Reagan Reese
@reaganreese_
Trump frequently takes calls from reporters. Biden, not so much. Tyler Pager of the NYT got ahold of Biden’s number in March and gave him a ring. He picked up. Afterwards, Biden’s aides furiously “called and texted” Pager… days later the number appeared to be disconnected. Unbelievable.
8:35 AM · Jul 8, 2025
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https://x.com/reaganreese_/status/1942563263004164464
Trump says a new 50% tariff on copper imports is coming
By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN
Updated: 1:37 PM EDT, Tue July 8, 2025
President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’s imposing a new 50% tariff on all copper. However, it’s unclear when the new tariff would take effect.
“Today we’re doing copper,” he said at a Cabinet meeting, adding that he believed the rate will be 50%.
This would mark the fourth across-the-board tariff Trump has imposed during his second term.Currently, imported cars and car parts face a 25% tariff while imported steel and aluminum face 50% tariffs.
Trump ordered a Section 232 investigation into copper imports in February.
Copper is a crucial component in a variety of goods, including electronics, machinery and cars. Tariffs on copper could make those goods more expensive.
Copper prices surged to all-time highs after Trump said he plans to levy tariffs on the red metal. The most actively traded copper futures contract in New York jumped as much as 15% and hit a record $5.66 per pound.
Copper prices have soared 38% this year as Trump’s tariffs are set to hike the cost of importing the metal, a reflection of the stockpiling occurring to get ahead of tariffs.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/07/08/business/trump-copper-tariff
Tesla is in deeper trouble than you think
By Chris Isidore, CNN Updated: 1:57 PM EDT, Tue July 8, 20251/2
Tesla’s troubles go far beyond CEO Elon Musk’s recent dust-up with President Donald Trump, who accused the former “first buddy” of going “completely ‘off the rails’” in a social media slap fight over the weekend.
But while the battles between Musk and Trump are getting all the attention,the outlook for Tesla’s revenue and bottom line have has gotten notably worse. And the company could even be back to losing money, for reasons unrelated to Musk’s personal politics.
Musk was Trump’s largest financial supporter during the 2024 campaign, and was a mainstay at Mar-a-Lago and the White House at the start of Trump’s second term, with his role in slashing the federal workforce at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But Musk has since announced he was starting a new political party due to his displeasure with the tax and spending bill signed by Trump on Friday — and the barbs on their respective websites have only increased since then.
Shares of Tesla closed Monday down 6.8%, as investors were concerned about the implication of Musk’s latest political moves, despite his promises to re-focus on the company.
“Very simply Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the opposite direction that Tesla investors/shareholders want him to take during this crucial period for the Tesla story,” wrote Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities who’s known for being optimistic about the company.
Ives put out a follow-up note Tuesday saying that the Tesla board should set ground rules to limit Musk’s political activities because the company is at a “tipping point” for its future.
“Tesla is heading into one of the most important stages of its growth cycle with the autonomous and robotics future now on the doorstep and cannot have Musk spending more and more time creating a political party which will require countless time, energy, and political capital,” he wrote.
Still, Ives maintained his buy recommendation and $500 price target for the stock in his note. But analysts at William Blair cut their recommendation on the stock to “market perform” or neutral, and also cut their earnings forecast for the company.
Because even without the political stink, the Tesla’s financial outlook is suddenly looking notably worse.
Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. But when Ives posted his belief that the Tesla board should tie Musk’s future pay package to the amount of time he spends at Tesla and have oversight of his political “endeavors,” Musk responded with his own post on X, saying “Shut up, Dan.”
Tesla about to lose important profit driver
Blair’s note pointed out that Trump’s bill not only removed the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicle (EV) buyers, but also eliminated the financial penalties for automakers that fail to meet federal emissions targets. Emissions fines have historically forced automakers who still build primarily gasoline powered cars and trucks to buy “regulatory credits” from EV companies.
Removing those fines eliminates “market demand for Tesla’s credits,” said the note from William Blair analysts Jed Dorsheimer and Mark Shooter. The sale of those federal and state credits added $10.6 billion to Tesla’s bottom line since 2019 and often enabled the company to post a profit.
Without the revenue from those regulatory credits, the company would not have reported a positive annual net income until 2021, and it would have been back in the red again in the first quarter of this year, when its net income plunged 71% compared to a year earlier on sharply lower sales around the globe.
Musk has largely downplayed all the recent bad news, saying the company’s future rests on robots, artificial intelligence and self-driving taxis.
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/07/08/business/tesla-troubled-financial-outlook
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But the company’s taxi service is very limited to date, launching only in Austin, Texas, for a select group of customers – mostly Tesla fans – and with a Tesla employee riding in the front passenger seat to monitor the car’s performance.
