Four takeaways from the DealBook Summit
The U.S. election dominated the news agenda this year, and the two people at the center of Donald Trump’s win came up in nearly every conversation yesterday at the DealBook Summit. The president-elect and Elon Musk may not have been in the room, but questions about how they will shape business and politics were front and center.
The general view of the day was cautious optimism, even among those who had publicly criticized Trump and Musk — or been targeted by them.
But many questions remain. What will Trump and Musk mean for government, business and the economy? Will they succeed in cutting regulation and government spending? And will they go after their perceived enemies and rivals?
Here are four big themes from this year’s event.
What will happen with the economy?
Most of the speakers were willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, or at least played down worries about his most disruptive policy ideas.
Jay Powell, the Fed chair, addressed one of the biggest questions hanging over the next administration: Will the president-elect go after the central bank’s independence? No, Powell said emphatically. The Fed, he said, was created by Congress and its autonomy is “the law of the land.”
“There is very, very broad support for that set of ideas in Congress in both political parties, on both sides of the Hill, and that’s what really matters,” he said.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post who has sparred with Trump and Musk, said the president-elect had “grown” over the past eight years. “He is calmer than he was the first time — more confident, more settled.”
Bezos said he was “hopeful” that Trump would scythe through regulation that harms business. “President Trump is serious about the regulatory agenda — and I think he has a good chance of succeeding,” he said.
Ken Griffin, the founder of Citadel and a top Republican donor, said the Fed’s independence was crucial for the economy and “extraordinarily important to the sanctity of the dollar.”
Griffin, who had previously called Trump a “loser,” admitted that he voted for him this time, and was happy that Republicans won control of the White House and Congress. “America is open for business again,” he said.
Griffin also said he wasn’t yet concerned about whether Trump would actually impose new tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico that could dent growth and prompt a global trade war. “We are literally months or years away from knowing where that lands,” he said.
The fight against inflation hasn’t been won
Powell said the economy was in a “very good place,” with inflation decreasing and the labor market rebounding. Inflation is still a “little higher” than expected, he said, but the Fed can afford to be more cautious on lowering interest rates. (The central bank’s next policy meeting will take place on Dec. 17 and Dec. 18.)
Griffin blamed the Biden administration, arguing that it had “put this country on an inflationary path that was unprecedented in our lifetime.” Powell, he added, has “had to deal with cleaning up the mess.”
Former President Bill Clinton said inflation was the “fundamental problem” that helped Trump win the election. “The average person had not really lived through something like this for 40 years, since the ’70s,” he said.
Artificial general intelligence may arrive soon
Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, dismissed worries that artificial intelligence posed a threat, but he spoke excitedly about the possibility of the technology’s next leap.
He said that artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I. — when a machine can do almost anything the human brain can — could arrive sooner than people expect, and significantly accelerate economic growth. “There’s a ton of hard work, a ton of research and engineering still to do, but I think it’s possible,” he said.
Altman’s comments could be a strategic gambit. Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest financial backer, has an exclusive license to reuse OpenAI’s tech in its own products. But tensions between the companies have risen in recent months, and the license would expire once OpenAI unilaterally declares that it has reached the milestone.
(The New York Times Company has sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The companies have denied the claims.)
On the other hand, Sundar Pichai, Google’s C.E.O., expects the pace of A.I. development to slow in 2025.
Google faces questions about whether its hugely lucrative search business could be displaced by chatbots. But Pichai took a rare public shot at Microsoft, its C.E.O., Satya Nadella, who has criticized Google for failing to build an insurmountable lead in A.I. despite being an early innovator. “I would love to do a side-by-side comparison of Microsoft’s own models and our models any day, any time,” he said.
Elon Musk couldn’t be avoided
Musk wasn’t at the DealBook Summit — that was last year — but the tech mogul came up often.
Altman, who has clashed with Musk, described him as a “mega hero.” Clinton saw the Tesla chief’s growing influence in Trump’s inner circle as a sign of the times.
Altman said he wasn’t worried about concerns that Musk could use his influence with Trump to go after rivals, including OpenAI. “It would be profoundly un-American to use political power to the degree that Elon has it to hurt your competitors,” he said.
Bezos, whose Blue Origin rocket company competes with Musk’s SpaceX, said he was taking “at face value” that his rival would not try to hurt his rivals. He also complimented Musk on his efforts to cut government costs. “I’ve had a lot of success in life not being cynical, and I very rarely have been taken advantage of as a result,” Bezos said. “Why be cynical about that?”
