Good morning. Andrew here. The A.I. boom continues unabated. Meta said last night that it would spend up to $135 billion on capex this year, much of it on its A.I. efforts — and its stock went up. More below. Another story that could have a generational impact: growing support for Trump Accounts, the investment vehicles for children born between calendar years 2025 and 2028 that will be seeded with $1,000 each. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo now plan to match those funds for employees. Other companies are expected to follow suit — as is a famous musician who is making a donation to her fans. Check out the picture of the day below. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)
Big Tech’s big spendComing into earnings season, investors had big questions about technology giants’ end game for artificial intelligence. How much more would they spend? And what will the payoff be? So far, the answers are: a lot, and it’s still not entirely clear. The first helps explain why Microsoft’s stock is down more than 6 percent after the company reported earnings yesterday. The second is partly why Meta’s is up 8 percent. Companies’ A.I. spending plans remain astronomical. Microsoft spent $37.5 billion in capital expenditures in its most recent quarter, up 65 percent year-on-year. Meta said it planned to spend $115 billion to $135 billion on capex this year, nearly double the $72 billion it spent last year. This is largely focused on data centers — and doesn’t account for other huge A.I. spending plans, which include Meta buying a Singapore-based A.I. start-up for $2 billion, or Microsoft reportedly planning to invest billions more in OpenAI. One thing worth watching: whether soaring prices for copper and silver, metals needed for data centers, could force companies to spend even more on A.I. infrastructure. (Other tech giants have also disclosed that they intend to spend big on A.I.: Tesla said it would invest $2 billion in xAI and spend $20 billion in capex to move beyond making electric vehicles.) What will the payoff be?
The bigger picture: How will investors feel if companies’ margins remain depressed for a long time amid all of their spending? And how will they ultimately measure success? Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, for one, sought to temper expectations for his A.I. splurge. While he expects the company’s forthcoming A.I. models to be “good,” he told investors, they could be better seen as a sign of what’s to come. Whether they’ll be enough to help Meta close the gap with rivals like OpenAI and Google remains unclear. On deck: Apple reports today, with analysts eager to hear more about its plans to partner with Google on embedding A.I. in its devices. Google is set to release earnings on Feb. 4.
Oil prices spike as President Trump threatens Iran. Brent crude, the international benchmark, hit $70 a barrel for the first time since September after the president warned that Tehran could face a U.S. attack unless it agreed to negotiations involving its nuclear program. (Trump wrote on social media yesterday that an “armada” was “heading to Iran” and was ready to act “with speed and violence.”) Separately, the dollar rebounded and the yen plummeted after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Washington would not intervene to bolster Japan’s currency. Barry Diller is said to be interested in buying CNN. The billionaire mogul spoke with Warner Bros. Discovery last year about buying the cable news channel, but the company didn’t take any serious action, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited anonymous sources. Warner Bros. Discovery plans to include CNN with other cable-TV assets that would be spun off into a public company, and then sell its remaining businesses to Netflix. It told The Journal that CNN “was not and is not for sale.” Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer seek to avoid a government shutdown. The two have discussed a plan that would cleave off legislation for funding the Department of Homeland Security from other bills to fund other government programs, The Times reports. No deal has been reached; the deadline before a shutdown is tomorrow at midnight. Fed fireworksSuccession drama and political intrigue continue to loom large at the Fed. That was clear from yesterday’s news conference with Jay Powell, the Fed chair, after the central bank’s policymakers voted to hold interest rates steady in a range of 3.5 percent to 3.75 percent. While the briefing barely moved markets, Wall Street and Washington did hear Powell emphasize the importance of Fed independence amid President Trump’s pressure campaign. The latest: Given persistently high inflation, investors this morning are betting that the Fed would keep its benchmark lending rate unchanged for the remainder of Powell’s term as chair, which ends in May. “Powell’s presser validated market pricing,” Aditya Bhave, an economist at Bank of America, wrote