logo
Paul Tudor Jones issues warnings about AI, tariffs

Paul Tudor Jones issues warnings about AI, tariffs

Axios06-05-2025

Billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Tudor Jones said Tuesday that the U.S. trade war with China was past the point of no return.
Why it matters: Jones' comments come as economists have also suggested that the impact of Trump's tariffs are likely to outlast him.
Driving the news: Jones, the founder of Tudor Investment, predicted that stocks are going to hit new lows even if Trump backtracks from his aggressive tariffs, currently set at 145% on imported Chinese products.
"It's pretty clear. You have Trump who's locked in on tariffs. You have the Fed who's locked in on not cutting rates. That's not good for the stock market," Jones said on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "We'll probably go down to new lows, even when Trump dials back China to 50%."
State of play: Recent history suggests that at least some levies could stick after Trump's time in office ends.
"We have never had any trade deescalation with China from Trump's first-term trade war. Politicians don't see a public appetite for it," Joseph Politano, an economist at Apricitas Economics, told Axios this week.
"I worry future presidential hopefuls see tariffs as a big expansion of executive power — the ability to economically reward and punish businesses at will — and will be loathe to give it up."
Jones also shared a dire warning about artificial intelligence, expressing drastic, longer term fears about how rapidly AI technology is developing.
Jones, sharing his takeaways from an exclusive technology conference he recently attended, said that although AI can be a "force for good" in health and education, experts at the conference suggested that "AI clearly poses an imminent security threat in our lifetimes to humanity."
He cited a breakout session following a panel of AI model developers, in which all four, he said, argued in favor of an offered proposition that "there's a 10% chance in the next 20 years that AI will destroy 50% of humanity." Jones was vague on exact details of their argument, but referenced "biohacking" and "weapons."
Jones did not immediately respond to Axios' request for followup comment.
The other side: Biosecurity experts say AI-driven "biosurveillance" could actually help spot the next pandemic or biological attack.
Collecting better biological data, and running it through AI, "might be the difference between managing a really small outbreak" and "letting it spread and become a much bigger problem," Stephanie Batalis, a Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology fellow, told Axios last year.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump aides want Texas to redraw its congressional maps to boost the GOP. What would that mean?
Trump aides want Texas to redraw its congressional maps to boost the GOP. What would that mean?

Yahoo

time8 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Trump aides want Texas to redraw its congressional maps to boost the GOP. What would that mean?

This coverage is made possible through Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Texas' free newsletters here. Republicans representing Texas in Congress are considering this week whether to push their state Legislature to take the unusual step of redrawing district lines to shore up the GOP's advantage in the U.S. House. But the contours of the plan, including whether Gov. Greg Abbott would call a special session of the Legislature to redraw the maps, remain largely uncertain. The idea is being driven by President Donald Trump's political advisers, who want to draw up new maps that would give Republicans a better chance to flip seats currently held by Democrats, according to two GOP congressional aides familiar with the matter. That proposal, which would involve shifting GOP voters from safely red districts into neighboring blue ones, is aimed at safeguarding Republicans' thin majority in Congress, where they control the lower chamber, 220-212. The redistricting proposal, and the Trump team's role in pushing it, was first reported by The New York Times Monday. Without a Republican majority in Congress, Trump's legislative agenda would likely stall, and the president could face investigations from newly empowered Democratic committee chairs intent on scrutinizing the White House. Here's what we know about the plan so far: On Capitol Hill, members of the Texas GOP delegation huddled Monday night to discuss the prospect of reshaping their districts. Most of the 25-member group expressed reluctance about the idea, citing concerns about jeopardizing their districts in next year's midterms if the new maps overextended the GOP's advantage, according to the two GOP aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations. Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, was skeptical of the idea. 'We just recently worked on the new maps,' Arrington told The Texas Tribune. To reopen the process, he said, 'there'd have to be a significant benefit to our state.' The delegation has yet to be presented with mockups of new maps, two aides said. Each state's political maps must be redrawn once a decade, after each round of the U.S. census, to account for population growth and ensure every congressional and legislative district has roughly the same number of people. Texas lawmakers last overhauled their district lines in 2021. There's no federal law that prohibits states from redrawing district maps midcycle, said Justin Levitt, an election law professor at Loyola Marymount University and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice's civil rights division. Laws around the timing to redraw congressional and state district maps vary by state. In Texas, the state constitution doesn't specify timing, so the redrawing of maps is left to the discretion of the governor and the Legislature. Lawmakers gaveled out of their 140-day regular session last week, meaning they would need to be called back for a special session to change the state's political maps. Abbott has the sole authority to order overtime sessions and decide what lawmakers are allowed to consider. A trial is underway in El Paso in a long-running challenge to the state legislative and congressional district maps Texas drew after the 2020 U.S. Census. If Texas redraws its congressional maps, state officials would then ask the court to toss the claims challenging those districts 'that no longer exist,' Levitt said. The portion of the case over the state legislative district maps would continue. If the judge agrees, then both parties would have to file new legal claims for the updated maps. It isn't clear how much maps could change, but voters could find themselves in new districts, and Levitt said redrawing the lines in the middle of the redistricting cycle is a bad idea. 'If the people of Texas think that their representatives have done a bad job, then when the [district] lines change, they're not voting on those representatives anymore,' Levitt said. 'New people are voting on those representatives.' The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, Democrats' national arm for contesting state GOP mapmaking, said the proposal to expand Republicans' stronghold in Texas was 'yet another example of Trump trying to suppress votes in order to hold onto power.' 'Texas's congressional map is already being sued for violating the Voting Rights Act because it diminishes the voting power of the state's fast-growing Latino population,' John Bisognano, president of the NDRC said. 'To draw an even more extreme gerrymander would only assure that the barrage of legal challenges against Texas will continue.' When Republicans in charge of the Legislature redrew the district lines after the 2020 census, they focused on reinforcing their political support in districts already controlled by the GOP. This redistricting proposal would likely take a different approach. As things stand, Republicans hold 25 of the state's 38 congressional seats. Democrats hold 12 seats and are expected to regain control of Texas' one vacant seat in a special election this fall. Most of Texas' GOP-controlled districts lean heavily Republican: In last year's election, 24 of those 25 seats were carried by a Republican victor who received at least 60% of the vote or ran unopposed. The exception was U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, who captured 57% of the vote and won by a comfortable 14-point margin. With little competition to speak of, The Times reported, Trump's political advisers believe at least some of those districts could bear the loss of GOP voters who would be reshuffled into neighboring, Democratic-held districts — giving Republican hopefuls a better chance to flip those seats from blue to red. The party in control of the White House frequently loses seats during midterm cycles, and Trump's team is likely looking to offset potential GOP losses in other states and improve the odds of holding on to a narrow House majority. Incumbent Republicans, though, don't love the idea of sacrificing a comfortable race in a safe district for the possibility of picking up a few seats, according to GOP aides. In 2003, after Texas Republicans initially left it up to the courts to draw new lines following the 2000 census, then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Sugar Land Republican, embarked instead on a bold course of action to consolidate GOP power in the state. He, along with his Republican allies, redrew the lines as the opening salvo to a multistate redistricting plan aimed at accumulating power for his party in states across the country. Enraged by the power play, Democrats fled the state, depriving the Texas House of the quorum it needed to function. The rebels eventually relented under threat of arrest, a rare power in the Texas Constitution used to compel absent members back to return to Austin when the Legislature is in session. The lines were then redrawn, cementing the GOP majority the delegation has enjoyed in Washington for the past two decades. However, what's at play this time is different than in the early 2000s, when Republicans had a newfound majority in the Legislature and had a number of vulnerable Democratic incumbents they could pick off. Now, Republicans have been entrenched in the majority for decades and will have to answer the question of whether there's really more to gain, said Kareem Crayton, the vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice's Washington office. 'That's the tradeoff. You can do that too much so that you actually make them so competitive that the other side wins,' Crayton said. 'That's always a danger.' Texas Republicans are planning to reconvene Thursday to continue discussing the plan, according to Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving, and Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Houston, who said they will attend the meeting. Members of Trump's political team are also expected to attend, according to Hunt and two GOP congressional aides familiar with the matter. Natalia Contreras is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She's based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@ Disclosure: New York Times has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Big news: 20 more speakers join the TribFest lineup! New additions include Margaret Spellings, former U.S. secretary of education and CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center; Michael Curry, former presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church; Beto O'Rourke, former U.S. Representative, D-El Paso; Joe Lonsdale, entrepreneur, founder and managing partner at 8VC; and Katie Phang, journalist and trial lawyer. Get tickets. TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.

