails professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. Start converting your B2B audience today. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started today at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from EBCLIS. After an initial dosing phase, about 4 in 10 people taking EBCLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks.

17:08And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. EbGliss, Librikizumab, LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EbGliss can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EbGliss. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe.

17:37Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EpGliss. Before starting EpGliss, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about EpGliss and visit epgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Welcome to Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will make you more of a know-it-all than Hermione. For my first number, are Americans learning how to relax and take off work? Possibly, according to a new Labor Department report, the number of people in the U.S.

18:12who took vacations in December reached an all-time high going back to 1976. And you weren't waiting for the holidays either. About 6.3 million clocked out of work the first week of December, which was a 20 % increase from the same period the year before. Planes, trains, automobiles, you name the mode of transportation, Americans were using it. A record 107 million traveled by car over the holidays. airports were their busiest ever and cruise bookings at U.S. ports were up 37 percent from a year ago. A number of reasons could explain this vacation frenzy. The Washington Post explained more states like Illinois and Nevada have recently begun requiring paid leave for all workers.

18:54Then there's the fact that more workers are sticking around at their jobs instead of hopping company to company like during COVID. That means they might have banked more vacation time or simply burned out with what they've been doing and needed some R &R. Look at us taking some vacation days. Good job, everyone, for taking some time off. Also, it's justice for anyone who swears the security lines have been getting longer and that hotels you have to book further and further advance. People really are traveling more. And if you zoom out to not just America, but the world level to the UN's World Trade Organization released its 2024 year in review data and found that the tourism industry is 100 % back.

19:33Actually, I should say it's 99 % back because 99 % of the number of people who traveled in 2019 traveled this year. So that adds up to about 1.4 billion people traveling internationally. And Europe was a very popular destination. Europe was the most popular destination with 747 million tourists in 2024. The number one country that was visited last year should come as no surprise. I'll give you a second to think about it. That would be France, right? We had a lot of big events in France last year, 2024 Summer Olympics, the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral, the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy.

20:14So people were pretty hype about those events. And then in second place was Spain with 98 million tourists, just 2 million short of France. That's crazy too, because remember how anti-tourist Spain was or anti-tourist, the headlines coming out of Spain were because, remember, residents of Barcelona were shooting water pistols at tourists saying that they didn't want them in their city anymore. And I don't blame them, too, because, I mean, they got 98 million visitors. Paris had the dang Olympics and only beat it by 2 million. So a lot of people are coming to these European countries. And if you're looking for some under-the-radar destinations, these were the countries that saw a really big spike.

20:53Qatar experienced 137 % increase in tourists. It has a really big and global airport. Qatar Airways is the top airline in the world. Some other countries that saw a surge, Dominican Republic. Hey, I think I went to Punta Cana. Kuwait, Albania, and El Salvador. So there you got some ideas. And I hope you are going to stop this podcast, Not right now, after we're done, and then go book your next vacation. My second number concerns a scandal engulfing Indian politics, social media, and bigwig economists. The national freakout is about taxes on popcorn. According to the Wall Street Journal, last month, the government ruled that popcorn should be subject to a three-tiered tax system with different rates for different types of popcorn.

21:40Caramel popcorn, you're going to be taxed at 18%, essentially a luxury good. popcorn packaged in plastic 12 % tax rate if it's sold loose it'll only be taxed at 5 % the order got people riled up and confused why have such a complex system for taxing popcorn I mean we know popcorn contains multitudes but is this breakdown completely necessary when the finance minister tried to clarify how it all worked she only invited more criticism I want to explain the whole background of the popcorn taxes to you salted popcorn caramelized popcorn plain popcorn she said when it comes to popcorn's tax treatment as long as it's salty whether it is with salt spice tangy chili powder that's all five percent but when it has added caramelized sugar it is no longer salty got it got it that was my favorite part is that this finance minister tried to explain it tried to clarify and then just uttered a sentence that absolutely provided no clarification whatsoever just basically listed out the different types of popcorn once more but But yes, this whole fight is emblematic of something that's been going on in India for a while now.

22:47They have been desperately trying to cut some red tape because it has this kind of reputation as being notoriously hard to do business in because of just how big it is and how many different regions and sectors have different tax rules. In 2017, they tried to pass this tax reform called the goods and services tax that aimed to simplify their tax code. The backers wanted just two tax rates, just simplify everything. It ended up having over six, over a half dozen and didn't necessarily do what it promised to do. And I think it's all come to a head in this popcorn tax that is emblematic of so much else that is wrong with their tax system.

23:24OK, all tax rates being equal for popcorn, which popcorn are you going for? I mean, sweet, salty, cow corn. I'm definitely going. You can't eat too much of the sweet popcorn, though, that I do think that should be tax the highest because that just has that luxury feel to it. So I'm going to just go with that normal salty movie theater popcorn. For my final number, any Kidz Bop fans out there? I know I was one many moons ago. Well, if you can believe it, the franchise just put out its 50th album with tracks including Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter and Chapel Rohn's Hot To Go. If you are not familiar with Kidz Bop, it's a group of teens who cover popular music, but do it in a very happy way, for lack of a better word.

24:06As the New York Times reported, it was started in 2001 by two lawyers and has become a music behemoth with dozens of its albums having charted in the Billboard Top 10, putting them in the same company as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Now, the funny part about Kidz Bop, which I didn't realize as a kid listening to them, is that they sanitize some of the racier lyrics and songs to make them more rated Gs. So, for example, in Hot To Go, they revised the lyric, I could be the one or your new addiction to I could be the one or a new condition. And in Telephone by Lady Gaga, Out in the Club and I'm Sippin' That Bub was changed to Out in the Club and I'm Eating That Grub.

24:46So true. Don't you love when you go to the club as a 12-year-old and eat some grub there? But Kidz Bop is this behemoth. It has just been something that had remarkable staying powder. it does feel like a very early 2000s thing to be invented but the fact that they're still churning out albums today shows that there's clearly a gap in the market and that was something it was founded by two lawyers in 2001 that they identified they were like all right there's music for tiny babies you know it's just uh usually not even lyrics involved rafi maybe it was something you have lyrics yeah that was at rafi was he produced bangers but that's more for like sub five-year-olds and then you have normal music which maybe has some lyrics in there that you don't want your kids listening to so there's this whole age group from like age four to age 12 that was missing music and kids bop slid in to feel that gap which is why we're still talking about kids bop 50 to this day and the most famous alum of kids bop i have to say which i didn't know zendaya that is a great factoid to bust out in it the new york times did this whole piece on uh kids bop their 50th album and in there they put a picture of zendaya in a kids bop and then a picture of her in challengers was like wow you couldn't have picked any other movie there so it is showing though that these alumni have gone on to spread their wings and do bigger and better things now let's sprint to the finish with a couple more headlines you may have missed up first if you were scrolling instagram and came across a surprise picture of president trump or jd vance the other day, you weren't alone.