That puts Tesla behind the robotaxi service already offered in Austin and three other cities – San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix – by Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent Alphabet.
And Tesla’s rollout has had its shares of problems, including a video showing a robotaxi traveling on the wrong side of the road for about half of a block and another video of a robotaxi slowly turning its front wheels into a parked car.
While Musk has promised his robotaxi service will be expanding soon across many other cities, he has not given any further details. He also hasn’t said when the Austin service will be expanded to the general public, nor when the company’s human monitors sitting in the front passenger seat will no longer be needed.
Meanwhile, Waymo has definitive plans to expand its service to Miami and Washington, DC, next year in partnership with Uber.
“We expect that investors are growing tired of the distraction at a point when the business needs Musk’s attention the most and only see downside from his dip back into politics,” said the William Blair note. “We would prefer this effort to be channeled towards the robotaxi rollout at this critical juncture.”
Drop in demand likely to continue. Then there’s the problem of Tesla’s sales. Or rather, the lack thereof.
Global sales were down a record 13% in each of the first two quarters of this year, compared to a year earlier, even though demand for EVs overall continues to climb, a further sign of Tesla’s declining market share.
Part of the lost EV market share is due to increased competition, both from Western automakers rolling out their own EV offerings, and Chinese automakers that have made a massive push into the market. Chinese automaker BYD is poised to surpass Tesla in global annual EV sales this year for the first time, even though Tesla is a still a major player in China, and BYDs are not sold in the US.
Demand is likely to weaken further come October 1, when the $7,500 tax credit for electric car buyers expires. When a previous version of the tax credit was phased out for Teslas in 2019, the company had to cut the price of the car by about half the value of the lost credit.
But Tesla has also faced missteps of Musk’s own doing. There has been backlash against Musk’s political activity, which has had a significant impact on Tesla sales. That is likely to continue even as he moves to distance himself from Trump.
In the early months of this year, hundreds of protests were held outside Tesla showrooms in the United States, Canada and Europe. Worries about self-inflicted brand damage started the company’s shares on their downward slide.
It prompted Trump, who was still Musk’s ally at the time, to announce he was buying a Tesla for himself. In March, the president hosted an event at the White House urging others to buy the company’s cars. At one point, Musk and Tesla investors might have hoped that in a closely divided country, the lost sales to Trump critics might be at least partly made up for by sales to Trump fans.
ButMusk seems to now face the possibility of backlash from both sides of the political spectrum.
“He’s been able to alienate everyone, which many thought was impossible, but he’s actually been able to do it,” Ives told CNN Monday. “And the problem is, this soap opera just keeps going on.”
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/07/08/business/tesla-troubled-financial-outlook
Wall Street is calling Trump’s bluff
By John Towfighi, CNN Tue July 8, 2025
President Donald Trump is threatening to revive his trade war.Wall Street isn’t too concerned.Global markets were relatively calm Tuesday after Trump on Monday ratcheted up his tariff campaign — but extended the deadline to August 1 and said he was open to negotiations.That provided a sense of optimism for investors.
Stocks across Asia — including in Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong and Bombay — opened higher on Tuesday. US stocks opened mostly higher: The Dow fell 57 points, or 0.13%. The S&P 500 rose 0.05% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.3%.
Market movements were relatively muted, signaling investors think Trump’s new tariffs are more negotiating tactics than firm policy. It’s a noticeable change from early April, when Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs sent stocks plummeting.
Three months after Trump initially announced massive “reciprocal” tariffs and then instigated a 90-day pause, Wall Street is looking through the tariff rhetoric.
“This latest round of tariff news feels more like an aftershock, one the market was prepared for, rather than the seismic event that shook markets on ‘Liberation Day’ over three months ago,” Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG Australia, said in a note.
Trump late Monday told reporters at the White House that the August 1 deadline is “firm, but not 100% firm.”
The tariff letters are “more or less” final offers, Trump said. “I would say final, but if they call with a different offer and I like it, we’ll do it.” “If they call up and they say ‘we’d like to do something a different way,’ we’re going to be open to that,” the president said.
“Yesterday’s letters and tariff tweets, I would categorize it as same threat, different goalpost,” Kurt Reiman, head of fixed income at UBS Global Wealth Management, said.
Investors in recent weeks have embraced the “TACO trade,” betting that “Trump always chickens out” on his major tariff threats — especially if there is an adverse reaction in markets.“This opens the door for another round of ‘TACO Tuesday,’ Trump-style,” Sycamore said. (They will be surprised)
Markets look through tariffs
US stocks fell on Monday after Trump announced a slew of new tariffs,but losses were relatively contained: The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished the day lower by less than 1%. Wall Street has wrestled with Trump’s on-and-off tariffs for months. While the president is considering reigniting his trade war, investors say markets are taking it with a grain of salt.
