The DOJ Goes After Nvidia? & $14B US Steel Deal Could Collapse

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 idea 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, another icon of the 80s is getting a second act in the 21st century, why J.Crew is reviving its catalog.

0:43Then, political optics look to be sinking the deal that was supposed to save U.S. Steel. It's Thursday, September 5th. Let's ride.

0:57Is 10 to 4 the new 9 to 5? On this September 5th, 9-5, it looks like workers are increasingly re-examining the traditional office hours that Dolly Parton crooned about and have long been the default in American society. According to a report from Enrix that analyzed hourly trip numbers from drivers in the U.S., average weekday traffic numbers no longer spike as severely in the early morning and evening periods like they used to. Instead, commuting data is more spread out throughout the day, suggesting that commuters are going into work later and leaving earlier. Neil, all I know is the 4 a.m. commuting window is still wide open.

1:37Wide open. We don't encounter barely any traffic. While there has been a decrease in the morning and evening commute, there's been a huge boost in the midday commute. Car trips taken around noon rose 23 % from 2019 to last year. And now there's many trips to the office around noon as nine or five. But I just don't understand why there's still increasing traffic, not for us, but for everyone who is commuting to the office. In a report also by Enrix last year, they found that of all global cities, 78 percent saw increased traffic delays. So for some reason, the cars are still being spread out, but they're still going bumper to bumper.

2:18All I know is that we need a Dolly Parton remix ASAP. I'm working 10, 2, 4. I'll leave this singing to you. Now, a word from our sponsor, Mass Mutual. Let's talk about your financial future. It's easy to think that just sprinkling a little money here and there is enough, but that's not how it works. Right. It's not about just chucking darts and hoping for the best, especially you, Toby. I've seen you play darts, and let's just say the other patrons of the bar were lucky to escape uninjured. Hey, it's because I'm more of a strategic thinker. I don't just huck. I throw with precision. And that's what you need for your finances too.

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4:04This deal has been scrutinized for months by lawmakers, but the decision still represents a surprise rejection of a U.S. ally. Japan and the U.S. may be friendly, but the prospect of U.S. steel jobs and production moving overseas quickly became unpopular in the Biden administration, considering the vocal opposition from the Steelworkers Union based in Pennsylvania, a key swing state ahead of November's election. In response, Nippon Steel promised to not close plants or layoff employees through the union's current contract, which ends in 2026. But it seems like the optics of letting a foreign owner take control of U.S.

4:41steel outweigh the benefits of shoring up the operations of the once great 122-year-old company. Yeah, once great, but not anymore. U.S. Steel at one point was the first company to reach a billion-dollar market cap in the U.S. It was the most valuable global company. Now it's just the 24th largest steelmaker on the planet, and it is in a lot of hurt right now. David Burrett, the CEO, came out earlier this week before these reports came that Biden would block the deal and said, look, if we don't get acquired, we're going to have to close steel mills in Pennsylvania and move more production down to lower cost mills in the South.

5:20And we might have to move our headquarters. This would be unthinkable out of Pittsburgh, home of the Pittsburgh Steelers. And so this sort of led a lot more urgency to this deal happening. And then Biden is apparently going to squash it. So on paper, this deal makes so much sense because U.S. Steel is struggling. Nippon Steel wants to grow its presence in the United States. They've pledged$2.7 billion to U.S. Steel in investment. And the CEO of U.S. Steel is like, we absolutely need this. Like, this is a life-saving amount. This is a life raft for us. And if we don't get this, we're leaving a lot of our jobs in Pennsylvania.

6:00But it doesn't seem to outweigh the political considerations here. Right. This is getting a ton of opposition from both sides of the aisle as well. Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have come out against the deal. And a lot of people are concerned about this because legal experts are saying that, hey, this is going to kind of damage America's reputation on the global stage. We are seen as this, we have this reputation for having open markets. Political considerations don't factor into these deals. And yet here it seems like an overtly political move to say, like, no, we're fighting for American jobs, even though a lot of people within U.S.

6:36deal are saying this is just short-sighted. We are struggling right now. This is a very, very good deal. They're planning to invest a lot of money. They're planning to work with the union to not lay off hourly workers. So it is just a tough look right now for the U.S. as supposedly this bastion of free and fair markets to have a little bit of political meddling going on around this deal. But one major constituency that hasn't been behind the deal, and this is a large reason behind the opposition from political areas, is the United Steelworkers Union. They do not agree with this deal. They don't think that Nippon Steel has provided enough protection for workers beyond 2026 when they pledged to keep American jobs there and not lay off anyone.

