April 3, 2026 • 37 mins
It’s been one year since Liberation Day and the start of the chaos it’s wrought on the American economy. Max and Stacey take stock of what a year of sweeping trade policy means for your wallets with Bloomberg trade reporter Laura Curtis. And speaking of wallets, while Elon Musk is on his way to becoming the world’s first trillionaire, his companies may find their way into your 401(k). Bloomberg tech reporter Dana Hull joins us to explain why investors are betting big on one of Silicon Valley’s most controversial figures. Plus, an Italian candy heist, and skiing is cancelled.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Max Chaffkin, Stacey, do you know what day it is?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It's Passover and maybe when you hear this podcast, it'll
be good Friday, and it's almost Easter Sunday.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
It's a real holiday season.
Speaker 5 (00:20):
Well, that is true, but I was thinking of something
that looms.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
In the university of our show a little.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Bit larger, Stacy, you're not talking about Liberation Day?
Speaker 5 (00:30):
Are anniversary of Liberation Day? Of course, I'm talking about
Liberation Day.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Listen.
Speaker 5 (00:34):
This was a day when decades of free trade policy
ever since World War Two were suddenly reversed, throwing the
global economy into chaos. What could be more significant than that,
granted passover in Easter might be close seconds.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Companies paid billions of dollars in tariffs.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Prices went up.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
We talked about this NonStop, and just at the very
moment when it seemed like the kind of like tariff
madness might be dying down with the Supreme Court ruling
that these tariffs, that the Liberation Day tariffs in particular,
were unconstitutional, Trump found like a whole new way to
raise prices where we had the warren Iran gas prices
(01:17):
it's basically been a year of economic crazy.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
They've been deemed illegal, but maybe they're back.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
But it is also quite a significant week for one
of the very special people in your life.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Max Yes, acquaintance of the show, Elon Musk. We're gonna
be talking about him. I'm in San Francisco right now,
Stacy Yes. And while that is happening, SpaceX, Musk's rocket
company is filing confidentially for an IPO. This is gonna
be the biggest IPO anyone has ever seen. I'm not
just exaggerating, and we have really the perfect person to
(01:49):
talk about it. Dana Hall is going to be joining
me here in the SF studio to discuss this IPO
and what it means for the larger sort of conversation
around AI, and also what it means for all of us,
because as we'll get into we're going to all end
up owning a little bit of SpaceX probably.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And possibly going to Mars.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
From Bloomberg BusinessWeek, this is everybody's business. I'm Max Chef and.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I'm Stacey Vannicksmith.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Today on the show, we look at our new economic normal,
high valuations, high prices, and apparently Rhino Kett excuse me,
you will learn. So we're going to do something a
little bit different now here at everybody's business. We're going
to do a dramatic reading of a deposition from a
(02:37):
lawsuit that Elon Musk filed against Sam Altman and Open AI.
And this will feature Max Chafkin as Elon Musk and
Bloomberg Tech reporter Dana Hall as Altman's lawyers.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
Here we go, ahem, you attended Bernie Man in two
twenty seventeen, didn't you? I may have you were with
Tim Schultz? Who? Tim Schultz?
Speaker 7 (02:59):
Who?
Speaker 6 (03:00):
Tim Schultz?
Speaker 4 (03:02):
I don't recall.
Speaker 6 (03:03):
Do you know when Bernie Man happens.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Labor Day weekend, late.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
August, early September.
Speaker 8 (03:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (03:08):
Do you know what rhino kett is?
Speaker 5 (03:12):
No?
Speaker 6 (03:13):
Do you know what rhino ketamine is?
Speaker 4 (03:16):
No?
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Do you recall at Bernie Man in twenty seventeen ingesting
rhino ket and scene stacy.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yes, thank you for indulging that wonderful dramatic reading. And
we are, of course talking to Dana Hall, our colleague
at Bloomberg Elon Musk reporter, my longtime collaborator on the
Elon Ink podcast. Because Elon Musk is back in the
news and not only not just because of alleged drug use.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
This time around.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
SpaceX, one of his many companies, has just filed, according
to Bloomberg, for an IPO. It's trying to raise seventy
five billion dollars. That is three times the largest ever
IPO in history. I believe it would also make Elon
Musk a trillionaire, the world's first.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
And I think it is important to dig into this
a little bit because on one level, Elon Musk is
just a very rich man who keeps getting richer. But
I think it's important to understand how this IPO, how
this company going public and selling stock to you and
me and everybody, is going to affect everyday people in
(04:27):
a way that we might not expect or immediately hear about.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
All right, yeah, and I guess at this point we
need to welcome the thesbian herself, Dana Hall with me.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
And all right, so, Dana, you and I I.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Think caught that deposition last week that that was from
the litigation that's been playing out between Sam Altman, the
founder CEO of Open Ai, and Musk, and it's Altman's
lawyers are trying to kind of like undermine him or
undermine his credibility by suggesting that he was on ketamine
while he was negotiating this deal with open Aiye.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
So, I have like two questions for you. One is,
how is.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
A guy who is in the news and constantly with
all of this potentially erratic behavior allegations of drug use,
how is he going to be the guy who can
do the world's largest IPO? And the second question, Dana Hall,
what is rhino ketamine?
Speaker 6 (05:23):
Okay, I'm gonna answer the second question. First, I don't
know what rhino ketamine is. It makes my brain immediately
goes to like horse trank. Yeah, like other street drugs
that are also named after animals.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
This is like when the horse trank is not strong
enough for something, you go to the rhine and you
go that's the next step up.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Heavy duty ketamine is my assumption.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
That would be my assumption also, But no, I don't
know what it is. Actually my those my drug use
days are long long past.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Just to kind of recap the headline, we're recording this
on April first, we knew this was coming, but Bloomberg
reported that SpaceX had filed confidentially. This is like a
sort of newish procedure that the SEC came up with
to allow companies to essentially start their IPO filing without
publicizing all the details. The valuation, Bloomberg is saying could
(06:11):
be more than one point seventy five trillion dollars. We're
talking about seventy five billion dollars in capital. A huge
amount of money will likely come from retail investors. And I,
like you, somebody who's folity alone Musk for a very
long time, is that he has specifically said for many
years he would never take SpaceX public. He in fact
(06:32):
hates running a public company so much that he tried
to take Tesla private in this incredibly controversial maneuver.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
I always thought if they were going to do a
public offering that it would be like Starlink, that they
would like space out Starlink and take Starlink public, but
SpaceX would stay private. But just in the past couple months,
we saw, you know, SpaceX basically acquired Xai. Now SpaceX
is also an AI company. I guess it's very telling
to me that we get the news of this file
(07:00):
on the day that NASA is planning to send astronauts
around the Moon. So this is like a huge day
for space in general with the Artemis launch. But to
your point, yeah, like Elon hates running a public company,
but they need the money to do what they want
to do. The public markets have always showered Elon and
his companies with money, and this is a guy who
he's just very competitive. So that we're gonna have mega
(07:22):
IPOs this year if everything goes to plan, SpaceX Anthropic
open AI. I guess SpaceX will be the first at
the gate and we'll see what the appetite is for that.
But it's just going to give us a level of
insight into SpaceX, who's on the cap table, who is
who are the largest investors, how many Chinese and Russian
investors are there, what is Google's percentage? Like, it's going
(07:43):
to be super fascinating to actually see those documents.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
So Dania, like you say, this kind of transparency that
you have to do with an IPO is something that
most business owners do not like, they don't want to
do it, but they do it because you can raise
so much money with an IPO, and you mentioned that
SpaceX there's all kinds of things they want to do
with that money.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So why is Elon Musk doing this?
Speaker 5 (08:03):
Why take SpaceX public, even though it means having to
disclose all this stuff.
Speaker 6 (08:09):
So Elon. The way that Elon thinks is he always
looks for the limiting factor and then he solves for
the limiting factor. Okay, so if chips are the limiting factor,
he's going to announce that he's building a tariffab. If
capital is the limiting factor, he's going to raise money
and the IPO market like Waxes and Wayans. If like
capital is the limiting factor, he will figure out what
(08:30):
is the most efficient way to raise seventy five billion dollars.
It's going public, and you have this rabid fan base,
like the retail investor base in Tesla is north of
thirty percent, and you will, believe me, get like an
equally rabbit fairy.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Retail investors are like individuals as opposed to like big funds.
So you have a lot of just regular people pouring
money into the stock.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
You'll have regular people being very excited to get into SpaceX,
as well as a lot of longtime institutional investors.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
So I think Elon Musk has this tendency to just
find these grandiose challenges. Dan, I think you were kidding
to some extent that he was trying to kind of
one up this Moon launch. But I do think part
of it is this is a guy loves a spectacle.
