Elon is $20B Richer After the Election & TGI Fridays Owes $50M in Gifts
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Good morning for daily show. I'm friend and I tell me how today, just how friendly to business with a second trump president cb.

how you one must send the company from the seat at the government table. It's the november let's ride. Well, we are officially in the transition period between administrations. Coma Harris conceived her election law yesterday, addressing supporters at Howard university, her all my mother and where he hoped would be the sight of her Victory speech. SHE spoke about the importance of a peaceful transition of power and also said he talked on the phone to the president, electron p, to congratulate him on the win and .

formally concede the race. Yeah, now there is a seven, five day transition period, and his group of allies is going to need to create essentially an entirely new government and hire four thousand government positions to fill cabinet and things all the way down last time in twenty sixteen that transition was LED by the former uh new jersey governor crist Christine before trumping Christa a falling out and he gave IT to is but future vice president might pence. This year's transition coaches are the C O of kerfoot Jerry Howard lottie who has been a big uh trump supporter and the W W E mal linder mic man it's truly .

becoming the wrestling White house at this point. Now a word from our sponsor, yahoo finance. So we know that there is probably a lot of scrolling out of you all in the last few days, a lots of stream time.

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information diet. For a Better information diet, check out our purple prints at yahoo finance stock com. That's yahoo finance dot com u at musk is known to be a game or rolling over his successes in zip to paypal, tesla space ex and more into newer and risk your ventures.

But perhaps none of his bets were as big or as risky as going all in on trying to get done. Trump reelected this year, must spend one hundred and thirty million dollars through his political action committee to help elect on trump. But he is also seeing that bet payoff ten fold.

Shares of tesla rose fifteen percent yesterday to reach a new high this year. He added twenty billion dollars to his network since wednesday, and perhaps most coveted of all, he's more than likely landed himself a seat at the table as a head of dose. The department of government efficiency and more gains lie ahead, and most empire of businesses are heavily entangled with the U.

S. Government space. Sex is a critical partner to NASA and the defense department. Tesla needs a favorable regulatory environment to help its autonomists robo taxi dream become a reality.

Plus he owns nex and neural ink, which have received scrutiny from the fdc and the fda. So now musk sits at this uniquely powerful confluence of business, and government will likely get a chance to advocate for his interest in washington. He went all in, and IT seems like he has won again.

Yeah, there are two perspectives here, supporters of trump and mustard, looking at this as an incredible opportunity. I mean, this is a guy who called a falling rocket with mechanical chopstick. And now he's going to play a role in washington, D.

C. In the federal government, which many view as ancient and full of cobwebs and full of bloat. So having a person who has this business track record, who's build companies that are worth eight hundred billion dollars in tesla, two hundred billion dollars in space sex, is an incredible opportunity.

They're super excited to see what else can do as a part of the federal government or playing a role in there. Then you have the detractors. The critics of moscow are very concerned, first of all, with his politics and his right, we're turn and his is sleeting information that he's a promoted on x but also the numerous conflicts of interest, satin ized. When a business man who owns so many of these companies that are entangled, as you mention, with the federal government, that are involved in investigations that compete for contracts, what might happen there in terms of how must could use this one hundred thirty million dollars but to enrich himself even more in a trump administration?

I mean, musk has promised to cut two trillion dollars from the federal debt, and he has a very much for sitting out where that might come from. But hm, I need to cut two trillion. Should IT come from the contract handed out the space x, or should I come from something else? Remember, SpaceX has signed more than fifteen billion dollars in government contracts or the past decades.

So again, conflict of interests. Maybe we'll do cuts somewhere else. Also, another place that we think that there could be some conflict of interest is that starlink is trying to get in on this forty two billion dollar internet expansion campaign that was rolled out under the biden administration.

there. IT was supposed to put fixed ed fibre optic lines to rural america. But you, I must as long said, maybe startling a Better option to reach those rural al areas, which very well might be true. But again, the conflict of interest is hard to overstate. Elon is having a seat, the table that does give out contracts, two spaces, two starlink, of course, that is a conflict of interest.

And then one other area where I think this is going to be most important islands role here is an autonomous vehicle regulations. Tesla has changed its course recently from stop from producing electric vehicles to compete with the legacy car makers to go all in on autonomy.