7:18So because they're not on board, I think that allows these politicians to say we're OK with blocking this deal or standing in opposition to it. If the if the steelworkers union and the employees sort of came on board, I think that would change the political winds a little bit. But as of now, they're still against this deal. And politicians are looking at Pennsylvania as perhaps the state that would decide the 2024 election. And they want to show that they're behind workers in Pennsylvania. NVIDIA has entered the final stage of its initiation into the secret society of tech behemoths. First, its stock blew up.

7:55Then its founder had to wear a signature outfit. And now, in the final stage, it's under investigation for antitrust violations. On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that the AI chipmaker was subpoenaed by the DOJ, escalating the government's probe into potentially anti-competitive practices. The agency is seeking information on a recent acquisition NVIDIA made, as well as how it wields its stranglehold on the market for high-end chips that are core to the generative AI revolution. This subpoena means the government is one step closer to lodging a formal complaint against NVIDIA. The company pushed back yesterday, denying that it received a subpoena, though Bloomberg clarified this was a matter of semantics, whether you say it's a subpoena or a civil investigative demand, which pretty much amounts to the same thing.

8:41Whatever you want to call it, it is more bad news for NVIDIA, which, after a meteoric rise, has shown cracks in the armor this summer. Briefly, the most valuable company in the world. The stock is down 22 % since its June peak, including the worst one-day wipeout of any company in history this Tuesday after news of the investigation was published. Toby, NVIDIA has given off an air of indestructibility over the past year, but does it have a kryptonite? It does. And it seems to be this company called Run AI. This is what regulators are looking at. They bought this company back in April. It makes software for managing AI computing.

9:20And what antitrust officials are concerned with is that NVIDIA is kind of making it harder to switch to other suppliers once they lock you into kind of their more complete system offering here. So there's concerns that you could get preferential supply, for instance, if you are one of those companies that uses its other parts of its operation, which in this case is a run AI. So NVIDIA is running the classic big tech playbook, though, and saying that the reason why we have such a big edge in computing is just because our products are superior. We heard that from Google over and over in their antitrust trial as well, just saying like, hey, listen, we're better.

9:55Don't fault us for being better. So it really does feel like they are speed running the playbook of big tech over the last few years, hitting that trillion dollar market cap, hitting the most valuable company in the world and now getting antitrust interest. Let's talk about NVIDIA's market advantage or the lead they built up over any single rival. Right now, they they own 90 percent. They control 90 percent of the market for these high end AI GPUs, which are so crucial to generative AI. They power the data centers that train AI systems. and they own 90 % of this market. Microsoft and Meta are spending 40 % of their entire hardware budget just on NVIDIA chips.

10:35The second closest competitor to NVIDIA is AMD, which is another chip maker. AMD expects to generate about$4 billion in revenue from its AI chips this year. NVIDIA expects to generate over$100 billion in revenue from its AI chips. In fact, it's set to bring in more in profit this year then AMD will do an entire sale. So there's no question that NVIDIA is the dominant market leader here by an orders of magnitude. The question for antitrust regulators is, does it wield that power in an illegal way to squash competitors? And the reason why another instance why regulators are looking into NVIDIA's dominance right now is because it's just become so important from a national security and even country level because access to AI has become just a key focus for governments around the world, not just companies.

11:31The tech is becoming increasingly vital to just shoring up national security, shoring up your economic strength, entering into the age of AI. So that's another reason why it's just going to become increasingly more eyeballs on NVIDIA because it's just so important to so many facets of the current economic environment right now. And that's why you hear critics from the tech community saying, hey, government, why are you investigating NVIDIA? You should be promoting them and trying to help them as much as possible because we are locked into this AI race with geopolitical rivals. The fact that you want to cut them down at the knees right now with this antitrust investigation and make life harder for NVIDIA is only just kneecapping our ability to compete with these rivals on the AI stage.

12:14We should be doing everything to help NVIDIA because it is our national champion. It is an amazing company that has done so much to advance AI. for the U.S. So that's sort of the pushback from antitrust regulators you hear from the tech community and proponents of NVIDIA. So yeah, NVIDIA is, I mean, it is definitely in a stock market slump right now, down over 200%. It lost two, not down over 200%, down over 20%, but it did lose$279 billion in market value just on Tuesday, which is more than the market cap of all but 27 companies in the world. That's a tough day right there. Like a shanked golf ball speeding away from its intended destination, Callaway and Topgolf are splitting up into two separate businesses.