in a research note yesterday. “We remain comfortable that the Fed won’t cut again under his leadership.” The news conference opened with a bang. Here’s what we learned: Powell wouldn’t say whether he would stay at the Fed beyond May. He could remain as a Fed governor through January 2028, potentially denying Trump a chance to appoint a loyalist to the rates-setting committee. By keeping everyone guessing about his future, Powell is holding his “last and only card” over the administration, The Wall Street Journal notes. What’s the latest on the administration’s federal criminal investigation into him? Again, Powell stayed mum. This month, he made the unusual move of releasing a video message in which he called out the Trump administration for using legal threats as “pretexts” to potentially influence the Fed’s interest rates policy. (Trump was largely quiet yesterday, but he did repost to Truth Social a CNBC story that, citing an unnamed source, said the Fed had not complied with grand jury subpoenas issued as part of the Justice Department’s investigation.) Powell did speak about why he attended last week’s Supreme Court hearing involving another embattled Fed official, Lisa Cook. The administration has sought to fire the Fed governor over accusations of mortgage fraud, a charge she denies. The justices seemed poised to rule against the administration in a case that legal experts say could upend Fed independence. “That case is perhaps the most important legal case in the Fed’s 113-year history,” Powell said yesterday, adding: “I thought it might be hard to explain why I didn’t attend.” Later, Powell said Fed independence would be hard to regain if it were lost. But, he said, “I don’t believe we will.”
Picture of the dayPresident Trump’s plan to create investment accounts for children has a high-profile new supporter: Nicki Minaj. The rapper, who described herself as “probably the president’s No. 1 fan,” joined Trump in Washington yesterday to promote the so-called Trump Accounts, which would give $1,000 each to children born in the U.S. from Jan. 1, 2025 to Dec. 31, 2028. Minaj has pledged to contribute $150,000 to $300,000 to the program to benefit her fans. She joins other prominent supporters such as Michael and Susan Dell, who previously pledged $6.25 billion dollars to benefit up to 25 million children. Yesterday, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo said they would match the government’s contributions for children of employees eligible for the program. And Visa’s C.E.O., Ryan McInerney, said that the credit card giant planned to allow customers to direct card rewards into the accounts. Mamdani versus the wealthyMayor Zohran Mamdani is not giving up on his campaign pledge to tax the wealthiest New Yorkers. Yesterday, the mayor used his latest budget briefing to put pressure on Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York to impose higher taxes on the state’s richest residents to plug what he called a $12 billion budget shortfall. The new mayor, a democratic socialist, told Andrew on CNBC that addressing the fiscal hole would require “increased revenue on the top 1 percent of New Yorkers.” That prospect has set off alarm bells for New York’s ultrarich, Niko Gallogly reports. Some threatened during the mayoral campaign to leave the city if Mamdani’s proposal became policy. Now that the mayor is pushing ahead, a big question looms: Is this a real red line? The answer is yes, according to Steven Fulop, the president and C.E.O. of the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group. “Businesses will choose to move out of New York and new businesses will make the decision not to start in New York,” Fulop told DealBook. Other policy experts play down the risk. They cite examples in which tax increases haven’t incited a wealth exodus. When the billionaire Mike Bloomberg faced a budget deficit in his first term as mayor of New York, he raised property taxes by 18.5 percent. Rich New Yorkers grumbled but mostly didn’t leave. And since Massachusetts passed its own “millionaire’s tax” in 2022, the state has collected $5.7 billion in additional revenue while growing its base of millionaires, according to a study by People’s Policy Project, a left-leaning research organization. Another reason the wealthy may stick around: Leaving is a headache. Kenneth Zemsky, a tax lawyer, told The Times that only about one in 10 of his clients who inquire about leaving the city end up doing so because of the hassle involved. Then there’s the political reality. “In the fiscal arm wrestling between the governor and the mayor, the governor holds the power,” Chris McNickle, the author of several books about New York City mayors, told DealBook. For now, Hochul seems to be maintaining her position that she’s not inclined to raise taxes on the wealthy. “I don’t think it affects what I’m doing,” she said of Mamdani’s proposed tax plan.
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