And elan has said in the past, he wants to use his role in the White house create more streamline regulations for autonomous vehicles, and his entire company is staked on that future. So I think that will be a very key regulation. Just area focus to watch a ton's vehicles how to get them out on the road because there are very hard core regulations right now about what you can do in terms of rolling out the self driving cars. Uh, so if that is the future of tesla staked on and IT is, then that is something elon will have a big role in.

But speaking of electric vehicles, it's not like IT is a little bit counterintuitive. One thing that the trump administration has spoke about is potentially rolling back the inflation reduction act, the I R A, which did grant all these subsidies to the evi industry.

And so you might think that is negative for tesla la, but on the contrary, tesla is much more establishing some of the other nason electric vehicle programs at legacy tomake ers like gm, like ford. And so they have the scale, they have the kind of margins in order to continue to Operate profitably even without those tax credit. So what that would do is actually make IT and even they would be more competitive in the market than they are with these these tax out there.

So IT probably helps tesla overall. One thing that could hurt tesla, though, is that trump has promised put heavy terrors on china. Tesla has a shanghai factory over there that does a significant portion of its E V deliveries. But again, on the flip side, the terrace could end up just hurting its b idea lot more than tesla. So even when you are looking at the things that could hurt testers business, they still cannot loop around and end up helping IT.

Meanwhile, people in fields not even closely related to electric vehicles or space or anything that involving is excited about the prospect of must getting in government and doing some deal making worry. Actually, the golfer said yesterday that he was excited about elon must coming into government because he thinks he could finally close the deal on a live golf P G. A tour merger that has been broken by the a saudi sovereign investment fund.

And so he said, no, I think elon us is a smartest man in the world. I'm glad he's in the government because now I you know, now I am hoping that he can finally close this deal. I know he knows nothing about golf, but he a is a, he very micro. I thinks he's a smart guy, so he's hoping he can finally get this deal done. That has been languishing since twenty three.

And then less just run down some names from the tech world that also congratulations ted present trump on its one, jeff bazo. Then he twisted big congratulations to our forty fifth th and now forty seventh president, which if you go through jeff bezos, his twitter feed, he's only tweed two times in last year. The first time was wishing trump well after the assassination team.

So jeff bezos is kind of closing up to this new administration because we talk about those government contracts. Jeff bazas has a space company. He probably wants to get in on that as well.

And then also some other tech leaders i'll just run through really quickly. Duck, who has had a rocky history with truck administration. Congratulations ted him on threads.

Tim cook twitted out a congratulation and sooner P. I, tweed out a google election map and said, congrats to trump. Satya nadella also wait in dark ka shi. So you're seeing kind of this mobilization from the tech industry trying to position themselves and see what this new trump administration brings. But china started IT .

off on the right foot. Meanwhile, the stock market went bananas. Yesterday, the S. M, P five hundred climb two point five percent, which is the best post election day in its history, closed at a record. Speaking of the other two market major stock indexes as well, the doubt shot up fifteen hundred points, which was its best day since november two twenty two IT closed at a record, and the nas deck climbed almost three percent to have a record of its own. So all three stock indexes typically go up the day after a presidential election did so this year.

and then diving into some of the more granular industries that were affected by a trump trump win bitcoin hit in all time high as trump looks to be a more egypto friendly present coin base also jumped thirty one percent, is the biggest uh crypt to exchange in the united states and then big banks as well, looking forward to a maybe a more lenient regulatory environment also had a great day. J P. Morgan, wells fargo, they were all up double. So you can see kind of the industries that we're jumping for joy the most after the trump presidency .

win and then the ones that were flopping or more of the renewable energy ones that might not benefit. The invest solar etf, which is a group of solar companies, fell almost eleven percent. And then cannabis stocks also got crushed after florida rejected that proposal that would legalize recreational marijuana in the state.

Let's move on to talk monopoly and mergers. And a second trump administration, for the past three years, the biden administration speared, headed by the anti trust crusader ftc chair, lan icon. Haven't leached a historic crackdown on companies they accused of being monopoly.

They reviewed market concentration as a central force, driving up Prices and boxing out little guys from competing. So what changes will a new trump administration bring? Probably a more relaxed approach to anti trust. Trump has already signal that he he be less harsh on big tech companies.

For instance, he's been skeptical of a government proposal to break up google, which was found to maintain a monopoly with its search engine back in october, trump said, if you do that, are you going to destroy the company? What you can do without breaking IT up is make sure it's more so, more president to get tough on tech. And as far as mergers, o IT.