12:59Callaway, a golf equipment manufacturer in Topgolf, a place to overpay for food while banging golf balls at flashy targets, have been a unified company for the past three years. Callaway first invested in the brand all the way back in 2006 before buying the company for over $2 billion in March of 2021, following the pandemic-induced golf boom as everyone took up this naturally socially distanced sport. But the acquisition has begun to look uglier than Charles Barkley's golf swing, as softening foot traffic has led same venue sales to decline in each of the last four quarters. Neil, on the surface, this duo makes sense.

13:35Use Topgolf to attract a younger, more casual crowd to the game than sell them clubs. But it looks like Callaway misread the greens a little bit here. Totally. I mean, the first red flag was that Topgolf said it wanted to become the Peloton of golf, which immediately you're like oh god then oh no oh no but uh for some reason and we can talk about why top golf just hasn't had that boom that we thought coming out of the coming out of the pandemic executives are chalking it up to that revenge travel that revenge spending of being with people in 2022 that happened uh top golf soared i mean at one point it accounted for 40 percent of this combined company's total revenue.

14:17But people just don't seem to be going as much anymore. Traffic is down. Average spending per visit is up. So people are still spending there, but there are far fewer people actually going to Topgolf. It may have to do with the price. I mean, this is a very premium experience. It is very expensive. Just to reserve one bay for up to six guests for two hours at Topgolf in Edison, New Jersey, which is the closest one here, is$155 before food and drinks. And food and drinks are also going to run you a couple hundred dollars just for that. So they have a price problem, especially during this time of high inflation, consumers are pulling back, and Topgolf sales have just kind of plummeted over the past few quarters.

15:01It is interesting, too, because Topgolf wasn't just some minnow in the grand scheme of this business. You're right. It was driving a lot of revenue. It did about$1.8 billion in revenue over the last year. So it was a big company. It's a 24-year-old business. In 2022, they said that the number of off-course golfers, which are those going to simulators, driving ranges, venues like Topgolf, surpassed on-course golfers in the U.S. It might have just been a different time, though, because it really was kind of a boom around the height of the pandemic, where a lot of people were getting into golf for the first time.

15:34So maybe it's just simply a thing of there's more competition out there for what you can go and do on a Friday night. Golf isn't maybe the top thing on people's minds. Maybe they gave it a try, shaked a couple too many nine irons and said, maybe it's not for me. So it did do well to grow the game at that time, but maybe people are just evolving away from Topgolf and kind of their business model. Up next, crank up the volume, people. It's a moment you have been waiting for. Neil's numbers.

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17:36Welcome to Neal's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will make you feel smarter than someone who wears glasses just for the look. My first number is for people who name their firstborn child Khaleesi and order Milk of the Poppy at the bar. Heritage Auctions, in collaboration with HBO, announced it's holding a massive sale of more than 2 ,000 items from Game of Thrones, the path-breaking TV show that ended in 2019, but everyone wished ended in 2018. Despite the awful last season, Game of Thrones has shown it still has cultural staying power, and this auction of costumes, props, set pieces, and other memorabilia hopes to attract the superfans who want to turn their bachelor pad into more of a king's landing.

18:20So what items are being auctioned? Some notable ones are the cloaks and leather ensembles worn by Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen. Yes, dragon chokers are included. Jaime Lannister's full suit of armor. Tyrion Lannister's hand of the Queenpin, best worn while drinking an ale. And bloodstained clothes from the infamous Red Wedding episode. If any of those would complement your living room, you're looking at a starting price of$500 to$20 ,000. Toby, what piece do you have your eye on? I may buy the Iron Throne again just to burn it to the ground in protest of that last season. No, there's only one item really for me, though, and that is the bell wielded during Cersei Lannister's shame scene.

19:01I mean, can you imagine rolling up to work with that thing if someone leaves dishes and doesn't put their dishes away? You go hit them with the shame bell. I don't know. That would be great. And you're like, this is the actual one, by the way. Right, right. Yeah, I spent$20 ,000 on it. But it's interesting that HBO had the foresight to even do this in the first place. They've been carefully preserving literally thousands of props. One, in the hopes that maybe they'll use it in the spinoffs for the show, House of the Dragons. They've used some of their props before. But then they now have a better sense of which props they actually will use and which props they won't use, which is why we're getting this auction in the first place.

19:37it will be interesting to see if it fully sells out because 2019 was a long time ago. The monoculture moment that Game of Thrones had was a little bit ago, but clearly with the popularity of House of Dragon, it still has some staying power. And yeah, I think people will be tuning in and dropping some cash on these items. Yeah, and even if you don't want to spend money on this, which I don't, but it will be previewed to the public in New York and London, so you can go and just see these and look at the... You know, this show was known for its very elaborate costumes and its props. Did you have a favorite item that you were looking at or not really?