“Markets have broadly shrugged off the tariff news overnight,” Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC, said. “Essentially, the door remains open for individual economies to whittle down proposed tariffs through negotiations.”
“Investors are taking the glass-half-full view at the moment, enjoying the reprieve from the deadline extension, rather than focus on the reiteration of the potential tariff levels should negotiations fall through,” he added.
The new tariff announcements are a “speed bump” as opposed to something that would “derail” the momentum in stocks, according to Mohit Kumar, chief strategist and economist for Europe at Jefferies.
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/07/08/economy/us-stock-market
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“Singling out certain countries for higher tariffs is a way of putting pressure on these and other countries to agree to a deal sooner rather than later,”Kumar said. Trump so far has only announced frameworks for trade deals with the United Kingdom, China and Vietnam. Peter Navarro, White House senior counsel for trade, had said in April the administration would pursue “90 deals in 90 days.”
Trump on Monday sent letters to 14 countries outlining proposed tariff rates.
Investors are still keeping their eyes peeled for announcements about potential deals or tariff letters for dozens of trading partners including India, Taiwan and the European Union.
More than just tariff deadlines in focus
The S&P 500 has notched four record highs since June 27 as investors have begun to look past tariff anxieties. Wall Street heavyweights are expecting a push to higher levels.
Bank of America on Tuesday raised its year-end forecast for the S&P 500 to 6,300 from 5,600. Goldman Sachs on Monday raised its year-end forecast for the S&P 500 to 6,600 from 6,100, citing expectations of sooner-than-anticipated Federal Reserve rate cuts, “fundamental strength” of large US stocks and “investors’ willingness to look through likely near-term earnings weakness.”
Analysts at Barclays said in a June note that markets were beginning to “turn the page” on tariffs to focus more on how artificial intelligence is impacting corporate earnings and how economic data continues to hold up.
David Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors, said he thinks tariffs are at the lower end of the list of things markets are concerned about.
“I think the market has moved on from it,” he said. “If there was some market volatility, Trump’s probably going to give in.”
Investors are now viewing tariff uncertainty within the broader context of Trump’s agenda, Michael Reynolds, vice president for investment strategy at Glenmede, said. Trump last week succeeded in passing his budget bill, which provided more clarity for Wall Street.
Uncertainty lingers
Wall Street is betting Trump won’t push for tariff rates that would destabilize the global economy, enabling stocks to grind higher. Some analysts warn of complacency.
“This modest reaction is perhaps a function of the market pricing in the ability to negotiate down tariffs, or perhaps a continuation of the TACO trade,” said Michael Wan, senior currency analyst at MUFG, in a note. “We are not so sure on our end, and it does seem to us like overall risk assets seem too sanguine to these tariff rates which are essentially quite similar to Liberation Day.”
Sarah Bianchi, senior managing director at Evercore ISI, said in a note thatTrump is “feeling good about recent victories” and with stocks near record highs, he is more likely to lean into imposing his tariff agenda.
Inflation data for June will be released next week, providing more insight into the economic impact of tariffs. In the meantime, investors will be on the watch for announcements about potential trade deals or tariffs.
“With the proverbial can likely to be kicked further down the road, leaving negotiators a bit more room to maneuver … markets are pricing little signs of concern,” analysts at Barclays said in a note. “However, it remains prudent to consider all possible scenarios, given the narrative around tariffs remains quite fluid and Trump maintains a ‘do whatever we want’ position.”
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/07/08/economy/us-stock-market
>>23294654, >>23294822, >>23295132 WATCH LIVE: President Trump Holds a Cabinet Meeting at The White House - 7/8/25
Question:Why is VP Vance across the table from Trump, and Rubio & Hegseth beside him?
I didn't even see Vance at the Netanyahu dinner last night. What's going on?
Apple Loses Top AI Models Executive to Meta’s Hiring Spree
By Mark Gurman July 8, 2025 at 2:11 AM UTC1/2
Takeaways by Bloomberg AI
• ==Ruoming Pang]], a distinguished engineer and manager in charge of Apple's foundation models team, is leaving for Meta Platforms Inc.
• Meta offered Pang a package worth tens of millions of dollars per year, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
• Pang's departure could be the start of a string of exits from the AFM group, with several engineers telling colleagues they are planning to leave in the near future to Meta or elsewhere, the people said.
Apple Inc.’s top executive in charge of artificial intelligence models is leaving for Meta Platforms Inc., another setback in the iPhone maker’s struggling AI efforts.