Looks like the flood gates could be opened. Trump is expected to out lena kon as chair of the dc, who has blocked many deals from being completed, leading to a wave of m. na.

And that was clear as day from the surging stocks of capital one and discovery yesterday. Remember, these credit ard companies are planning to merging a thirty five billion dollar megadeals, but the by administration was expected to chAllenge IT. Now they've gotta the Green flag, discover pop twenty percent and capital one rose fifty percent.

yeah. I mean, you look at some of these investors, these big name investors, carl icon, for instance, said that he thinks murders and acquisitions will skyrocket under Donald trump. He said a lot of these murders have been formed by the current administration. If he wins, that's not going to happen anymore later, hasn't this rising star under the by administration and we spoke about what even caller Harris was being a little, uh, you know flip floppy on if he would bring her back just because of how kind of much of a force has been in pushing back against these big murders against big anti trust suit. Now IT looks like she's on the out.

And so big businesses and uh, big tech kind of up and down the anti trust landscape cheering now because their biggest foe is now looks to be heading out that all that being said though, you have to remember that under the first trump present, cy and I trust wasn't some toothless thing. I mean, in his first term, a trump D O J actually fought to block A N T. From buying time Warner.

They applied these big deviser requirements for t mobile deal for buying sprint. And then in tech, broadcom was back from buying qualcomm and the ftc under last. Trump aniston ration actually was the one who sued google for acting as a searched and apply. So IT wasn't like some completely uh, you know, utopia in place for for these M A deals. There definitely were still some teeth under .

the first absolutely think people having short memory. In fact, deals activity was higher during the then the trumpet administration. There is a lot of unpredictable order you get with trumpet could not like you like he didn't like CNN.

And that's why they tried to block A N T. From buying time Warner. He's against me on steel buying U S.

deal. There are a lot of times where he's been against companies for certain reasons that we can explain. But maybe they excited him, maybe feels that they are.

It's not good for the united states, but IT certainly was not this ema utopian. Your seeing investors react like IT will. Maybe that isn't reaction to you know lena on going and and her counterpart of the D O J A living in a new trump administration. But absolutely, I think there's a lot of unpredictably you get with with trump. And in the past, there wasn't a lot of m in a, so might not be this this paradise for for corporations and to learn the hard way.

One tech company that probably is pretty happy with the trump actor. So is bite dance, who owns tiktok. Remember this tiktok band bill was passed by congress and signed the law this year by january.

Tiktok is suppose to divest or sell off its U. S. Operations or face a nation wide brand. That might not happen under trump, though, because even though he spent most of his first chairman office trying to ban tiktok, y cannot did on one eighty and flip lipped on that changed his mind and he has pledged to save you say so that is one company that definitely could benefit from the trump administration um if they, if he does, fell through on his word in fight to protect tiktok in the us up next yes, the election is what ant but you know what else is important neils numbers. I love when close fit perfectly like that feeling you get when you step into a perfect pair of pants or thrown on a blazer that fits like IT was tailor just .

for you that money oh ah the best a great wardrobe really can help you level up to. I always feel more confident and ready to go CEO mode when the fit is fantastic.

Me too. But you know what? It's a bomber. How that feeling is hard to come by. It's kind of tough finding cloth that fit right?

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Welcome to neels numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will help you fill those five minutes of athwart silence at the start of a zoom call. My first number helps explain that decisive trump Victory on tuesday, as political James carvel famously said, it's the economy stupid.

According to a network of existing es, two thirds of voters raided the economy as not so good or poor, compared to one third who raided IT as excEllent or good. And of those voters who rid of the economy negatively, nearly seventy percent opted for trump, a margin that fuelled his reelection. But as we talked about on the show many times, the U.

S. Economy is doing Better than IT has in decades. With low unemployment, strong job growth month after month and rising output. It's the envy of the world.

So what gives the pain of inflation feeling your wallet get stretch then appear to be more salient than those other macro o economic indicators. Just two years ago, americans faced nine percent inflation, the fastest rise in forty years. While inflation has come down to more Normal levels, voters are still paying more for those daily necessities like food and housing.

Then they used to, and they rejected, fired, really, the people who were in powered red during those Price hikes. And this is not just an american story. It's important to have some global context, leaders all over the world who are in charged during high inflation, such as the U.

