What Doordash, Dell and Palantir all have in common

0:01NPR.

0:06This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong.

0:09Sierra Juarez:And I'm Adrian Ma. President Trump loves talking about the stock market. And when he gets going, let's just say he sounds more CNBC than C-SPAN. We have a hot country. It's going to go up. I think the market's going to go through the roof. I don't know how many of you people watch the stock market, but if the stock market's good, that's good for everybody. But it's good for you, good for everybody. In fact, the president spent some of his speech at the United Nations this week on his favorite topic. U.S. stock markets have set 80 all-time records, and that's just in the last 12 months. And the president isn't just a stock market spectator.

0:48A Bloomberg analysis counted up how many trades he or his money managers have made since taking office for his second term. Their tally, an eye-popping 28 ,700 trades. That's more than all members of Congress combined.

1:02Sierra Juarez:More than 28 ,000 trades. I mean, that's a little wild. Yeah, it works out to around 80 trades for each day that the market is open. So it's a lot of activity. And Trump has shown that he's happy to use his platform to promote individual companies, companies whose stock he trades in. Now, the White House says he's not actively directing these trades, although Trump has admitted to profiting from them. Either way, his boosterism represents a potential conflict of interest. So today on the show, we look at three times Trump acted as cheerleader for companies he traded, companies that also have relationships with the federal government.

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2:45Sierra Juarez:The majority of executive branch employees in the U.S. are barred from participating in government matters where they have a financial interest. Now, historically, there are a couple notable exemptions to these laws, the president and the vice president. One rationale for this carve out is that the legislative branch didn't want to impinge on the power of the executive branch. When it comes to stock trading, the White House has repeatedly denied President Trump has any conflicts of interest. In a statement, White House spokesman Davis Engel told us that President Trump's stock and bond portfolio is independently managed by third-party financial institutions that use automated computer models.

3:22Sierra Juarez:And he added, quote, Neither President Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence, or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested or when investments are bought or sold. Even so, as the president, Trump holds incredible sway over which companies are in the government's good graces. So he wanted to look back at three examples of Trump boosting a company whose stock he has traded in. The first example is Dell, who, by the way, is a financial supporter of NPR. Trump's financial disclosures show the president bought up to$5 million in Dell stock during the first quarter of this year.

3:59Sierra Juarez:And around the same time, the president praised not just founder Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, but the company's products, too. Go out and buy a Dell computer because they don't care about that. They care about this. They make a great product. They're not looking for any publicity. I give them publicity. Trump was thanking the Dells for a$6.25 billion commitment towards a government program that sets up investment accounts for children. And it wasn't the only time he sang their praises. A few months later, he was doing it again. Michael and Susan Dell, they are truly incredible people. Go out and buy a Dell computer.

4:36He's not doing it for that. But I'll bet his business, Brad, has gotten even bigger.

4:41Sierra Juarez:And between those two remarks, the Department of Defense awarded a Dell subsidiary a contract worth nearly$10 billion. Now, speaking of government contracts, the second company we're going to talk about is Palantir. This is a tech company co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel. He's a Trump donor who served on the president's 2016 transition team. Palantir makes software that analyzes large data sets, including surveillance data, and has more than a billion dollars worth of contracts with the federal government. CEO Alex Karp listed some of Palantir's clients in an interview with Wired magazine last year.

5:16Our first contracts were at U.S. intelligence, so CIA, special operations, and FBI.

5:23Sierra Juarez:Our biggest contracts ended up being in the DoD. Trump moved in and out of Palantir stock in the first three months of the year. And around that time, Palantir won a contract with the Department of Homeland Security worth up to a billion dollars. Trump has also appeared to have a direct, if temporary, impact on the company's shares. In April, Trump posted on Truth Social, Palantir Technologies has proven to have great warfighting capabilities and equipment. Just ask our enemies! And he included the company's stock ticker, PLTR. Palantir's stock rose 3 % in the minutes after that Truth Social post.

6:02Sierra Juarez:The rally didn't last, but the post did prompt at least one lawmaker, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, to ask on social media whether the president was blatantly manipulating markets. So we've covered Dell and Palantir. The third and last example is DoorDash. Maybe you remember this promo video that the White House released in April. I have a DoorDash order for you, Mr. President. No, that's very nice. Look at this. DoorDash is doing a good job. A DoorDash driver named Sharon Simmons delivered a McDonald's order to the Oval Office. It was part of an event to promote the government's no tax on tips policy.

6:38Well, I want to thank you for the no tax on tips. It has helped my family out immensely. And I definitely appreciate it. In the months before this event promoting one of Trump's signature tax policies, the president had traded in DoorDash stock.

6:55Sierra Juarez:Zooming out beyond these examples, as we've covered on the indicator, the AI industry is the main driver of the stock market's huge gains this year. And Trump is a cheerleader-in-chief for AI. Both Trump and his family have a lot of personal investments in this strategically vital industry. And continuing that rah-rah spirit, at the UN this week, Trump rejected calls by other countries to create a global body to supervise AI development. And he suggested that AI safety risks are a hoax. The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being spoken of so much now.

7:37Sierra Juarez:Whether it's AI generally or Dell, Palantir and DoorDash, the president may have the legal green light, but the ethical light is flashing yellow or even red. We reached out to Dell, Palantir, and DoorDash for comment and did not hear back. Recent polling shows that a majority of Americans believe members of Congress and other elected officials should not be allowed to buy and sell individual stocks while in office. And a bill restricting stock trades by lawmakers passed the House earlier this year. The proposal, however, does not include the president. Many Democrats balked at that exclusion. Well, if Democrats do well in the midterms, they could have a shot at passing their own bill.

8:16Sierra Juarez:I guess we'll have to watch and see what happens. Yes, we will. This episode was produced by Scholar Swenson and engineer by Anli Huang. It was fact-checked by Sarah Juarez. Kicking Cannon is our show's editor, and The Indicator is a production of NPR.

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