Watch Andrew’s conversations here and catch up on all of The Times’s coverage here.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
The police continue to look for the UnitedHealthcare C.E.O.’s killer. A manhunt is underway for the masked assailant who fatally shot Brian Thompson, the leader of one of the United States’ largest health insurers, in what the New York police commissioner called a “brazen targeted attack.” The authorities said they were reviewing surveillance footage, including from a nearby Starbucks, and the suspect’s fleeing on a Citi Bike for potential clues.
Donald Trump announces a flurry of administration picks. The president-elect said he had chosen Paul Atkins, a veteran regulator and crypto advocate, to lead the S.E.C.; Kelly Loeffler, a former senator, a top donor to his 2024 campaign and the wife of the C.E.O. of Intercontinental Exchange, as head of the Small Business Administration; Billy Long, a former representative who hawked a pandemic-era tax credit, as the chief of the I.R.S.; and Frank Bisignano, the chairman of the payment processing giant Fiserv, as the commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
Bitcoin climbs past $100,000. The cryptocurrency traded above $102,000 today, cementing its transformation from an asset dismissed as a fad and a sideshow into a staple of the global financial system. Bitcoin has benefited from Trump’s election victory, which industry leaders say will probably usher in a more permissive regulatory regime (see above).
France’s prime minister loses a no-confidence vote. Michel Barnier is expected to resign after the far-right National Rally party joined moves by the Parliament’s leftist coalition to oust the government. The motion underscores the political fragility of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency and leaves France without a clear path to a budget, threatening greater financial instability.
Jay Powell: “The U.S. federal budget is on an unsustainable path. The debt is not at an unsustainable level, but the path is unsustainable.”
The Fed chair’s positive assessment of the American economy helped spur the S&P 500 rally to a record high yesterday, but he added that the country’s $36 trillion debt load was a major concern that lawmakers will have to address.
Ken Griffin: “One of the things that we did see over the course of this election cycle, the American people saying: ‘I want to have agency in my life,’ and crypto’s part of that.”
The founder and C.E.O. of Citadel has long been skeptical about cryptocurrencies. While he is still not entirely convinced about crypto’s merits, he acknowledged that it “may have a future” as people seek to “get away from the yoke of government.”
Serena Williams: “It was innate for me to always have this drive to be the best, and to win.”
The 23-time Grand Slam tennis champion and managing partner of Serena Ventures was known on the court for her fiercely competitive drive. That attitude has served her well as an investor, she said. Her best bets include a stake in the Miami Dolphins and another in the Cincoro tequila brand. Asked about buying into the W.N.B.A., Williams told Andrew: “T.B.D.”
Bill Clinton: “I’m not sure it was ever going to be winnable.”
The 42nd president of the United States defended President Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden, and gave a candid assessment about why the Democratic Party lost the White House. Clinton’s conclusion: A short campaign window was just too big of a challenge for Vice President Kamala Harris to overcome.
Alex Cooper: “Do you feel safe right now with me?”
The host of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast and founder of the Unwell Network showed off her interview prowess in a wide-ranging discussion. Cooper, who reportedly signed a $125 million contract with SiriusXM, revealed how she gets people to open up about what she called “taboo” issues on her show, and denied reports that the Harris campaign paid $100,000 to construct a set for their interview.
Prince Harry: “It’s almost like a competition — who can sort of hide the truth, or lie, or mislead us more.”
The British royal discussed mental health, the dangers of social media — which he considers a public health concern — and why he sued Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloids for hacking his phones. Harry acknowledged that any settlement he might win would most likely be dwarfed by his legal costs. The case is set to go to trial next month in London.
David Ricks: “He’s obviously said and acted on things that are what we would call anti-science.”
The chair and C.E.O. of Eli Lilly didn’t flinch when asked about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, has accused the Food and Drug Administration of waging “a war on public health.” But Ricks called the agency “a gold standard” of health regulators, and said his $750 billion drug company would push back against any attempts by the Trump administration to undermine the F.D.A.
Jeff Bezos: “I’m proud of the decision we made. And it was far from cowardly because we knew there would be blowback, and we did the right thing anyway.”
The founder and executive chairman of Amazon defended a decision at The Washington Post to scrap an endorsement of Harris shortly before the election, saying it would have given a perception of bias at a time when trust in the news media is at a low point. But Bezos said that he hadn’t given up on the press — and that he would try to persuade Trump that the news media was not “the enemy.”
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