S. Resume, c micron in france, khadr in japan, all faced electoral defeats this year. As the last three journals greg IP put, inflation has been in combing killer everywhere.

Economy is doing well. overall. You can look at G, D, P. course. You can look at unemployment being low, you can look at the job market.

But really what people are looking at is their grocery brail Prices are about twenty percent higher now. Then they were when bite in first took office, or and then you mention home Prices as well. Home Prices have reached new record highs for fifteen strive months.

So again, you can look at you can point to any data point, say, oh, no, wait, we're doing great. People can also counter back with another data point in saying, never mind, it's the the economy is thinking in ways that you kind of aren't looking at. But perception often is reality.

You said republicans are three times more likely to think the economy is good when a republican is office. Democrats are then when the democrats in office. The same is true for vice versus so a lot of IT just comes down to who your political infiltration are and who is in obvious who is in office. That usually kind of belize, how you are going to think about how the economy is regardless of maybe what the actual macro economic data shows.

For my second number, investors who correctly play bets on trump to be reelected are set for a major windfall thousands of people who gambled on the election. And one can look forward to a potential payout of about four hundred and fifty million dollars from online gambling sites. After the election, two hundred and eighty seven million dollars of that paper is arriving from the crypt to platform Polly market, which doesn't allow U.

S. users. And a pot of one hundred and fifty nine million will hit bank accounts from the U. S. Platform called one gambler, n in particular, probably won't clock into work for a while.

A french trader known as the Polly market whale made a total profit of forty eight million dollars, weighing on trump to win the election. To me, prediction markets have gone from a niche tool used by academics and degenerate to mainstream adoption. Called an Polly market were the most downloaded free apps on the apple apple .

store yesterday. Yeah, I mean, we mention that Polly market prediction and call you were winners because of how accurate they turned out to me. But also, there were real winners who bet on the election as well that are getting these big payout. Ts, I do just want to dig into that french wail story a little bit, because this guy waged almost thirty million dollars on polymer.

So what was his big insight here? He knows that there is a difference in polls asking, who are your neighbors voting for verses? Who are you voting for that had trump over performing? So IT was maybe one of those things were even among when people are getting poll, they didn't want to say that they are voting for trump at the neighbor poll.

He commission on his own neighbor or so. He did do like a little bit of digging, thought that he found like this arbitrage opportunity and went very, very big, which is only allowed recently because of the rise of these prediction markets. And he's walking away with a nearly fifty million dollars because of IT.

And I just want to put just the numbers in context here. So americans wage red one hundred and twenty three million dollars on in the days leading up to the election compared to sport spending, that's a not a lot. Two point seven billion dollars were raised on march madness this year.

Twenty three billion dollars was waged on the super ball. So this is a tiny market. Now it's still I know I said its mainstream, but I still think it's pretty niche.

But after this election, I think its role will only grow going forward. For my final T G. I fridays has a fifty million dollar gift card problem.

The restaurant on chain, which went bankrupt over the weekend, is staring down the inconvenient fact that people are in position of forty nine point seven million dollars worth of unredeemed gift cards that never expire. And if you just went, wait, what? So did the judge overseeing this case, bagram cy.

Judge state journal, acknowledge? Quote, I did a double take on that, noting that some of the gift cards stay back to two thousand and three for a financially strap company like T, J. friis.

The prospect of having to pay fifty million dollars to give card holders is as daunting as ordering a rifle of a long island ice. t. It's especially alarming for its franchisees.

On the front lines, most T, G I fridays are franchisees, and they rely on the parent company to reivers them for deem gift cards. It's doubtful that T G I friday is corporate. Even with a loan of five point nine million dollars, has enough money to cover them. Told me this company is praying that most of these gift cards are bread so far inside someone's first.

that they're gone forever, I can't imagine, or across the country, right? Others are rushed to fine T, G, I gift cards, checking on her bed, checking in wallets. But I was doing some digging on if this happens to other bankrupt companies.

And IT absolutely does borders. When I went bankrupt in two thousand and eleven, IT gave gift cards, only a short window, a to redeem gift cards. In twenty fifteen, radio shack actually stopped accepting gift cards.

But then, under pressure from state attorney general, they actually had to honor them going forward for a limited time. Same thing happened with sharper image. These are named from my childhood by the sharper image with bankrupt in two thousand and eight.