Ruoming Pang, a distinguished engineer and manager in charge of the company’s Apple foundation models team, is departing, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Pang, who joined Apple from Alphabet Inc. in 2021, is the latest big hire for Meta’s new superintelligence group, said the people, who declined to be named discussing unannounced personnel moves.
To secure Pang,Meta offered a package worth tens of millions of dollars per year, the people said. Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has been on a hiring spree, bringing on major AI leaders including Scale AI’sAlexandr Wang, startup founder Daniel Gross and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman with high compensation.
Meta has also hiredYuanzhi Li, a researcher from OpenAI, and Anton Bakhtin, who worked on Claude at Anthropic PBC, according to other people with knowledge of the matter. Last month, it hired a slew of other OpenAI researchers.
Meta, later on Monday, confirmed it is hiring Pang. Apple, Pang, OpenAI and Anthropic didn’t respond to requests for comment.
At Meta, Zuckerberg has made AI the company’s top priority as it races to keep pace with rivals like OpenAI and Google. Zuckerberg has been heavily involved in recruiting for the company’s AI division, hosting potential hires at his homes in Silicon Valley and Lake Tahoe, and often reaching out personally to potential recruits.
Zuckerberg restructured the company’s AI teams at the end of June to better focus on “superintelligence,” or AI technology that can complete tasks as well as or even better than humans. Meta will spend tens of billions of dollars on AI-related efforts this year, the company has announced, with much of that money going toward infrastructure like data centers and chips.
At Apple,Pang had been running a roughly 100-person teamresponsible for the company’s large language models, which underpin Apple Intelligence and other AI features on the company’s devices. In June, Apple announced that those models would be opened up to third-party developers for the first time, allowing for a range of new iPhone and iPad apps.
But internally, the foundation models team has come under scrutiny from new leadership, which is exploring the use of third-party models, including from either OpenAI or Anthropic, to power a new version of Siri. Those internal discussions have soured some of the morale on the foundation models team, also known as AFM, in recent weeks.
https://archive.is/fVNLa#selection-1213.0-2137.6
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While the company has explored a move to a third-party solution to power the AI in the new Siri, it has simultaneously been working on a new version of Siri based on the models developed by Pang’s group. Those models also power Apple Intelligence features that run on Apple devices including email and web article summaries, Genmoji and Priority Notifications.
The major departure, the most significant in Apple’s AI ranks since the company started working on Apple Intelligence a few years ago,underscores the heightened competition for talent in the emerging space. Meta has been making offers to the world’s top engineers worth many millions of dollars per year — significantly more than what the iPhone maker pays its engineers doing similar work.
Pang’s departure could be the start of a string of exits from the AFM group, with several engineers telling colleagues they are planning to leave in the near future to Meta or elsewhere, the people said. Tom Gunter, a top deputy to Pang, left Apple last month, Bloomberg reported at the time.
The foundation models team reports toDaphne Luong, a top deputy to AI senior vice president John Giannandrea. Earlier this year, Giannandrea was sidelined internally and saw Siri, robotics, Core ML and App Intents frameworks and other consumer product-related teams stripped from his command. That came after a poor response to Apple Intelligence and continued delays for new Siri features, including the ability to tap into user data to fulfill commands.
With Pang’s departure, the AFM team will now be run byZhifeng Chen. In a change from a structure under Pang where most of the engineers reported to him directly, there will be a new organizational layout that includes multiple managers reporting to Chen, who will then have engineers reporting to them. People close to the team indicate thatChong Wang, Zirui Wang, Chung-Cheng Chiu and Guoli Yincould be possible managers in the new structure.
Apple’s overall AI strategy is now run primarily by Craig Federighi, Apple’s head of software engineering, and Mike Rockwell, who helped create the Apple Vision Pro headset and now leads engineering for Siri. For his part, Giannandrea is in charge of Apple’s AI research arm. In June, at its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple’s own AI only got a small showing, appearing in new features for translating calls and text messages.
The few other AI features, including analysis of on-device screenshots and improved image generation, came courtesy of partners, including OpenAI and Google. The company also rolled out a new version of Xcode that can handle code completion by tapping into Claude and ChatGPT.
https://archive.is/fVNLa#selection-1213.0-2137.6
(Are any of these hires investigated for ties to the CCP, born in China and/or are soldiers for China? Most of the young people, are sent over to US Universities, get our training, manipulate our culture and other subversive plans.But China requires any student or Chinese citizen living in the US, report back and spy for the CCP. It seems fraught with danger to have Chinese agents inventing AI models, that certainly influence people, children with horrendous ideas, and anyone that uses AI! What if the companies don’t really understand how they are programming AI? Almost all of the TECH companies have a lot of Chinese and Indians employees.)