Good morning. Andrew here. Yesterday’s DealBook Summit created a whirlwind of headlines. My head is still spinning. There were so many fascinating discussions with leaders of great consequence. We’ve got highlights below. And over the next two weeks, we’ll send a special series of newsletters taking you inside the big day and go in-depth into the insights and trends that we learned from each interview. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)
The big takeaways from the DealBook SummitPresident Trump’s economic policies and the artificial intelligence boom have dominated the news agenda this year. The two subjects came up repeatedly yesterday at the DealBook Summit in New York. At last year’s event, the tension ran high before Trump’s return to the White House. Yesterday, several speakers gave the president mixed marks on his economic agenda. But many questions remain. How will Trump’s tariff policies reshape global trade? Will A.I. radically transform how businesses operate and hire? Does crypto have a permanent place on Wall Street? Here are some big themes from this year’s event. The debate over tariffs, inflation and the economy continues.Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said he was “very optimistic about the economy” despite stubbornly high prices and signs of strain in the labor market. On tariffs, he admitted, there could be a downside. “You could get a one-time price adjustment,” he said. Mary Barra, the C.E.O. of G.M. — which has been hit hard by tariffs — reaffirmed the carmaker’s commitment to electric vehicles despite the Trump administration’s push to loosen fuel-efficiency standards. (She noted that the future of E.V. sales in the U.S. remained uncertain.) “I want clarity, whether it’s tariffs or regulatory, because we invest over a period of years,” Barra said. Brian Armstrong, the C.E.O. of Coinbase, brushed off the fallout from recent plummeting crypto prices, which has been partly fueled by wider economic uneasiness from Trump’s trade policies. Armstrong instead expressed optimism about the economy, saying that America is in “kind of a golden age for freedom.” There’s no escaping the A.I. bubble talk.Larry Fink, BlackRock’s C.E.O., the $13.5 trillion asset management juggernaut, said that some tech industry leaders were divided on whether they were spending too much or too little on A.I. Dario Amodei, the C.E.O. and co-founder of Anthropic, the A.I. start-up now valued at $183 billion, acknowledged that the vast amounts of spending could eventually hurt some companies racing toward A.I. dominance. Amodei said that he and his executive team were entering a “cone of uncertainty” over the risks of investing too heavily today in computing facilities with an uncertain payoff. Alex Karp, the C.E.O. and co-founder of Palantir, defended his company’s advancements in the field, asserting that it had become a “juggernaut” in A.I. He pushed back aggressively against accusations that the company was building mass surveillance tools. Trump is still a lightning rod.Gavin Newsom, the California governor who has positioned himself as a foil to Trump, was not shy about criticizing the administration’s moves to take equity stakes in the chipmaker Intel and MP Materials, an operator of rare earth mines, and a “golden share” in U.S. Steel. “What the hell happened to free enterprise?” Newsom said. A few speakers said their perspectives had changed since Trump took office in January. Bessent defended the president’s use of tariffs and acknowledged that he and Trump were initially far apart on tariff strategy. “My evolution went to, ‘Well, I think we should do smaller incremental tariffs.’ And the president went in with a maximalist position,” he said, adding that Trump’s approach gave them leverage in trade negotiations. And Fink, once a skeptic of crypto, said his feelings about digital currencies had evolved. He had previously called crypto “the domain of money launderers and thieves.” Now his firm is one of the biggest players in the industry, a move that has been bolstered by the administration’s pro-crypto stance. Watch Andrew’s conversations here and catch up on all of The Times’s coverage here.
Wall Street is said to have concerns about Kevin Hassett possibly moving to the Fed. Bond investors and bank executives are among those who have expressed worries to the Treasury Department about Hassett, who has emerged as a front-runner to succeed Jay Powell as the central bank’s chair. A chief worry: He may cut interest rates deeply to please President Trump, according to The Financial Times. And Bloomberg reports that Trump aides and allies have discussed giving Hassett’s current job as a top White House economic adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Morgan Stanley is said to weigh cutting its exposure to data center loans. The bank has held talks with investors about using Synthetic Risk Transfer transactions to lower its exposure to loans made to finance data centers powering the A.I. boom, Bloomberg reports. Morgan Stanley forecasts that cloud computing companies will spend about $3 trillion on such projects by 2028, and investors have grown worried about a bubble in the market. Sam Altman reportedly explores building a competitor to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The OpenAI C.E.O. held talks about raising funds to buy or partner with a rocket company, according to The Wall Street Journal. Altman has long expressed interest in building data centers in space.