Having the biggest IPO in history is a spectacle. Being
the world's first trillionaire it is would be an amazing
(09:20):
and spectacle for Elon.
Speaker 6 (09:22):
Musk, oh sure. And the IPO is timed around his birth.
Is supposed to be like timed around his birth.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Also, like the.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Astral it's like when the planets are lining up, we
reported something, but.
Speaker 6 (09:31):
His birth that he'll be fifty five.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
It feels like ends of the day's stuff, like planets aligned,
Elon turns fifty five, becomes the first trillionaire.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
I think there are two things that happen. One is
that in the early days of the Trump administration, when
Elon Musk was the most powerful person in the White
House or besides Donald Trump, Elon Musk was lobbying pretty
hard to have a significant change in space policy, to
move who the US space policy away from this Moon
(10:04):
mission which is happening today, and to focus more on
a Mars mission, which is the thing that he is
most focused on. It's what his the rocket that he
is building Starship is for and that he basically struck
out there that NASA is not going to fund a
Mars mission in a big way anytime soon. Elon Musk
is going to have to play within that structure. And
(10:28):
as part of that, of course, there was the famous breakup.
Elon and Trump are back together, but now he needs
to find another way to point SpaceX, and he's decided
to point it at the hottest thing in the world,
which is artificial intelligence, where instead of focusing on Mars,
we're focusing on the Moon and these AI data centers
that we talked about back in February when the X
SpaceX merger was announced. Dana, do you think, besides being
(10:52):
all of the things we talked about, this would be
the first of several.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
AI companies to go public.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Do you have any sense of whether investors will look
at this as an AI company or as an Elon
Musk company, or as both of those things.
Speaker 6 (11:09):
I think it'll be an eat. I think they'll look
at it as an Elon Musk company. And investors who
have invested in Elon's companies have been handsomely rewarded for
their loyalty and for sticking with the company through thick
and thin, And we have to remember that SpaceX is
older than Tesla, like SpaceX was like Elon Musk made
his first millions with PayPal and founded SpaceX in Los
(11:31):
Angeles in two thousand and two. So this is a
company that is like it's like been around for like
twenty four years, and so that's a really long time
to be private. I think that Elon also just has
a really keen sense of the market and he timing
is everything, and he feels like this is the time
to go out. He's made mistakes obviously, like he overpaid
(11:51):
for Twitter and then regretted it. There is an art
and a science to IPOs and like upsizing them and
getting the most in near rounds, and I think that
he just feels like this is the window to go
and go out before the midterms and then yeah, it'll
be seen as an Elon company, a space company, and
he will try to position it as an AI company.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Do we have any idea of when this will actually happen.
Is it definitely happening this year or do we know
like when we can actually start to buy SpaceX stock.
Speaker 6 (12:21):
There could be some force masure and he could like
they could pull the s one like, it's not a guarantee,
but it sounds like they want to go out by July, right.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, yeah, Oh is this like a July fourth thing?
Speaker 6 (12:34):
No, No, it's by his birthday. Like his Elon's birthday
is late June, so they want to have the IPO
by his birthday.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
But one thing, one thing is, and they're gonna force
majure Dan is one hundred percent right. There is a
chance that this won't happen. They are saying, and we
are reporting that they are saying that they're going to
do this within a couple of months, by this summer.
It's totally dependent on what the market is, and you
never know what the market is in an ip until
you start taking it on the road and until people
(13:04):
get an actual look at these at the finances. If
the reporting on these companies is to be believed, they're
not good. This is a company that's going to be
losing huge amounts of money, largely because of Rock. And
part of the way that Elon Musk can potentially fix this,
frankly is by drumming up enough interest from retail investors
as well as by getting SpaceX into indexes.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Very quickly. That's another thing that's sort of happening behind
the sees.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
So not only will people buy SpaceX directly, but a
lot of people's four or one k's are going to
wind up in this company if everything goes according to plan.
At an absurd valuation potentially as much as two trillion dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
That's like immediately too big to fail before it even
goes public.
Speaker 6 (13:46):
When Tesla went public, everyone thought that Tesla was going
to go bankrupt. And Tesla now has what like a
one point four trillion dollar valuation. It's still the most
valuable car company, even though they basically don't make cars
that much anymore. They've pivoted away from cars and toured
AI and robotics at the cybercabs. He's a financial engineer,
and he has long standing, deep relationships with Wall Street,
(14:07):
and everybody wants a piece of the IPO.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
All right, last question for Dana, and this kind of
will will transition nicely to our next segment. What's the
status of Elon and Trump these days? Because the man,
remember they had the big the breakup. You and I
covered it very closely. He's very exciting. Elanacues Trump of
being in the Epstein files correctly. It turns out Trump
threatened to take out all of Elon Musk's contracts or whatever.
(14:31):
That didn't happen, But we've seen a few signs that
they are back together, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 6 (14:36):
Mean Musk spent was over the New Year's holiday or
over the Christmas or New Year's holidays. He had dinner
at mar A Lago with Milania and President Trump. He
has put some money into congressional races for this cycle.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
He was on a call, according to New York Times,
with Narindra Modi, the Prime Minister of India.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
And Trump. He's like the most influential non state actor,
as I like to talk about it. They are very
much aligned around the Save Act, which doesn't sound like
it's going to pass Congress, but like they're sort of
aligned around this idea that you need to prove US
citizenship in order to vote. And yeah, I mean I
think that there's a day time, you know. My my
suspicion was always that the dust up was a little
bit overplayed and that el was trying to get his
(15:18):
pay package and he had to be seen as being
distant from politics or done with the White House in
order to get that pay package. Now that he's got
that pay package, all bets are off. And I think
he's obviously still very close to Jade Vance and Peter Tiele,
and it'd be interesting to just see how he plays
in the midterms.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Okay, so what are the chances the SpaceX road show
on the south lawn of the White House, just like
a year ago we had the we had the Tesla
sales pitch on the outlawn.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
I don't think we're going to see what the gods. Yeah,
I don't think we're going to see that. I think
you're going to see everybody go going down to the starship.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Though, Dana, thank you so much for joining us, and
please come back as this rolls forward. So Max, it
has been one year since President Trump introduced the raft
of tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world,
including islands that are uninhabited by people. The tariffs started
(16:13):
at ten percent. They went way up from there. And
this was just a huge reversal of the free trade era,
which is basically had done away with tariffs since the
nineteen forties, had been moving in the direction of free
trade as.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
A way to prevent war.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
Now since Liberation Day. Of course, the tariffs have changed
hundreds of times. It's been kind of chaos, and the
whole global economy has been influxince. Then the goal here,
the stated goal of this was to bring manufacturing back
home to reduce the trade deficit. The results, though, I
would say, have been complicated.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, And we wanted to just get a read on
what how they're affecting normal people's lives. We sent our
producer Jazzmine JT Green out on the streets of New
York to ask people how the tariffs were affecting their
spending or how it seemed that the terriffs were affecting
their spending.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Let's let's listen to that.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
With the one year anniversary of Liberation Day, I'm curious
if the tariffs have affected your spending at all in
the past year.
Speaker 7 (17:19):
It's just yeah, you can obviously just see like slow
uptick and general pricings.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (17:25):
I think that's kind of like my main observation right now.
Speaker 9 (17:27):
My dad, my dad works in construction in South Florida,
and he was saying that construction equipment has got or
like like supplies basically gotten more expensive.
Speaker 7 (17:35):
It seems like it's happening more in the last three
to six months versus it was happening all, you know,
suddenly a year ago.
Speaker 9 (17:41):
In general, just things are getting more expensive. I don't
think it's had a positive impact.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I don't think it's affected my spending so so much.
I definitely feel like it's something I've noticed more on
like imported things.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Yeah, I feel like everything's expensive these days.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
It is kind of this thing of where I go
to the store and if I'm really craving something and
I really want something, I'm gonna kind of buy it
as a snack.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Anyway, Like things are moving in a cheaper direction.
Speaker 9 (18:02):
But I don't know that I can place things being
more expensive squarely on the sort of tariffs, So it's
a little bit hard to know for sure.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Thank you last guy for being careful. Journalists really appreciate that.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
I do find it pretty interesting that it can be
hard to tell what prices are being affected by tariffs
versus other kinds of inflation.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I feel like tariffs are a little tricky that way.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
But luckily we have an expert here to talk us
through what has changed and what has not. Laura Curtis,
a Bloomberg reporter covering trade is here to break down
the numbers and see how we have or have not
been liberated.
