CNBC Daily Open: Elon Musk's companies report positive developments amid his return to work
In his first week away from the U.S. government's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk is seeing positive activity in his companies. His brain tech startup Neuralink announced a $650 million funding round, while his electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla in May enjoyed a 213% year-on-year jump in sales in Norway.
Of course, the causal link between those events and Musk's departure from DOGE is tenuous. The funding process and sales duration occurred while Musk still had his hands full with the White House, and so could have happened with little — or none — of his leadership or input.
But both serve as reminders why so many are Musk backers: His companies are, fundamentally, successful ones. But, like Tesla's promised full self-driving feature, Musk's firms aren't completely autonomous and need a steady— and ideally "super focused" — hand to guide them.
Muted start to JuneU.S. stocks posted modest gains Monday, the first trading day of June. The S&P 500 advanced 0.41%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.08% and the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.67%. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index fell 0.14%. Shares of Wegovy maker Novo Nordisk climbed 1.9% amid a U.S. ban on copycat weight loss drugs.
Steel tariffs will hike U.S. pricesThe 50% tariff on steel imports that U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday will push up prices of the metal in America, according to analysts. "Already steel prices in the U.S. are higher than anywhere else, and it is a net importer which needs to have volumes coming in. All this does is raise prices there," Josh Spoores, head of steel Americas analysis at CRU, told CNBC on Monday.
Neuralink raised $650 millionElon Musk's Neuralink has closed a $650 million funding round, the brain tech startup announced Monday. ARK Invest, Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and other firms participated in the round, according to a press release. Neuralink is building a brain-computer interface, a system that translates brain signals into commands for external technologies.
Tesla sales in Norway jumpTesla's sale of new cars in Norway skyrocketed 213% to 2,600 in May from a year earlier, according to official data. The increase was mostly driven by sales of the firm's revamped Model Y compact sport utility vehicle. That bucks a downward trend across Europe — industry groups on Monday reported significantly lower May sales for new Tesla vehicles in Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Sweden.
[PRO] 'Anywhere But The USA'Seesawing trade policies, proposed foreign capital taxes and concerns over U.S. fiscal spending have given rise to a new trade: "Anywhere But the USA." It's a "recalibration toward global balance, cyclical recovery, and multi-polar growth," investment manager Ninety One's Alan Siow said. Here are some of the opportunities beyond the U.S. that investors and portfolio managers are looking at.
In China, 'The Great American' burger is now made with Australian beef
American agricultural products have been vanishing from Chinese stores and restaurants and losing ground to other imports.
At his restaurant in Beijing, Geng Xiaoyun used to offer a special dish of salt-baked chicken feet — or "phoenix talons" as they are called in China — imported from America.
"American chicken feet are so beautiful," Xiaoyun said. "They're spongy so they taste great. Chinese [chicken] feet just aren't as good."
With prices climbing 30% from March due to tariffs, the owner of Kunyuan restaurant had to pull the Chinese delicacy from the menu.
