• In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles.
• The big story: Trump’s movie tax may have the opposite effect of the one intended.
• The markets: Western markets are down, Asian markets are up.
• Analyst notes from EY on Fed independence, JPMorgan Chase on global GDP, JPMorgan Chase on earnings, and Pantheon Macroeconomics on employment.
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning from the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, an annual gathering of policymakers and leaders focused on finance, philanthropy, and health. That intersection makes for interesting juxtapositions, where university and NGO leaders who are feeling the pain of Trump Administration policies mingle with investors seeing opportunities to profit. Elon Musk spoke about DOGE and the future of humanity at a private meeting, one attendee told me, not necessarily in that order. At my dinner last night, speakers pivoted from the power grid to power politics.
Of course, tariffs remain top of mind. While Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told an audience that trade, tax cuts, and deregulation would spur greater U.S. prosperity, how and when that will happen remains unclear. (My colleague Jeff John Roberts has a deeper analysis of Bessent’s remarks.) Bessent didn’t speak much about tariffs specifically but mentioned lowering U.S. debt to around 3% and growing manufacturing in the U.S.
In the panel that followed, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser noted that the bank’s clients could accept 10% tariffs, vs. 25%, and are waiting for certainty. BCG Global Chair Rich Lesser is advising his clients to focus on pricing strategies and productivity: “Leveraging AI, building adaptiveness, these are essentially no-regret moves.”
Many of the investors I’ve talked to here are confident that this is a good time to make money. When it comes to opportunistic credit investments, Victor Khosla of Strategic Value Partners said, “we were really busy last year and we’ve gotten a lot busier.”
John Koudounis, CEO of Calamos Investments, launched a capital-protected Bitcoin ETF this year to capitalize on renewed interest in cryptocurrencies amid Trump’s support. “We’d like to bring more people into the asset class,” he said. “If you look at the average mom and pop, they’re scared.”
Who can blame them? As AON CEO Greg Case put it: “We’re not talking nearly enough about the connectivity of risk”—examining the impact of trends in trade, technology, weather, and the workforce. “We continue to see the value of working together, public and private. When it works, it’s amazing.”
More news below.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
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Trump’s movie tax will lead to fewer and more expensive films, experts said. Shares in Netflix and Paramount slid on Monday, following the president’s announcement.
The president will make personal calls to CEOs who do things he disagrees with. “I’ll always call people if I disagree with them,” Trump said. “If I think that somebody is doing something that’s incorrect, wrong, or maybe hurtful to the country, I’ll call. Wouldn’t you want me to call?”
Non-profit retains control of OpenAI. OpenAI announced on Monday that its non-profit arm will continue to have control over the AI giant, reversing its controversial campaign to spin out as a for-profit company. The decision makes the for-profit arm of OpenAI a public benefit corporation, but how this new power structure will work in practice remains to be seen.
Melania memecoin insiders made $100 million. In the minutes before the First Lady’s crypto token was announced, two dozen crypto wallets bought $2.6 million worth of the coin. In the 12 hours afterwards, they sold off 81% of their stake.
The White House bans “gain of function” research. This type of research was being done on coronaviruses at the lab in Wuhan immediately prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
DoorDash will buy U.K.'s Deliveroo for $3.9 billion. That’s a 44% premium on Deliveroo stock.
University researchers are dismayed at a stop-work order from the Trump administration that will delay their research into cancer, dementia, and other serious illnesses. The order is part of the White House’s cuts to NIH funding.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent dozens more messages about military operations in Signal chats than previously known, the WSJ reports. Separately, former national security advisor Mike Waltz was seen using TeleMessage, a Signal chat archiving tool that has been widely hacked.
Wharton professor predicts no interest rate cuts. Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel said on Monday that he predicts Fed Chair Jerome Powell will not announce interest rate cuts when he speaks on Friday. Market analysts feel the same, and Siegel thinks this inaction may prompt Trump to escalate attacks on Powell.
Day 1 of Brainstorm AI in London begins. Highlights include Thomas Wolf, cofounder and chief science officer of Hugging Face and Tye Brady, chief technologist, Amazon Robotics. See the livestream here (begins at 1 p.m. London time).
The markets
• The S&P 500 declined 0.64% yesterday following nine straight days of gains. President Trump’s announcement of a 100% tax on American movie production in foreign countries sent Netflix down 2%, Paramount down 1.6%, and Disney down 0.4%. S&P futures pointed to more gloom today: Contracts were priced down 0.71% in premarket trading. The VIX fear index is up 9% today. Asian markets, by contrast, are up this morning: China’s SSE Composite was up 1% this morning (and is up 1.64% YTD). Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1%. The Stoxx Europe 600 was down 0.5% in early trading.
From the analysts
• EY on Fed independence: “We caution that even the perception of political influence over monetary policy could unsettle markets. A sustained loss of confidence in the Fed’s autonomy risks de-anchoring inflation expectations, lifting long-term yields, raising debt servicing costs, and undermining demand for dollar assets. The recent rise in US asset risk premia suggests that markets may be starting to factor heightened uncertainty around the future of Fed leadership,” per Gregory Daco.
• JPMorgan Chase on global GDP: “The data are sending a straightforward message that global growth remains solid. Despite a noisy stall in the US, global GDP grew at a trendlike 2.4%ar in 1Q25. Available April readings show sustained momentum as we turn into the current quarter. This week’s activity indicators generally beat expectations, but private sector expectations are sliding across countries and sectors,” per Bruce Kasman and team.
• JPMorgan Chase on earnings: “With 69% of S&P 500 companies having reported, 70% are beating 1Q earnings … and 54% are beating revenue estimates,” per Dubravko Lakos-Bujas and team.
• Pantheon Macroeconomics on employment: “Rocketing economic policy uncertainty has had little impact on employment, so far. But the data say nothing about how businesses have reacted, or will react, to the tariffs that were announced on April 2, and endlessly tinkered with since. The payroll data will look much weaker in a couple months’ time,” per Samuel Tombs.
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