Speaker 10 (18:42):
Welcome, Laura, Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Stacy your co author as well. Stacy and Laura just
wrote a piece that published, I believe yesterday as you're
as we're recording this on bloomberd dot com, all about
this issue.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Yes, indeed, we published a little guide for businesses wondering
businesses and individuals wondering how to get their tariff refund. Laura,
I'm going to start out pretty basically. You cover trade
all the time. What has the last year been like?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Can you give us some numbers? What has happened since
Liberation Day?
Speaker 11 (19:11):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Man, If you look at the actual tariff rates that
have been in place for the last year, they haven't
changed all that much, and they're at historic highs, that's
for sure. But if you compare them to the threats
that President Trump has made lobbying different two on Champagne,
and we did that twice in last year, and so
that's been really hard for importers to kind of navigate
(19:31):
and to gauge because these things are changing so fast.
It's also just really complicated, right, they're all these different
tariff authorities. Trump's favorite one is now illegal, so we're
favorite tariff.
Speaker 11 (19:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
The Supreme Court ruling against these Liberation Day tariffs.
Speaker 11 (19:47):
And particular that's right, Yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
The and they're called a bunch of different things, which
I think also adds to the confusion. Their Liberation Day tariffs,
they're country specific tariffs. There, reciprocal tariffs, they're just all
these emergency tariffs. All of those things call in that
bucket of the potential refunds that Stacy and I wrote about.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
I have to say one of the interesting things about
writing this article was we got into this long discussion
because we could not figure out what the tariffs were
on furniture coming from the EU, and there were like
several different sources that said several different things, and ultimately,
I mean, it was just so indicative of the confusion.
It's like, wait, where do we go to actually see
the actual number. He was like, well, it's complicated.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Question for both of you.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Supreme Court makes this ruling says that the Liberation Day
tariffs are illegal. Laura, you hinted at this, there are
all these other tariffs that are still going on. Trump
has also said that he's going to find a way
through different laws to essentially reimpose some version of the tariffs.
But like, if I'm somebody who paid these tariffs, like
(20:50):
the hundreds of thousands of businesses in the United States,
what happens they give they send me a check like
tomorrow or yesterday or whatever.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
How do companies get their money back?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
It's a we don't know yet, that's the short answer.
But the Customs Authority customs in Border Protection is making
progress on building this whole new system to handle these
refunds to the people who on paper imported all of
these goods. It could be a few months before we
see the first payments go out for the most simple entries.
(21:23):
That's like the that's a pretty optimistic view. But that's
what they're saying now For all of the other ones,
I don't I don't think we know yet. Think about
all of the all the goods, for example, that came
in with different teriff rates applied to them and stacking differently,
and CVP has to go through those ones and say
we're removing this aita tariff, but maybe this means a
(21:43):
metal tariff now applies, and so maybe this import potentially
owes a different amount, or God help us, even maybe more.
Speaker 11 (21:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
I mean the stacking we should say is like when
there's like some there's like a tariff because of the
comforter it's from, and then you have to add on
the tariff because of what it is it is.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
It's like when things start adding up.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Is there possibility that Trump could just say nah, sorry
not sending checks back?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Sure, he says all kinds of things all the time.
I think that's part of the confusion for everybody. The
Supreme Court has ruled these things illegal. It's about one
hundred and sixty billion dollars that the government collected over
the last year that's potentially on the line for to
be returned.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
And that's three hundred and thirty thousand businesses or something
like that.
Speaker 11 (22:29):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And I forget how many millions of individual entries shipments,
but it's fifty millions something that can go check.
Speaker 10 (22:36):
It's a lot of difference. That's a lot of paperwork, right.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
So that's one of the things that they're dealing with.
I think if Trump does say nah, then it's just
going to be a longer court battle, right. It might
even end up back at the Supreme Court to hash
out again. So I think that's what the sort of
less optimistic folks are worried about.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
We did actually talk to one of the less optimist folks.
Speaker 11 (23:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
So Peace Fans is a really fun company based in Seattle.
They retrofit, restore, rebuild all kinds of camper vans, a
lot of your classic VW camper vans. I think some
sprinter vans, I'm not sure. And then their new project
is the new.
Speaker 10 (23:16):
ID Buzz by Volkswagen.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
It looks like a really retro sixties vibe camper van,
but it's all electric. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
They kit them, essentially, kit them out for campers so
they can put in like a pop top ten or
they fit all kinds of furniture in it. But when
we talked to him, this was what he said about
he's He estimates that his company, which he said was
worth between eight and ten million dollars, has paid out
one hundred thousand dollars over the last year in tariffs,
and when asked about his expectations of a refund, here's
(23:47):
what he said, Santa is.
Speaker 8 (23:49):
Going to bring me back ter refund this year.
Speaker 12 (23:52):
Not going to happen I have zero faith zero, you know,
and like that actually could have material impact on my
data day operations.
Speaker 8 (24:01):
As a small business owner, you're just whipsaw.
Speaker 12 (24:03):
You know.
Speaker 8 (24:04):
We want to hire, and.
Speaker 12 (24:05):
We want to invest, and we want to plan and
sign leases and buy inventory, you know, but we're just
super cautious and hesitant.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
He was approached by one customer, for example, who, as
soon as the Supreme Court ruled that these tariffs were illegal,
was asking for his money back, and Harley's going, I
don't know what you're talking about. I haven't seen any
of this money yet. I don't know when it's coming.
Speaker 10 (24:28):
He had to figure out how to be pretty nice about.
Speaker 11 (24:30):
It, and I think handled it well. In the end.
That was something you write, Stacy, is.
Speaker 10 (24:33):
Like a four hundred and fifty tariff surcharge that he put.
Speaker 11 (24:36):
On this customer's bill.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And in the end, the tariff that Harleyett had to
pay that on that piece was actually more like six
hundred dollars.
Speaker 11 (24:44):
It's just a really tricky spot for him.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
What stood out to me about this, economically speaking, is
small businesses employ about half of Americans, and what Harley
was saying about how he's held off on hiring, how
he's canceled leases, how he had asn't expanded, and Laura,
you're saying you've heard this from all of these business owners.
This feels like a huge impact, not necessarily an impact
(25:09):
we might see as the economy shrinking, but in growth
that was lost, Like those are people who might have
been hired who aren't getting hired. I just feel like
the economic impact of that is pretty epic.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And then this whole mess that's happening.
Speaker 11 (25:25):
That's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I think I was struck by one of the one
of the voices on the street earlier in the episode
who noticed.
Speaker 10 (25:31):
That the price has really stayed pretty stable.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
For the first bit of last year, and then in
the last three six months, he said he was noticing
price increases. And that's something that economists have really pinpointed
with some studies over the last couple months, just showing
that right after these tariffs, tariffs like these are implemented,
the economy slows down. Prices state maybe even drop little
because demand slows so much. People don't know what to do.
(25:55):
They can't hire, they're not going out and getting new jobs,
they don't feel spendy, and it takes a little while
for these prices to trickle through. So I think you're right,
it's absolutely a delayed impact of this.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
And one thing that's interesting in the context of the show,
because we were talking about SpaceX going public, is one
of the potential effects of these tariffs is to create
this kind of K shaped economy among businesses. Because Harley
made the point a bunch of times that for big businesses,
they have so many options here they have slush funds,
(26:25):
they can lobby, they can hold up, they can move
money around. But for small businesses like his, they're kind
of month to month, and so they end up shrinking,
closing their doors.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
They take the big hit here.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah they can, Stacy, you're saying, you're not saying they're
doing anything on tour. They just have lines of credit, yeah,
and they can and big balance sheets and they can
afford essentially to weight this thing out. And I think
a lot of big companies, including like Walmart and stuff,
did this. They basically just ate the tariffs while they're
waiting to see what happens because they don't know they
(27:00):
looking ahead to the Supreme Court or Trump having another
taco or whatever else.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
The same is true.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
I think even with all these lawsuits in this mess, right,
because if you're Walmart or your costo, you have a
team of lawyers that can deal with all this uncertainty
and do all the filings that need to be done.
And if you're Harley Sittner in Seattle retrofitting vans, like
you don't necessarily have that time. So one of the
things that you know, as Laura was mentioning, his customers
(27:28):
are starting to write and being like, Hey, what about
this tariff certain charge I paid?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Can I get it back?
Speaker 5 (27:32):
We asked him what he was planning on doing with
the money when he got it, and here's what he
told us.