Meta Platforms (META) Bets Big on AGI With $10 Billion Push and New AI Dream Team
Meta Platforms (META) Bets Big on AGI With $10 Billion Push and New AI Dream Team

Yahoo

time10 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Meta Platforms (META) Bets Big on AGI With $10 Billion Push and New AI Dream Team

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:) is one of the 10 AI Stocks on Wall Street's Radar. On June 10, Bloomberg News reported that the company's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is setting up a team of experts to achieve what is known as 'artificial general intelligence' (AGI), or machines that can match or surpass human capabilities. Citing sources, the report has revealed that the new AI team is being set up along with a reported investment of over $10 billion in Scale AI. It further reported how Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang is expected to join the group after a deal is done. Reportedly, Zuckerberg is planning to personally recruit around 50 people, including a new head of AI research for the AGI team. The decision is being made after looking at the performance and reception of Meta's latest large language model, Llama 4, the report stated. While we acknowledge the potential of META as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and Disclosure: None.

TSMC (TSM) Reports 40% Revenue Surge in May as AI Chip Demand Booms
TSMC (TSM) Reports 40% Revenue Surge in May as AI Chip Demand Booms

Yahoo

time10 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

TSMC (TSM) Reports 40% Revenue Surge in May as AI Chip Demand Booms

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) is one of the 1. On June 10, the company reported its May revenue, which surged 40% year-over-year to NT$320.5 billion ($10.7 billion) as demand remained high for its AI chips. The contract chipmaker, which supplies to tech giants such as Apple and Nvidia, had its revenue up 39.6% from a year earlier but down 8% from April's figure. According to TSMC's CEO C.C. Wei, April softening was seasonal, and the company is ramping advanced nodes to ease bottlenecks. Its capacity expansions in Arizona and Taiwan are progressing according to plan. Moreover, new EUV tools and packaging lines are launching to boost throughput for the latest H100 and next-gen Gaudi GPUs. A macro view of a 5G/4G chips and modules, displaying the cutting edge technology of the company. Back in March, Wei joined President Donald Trump in announcing his intent to invest $100 billion in U.S.-based chip-manufacturing facilities. He acknowledged TSMC's projection of 'full-year 2025 revenue to increase by close to mid-20s percent in U.S. dollar terms' in the company's first-quarter earnings call in April. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) manufactures and sells advanced chips used in artificial intelligence applications. While we acknowledge the potential of TSM as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and Disclosure: None. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store