Good morning. Andrew here. Our “Picture of the Day” on Friday, featuring a C.E.O. caught with his colleague from H.R. at a Coldplay concert, was just beginning to go viral and has since exploded into the meme of the summer. The executive, Andy Byron of Astronomer, resigned over the weekend. This incident raises a big question: What does this image and the ensuing public outrage reveal about us? That’s what I’ve been thinking about most as copycat images appear everywhere. The moment seems to encapsulate the pervasive schadenfreude within our culture, especially our office culture, and a deep-seated animosity toward bosses and colleagues. It highlights a zero-sum mentality in which a colleague’s success is perceived as your loss, and their failure your gain. Of course, this shouldn’t be the case, and it should prompt us to consider how we can collectively foster a world that is a bit more supportive and gracious. The incident also underscores our surveillance state. We’re constantly being captured, our every move potentially recorded and identified. This omnipresent digital gaze is a double-edged sword. What are your thoughts? Let me know. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)
“Political interference”As next week’s deadline on trade talks looms, President Trump has continued to wage war on the Fed’s independence. That doesn’t seem to be bothering traders, though, with the Nasdaq Composite sitting in record territory and stock futures pointing to a solid opening this morning. That calm could be tested this week as 135 companies from the S&P 500 are set to report quarterly results, which will give investors fresh insight into how Trump’s trade war is affecting profits. Shares of Stellantis, the Jeep maker, fell this morning after the company reported a first-half loss of 2.3 billion euros ($2.68 billion), a hit worsened by tariffs. Tariff negotiations are a big focus. Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” yesterday that the administration was on track to strike a deal with the European Union, a major trading partner, by next week. He added that the Aug. 1 deadline would not be extended. The view from Brussels appears less assured, with officials telling Bloomberg they’re bracing for the worst case as they prepare to draw up retaliatory measures if no deal is reached. The Fed remains a wild card, too. Trump yesterday blasted a Wall Street Journal report that his Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, in recent days had talked him out of firing Jay Powell. Bessent, according to the report, was concerned that a hairy confrontation with the Fed chair could spook the markets and ding the economy. (Others have advised Trump that to try to oust Powell over costs incurred in renovating the Fed headquarters, a legal avenue the administration has considered, would be an uphill battle.) And besides, Bessent has told Trump that the Fed is likely to cut rates soon, the Journal article reported, though probably not to levels Trump would like. On Truth Social, Trump weighed in, writing, “nobody had to explain” to him that such a move “would be bad for the Market.” The outlook for cut is murky, though. The futures market this morning was pricing in roughly two cuts this year, but Mohit Kumar, an economist at Jefferies, can see how that bet could unravel. With succession drama hanging over the Fed (more on that below), “the sensitivity to employment data has likely gone up,” he wrote in an investor note this morning. “If we do get a slowdown in August data, which is our expectations, we should see a rate cut in September. However, higher inflation would prevent a more aggressive Fed.” Such uncertainty could jolt the bond market. Last week, as the Trump-Fed drama cranked up, bets rose in the markets that a Powell replacement would be more likely to lower borrowing costs. That caused a mini-rally in two-year Treasury notes, but it also sent yields on 10-year Treasury notes and 30-year Treasury bonds higher. Bloomberg calls it “the Powell hedge.” Most analysts see Powell as safe. But with each attack from Trump, the market thinking adjusts. “We would have always assumed there is no basis for firing a Fed chair and the Fed has been immune from political interference,” Mark Dowding, a chief investment officer at RBC Global Asset Management, told Bloomberg. “There is a clear sense that this is now changing.”
Lawmakers call for more Jeffrey Epstein details. Members of Congress, including Representative Tim Burchett, Republican of Tennessee, suggested this weekend that they would like to see additional files about the Epstein case made public as bipartisan calls for greater transparency grow louder. Alan Dershowitz, a former Epstein attorney, told “Fox News Sunday” that what the Trump administration has vowed to release — grand jury testimony — was unlikely to be all that revelatory. This suggests that the uproar could increase, especially with the president’s base. Voters deliver a blow to Japan’s ruling coalition. The long-governing Liberal Democratic Party and its ruling partner lost seats in parliamentary elections last night as public anger has grown over a cost-of-living crisis. But the Japanese yen rallied this morning as Shigeru Ishiba, the country’s prime minister, said he would not step down as trade talks reached a crucial stage. Tech earnings will be in focus this week. On deck are analyst calls from General Motors and Coca-Cola tomorrow and from artificial intelligence bellwethers — Tesla and Google — on Wednesday. Elsewhere, Jay Powell, the Fed chair, is due to speak tomorrow, and it’s decision day for the European Union on Thursday. Could Trump force Europe to go easy on Big Tech?The European Union’s position as a major global enforcer for Big Tech has long been assailed by both Silicon Valley and the Trump administration. As trade talks between Brussels and Washington reach a pivotal stretch, observers are closely watching to see if the bloc’s tough rulebook can withstand President Trump’s trade war. At the heart of the matter is the case against X, Elon Musk’s social media company, David Meyer reports. It stands accused of breaching the E.U.’s Digital Services Act, a law that governs online content, which threatens it with fines of up to 6 percent of global annual revenue. A recap: Last year, the European Commission said that X had breached the act by allowing people to buy blue check marks, a symbol of account verification, to deceive others about their identities, and that it fell short of transparency requirements. Bloomberg reported that the bloc’s executive body was expected to impose a fine this month. But Trump has thrown such cases into question. He and his negotiators have turned E.U. enforcement of America’s tech giants into a trade issue. Peter Navarro, a Trump trade adviser, has characterized E.U. crackdowns on big American tech companies as “lawfare” that could lead to retaliatory tariffs. Meta in particular has made it clear that it wants the administration to defend it from what it calls “discriminatory” European enforcement. Those attacks forced the commission to repeatedly defend the E.U.’s tech laws as being fairly applied. And Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s top tech official, told Politico this month that they were “not part of trade negotiations from our side.” But new questions are arising after The Financial Times reported last week that the commission had essentially put X’s case on pause because of U.S.-E.U. talks. (That comes even with Trump and Musk on the outs.) The law’s backers are worried. While other investigations are underway as part of the Digital Services Act, into companies like Meta and TikTok, “this is a leading case and will be indicative for how the commission implements the D.S.A.,” Wolfgang Schulz, director of the Leibniz Institute of Media Research, told DealBook. It’s worth noting that the commission is the D.S.A.’s primary enforcer and that it handles E.U. trade relations. With Trump threatening 30 percent tariffs on E.U. imports, it’s easy to see how the bloc’s tech enforcement could be dragged into the talks, experts say. Thomas Regnier, a spokesman for the commission, told DealBook the X case was “ongoing” and that enforcement was independent of trade negotiations. “The commission remains fully committed to the effective enforcement of digital legislation,” he added. But he did not dispute The FT’s report about the delay of X’s fine.
What commentators are saying overseas about Trump vs. PowellPresident Trump’s clash with Jerome Powell, the Fed chair, has become a major talking point beyond Wall Street and Washington — and not only because it could rock the global economy and harm global investors. Here is what DealBook is hearing and seeing:
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
Deals
Politics, policy and regulation
Best of the rest
Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow. We’d like your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.
|