Speaker 12 (27:40):
I would offer it back and I would sort of
do the passive aggressive thing, like you know, we've actually
already spent this money, like you put the energy out
there and hopefully it comes back, right, Yeah, I mean
for peace fans, you know, it's like it's the brain,
you know, it's like, wait.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
What is the brand? Is it passive aggressive?
Speaker 11 (27:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (28:00):
So he's gonna basically, and Laura correct me if I'm
wrong here, his plan is basically that he's gonna offer
customers their money back with a little bit of a
are you really going to do this US. These profits,
he said, are down by twenty five percent because of
the tariffs. So he's gonna like offer it in a
sort of if you really need your money back, we
can make that happen.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
But I think he said he would also potentially offer
to donate it someplace, or it could help with his
teenage daughter's coffee fund. But yeah, he's trying his best.
Not super hopeful that they'll come through anyway, but.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, or if they do come through, it could take years.
Speaker 8 (28:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
One last question for me, I was just wondering if
at any point you he talked about the upside of
these tariffs, so writing to customers have brought this up
if we go back to the kind of rationale for
liberation day year ago? Is this so that we would
have a glorious American manufacturing industry that seems to not
have happened yet. But are there any of these Has
(29:01):
he been able to source any van parts in the US?
And are any peace van customers like happy about the
TI Like is there any kind of like set I'm
guessing the answers no, but like, is there like going
to be a sort of renaissance of domestic van conversions?
Speaker 4 (29:19):
As a result of these of these policies.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
I would say he is in the manufacturing business a
little bit, but our economy has become so global that
he needs parts from overseas, as does so many other
small businesses, even if they are doing the assembly here
in the US. So he's having to order all these
parts from Germany, from overseas, and it's really hard to
(29:43):
escape them even if you are an American US based manufacturer,
as I don't know if I would categorize him as
a manufacturer, but he's a person putting things together.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
In the US.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
But he's really been slammed by this. So Laura, please
stick around. We have our underrated stories up next and
we would love to have.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
You weigh in on these.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
Max and Laura, it is time for our Underrated stories
of the week.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
But before we do that, Stacey just want to acknowledge
you had doubts about talking about baseball. I did, and
they had a lot to say, and I just wanted
to acknowledge a couple emails, one from listener Brian, who
was bringing up the other technical some other rule changes
that have been made to the baseball season that we
didn't mention, including the infield shift. I suppose we'll have
(30:33):
to dedicate another episode, perhaps a whole mini series.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
I I don't think so. Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Also thank you to Richard for pitching an idea. He
basically said that we're going to talk about sports that
are hot. Right now, we got to talk about Formula one,
which is also having a moment. Quote Demographically, the audience
is substantially younger and more diverse than the old white
guy prim me stereotype and pays big money for the
excitement and international glamour.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Stacy, I think we got it.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
We're gonna have to bring either bring Randall back or
somebody else to talk about this, because I have been
watching the Netflix F one show, so I'm basically.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
There was the Formula one Brad Pitt movie. I guess
Formula one.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
I watched that as well, so I guess my expertise
is even greater.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Anyway, Richard, thank you.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
All right, now to our underrated stories. Mact you want
to go first? Do you want me to go first?
Speaker 4 (31:25):
You go first, Dacey, You've got a good one.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
All right, this is very delighted.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Laura, listen closely. Yes, this hasari has.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
To do its international trade I don't know if you
have heard this, Laura, but there has been a big
global heist that happened this week. Twelve tons of Kitkats
were mysteriously stolen from a shipment going out in Italy.
Not kitkats, yeah, twelve tons, and they've just vanished, and
(31:55):
now the whole internet has exploded over all of these
companies are putting out these funny like directives about pretending
that they stole the twelve tons of kit cats, but
they it is mysterious, Like what wait.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Yes, both of you, I have not been following this
story at all. What do we know who stole the
kit cats? Or is there are there any clues?
Speaker 4 (32:17):
A cold case.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
It's a cold case. They have no clues who the
cat burglar is? Thank you, We don't know, Like there's
no clues. And it's like twelve tons of kit cats,
Like where did they go? And why of all the
things to steal twelve tons of.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Why would you steal kit cats? What are you going
to do with them?
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Have secondary questions like is this like one container full
of cats?
Speaker 11 (32:43):
Like how many tons of kit cats fit in a container?
Speaker 5 (32:45):
I think it's one container of stolen.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
A truck is a truck.
Speaker 11 (32:52):
A truck, Okay, I guess that's a little easier. You know,
need a crane.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
So if I'm buying kit Cats, like at a bodega
next week in New York, I should check the lot
number and see if these are potentially Yes, they seem
a little suspiciously, I check the serial numbers.
Speaker 11 (33:07):
Yes, you might have some hot Kitcats.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
I don't think I'm the first one to float this theory. Yeah,
but this is obviously an inside job, right. This has
just been an amazing PR moment for KitKat. Are we
sure that there even was a stolen truck of kit
Cats or is this Are we gonna find out it's
April Fool's Day as we're recording this. That's just been
a slow played April Fools shoke.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
This reporting happened before April first, though, but it did.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
Still, it's possible it is a brilliant PR stunt. If
it's a stunt, and someone did point out on social
media that this is cheaper than a Super.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Bowl ad, I don't think so.
Speaker 5 (33:43):
I think it was just like a crime that happened
that people thought was really funny and mysterious. I'm not
sure what one does with twelve tons of iPhones. Yes,
I can completely see how you cash in on that.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Kitkats be also a little more complicated.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Seaking of things that should probably have been an April
fool's joke but are not in fact an April fool's joke.
Have my underrated story is and I don't know, Laura,
I don't know if you are a skier, but Stacy
and I are into skiing. And we got some very
bad news by way the Wall Street Journal last week.
Saudi Arabia's big plan to have skiing in their new
(34:21):
city called Neome is no more. You will not be
able to ski in Saudi Arabia. If you hear that
and you say to yourself, how could you possibly ski
in Saudi Arabia. It is a desert, it's very warm,
it doesn't really snow too much there. Those would all
be I think part of the objection that caused this
project to run into trouble.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
The other part of it is I.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Think the amount of money and the fact that the
war and all this other economic uncertainty is causing Saudi
Arabia to rain things in.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
It feels like.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
A conflict in the Middle East is like the lowest
on the list of reasons. Why I feel like they
would cancel skiing in Saudi Arabia, I don't know, but.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
The defending the Emirates is expensive, and Saudi Arabia, along
with UAE, has been really splashing money around in a
lot of places. And I my assumption here is that
this project, the Tro Trohenna project, which would have been
the Middle East first outdoor ski resort, it just it
was gonna cost thirty eight billion dollars and and I
(35:24):
think basically that it's.
Speaker 11 (35:26):
It was going to be outdoors.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, oh my god. You gotta look at the renderings
because they are amazing. Like they were build.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
It looks like the most would they make at snow.
Speaker 11 (35:37):
There's not even so Colorado right now.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
It's too hart So it it does snow a little
bit in the mountain, it's right on the board of
with Jordan. They do get a dusting in those mountains.
So it's high altitude. They were building this massive dam
that was gonna bring desalinated water up there, and then
they had this crazy plan to build it's elevated. They
(36:00):
had built these like elevated platforms and if you look
at the pictures, it looks phenomenal. I don't know if
it looks thirty eight billion dollars phenomenal, but it looks
like a fun place to go skiing. And one thing
that in the reporting on this, this is one of
the places where they're not just canceling a thing that
was just in the imagination of MBS or Saudi leadership.
(36:23):
They'd actually started building this dam that this superstructure that
they were building to have the ski hills is partially completed,
and the contractors who were building it just had their
contracts canceled.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
I do feel like too.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
I mean, Sadi Re've had a bunch of really ambitious
plans to build like city of the future and expand
its tourism, and I do feel like a lot of
money was going into that. It is interesting that it's
getting scaled back.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
All right, Laura, hopefully you have.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Been enriched by this discussion about kit kats and desert skiing.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
But thank you for joining us.
Speaker 11 (36:58):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
This show is produced by Jasmine JT. Green and Stacy Wong.
Mangus Hendrickson is our supervising producer. Sam Rogich handles engineering
and a pricell fact checks, special thanks to Jeff Muscus,
Julia Rubin, Maria Ling, and Angel Ricky. If you have
a minute, please rate and review the show. It means
a lot to us. And if you have a story
that should be our business, email us at Everybody's at
Bloomberg dot net. That's everybody with an ass at Bloomberg
(37:24):
dot net. Also feel free to suggest baseball.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Related baseball related discussions.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Thank you for listening and we we'll see you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Max Chaffkin, Stacey, do you know what day it is?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It's Passover and maybe when you hear this podcast, it'll
be good Friday, and it's almost Easter Sunday.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
It's a real holiday season.