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Miami Herald
23 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
White House responds to the latest Elon Musk jab
It appears that some distance from Washington, D.C. has given Tesla CEO Elon Musk some clarity about President Donald Trump and his economic agenda. Trump has repeatedly said that balancing the budget was one of his top priorities. In fact, during a recent cabinet meeting, he said that his drive to balance the federal budget was one of the main reasons he won so handily last November. The Department of Government Efficiency was supposed to be a big part of that drive. Related: Trump decision leaves Elon Musk in a serious bind In the same meeting, Musk bemoaned the $2 trillion annual deficit the U.S. government is running, noting that the debt's interest payments exceed the annual U.S defense budget. But that cabinet meeting was three months ago, and since then, a lot has changed about the president's priorities, as well as Musk's. The number one mission on the White House agenda right now is getting the federal spending budget passed by the Republican controlled Congress. Trump has described his bill as big and beautiful, but the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office says it would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over the next decade. There aren't enough DOGE cuts in the world to pay for extending the Trump tax cuts while increasing entitlement and defense spending. Trump's claim that tariffs would help balance the budget has also proven specious. Musk recently left his post as the head of DOGE, returning to his work at Tesla and SpaceX. He is using his newfound freedom to speak up. Image source:After being fully in the tank for Trump, Musk has begun exercising his free speech about his recent disagreements with the administration. Last week, he told CBS, "I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing." Musk once made it a point to sport a red hat that read 'Trump Was Right About Everything,' but now he says he is a free thinker. "It's not like I agree with everything the administration does...I mean, I agree with much of what the administration does, but we have differences of opinion on the things that I don't entirely agree with," Musk told CBS. Related: Elon Musk explains DOGE mission, takes shot at government On Tuesday, he took his criticism a step further. "I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it, you know you did wrong. You know it," Musk tweeted out. Musk tweeted that Tuesday afternoon before the daily scheduled White House press briefing, which gave Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt a chance to respond on behalf of the White House. Leavitt, who has had no issue being combative with people who have questioned the administration in the past, took a more respectful tone with Musk. "The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill. It doesn't change the president's bill. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he's sticking to it," Leavitt said. The budget isn't the only issue where the White House and Musk clash. In early April, Musk went after Trump Senior Advisor Peter Navarro over tariffs, before Navarro returned fire and Trump backed Navarro. Since then, Musk's criticisms have been more muted. It's something he acknowledged in the CBS interview. "It's difficult for me to bring that up in an interview, because it creates a buildup of tension. So I'm stuck in a bind where I don't want to speak up against the administration, but I also don't want to take responsibility for everything the administration is doing," he said. Related: Tesla execs question Elon Musk over controversial X post The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
USA Today
24 minutes ago
- USA Today
Trump administration's emerging surveillance state raises privacy concerns
Trump administration's emerging surveillance state raises privacy concerns Civil liberties advocates say the Trump administration's data collection and sharing endanger Americans' constitutional rights. Show Caption Hide Caption Privacy at risk as Trump expands surveillance. Here's what we know. The Trump administration is expanding government surveillance with Big Tech's help. Here's what we know now about what's being tracked. DENVER ‒ For decades, the government has been able to watch where you drive and where you walk. It can figure out where you shop, what you buy and with whom you spend time. It knows how much money you have, where you've worked and, in many cases, what medical procedures you've had. It can figure out if you've attended a protest or bought marijuana, and it can even read your emails if it wants. But because all of those data points about you were scattered across dozens of federal, state and commercial databases, it wasn't easy for the government to easily build a comprehensive profile of your life. That's changing ‒ fast. With the help of Big Tech, in just a few short months the Trump administration has expanded the government surveillance state to a whole new level as the president and his allies chase down illegal immigrants and suspected domestic terrorists while simultaneously trying to slash federal spending they've deemed wasteful and keep foreigners from voting. And in doing so, privacy experts warn, the federal government is inevitably scooping up, sorting, combining and storing data about millions of law-abiding Americans. The vast data storehouses, some of which have been targeted for access by Elon Musk's DOGE teams, raise significant privacy concerns and the threat of cybersecurity breaches. "What makes the Trump administration's approach so chilling is that they are seeking to collect and use data across federal agencies in ways that are unprecedented," said Cody Venzke, a senior policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. "The federal government's collection of data has always been a double-edged sword." Americans value their privacy Americans have fiercely guarded and worried about their privacy even from the country's earliest days: The Constitution's Fourth Amendment specifically limits the government's ability to invade a person's privacy. Those concerns have only grown as more government functions are carried out online. A 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 