The DOJ Goes After Nvidia? & $14B US Steel Deal Could Collapse
31:26 Share

Sephora stores are everywhere you are. So just pop in when you need a brown lip to match your 90s playlist, a confidence boost before your interview, or a last-minute gift for mom's birthday. There's always a Sephora near you. Just pop in. Use our store locator to find your local Sephora or Sephora at Kohl's.

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

Is 10 to 4 the new 9 to 5? On this September 5th, 9-5, it looks like workers are increasingly reexamining the traditional office hours that Dolly Parton crooned about and have long been the default in American society. According to a report from INRIX,

that analyze 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 than

Neil, all I know is the 4 a.m. commuting window is still wide open. Wide 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 9 or 10.

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% saw increased traffic delays. So for some reason, the cars are still being spread out, but they're still going bumper to bumper. All I know is that we need a Dolly Parton remix ASAP. I'm working 10-2 for all of the singing to you.

Now a word from our sponsor, MassMutual. 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. A solid, well thought out plan that can help you hit the mark. No more guessing or hoping or chucking. With a real strategy, you can move forward with

confidence knowing you're doing what's right for your goals. We need to play darts again because I've been watching YouTube videos and I'm way better now. Whatever you say. But don't leave things to chance like Toby's dart game. If you want to start planning with purpose, head to massmutual.com and see how they can help.

President Biden only has a few more months left in the White House, but he's using his time to do his best Dikembe Mutombo impression. He plans to block the $14.9 billion takeover of U.S. steel by Japan's Nippon Steel on national security grounds, according to the Washington Post.

This 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. Steel 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 Burritt, 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 a

We're going to have to close steel mills in Pennsylvania and move more production down to lower cost mills in the south. And we may 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. 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. But

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

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 America

US Steelers 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...

tough look right now for the U.S. as supposedly this fashion 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. So because they're not on board, I think that allows these politicians to say we're

OK with, you know, blocking this deal or standing in opposition to it. If the if the steel workers 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. Then 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...

Thanks for watching.

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. And 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 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. Don'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've 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 percent of this market. Microsoft and Meta are spending 40 percent of their entire hardware budget just on NVIDIA chips. The second closest competitor to NVIDIA is Intel.

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 than AMD will do in entire 2020.

So there is 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. The tech is becoming increasingly vital to just shoring up national security, shoring up your economic strength, etc.

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. We 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 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. Callaway, 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 the 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. Use 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 Topgolf 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,

Topgolf soared. I mean, at one point it accounted for 40% of this combined company's total revenue, but 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. So

just to reserve one Bay for up to six guests for two hours at a top golf in Edison, New Jersey, which is the closest one here, uh, is $155 before food and drinks and food and drinks are also going to run you a couple hundred dollars, uh,

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. It 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 and

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 golf

the height of the pandemic where a lot of people are getting into golf for the first time. So 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 is, it did do well to grow the game at that time, but maybe people are just evolving away from top golf and kind of their, their business model.

Up next, crank up the volume, people. It's a moment you have been waiting for. Neil's numbers.

Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. For

$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. Active noise cancellation. Cabin air purification. Massage seating. Privy pro entertainment. Shockingly, we're not describing first-class amenities in an airplane. No, we are describing the Range Rover Sport. Combining assertive automation

on-road performance with signature Range Rover refinement, the Range Rover Sport offers an instinctive drive with engaging on-road dynamics, advanced cabin technologies, and purposeful cockpit light driving. Built for an elevated level of comfort and designed in a sleek, stealth-packed

It offers powerful on-road performance and commanding all-terrain capability. It's a whole new world of sporting luxury. Let's ride. Explore the Range Rover Sport at LandRoverUSA.com. That's LandRoverUSA.com. Welcome 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

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 super fans who want to turn their bachelor pad into more of a king's landing. So 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 blood-stained clothes from the infamous Red Wedding episode. If any of those would compliment 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 best

bell wielded during Cersei Lannister's shame scene. I mean, can you imagine rolling up to work with that thing if someone leaves dishes in the, 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. Right, right. Yeah, I spent 20 grand on it. But it's interesting that HBO had the foresight to even do this in the first place. They've been carefully preserving Lannister

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 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 it will be interesting to see if it fully sells out because 2019 was a long time ago like the monoculture moment that game of thrones had was a little bit ago but clearly without

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, like, 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, what this show was known for, it's very elaborate costumes and it's pretty

Did you have a favorite item that you were looking at or not really? I 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 Cal Tech, 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 also

only admitted women starting in 1970, a little over 50 years ago. But 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. I 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%. They're...