Speaker 5 (00:20):
Well, that is true, but I was thinking of something
that looms.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
In the university of our show a little.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Bit larger, Stacy, you're not talking about Liberation Day?
Speaker 5 (00:30):
Are anniversary of Liberation Day? Of course, I'm talking about
Liberation Day.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Listen.
Speaker 5 (00:34):
This was a day when decades of free trade policy
ever since World War Two were suddenly reversed, throwing the
global economy into chaos. What could be more significant than that,
granted passover in Easter might be close seconds.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Companies paid billions of dollars in tariffs.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Prices went up.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
We talked about this NonStop, and just at the very
moment when it seemed like the kind of like tariff
madness might be dying down with the Supreme Court ruling
that these tariffs, that the Liberation Day tariffs in particular,
were unconstitutional, Trump found like a whole new way to
raise prices where we had the warren Iran gas prices
(01:17):
it's basically been a year of economic crazy.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
They've been deemed illegal, but maybe they're back.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
But it is also quite a significant week for one
of the very special people in your life.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Max Yes, acquaintance of the show, Elon Musk. We're gonna
be talking about him. I'm in San Francisco right now,
Stacy Yes. And while that is happening, SpaceX, Musk's rocket
company is filing confidentially for an IPO. This is gonna
be the biggest IPO anyone has ever seen. I'm not
just exaggerating, and we have really the perfect person to
(01:49):
talk about it. Dana Hall is going to be joining
me here in the SF studio to discuss this IPO
and what it means for the larger sort of conversation
around AI, and also what it means for all of us,
because as we'll get into we're going to all end
up owning a little bit of SpaceX probably.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And possibly going to Mars.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
From Bloomberg BusinessWeek, this is everybody's business. I'm Max Chef and.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I'm Stacey Vannicksmith.
Speaker 5 (02:14):
Today on the show, we look at our new economic normal,
high valuations, high prices, and apparently Rhino Kett excuse me,
you will learn. So we're going to do something a
little bit different now here at everybody's business. We're going
to do a dramatic reading of a deposition from a
(02:37):
lawsuit that Elon Musk filed against Sam Altman and Open AI.
And this will feature Max Chafkin as Elon Musk and
Bloomberg Tech reporter Dana Hall as Altman's lawyers.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
Here we go, ahem, you attended Bernie Man in two
twenty seventeen, didn't you? I may have you were with
Tim Schultz? Who? Tim Schultz?
Speaker 7 (02:59):
Who?
Speaker 6 (03:00):
Tim Schultz?
Speaker 4 (03:02):
I don't recall.
Speaker 6 (03:03):
Do you know when Bernie Man happens.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Labor Day weekend, late.
Speaker 6 (03:06):
August, early September.
Speaker 8 (03:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (03:08):
Do you know what rhino kett is?
Speaker 5 (03:12):
No?
Speaker 6 (03:13):
Do you know what rhino ketamine is?
Speaker 4 (03:16):
No?
Speaker 6 (03:17):
Do you recall at Bernie Man in twenty seventeen ingesting
rhino ket and scene stacy.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yes, thank you for indulging that wonderful dramatic reading. And
we are, of course talking to Dana Hall, our colleague
at Bloomberg Elon Musk reporter, my longtime collaborator on the
Elon Ink podcast. Because Elon Musk is back in the
news and not only not just because of alleged drug use.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
This time around.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
SpaceX, one of his many companies, has just filed, according
to Bloomberg, for an IPO. It's trying to raise seventy
five billion dollars. That is three times the largest ever
IPO in history. I believe it would also make Elon
Musk a trillionaire, the world's first.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
And I think it is important to dig into this
a little bit because on one level, Elon Musk is
just a very rich man who keeps getting richer. But
I think it's important to understand how this IPO, how
this company going public and selling stock to you and
me and everybody, is going to affect everyday people in
(04:27):
a way that we might not expect or immediately hear about.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
All right, yeah, and I guess at this point we
need to welcome the thesbian herself, Dana Hall with me.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
And all right, so, Dana, you and I I.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Think caught that deposition last week that that was from
the litigation that's been playing out between Sam Altman, the
founder CEO of Open Ai, and Musk, and it's Altman's
lawyers are trying to kind of like undermine him or
undermine his credibility by suggesting that he was on ketamine
while he was negotiating this deal with open Aiye.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
So, I have like two questions for you. One is,
how is.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
A guy who is in the news and constantly with
all of this potentially erratic behavior allegations of drug use,
how is he going to be the guy who can
do the world's largest IPO? And the second question, Dana Hall,
what is rhino ketamine?
Speaker 6 (05:23):
Okay, I'm gonna answer the second question. First, I don't
know what rhino ketamine is. It makes my brain immediately
goes to like horse trank. Yeah, like other street drugs
that are also named after animals.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
This is like when the horse trank is not strong
enough for something, you go to the rhine and you
go that's the next step up.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Heavy duty ketamine is my assumption.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
That would be my assumption also, But no, I don't
know what it is. Actually my those my drug use
days are long long past.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Just to kind of recap the headline, we're recording this
on April first, we knew this was coming, but Bloomberg
reported that SpaceX had filed confidentially. This is like a
sort of newish procedure that the SEC came up with
to allow companies to essentially start their IPO filing without
publicizing all the details. The valuation, Bloomberg is saying could
(06:11):
be more than one point seventy five trillion dollars. We're
talking about seventy five billion dollars in capital. A huge
amount of money will likely come from retail investors. And I,
like you, somebody who's folity alone Musk for a very
long time, is that he has specifically said for many
years he would never take SpaceX public. He in fact
(06:32):
hates running a public company so much that he tried
to take Tesla private in this incredibly controversial maneuver.
Speaker 6 (06:39):
I always thought if they were going to do a
public offering that it would be like Starlink, that they
would like space out Starlink and take Starlink public, but
SpaceX would stay private. But just in the past couple months,
we saw, you know, SpaceX basically acquired Xai. Now SpaceX
is also an AI company. I guess it's very telling
to me that we get the news of this file
(07:00):
on the day that NASA is planning to send astronauts
around the Moon. So this is like a huge day
for space in general with the Artemis launch. But to
your point, yeah, like Elon hates running a public company,
but they need the money to do what they want
to do. The public markets have always showered Elon and
his companies with money, and this is a guy who
he's just very competitive. So that we're gonna have mega
(07:22):
IPOs this year if everything goes to plan, SpaceX Anthropic
open AI. I guess SpaceX will be the first at
the gate and we'll see what the appetite is for that.
But it's just going to give us a level of
insight into SpaceX, who's on the cap table, who is
who are the largest investors, how many Chinese and Russian
investors are there, what is Google's percentage? Like, it's going
(07:43):
to be super fascinating to actually see those documents.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
So Dania, like you say, this kind of transparency that
you have to do with an IPO is something that
most business owners do not like, they don't want to
do it, but they do it because you can raise
so much money with an IPO, and you mentioned that
SpaceX there's all kinds of things they want to do
with that money.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So why is Elon Musk doing this?
Speaker 5 (08:03):
Why take SpaceX public, even though it means having to
disclose all this stuff.
Speaker 6 (08:09):
So Elon. The way that Elon thinks is he always
looks for the limiting factor and then he solves for
the limiting factor. Okay, so if chips are the limiting factor,
he's going to announce that he's building a tariffab. If
capital is the limiting factor, he's going to raise money
and the IPO market like Waxes and Wayans. If like
capital is the limiting factor, he will figure out what
(08:30):
is the most efficient way to raise seventy five billion dollars.
It's going public, and you have this rabid fan base,
like the retail investor base in Tesla is north of
thirty percent, and you will, believe me, get like an
equally rabbit fairy.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Retail investors are like individuals as opposed to like big funds.
So you have a lot of just regular people pouring
money into the stock.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
You'll have regular people being very excited to get into SpaceX,
as well as a lot of longtime institutional investors.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
So I think Elon Musk has this tendency to just
find these grandiose challenges. Dan, I think you were kidding
to some extent that he was trying to kind of
one up this Moon launch. But I do think part
of it is this is a guy loves a spectacle.
Having the biggest IPO in history is a spectacle. Being
the world's first trillionaire it is would be an amazing
(09:20):
and spectacle for Elon.