20:14I just want like, yeah, just like a mug that Tyrion drank out of. Like that's useful to me. All right, my second number comes from Caltech, the school you don't even consider applying to because you know you won't get in. For the first time in Caltech's 133-year history, more than half of its incoming undergrad class this fall will be women. It's a watershed moment for women's participation in STEM, or science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, fields long dominated by men. But at Caltech this fall, the 113 first-year women will outnumber the 109 men. It's also remarkable that this milestone was reached at Caltech, which only admitted women starting in 1970, a little over 50 years ago.

20:58But the administration made a big push to recruit women and run programs highlighting women's STEM leaders to serve as role models. One of them is Katie Bauman, a Caltech associate professor of computing and mathematical sciences, who co-led a 300-person team to capture the world's first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Which, what? I remember that moment. Do you remember when that photo emerged? It was very hype. There was a picture of her showing it off. It was extremely exciting. But yes, it's interesting because Caltech is actually a little bit behind compared to peers when it comes to gender parity.

21:36I mean, Harvey Mudd, which is in Claremont, they enrolled more women than men all the way back in 2010. Their 2014 class actually graduated more women than men in engineering, which is specifically a field that they've been trying to increase the amount of women in. But Caltech in general just has a boom in interest, and it might be because of prioritizing getting more female applicants because applications have jumped from 8 ,000 before the pandemic to 14 ,000 today. And in case you were thinking about submitting your name up for consideration, the admission rate has fallen to 3.14%. It was never on my radar, Neil, I can tell you that much.

22:19You barely just you barely pass long division. I still can't. I mean, I couldn't even get that percentage out. But yeah, it is just great to see that you are seeing such a boom in a school that you couldn't even apply to. Couldn't even be admitted to as as recently as 1970. My final number is 15 years, which is how long it's been since an American man played in a Grand Slam tennis final. Well, that drought will end tomorrow because under the bright lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium, Taylor Fritz and Francis Tiafoe will square off in the semifinal, guaranteeing that an American will compete for the trophy on Sunday.

22:56And if one of them win that match, they'd be the first American man to win a Grand Slam since 2003 when Andy Roddick was the U.S. Open champion. It wasn't always this way. A few decades back, American men dominated the sport, Sampras, McEnroe, Connors, Agassi. But then starting about 20 years ago, they stopped winning. And the failure of America to produce a top of the line male tennis player has become one of the most perplexing unsolved mysteries in sports. Is it because top American athletes were choosing more popular and lucrative sports? Is it that the U.S. used to have a monopoly on elite coaches and doesn't anymore?

23:30Or could it be that the so-called Big Three, Djokovic, Federer, and Nadal, were so superior that no one anywhere could possibly beat them? Whatever the answer, Tiafoe and Fritz will have the opportunity to change the narrative in a big way, beginning with their match tomorrow. It also just shows that you can take very different paths to a Grand Slam semifinal or final. Starting with Tiafoe, Tiafoe's parents were immigrants from Sierra Leone. He grew up in Maryland where his father worked as a custodian at a tennis facility in College Park. They literally slept in his dad's office, Tiafoe and his brother.

24:04He turned pro at 16 and was actually backed by Bill Ackman early in his career, which is just a weird combination of tennis lore and finance lore. Contrast that to Taylor Fritz. He comes from tennis royalties. His mom was a former top 10 player. His dad also played pro. grew up in Rancho Santa Fe, was the world number one junior at one point, won the 2015 U.S. Open junior title. So just shows you that there are multiple paths to a Grand Slam final. And then when you look at the women's draw, there are also two Americans in the semifinals, and they come from actually similar backgrounds. They're both daughters of billionaires.

24:45Emma Navarro is the daughter of Ben Navarro, who is one of the nation's largest buyers of consumer debt. He literally owns the Cincinnati Open. And then you have Jessica Pagula, who won last night. She's the daughter of Terry and Kim Pagula, who own the Buffalo Bills, the Buffalo Sabres, and several other minor league hockey teams. So they both come from billionaire families and they say, yes, I was given a lot of resources as a kid. I had a lot of court time, but hey, I worked my butt off and now I'm at the U.S. Open semifinal. The final weird business tennis combination fact that I want to say is Taylor Fritz's great, great granddad is David May, who founded May Department Stores, which eventually merged to become Macy's.