Same thing. State of ten years, general jumped and made them allow limited gift card. So there are allowing history of companies trying to regal out of allowing people to read their gift cards. I don't know if T J fridays is going to try something similar, but IT is not easy to say, like, hey, you cannot use these because we are going through bank up rubi. Usually you have to allow like a certain limited period where customers can do that.

Yeah T, G, I friday says that does plan to continue to honor the gift cards, and the judge allowed IT to proceeds. So IT looks like if you do find this gift card, you know, you go to the prize, but know that the franchisees might be on hook because the corner parent might not be able to pay IT. Just a wild story.

R let's spring to the finish with some final headlines on sunday. Marie Carry declared red. Its time to start celebrating the holidays today. Starbuck is declaring its time by rolling out its annual seasonal cups in holiday menu.

Beginning today, customers at us starbuck locations, we will get their hot drink served in one of those four festive cups as part of an annual tradition dating back to one thousand ninety seven. Of course, any promotion starbucks does these days takes on heightened significance and needs to get more people in the door. Sales have dropped for three straight arms and new CEO brikho l dubbin. Messy of the restaurant industry is promising dramatic changes to turn things around.

So all of these holiday cups to do, have these little badges on the back of cups for presses to write a messes on them. That is part of CEO brian nickles turn around plan. He wants to reintroduce that human touch.

He is saying that handled in names on via sharpies on, uh on drinks will be a new part of this shift back to making starbuck a more warm, less corporate place. So when you go get your holiday drink, maybe ask for a little message there because that is part part of the strategy to turn things around. Also, I was looking at the holiday menu this time around.

Starbuck is introducing a crane mary orange drink. And like it's refresher brand doesn't sounds great. Like crane, very orange.

This might sound pretty good. A turkey sage danish with sounds. Decade snowman take off and then obviously a penguin shaped cookie sale.

Go check out starbucks holiday menu. All right. We also have drama in the running world.

Matt choy, a famous running influencer, is in big trouble with the running community for bringing two people out on electric bicycles to film him while running the new york city marathon. This is a big no no, because N. Y.

C. Is a crowded marathon, and IT is dangerous to have bikers on the course with semi runners going through existence. Al crisis around them.

Plus, IT is expressly forbidden that by new york road runners own rule book. In the end, logic did prevail though, and choy was disqualified from the race and ban from all future N Y, R, R. Events by the race organizer.

Yes, yeah. Choy apologized profusely, said the new york city marathon, who was being about everyone else in the community. And I MIT IT about myself, so he fully owned up to this. But I am curious is, when influencers are you ran IT, did you see a lot of influencers being filmed? Is this a big part of mars?

Most influence, just pull their phone out and use their own camera and theme. That's why everyone so mad. He think that he is so important that he needs to bring out two bikes on the course, endangering other runners.

When you can very well get perfectly find footage just filming yourself, you, this is not the first time he's done to. He's done at other marathons. Es, one time he dig IT approval from the race organizers.

Another time he didn't get approval. IT is just a dangerous thing, like these bikes are huge or not paying attention going through those water stations. And that was the most crazy experience of my life.

IT feels like there there's water being thrown out. You're getting clip from behind. So I can't imagine having two bikers going through as well. So kind of push fact. This was like such a mini uh, eruption in the running community that actually expand into the the new york times out about that, the A P rote about the wall street rote. Just kind of find you to see this niche running kind of community beef expand into a wider thing.

And we do know now that fifty more than fifty six thousand people across the finish line, IT was the world's biggest marathon ever. That is the all the time we have. Thanks so much for spending your morning with us and have a wonderful thursday for any questions, comments or feedback.

Sending email to morning brew daily at morning blue dot com. And to be very clear with you all, we saw a Spike in listenership during our show yesterday that recapped the presidential election results. If you know people who want to learn more about these big changes, but generally tune out the news, tell them to give morning over daily a try and share the part.

yeah. And I also just to share the post with someone who could use a little bit of join their day to send on the pod tomo outside, take a walk, maybe asking the joy of some neels numbers.

Let's roll the credits. Emily million is our executive producer. Ramallie is our producer.

Olivia gram is our associate producer. Cha ogi is our technical director. Billiam ino is on audio. Hair makeup is flipping over cushions looking for T, G, I, friday's gift parts. Devin mi is our chief content officer and our shows production of morning brew.

Great show day. Kal, let's run back tomorrow.