Speaker 6 (09:22):
Musk, oh sure. And the IPO is timed around his birth.
Is supposed to be like timed around his birth.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Also, like the.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Astral it's like when the planets are lining up, we
reported something, but.
Speaker 6 (09:31):
His birth that he'll be fifty five.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
It feels like ends of the day's stuff, like planets aligned,
Elon turns fifty five, becomes the first trillionaire.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
I think there are two things that happen. One is
that in the early days of the Trump administration, when
Elon Musk was the most powerful person in the White
House or besides Donald Trump, Elon Musk was lobbying pretty
hard to have a significant change in space policy, to
move who the US space policy away from this Moon
(10:04):
mission which is happening today, and to focus more on
a Mars mission, which is the thing that he is
most focused on. It's what his the rocket that he
is building Starship is for and that he basically struck
out there that NASA is not going to fund a
Mars mission in a big way anytime soon. Elon Musk
is going to have to play within that structure. And
(10:28):
as part of that, of course, there was the famous breakup.
Elon and Trump are back together, but now he needs
to find another way to point SpaceX, and he's decided
to point it at the hottest thing in the world,
which is artificial intelligence, where instead of focusing on Mars,
we're focusing on the Moon and these AI data centers
that we talked about back in February when the X
SpaceX merger was announced. Dana, do you think, besides being
(10:52):
all of the things we talked about, this would be
the first of several.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
AI companies to go public.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Do you have any sense of whether investors will look
at this as an AI company or as an Elon
Musk company, or as both of those things.
Speaker 6 (11:09):
I think it'll be an eat. I think they'll look
at it as an Elon Musk company. And investors who
have invested in Elon's companies have been handsomely rewarded for
their loyalty and for sticking with the company through thick
and thin, And we have to remember that SpaceX is
older than Tesla, like SpaceX was like Elon Musk made
his first millions with PayPal and founded SpaceX in Los
(11:31):
Angeles in two thousand and two. So this is a
company that is like it's like been around for like
twenty four years, and so that's a really long time
to be private. I think that Elon also just has
a really keen sense of the market and he timing
is everything, and he feels like this is the time
to go out. He's made mistakes obviously, like he overpaid
(11:51):
for Twitter and then regretted it. There is an art
and a science to IPOs and like upsizing them and
getting the most in near rounds, and I think that
he just feels like this is the window to go
and go out before the midterms and then yeah, it'll
be seen as an Elon company, a space company, and
he will try to position it as an AI company.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Do we have any idea of when this will actually happen.
Is it definitely happening this year or do we know
like when we can actually start to buy SpaceX stock.
Speaker 6 (12:21):
There could be some force masure and he could like
they could pull the s one like, it's not a guarantee,
but it sounds like they want to go out by July, right.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, yeah, Oh is this like a July fourth thing?
Speaker 6 (12:34):
No, No, it's by his birthday. Like his Elon's birthday
is late June, so they want to have the IPO
by his birthday.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
But one thing, one thing is, and they're gonna force
majure Dan is one hundred percent right. There is a
chance that this won't happen. They are saying, and we
are reporting that they are saying that they're going to
do this within a couple of months, by this summer.
It's totally dependent on what the market is, and you
never know what the market is in an ip until
you start taking it on the road and until people
(13:04):
get an actual look at these at the finances. If
the reporting on these companies is to be believed, they're
not good. This is a company that's going to be
losing huge amounts of money, largely because of Rock. And
part of the way that Elon Musk can potentially fix this,
frankly is by drumming up enough interest from retail investors
as well as by getting SpaceX into indexes.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Very quickly. That's another thing that's sort of happening behind
the sees.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
So not only will people buy SpaceX directly, but a
lot of people's four or one k's are going to
wind up in this company if everything goes according to plan.
At an absurd valuation potentially as much as two trillion dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
That's like immediately too big to fail before it even
goes public.
Speaker 6 (13:46):
When Tesla went public, everyone thought that Tesla was going
to go bankrupt. And Tesla now has what like a
one point four trillion dollar valuation. It's still the most
valuable car company, even though they basically don't make cars
that much anymore. They've pivoted away from cars and toured
AI and robotics at the cybercabs. He's a financial engineer,
and he has long standing, deep relationships with Wall Street,
(14:07):
and everybody wants a piece of the IPO.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
All right, last question for Dana, and this kind of
will will transition nicely to our next segment. What's the
status of Elon and Trump these days? Because the man,
remember they had the big the breakup. You and I
covered it very closely. He's very exciting. Elanacues Trump of
being in the Epstein files correctly. It turns out Trump
threatened to take out all of Elon Musk's contracts or whatever.
(14:31):
That didn't happen, But we've seen a few signs that
they are back together, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 6 (14:36):
Mean Musk spent was over the New Year's holiday or
over the Christmas or New Year's holidays. He had dinner
at mar A Lago with Milania and President Trump. He
has put some money into congressional races for this cycle.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
He was on a call, according to New York Times,
with Narindra Modi, the Prime Minister of India.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
And Trump. He's like the most influential non state actor,
as I like to talk about it. They are very
much aligned around the Save Act, which doesn't sound like
it's going to pass Congress, but like they're sort of
aligned around this idea that you need to prove US
citizenship in order to vote. And yeah, I mean I
think that there's a day time, you know. My my
suspicion was always that the dust up was a little
bit overplayed and that el was trying to get his
(15:18):
pay package and he had to be seen as being
distant from politics or done with the White House in
order to get that pay package. Now that he's got
that pay package, all bets are off. And I think
he's obviously still very close to Jade Vance and Peter Tiele,
and it'd be interesting to just see how he plays
in the midterms.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Okay, so what are the chances the SpaceX road show
on the south lawn of the White House, just like
a year ago we had the we had the Tesla
sales pitch on the outlawn.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
I don't think we're going to see what the gods. Yeah,
I don't think we're going to see that. I think
you're going to see everybody go going down to the starship.
Speaker 5 (15:51):
Though, Dana, thank you so much for joining us, and
please come back as this rolls forward. So Max, it
has been one year since President Trump introduced the raft
of tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world,
including islands that are uninhabited by people. The tariffs started
(16:13):
at ten percent. They went way up from there. And
this was just a huge reversal of the free trade era,
which is basically had done away with tariffs since the
nineteen forties, had been moving in the direction of free
trade as.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
A way to prevent war.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
Now since Liberation Day. Of course, the tariffs have changed
hundreds of times. It's been kind of chaos, and the
whole global economy has been influxince. Then the goal here,
the stated goal of this was to bring manufacturing back
home to reduce the trade deficit. The results, though, I
would say, have been complicated.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Yeah, And we wanted to just get a read on
what how they're affecting normal people's lives. We sent our
producer Jazzmine JT Green out on the streets of New
York to ask people how the tariffs were affecting their
spending or how it seemed that the terriffs were affecting
their spending.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Let's let's listen to that.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
With the one year anniversary of Liberation Day, I'm curious
if the tariffs have affected your spending at all in
the past year.
Speaker 7 (17:19):
It's just yeah, you can obviously just see like slow
uptick and general pricings.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (17:25):
I think that's kind of like my main observation right now.
Speaker 9 (17:27):
My dad, my dad works in construction in South Florida,
and he was saying that construction equipment has got or
like like supplies basically gotten more expensive.
Speaker 7 (17:35):
It seems like it's happening more in the last three
to six months versus it was happening all, you know,
suddenly a year ago.
Speaker 9 (17:41):
In general, just things are getting more expensive. I don't
think it's had a positive impact.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I don't think it's affected my spending so so much.
I definitely feel like it's something I've noticed more on
like imported things.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Yeah, I feel like everything's expensive these days.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
It is kind of this thing of where I go
to the store and if I'm really craving something and
I really want something, I'm gonna kind of buy it
as a snack.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Anyway, Like things are moving in a cheaper direction.
Speaker 9 (18:02):
But I don't know that I can place things being
more expensive squarely on the sort of tariffs, So it's
a little bit hard to know for sure.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Thank you last guy for being careful. Journalists really appreciate that.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
I do find it pretty interesting that it can be
hard to tell what prices are being affected by tariffs
versus other kinds of inflation.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I feel like tariffs are a little tricky that way.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
But luckily we have an expert here to talk us
through what has changed and what has not. Laura Curtis,
a Bloomberg reporter covering trade is here to break down
the numbers and see how we have or have not
been liberated.
