Don’t be fooled Monday—this will be no normal Martin Luther King holiday. Markets might be shut but President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration has all the makings of a momentous event spawning a raft of market sensitive news and policy announcements.
TikTok Chief Executive Shou Chew will be there. His company is facing the imminent threat of a shutdown—the deadline is Sunday for the company to show progress on separating itself from its Chinese owner ByteDance.
With Trump, President Joe Biden, and members of Congress all trying to work out some kind of extension, it’s hard to imagine the shutdown will actually happen. But it’s possible that the platform goes dark—at least for a while—if a deal doesn’t get done on time. In any case, it’s amusing to see how lawmakers are scrambling when forced to choose between tackling a national security threat and alienating millions of young voters.
Trump’s return to the White House will have big implications for stocks, bonds, and other assets. Investors have priced in a view that
he will fully follow through with his promises.
For example, Bitcoin has popped back above $100,000 and the popular altcoin XRP is still rallying. The crypto community is hopeful Trump’s administration will be
friendlier than Biden’s was.
Currency traders are taking the president-elect’s tariff plans seriously. Treasury secretary nominee Scott Bessent said yesterday that a 10% tariff should cause the greenback to appreciate 4%—about the amount it has gained since the election. That’s bad for stocks, since it reduces the value of any company earnings abroad and makes U.S. exports more expensive.
Yet stocks are
still up since November on expectations for Trump to push through deregulation and tax cuts. Early next week Netflix and United Airlines will be among the first big names to report earnings
amid the new presidency.
Financial markets are all about second guessing what will happen next. Trump may well deliver on all his promises quickly, but surely the risk for investors now is that the high expectations aren’t met.
—Brian Swint
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Inauguration Weekend: Billionaires, Candlelight Dinners, Crypto Ball
American corporations are going all-in on bankrolling Donald Trump’s inauguration, with a range of companies from crypto exchange Coinbase to aerospace giant Lockheed Martin announcing gifts of $1 million or more to fund this weekend’s balls, dinners, and other festivities.
- The inauguration has raised more than $200 million through the official inaugural committee as well as allied political action committees and nonprofits, nearly twice the $107 million Trump raised for his first inauguration in 2017.
- Just two of the Magnificent Seven companies have not chipped in. Nvidia is the biggest name in Big Tech missing from the donor list, and Tesla itself hasn’t announced a
contribution, but its CEO Elon Musk personally donated some $240 million to Trump and other Republicans.
- Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos are all expected to be seated near cabinet members at the inauguration ceremony, and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, and Apple’s Tim Cook will also be there.
- Big donors get invited to a reception at the National Gallery of Art and a candlelight dinner at the National Building Museum. New donors this year include health company Hims & Hers and McDonald’s. Microsoft has given at least $500,000 for every inauguration since Barack Obama’s in 2013.
What’s Next: Later today, the crypto industry is holding the first ever inaugural Crypto Ball, hosted by David Sacks, the former PayPal executive who will be Trump’s AI and crypto czar. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is among the sponsors.
—Anita Hamilton
Politicians Racing to Save TikTok From Their Own Ban
Politicians are scrambling to undo their own handiwork as Sunday’s deadline looms for TikTok’s U.S. ban unless the video-sharing platform can find a buyer. President Joe Biden, who signed the ban into law last year, and President-elect Donald Trump are both working on ways to extend the deadline, reports said.
- Trump is considering issuing an executive order that would suspend the measure for 60 to 90 days. But his inauguration isn’t until a day after the ban is scheduled to take effect. A Trump transition spokeswoman told Barron’s that Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to “save TikTok.” Biden may not enforce a ban, the AP reported.
- TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew is planning to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday alongside tech and social media billionaires. Chew has
repeatedly pushed back at criticism of TikTok. Lawmakers originally pushed to ban it on national security grounds, fearing its parent ByteDance is controlled by the Chinese government.
- The Supreme Court is expected to decide this week on whether to uphold the law after hearing TikTok’s free speech arguments this month. The law says a president can issue a 90-day extension to delay a ban, but certain conditions need to be met, including significant progress toward a sale.
- Sen. Chuck Schumer said TikTok needs more time to find an American buyer, and Senate Democrats tried to pass a bill extending Sunday’s deadline, but Republicans blocked it. He said they would try to keep TikTok alive.
What’s Next: Without a reprieve, TikTok intends to completely shut down its U.S. operations on Sunday, The Information reported. The law requires that app stores remove TikTok for new downloads and that cloud providers stop hosting U.S. user data.
—Janet H. Cho and George Glover
Musk and Bezos Ratchet Up Competition in Space Business
Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the seventh test of its Starship, successfully “catching” the lower half of the rocket with mechanical hands but losing the upper stage of the craft in an explosion. Earlier Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin launched its New Glenn rocket for the first time.
- In addition to catching the rocket, SpaceX’s mission was to evaluate new avionics—the electrical systems in aircraft—upgrades to propulsion and heat shields, and other changes. The lower-stage booster
