Good morning. Donald Trump is hell-bent on winning the AI race. Elon Musk wants unprecedented access to your mind. And US policies are putting tourism dollars at risk. Listen to the day’s top stories.
AI is a magnet for investors knee-deep in corporate earnings reports. Alphabet’s AI spending needs are set to skyrocket after it posted strong results. South Korea’s SK Hynix is also upsizing its AI wallet after reporting record earnings. Meanwhile, tariff volaility generated a windfall for Deutsche Bank’s fixed income traders. And there’s more of that to come.
Trump set a 15% floor for reciprocal tariffs, the latest twist in his bid to impose duties on pretty much every US trading partner. Global stocks continued their rally as bulls bet on more trade deals soon after the US clinched a pact with Japan. But, while Trump hailed that as a potential model for other countries hoping to win concessions, some are querying whether he gave away too much.
Donald Trump and his future wife Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 12, 2000. Photographer: Davidoff Studios/Getty Images
Epstein’s ghost. A Republican-led House committee subpoenaed convicted sex offender and Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to testify next month. The move came just minutes before the Wall Street Journal published a report drawing a link between Trump and the disgraced financier. A federal judge in Florida denied a request by the administration to unseal some documents relating to Epstein.
Deep Dive: Brain Power
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Elon Musk’s Neuralink aims to implant brain chips in 20,000 people a year by 2031, targeting over $1 billion in revenue, in a major ramp up of its work to treat disease and access to the human mind, documents reviewed by Bloomberg show.
That’s a quantum leap given fewer than 10 people are publicly known to have Neuralink brain devices so far as part of clinical trials, and no patients have them for the goals of restoring vision or treating Parkinson’s disease.
But it shows the enormous scale of Musk’s vision and the ambitious timeline on which he seeks to operate. And he’s managed to persuade a few investors to come on board, giving Neuralink a valuation of $9 billion, according to PitchBook.
He’s not the only one trying to advance brain-computer interface technology to better human health. China is hot on his heels and showing early signs of success.
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is also getting in on the act. And Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam has hired at least eight ex-Neuralink employees as he too jumps into the brain-health business.
The Big Take
Ronald Lauder.
Ronald Lauder waged a five-year campaign to force Credit Suisse—and later UBS—to re-examine the bank’s mishandling of Holocaust victims’ money. After investigators uncovered records missed in a 1990s probe, the final chapter in one of finance’s darkest legacies may soon be rewritten.
Opinion
A Tesla Cybertruck at the company's store in Colma, California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Tesla’s latest earnings show its struggles in EV sales continue, Liam Denning writes. Musk’s focus on AI and robotics means the company’s remarkably patient investors now exist almost entirely on a diet of wild promises.
Shrinking tourism dollars. More than taking in views from the top of the Empire State Building or shaking hands with Mickey Mouse, visitors to the US come to do one thing: Shop. Not any more. We did the math and Trump’s trade war and border policies are putting almost $20 billion in tourism dollars at risk this year.
Amazon doubled the length of its summer Prime Day sale this year to give customers extra time to browse. But, with rising prices top of mind, shoppers surfed the web comparing deals, and a lot of their dollars went to Walmart instead.