Speaker 10 (18:42):
Welcome, Laura, Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Stacy your co author as well. Stacy and Laura just
wrote a piece that published, I believe yesterday as you're
as we're recording this on bloomberd dot com, all about
this issue.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Yes, indeed, we published a little guide for businesses wondering
businesses and individuals wondering how to get their tariff refund. Laura,
I'm going to start out pretty basically. You cover trade
all the time. What has the last year been like?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Can you give us some numbers? What has happened since
Liberation Day?
Speaker 11 (19:11):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Man, If you look at the actual tariff rates that
have been in place for the last year, they haven't
changed all that much, and they're at historic highs, that's
for sure. But if you compare them to the threats
that President Trump has made lobbying different two on Champagne,
and we did that twice in last year, and so
that's been really hard for importers to kind of navigate
(19:31):
and to gauge because these things are changing so fast.
It's also just really complicated, right, they're all these different
tariff authorities. Trump's favorite one is now illegal, so we're
favorite tariff.
Speaker 11 (19:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
The Supreme Court ruling against these Liberation Day tariffs.
Speaker 11 (19:47):
And particular that's right, Yeah, exactly so.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
The and they're called a bunch of different things, which
I think also adds to the confusion. Their Liberation Day tariffs,
they're country specific tariffs. There, reciprocal tariffs, they're just all
these emergency tariffs. All of those things call in that
bucket of the potential refunds that Stacy and I wrote about.
Speaker 5 (20:05):
I have to say one of the interesting things about
writing this article was we got into this long discussion
because we could not figure out what the tariffs were
on furniture coming from the EU, and there were like
several different sources that said several different things, and ultimately,
I mean, it was just so indicative of the confusion.
It's like, wait, where do we go to actually see
the actual number. He was like, well, it's complicated.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Question for both of you.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Supreme Court makes this ruling says that the Liberation Day
tariffs are illegal. Laura, you hinted at this, there are
all these other tariffs that are still going on. Trump
has also said that he's going to find a way
through different laws to essentially reimpose some version of the tariffs.
But like, if I'm somebody who paid these tariffs, like
(20:50):
the hundreds of thousands of businesses in the United States,
what happens they give they send me a check like
tomorrow or yesterday or whatever.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
How do companies get their money back?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
It's a we don't know yet, that's the short answer.
But the Customs Authority customs in Border Protection is making
progress on building this whole new system to handle these
refunds to the people who on paper imported all of
these goods. It could be a few months before we
see the first payments go out for the most simple entries.
(21:23):
That's like the that's a pretty optimistic view. But that's
what they're saying now For all of the other ones,
I don't I don't think we know yet. Think about
all of the all the goods, for example, that came
in with different teriff rates applied to them and stacking differently,
and CVP has to go through those ones and say
we're removing this aita tariff, but maybe this means a
(21:43):
metal tariff now applies, and so maybe this import potentially
owes a different amount, or God help us, even maybe more.
Speaker 11 (21:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
I mean the stacking we should say is like when
there's like some there's like a tariff because of the
comforter it's from, and then you have to add on
the tariff because of what it is it is.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
It's like when things start adding up.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Is there possibility that Trump could just say nah, sorry
not sending checks back?
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Sure, he says all kinds of things all the time.
I think that's part of the confusion for everybody. The
Supreme Court has ruled these things illegal. It's about one
hundred and sixty billion dollars that the government collected over
the last year that's potentially on the line for to
be returned.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
And that's three hundred and thirty thousand businesses or something
like that.
Speaker 11 (22:29):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
And I forget how many millions of individual entries shipments,
but it's fifty millions something that can go check.
Speaker 10 (22:36):
It's a lot of difference. That's a lot of paperwork, right.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
So that's one of the things that they're dealing with.
I think if Trump does say nah, then it's just
going to be a longer court battle, right. It might
even end up back at the Supreme Court to hash
out again. So I think that's what the sort of
less optimistic folks are worried about.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
We did actually talk to one of the less optimist folks.
Speaker 11 (23:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
So Peace Fans is a really fun company based in Seattle.
They retrofit, restore, rebuild all kinds of camper vans, a
lot of your classic VW camper vans. I think some
sprinter vans, I'm not sure. And then their new project
is the new.
Speaker 10 (23:16):
ID Buzz by Volkswagen.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
It looks like a really retro sixties vibe camper van,
but it's all electric. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
They kit them, essentially, kit them out for campers so
they can put in like a pop top ten or
they fit all kinds of furniture in it. But when
we talked to him, this was what he said about
he's He estimates that his company, which he said was
worth between eight and ten million dollars, has paid out
one hundred thousand dollars over the last year in tariffs,
and when asked about his expectations of a refund, here's
(23:47):
what he said, Santa is.
Speaker 8 (23:49):
Going to bring me back ter refund this year.
Speaker 12 (23:52):
Not going to happen I have zero faith zero, you know,
and like that actually could have material impact on my
data day operations.
Speaker 8 (24:01):
As a small business owner, you're just whipsaw.
Speaker 12 (24:03):
You know.
Speaker 8 (24:04):
We want to hire, and.
Speaker 12 (24:05):
We want to invest, and we want to plan and
sign leases and buy inventory, you know, but we're just
super cautious and hesitant.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
He was approached by one customer, for example, who, as
soon as the Supreme Court ruled that these tariffs were illegal,
was asking for his money back, and Harley's going, I
don't know what you're talking about. I haven't seen any
of this money yet. I don't know when it's coming.
Speaker 10 (24:28):
He had to figure out how to be pretty nice about.
Speaker 11 (24:30):
It, and I think handled it well. In the end.
That was something you write, Stacy, is.
Speaker 10 (24:33):
Like a four hundred and fifty tariff surcharge that he put.
Speaker 11 (24:36):
On this customer's bill.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And in the end, the tariff that Harleyett had to
pay that on that piece was actually more like six
hundred dollars.
Speaker 11 (24:44):
It's just a really tricky spot for him.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
What stood out to me about this, economically speaking, is
small businesses employ about half of Americans, and what Harley
was saying about how he's held off on hiring, how
he's canceled leases, how he had asn't expanded, and Laura,
you're saying you've heard this from all of these business owners.
This feels like a huge impact, not necessarily an impact
(25:09):
we might see as the economy shrinking, but in growth
that was lost, Like those are people who might have
been hired who aren't getting hired. I just feel like
the economic impact of that is pretty epic.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And then this whole mess that's happening.
Speaker 11 (25:25):
That's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I think I was struck by one of the one
of the voices on the street earlier in the episode
who noticed.
Speaker 10 (25:31):
That the price has really stayed pretty stable.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
For the first bit of last year, and then in
the last three six months, he said he was noticing
price increases. And that's something that economists have really pinpointed
with some studies over the last couple months, just showing
that right after these tariffs, tariffs like these are implemented,
the economy slows down. Prices state maybe even drop little
because demand slows so much. People don't know what to do.
(25:55):
They can't hire, they're not going out and getting new jobs,
they don't feel spendy, and it takes a little while
for these prices to trickle through. So I think you're right,
it's absolutely a delayed impact of this.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
And one thing that's interesting in the context of the show,
because we were talking about SpaceX going public, is one
of the potential effects of these tariffs is to create
this kind of K shaped economy among businesses. Because Harley
made the point a bunch of times that for big businesses,
they have so many options here they have slush funds,
(26:25):
they can lobby, they can hold up, they can move
money around. But for small businesses like his, they're kind
of month to month, and so they end up shrinking,
closing their doors.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
They take the big hit here.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah they can, Stacy, you're saying, you're not saying they're
doing anything on tour. They just have lines of credit, yeah,
and they can and big balance sheets and they can
afford essentially to weight this thing out. And I think
a lot of big companies, including like Walmart and stuff,
did this. They basically just ate the tariffs while they're
waiting to see what happens because they don't know they
(27:00):
looking ahead to the Supreme Court or Trump having another
taco or whatever else.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
The same is true.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
I think even with all these lawsuits in this mess, right,
because if you're Walmart or your costo, you have a
team of lawyers that can deal with all this uncertainty
and do all the filings that need to be done.
And if you're Harley Sittner in Seattle retrofitting vans, like
you don't necessarily have that time. So one of the
things that you know, as Laura was mentioning, his customers
(27:28):
are starting to write and being like, Hey, what about
this tariff certain charge I paid?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Can I get it back?
Speaker 5 (27:32):
We asked him what he was planning on doing with
the money when he got it, and here's what he
told us.
Speaker 12 (27:40):
I would offer it back and I would sort of
do the passive aggressive thing, like you know, we've actually
already spent this money, like you put the energy out
there and hopefully it comes back, right, Yeah, I mean
for peace fans, you know, it's like it's the brain,
you know, it's like, wait.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
What is the brand? Is it passive aggressive?