I would just, it was never on my radar. I can tell you that you 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, 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. And 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

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? Or 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 situation.

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. He 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 royalty. 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 US 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. Uh,

And they come from actually similar backgrounds. They're both daughters of billionaires. Emma 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 Sting.

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. So there truly is business lore up and down these semifinals. But yes, Macy's,

rooting for all the Americans. Do you have any predictions that you'd like to put on air? I have to, I have no predictions, but I, in the Fritz Tiafoe match, I have to go with Tiafoe because I went to Maryland in college park and he is such a college park guy. So I'm rooting for Tiafoe and I'm trying to be able to get into that match tomorrow night. So if anyone knows for tick has tickets under $1,500, hit me up. Shameless, shameless.

You might have a reason to check your mailbox again today instead of looking for a birthday card from your grandmother. J.Crew is officially resurrecting its once famous catalog. After biting the dust in 2017 after a three-decade run, the once beloved symbol of American fashion is returning to convince shoppers that, you know,

what you could pull off in Ascot. The decision to bring back the physical lookbook is a play to capitalize on the nostalgia boom currently hitting the fashion world. Brands like Abercrombie & Fitch and even Gap are returning to prominence after lost decades adjusting to an e-commerce dominated world. Now, J.Crew was one of the first brands to

file for bankruptcy in 2020 in the early days of the pandemic, but has since roared back experiencing a renaissance to the tune of nearly $3 billion in sales this year, a new record. Neil, the catalog will ship in early September, and you best believe I am going to be dog-earing a cable knit sweater ASAP. Oh my God. I mean, reading about how big these J. Crew catalogs were, I had

no idea, but in the 80s and 90s, they were the thing that everyone read, the thing that everyone had in their office. I mean, Maggie Bullock, who's the author of a J.Crew book, wrote that these catalogs embodied the delicate brine of a clam bake wafting in the air, the particular romance of a misty morning at a rustic lake house. I mean, how could you not just want to flip through those pages? And J.Crew as a brand embodied that.

something very aspirational, but also something attainable. And the models in there look like your hot neighbors. They weren't just like completely out of touch or out of reach with what you could potentially aspire to. And they just look beautiful. These catalogs appear to be more magazines than things that are intended to actually sell product. There will be modern flourishes like QR codes that direct you to a product page, but they're more editorial focused. It's more top of the funnel marketing to get you just back

into the J.Crew brand that has experienced a revival in the past few years. J.Crew was always really good at world building, where you would see the bonfire beach, you would see someone skiing on fresh power, and you could almost imagine yourself doing that, but in order to do that, you had to wear their clothes. So they were just very good at that. There's an Instagram account actually called Lost J.Crew, which basically just posts pictures from catalogs from the 1980s to the late 1990 period.

It's got 80,000 followers. I gave it a scroll. 8,001 now. Yeah, 80,001 now. It truly does just transport you back to a different time. And we know, we've talked about nostalgia selling. We've talked about the nostalgia boom we're in right now. So I think this is a very savvy move. All the new imagery in the catalog will be shot on film. So it'll have kind of that nostalgic feel to it. So I'm

I remember my first pair of J.Crew pants. It was like a very big moment, like my first pair of khakis. Maybe I'll run it back again. I just can't get over the delicate brine of a clam bake wafting in the air. Like, I need that right now. All right. Well, let's wrap it up there so I can do that. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Thursday. Football is back tonight, and we wish your fantasy team the best.

For any feedback, questions, or comments on the show, send an email to morningbrewdaily at morningbrew.com. You can also share Morning Brew Daily with friends and family and coworkers to help them stay up to date on the business world. If you're scrolling through your phone and wondering who to send a link to, Toby has you covered.

I want you to share this episode with your fantasy football league. I know those group chats are buzzing right now, so toss a link into the mix. A little MBD to go alongside Christian McCaffrey. Ah, okay. I love that. Some of your suggestions are very out of left field. This one seems to be, it could be very effective for us. Okay, let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer.

Uchenua Ogu is our technical director. Billy Menino is on audio. Harry on makeup is all talking and no giving. Devin Emery is our chief content officer and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.