71% of Americans worry about the government's use of data about them, up from 64% in 2019. The survey found the concern was greatest among those people who lean or consistently vote Republican, up from 63% to 77%. The level of concern among people who lean or consistently vote Democrat remained steady at 65%, the survey found. That same survey found that Americans overall are almost as concerned about government access to their data as they are about social media companies having access. People who had attended college were more worried about data privacy, while people with high school degrees were in general "confident that those who have access to their personal information will do the right thing." In acknowledgment of those concerns, the federal government carefully stores most data about Americans in separate databases, from Social Security payments to Medicare reimbursements, housing vouchers and food stamps. That limits the ability of government employees to surreptitiously build comprehensive profiles of Americans without court oversight. In the name of rooting out fraud, and government inefficiency, however, President Donald Trump in March ordered federal agencies under his control to lower the walls between their data warehouses. The Government Accounting Office estimates the federal government loses $233 billion to $521 billion to fraud annually, much of that because of improper payments to contractors or falsified medical payments, according to a GAO report in April. The report also noted significant losses via Medicare or unemployment fraud and pandemic-era stimulus payments. "Decades of restricted data access within and between agencies have led to duplicated efforts, undetected overpayments, and unchecked fraud, costing taxpayers billions," President Donald Trump said in a March 20 executive order that helped create the new system. "This executive order dismantles unnecessary barriers, promotes inter-agency collaboration, and ensures the Federal Government operates responsibly and efficiently to safeguard public funds." Merging of commercial and government databases Supporters say this kind of data archive, especially video surveillance coupled with AI-powered facial recognition, can also be a powerful tool to fight crime. Authorities in New Orleans used video footage collected by privately owned security cameras to help capture at least one of the fugitives in a high-profile prison escape in May. And systems that read license plates helped Colorado police track down a suspect accused of repeatedly vandalizing a Tesla dealership. White House authorities are now prosecuting some Tesla vandalism cases as terrorism. But the new White House efforts go far beyond anything ever attempted in the United States, allowing the government to conduct intrusive surveillance against almost anyone by combining government and commercial databases. Privacy experts say it's the merging of government and commercial databases that poses the most significant concern because much of it can be done without court oversight. As part of the broader White House effort, contractors are building a $30 million system to track suspected gang members and undocumented immigrants and buying access to a system that tracks passengers on virtually every U.S.-based airline flight. And federal officials also are making plans to compile and share state-level voting registration information, which the president argues is necessary to prevent foreign nationals from illegally voting in federal elections. Privacy experts say that while all of that data has long been collected and kept separate by different government agencies or private vendors ‒ like your supermarket frequent shopper card and cell phone provider ‒ the Trump administration is dramatically expanding its compilation into comprehensive dossiers on Americans. Much of the work has been kicked off by Musk's DOGE teams, with the assistance of billionaire Peter Thiel's Denver-based Palantir. Opponents say such a system could track women who cross state lines for abortions − something a police officer in Texas is accused of doing − or be abused by law enforcement to target political opponents or even stalk romantic partners. And if somehow accessed by hackers, the centralized systems would prove a trove of information for fraud or blackmail. The nonpartisan, nonprofit Project on Government Oversight has been warning about the risks of federal surveillance expansion for years, and it noted that Democrats and Republicans alike have voted to expand such information-gathering. "We need our leaders to recognize that as the surveillance apparatus grows, it becomes an enticing prize for a would-be autocrat," POGO said in a report in August 2024. "Our country cannot build and expand a surveillance superstructure and expect that it will not be turned against the people it is meant to protect." Starting with immigration, ending where? Trump campaigned in 2024 on a platform of tough immigration enforcement, including large-scale deportations and ending access by undocumented people to federal programs. Immigrants' rights advocates point out that people living illegally in the United States are generally barred from federal programs, although those who have children born as U.S. citizens can often access things like food assistance or health care. Supporters say having access to that data will help them prioritize people for deportation by comparing work history and tax payments to immigration status, work that used to be far more labor-intensive. Because federal officials don't know exactly who is living illegally in the United States, the systems by default must scoop up information about everyone first. One example: A newly expanded program to collect biometric data from suspected illegal immigrants intercepted at sea also can be used to collect the same information on American citizens under the vague justification of "officer safety." That data can be retained for up to 75 years, according to federal documents. "It's only a matter of time before the harmful ripples from this new effort reach other groups," Venzke said.
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Recreational Vehicle Maker Thor's European Sales Hit By Dip, Cautions On Macro Outlook
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