Speaker 11 (27:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (28:00):
So he's gonna basically, and Laura correct me if I'm
wrong here, his plan is basically that he's gonna offer
customers their money back with a little bit of a
are you really going to do this US. These profits,
he said, are down by twenty five percent because of
the tariffs. So he's gonna like offer it in a
sort of if you really need your money back, we
can make that happen.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
But I think he said he would also potentially offer
to donate it someplace, or it could help with his
teenage daughter's coffee fund. But yeah, he's trying his best.
Not super hopeful that they'll come through anyway, but.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, or if they do come through, it could take years.
Speaker 8 (28:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
One last question for me, I was just wondering if
at any point you he talked about the upside of
these tariffs, so writing to customers have brought this up
if we go back to the kind of rationale for
liberation day year ago? Is this so that we would
have a glorious American manufacturing industry that seems to not
have happened yet. But are there any of these Has
(29:01):
he been able to source any van parts in the US?
And are any peace van customers like happy about the
TI Like is there any kind of like set I'm
guessing the answers no, but like, is there like going
to be a sort of renaissance of domestic van conversions?
Speaker 4 (29:19):
As a result of these of these policies.
Speaker 5 (29:21):
I would say he is in the manufacturing business a
little bit, but our economy has become so global that
he needs parts from overseas, as does so many other
small businesses, even if they are doing the assembly here
in the US. So he's having to order all these
parts from Germany, from overseas, and it's really hard to
(29:43):
escape them even if you are an American US based manufacturer,
as I don't know if I would categorize him as
a manufacturer, but he's a person putting things together.
Speaker 4 (29:51):
In the US.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
But he's really been slammed by this. So Laura, please
stick around. We have our underrated stories up next and
we would love to have.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
You weigh in on these.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
Max and Laura, it is time for our Underrated stories
of the week.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
But before we do that, Stacey just want to acknowledge
you had doubts about talking about baseball. I did, and
they had a lot to say, and I just wanted
to acknowledge a couple emails, one from listener Brian, who
was bringing up the other technical some other rule changes
that have been made to the baseball season that we
didn't mention, including the infield shift. I suppose we'll have
(30:33):
to dedicate another episode, perhaps a whole mini series.
Speaker 4 (30:36):
I I don't think so. Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Also thank you to Richard for pitching an idea. He
basically said that we're going to talk about sports that
are hot. Right now, we got to talk about Formula one,
which is also having a moment. Quote Demographically, the audience
is substantially younger and more diverse than the old white
guy prim me stereotype and pays big money for the
excitement and international glamour.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Stacy, I think we got it.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
We're gonna have to bring either bring Randall back or
somebody else to talk about this, because I have been
watching the Netflix F one show, so I'm basically.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
There was the Formula one Brad Pitt movie. I guess
Formula one.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
I watched that as well, so I guess my expertise
is even greater.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Anyway, Richard, thank you.
Speaker 5 (31:20):
All right, now to our underrated stories. Mact you want
to go first? Do you want me to go first?
Speaker 4 (31:25):
You go first, Dacey, You've got a good one.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
All right, this is very delighted.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Laura, listen closely. Yes, this hasari has.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
To do its international trade I don't know if you
have heard this, Laura, but there has been a big
global heist that happened this week. Twelve tons of Kitkats
were mysteriously stolen from a shipment going out in Italy.
Not kitkats, yeah, twelve tons, and they've just vanished, and
(31:55):
now the whole internet has exploded over all of these
companies are putting out these funny like directives about pretending
that they stole the twelve tons of kit cats, but
they it is mysterious, Like what wait.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Yes, both of you, I have not been following this
story at all. What do we know who stole the
kit cats? Or is there are there any clues?
Speaker 4 (32:17):
A cold case.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
It's a cold case. They have no clues who the
cat burglar is? Thank you, We don't know, Like there's
no clues. And it's like twelve tons of kit cats,
Like where did they go? And why of all the
things to steal twelve tons of.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Why would you steal kit cats? What are you going
to do with them?
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Have secondary questions like is this like one container full
of cats?
Speaker 11 (32:43):
Like how many tons of kit cats fit in a container?
Speaker 5 (32:45):
I think it's one container of stolen.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
A truck is a truck.
Speaker 11 (32:52):
A truck, Okay, I guess that's a little easier. You know,
need a crane.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
So if I'm buying kit Cats, like at a bodega
next week in New York, I should check the lot
number and see if these are potentially Yes, they seem
a little suspiciously, I check the serial numbers.
Speaker 11 (33:07):
Yes, you might have some hot Kitcats.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
I don't think I'm the first one to float this theory. Yeah,
but this is obviously an inside job, right. This has
just been an amazing PR moment for KitKat. Are we
sure that there even was a stolen truck of kit
Cats or is this Are we gonna find out it's
April Fool's Day as we're recording this. That's just been
a slow played April Fools shoke.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
This reporting happened before April first, though, but it did.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
Still, it's possible it is a brilliant PR stunt. If
it's a stunt, and someone did point out on social
media that this is cheaper than a Super.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Bowl ad, I don't think so.
Speaker 5 (33:43):
I think it was just like a crime that happened
that people thought was really funny and mysterious. I'm not
sure what one does with twelve tons of iPhones. Yes,
I can completely see how you cash in on that.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
Kitkats be also a little more complicated.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
Seaking of things that should probably have been an April
fool's joke but are not in fact an April fool's joke.
Have my underrated story is and I don't know, Laura,
I don't know if you are a skier, but Stacy
and I are into skiing. And we got some very
bad news by way the Wall Street Journal last week.
Saudi Arabia's big plan to have skiing in their new
(34:21):
city called Neome is no more. You will not be
able to ski in Saudi Arabia. If you hear that
and you say to yourself, how could you possibly ski
in Saudi Arabia. It is a desert, it's very warm,
it doesn't really snow too much there. Those would all
be I think part of the objection that caused this
project to run into trouble.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
The other part of it is I.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Think the amount of money and the fact that the
war and all this other economic uncertainty is causing Saudi
Arabia to rain things in.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
It feels like.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
A conflict in the Middle East is like the lowest
on the list of reasons. Why I feel like they
would cancel skiing in Saudi Arabia, I don't know, but.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
The defending the Emirates is expensive, and Saudi Arabia, along
with UAE, has been really splashing money around in a
lot of places. And I my assumption here is that
this project, the Tro Trohenna project, which would have been
the Middle East first outdoor ski resort, it just it
was gonna cost thirty eight billion dollars and and I
(35:24):
think basically that it's.
Speaker 11 (35:26):
It was going to be outdoors.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Yeah, oh my god. You gotta look at the renderings
because they are amazing. Like they were build.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
It looks like the most would they make at snow.
Speaker 11 (35:37):
There's not even so Colorado right now.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
It's too hart So it it does snow a little
bit in the mountain, it's right on the board of
with Jordan. They do get a dusting in those mountains.
So it's high altitude. They were building this massive dam
that was gonna bring desalinated water up there, and then
they had this crazy plan to build it's elevated. They
(36:00):
had built these like elevated platforms and if you look
at the pictures, it looks phenomenal. I don't know if
it looks thirty eight billion dollars phenomenal, but it looks
like a fun place to go skiing. And one thing
that in the reporting on this, this is one of
the places where they're not just canceling a thing that
was just in the imagination of MBS or Saudi leadership.
(36:23):
They'd actually started building this dam that this superstructure that
they were building to have the ski hills is partially completed,
and the contractors who were building it just had their
contracts canceled.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
I do feel like too.
Speaker 5 (36:36):
I mean, Sadi Re've had a bunch of really ambitious
plans to build like city of the future and expand
its tourism, and I do feel like a lot of
money was going into that. It is interesting that it's
getting scaled back.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
All right, Laura, hopefully you have.
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Been enriched by this discussion about kit kats and desert skiing.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
But thank you for joining us.
Speaker 11 (36:58):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
This show is produced by Jasmine JT. Green and Stacy Wong.
Mangus Hendrickson is our supervising producer. Sam Rogich handles engineering
and a pricell fact checks, special thanks to Jeff Muscus,
Julia Rubin, Maria Ling, and Angel Ricky. If you have
a minute, please rate and review the show. It means
a lot to us. And if you have a story
that should be our business, email us at Everybody's at
Bloomberg dot net. That's everybody with an ass at Bloomberg
(37:24):
dot net. Also feel free to suggest baseball.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Related baseball related discussions.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Thank you for listening and we we'll see you next week.
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