Scott Bessent: “I’ve had an open mind, and that I’ve evolved on this, and that the president’s been right.”The Treasury secretary on his change of heart about tariffs. As a hedge fund investor in 2024, Bessent said that a weak dollar strategy would be preferable to tariffs for starting an industrial renaissance. Benjamin Netanyahu: “When history is within reach, you don’t step aside. You step forward.”The prime minister of Israel has led the country for many years and is in his third stint in this role. But he made it clear that he had no intention of stepping down, despite being 76 years old and facing legal woes at home and abroad, as well as other pressures. He argued that Israel was now positioned to make peace with regional neighbors and that he would be the leader to do it. Larry Fink: “My thought process always evolves.”That’s how the BlackRock C.E.O. summed up his pivot on cryptocurrencies. A onetime skeptic, Fink is now an enthusiastic proponent, and his firm offers one of the leading Bitcoin E.T.F.s. Many executives on Wall Street are reassessing crypto these days, as the industry notches major policy victories in Washington. Fink spoke alongside Brian Armstrong, the C.E.O. of Coinbase, and both dismissed fears of a crypto winter.
Gavin Newsom: “We have to be more culturally normal. We have to be a little less judgmental. We have to be a party that understands the importance and power of the border.”The governor of California, a Democrat, has been on a quest for the past year to examine why Democrats lost in 2024 and how they can regain power. He said the party would need to be a bigger tent with an inclusive economic vision. Lai Ching-te: “President Trump wants the U.S. to become the world center for A.I., and we are willing to assist in this.”The president of Taiwan is navigating trade talks with the Trump administration, which has put a 20 percent tariff on the island’s exports. A semiconductor powerhouse, Taiwan has sought to use its chip expertise as leverage in those negotiations. Lai also warned that China’s military aggression toward Taiwan was growing.
Mary Barra: “It’s more than just price.”The C.E.O. of G.M. said that U.S. carmakers could compete with fast-growing Chinese companies on styling, safety and performance, even if the Chinese rivals could manufacture more cheaply. But it will be difficult to compete when the Chinese carmakers receive huge government support, she said: “If somebody is being subsidized 30 percent, that becomes a pretty difficult situation.” Speaking hours before President Trump announced plans to water down fuel economy standards established during the Biden administration, Barra also said G.M. would continue to develop motors that are fuel-efficient and cleaner even if federal standards no longer required automakers to do so. Alex Karp: “I think that’s stupid, honestly.”That’s how the C.E.O. of Palantir, who wrote his college dissertation on the rhetoric of fascism, responded when asked whether President Trump was a fascist. Karp, who has previously backed Democratic politicians, brushed off criticism about Trump and pushed back against criticism of his technology company’s work with the Trump administration on immigration and the military. Dario Amodei: “I think there’s genuine uncertainty. There’s genuine dilemma, which we as a company try to manage as responsibly as we can.”The C.E.O. of Anthropic acknowledged that the tech industry, including his own company, was facing considerable risk as it spends billions of dollars on the huge data centers that are meant to power the artificial intelligence technologies of the future.
Halle Berry: “Be bold, be loud, ladies — refuse to be diminished during one of the most important seasons of your life.”The Academy Award-winning actor, director and producer gave a talk on the importance of supporting women’s midlife health and promoting a better understanding of menopause. Berry, who is 59, has been vocal about her harrowing experience with perimenopause and the frustration she felt when doctors had no answers for her. She’s pushing for legislation, on the federal and state levels, to promote menopause research, training and education. Jimmy Donaldson: “If you want to sell $100 million in product, the most important, it would be YouTube by a mile.”The stunt-happy creator known as MrBeast spoke about his expanding business empire, which is now valued at $5.2 billion and is rumored to be exploring a public offering. He has an Amazon game show, a snack line and a phone company in development, among other projects. (His C.E.O., Jeff Housenbold, claims that Beast Industries makes the country’s No. 1 action figure.) But he’s still attached to YouTube — where he is the platform’s top creator — both financially and sentimentally. He began uploading videos at age 13, and at the summit, he emphasized the platform’s “educational content” and lack of “brain rot” compared with TikTok.
Erika Kirk: “We can agree on how to disagree.”The C.E.O. of Turning Point USA and the widow of the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk cast a diplomatic tone. Harvey’s big new fund-raising roundFervor for artificial intelligence extends far beyond the giant model makers like OpenAI and Anthropic and into creators of more specialized software. That’s underscored by the latest fund-raising round for Harvey, a prominent maker of A.I. tools for lawyers, Michael de la Merced reports. Harvey has raised $160 million at an $8 billion valuation, the start-up will announce today. That now brings Harvey’s fund-raising efforts to more than $750 million this year alone, and means that its valuation has more than doubled since February. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, a new investor. Other participants included T. Rowe Price and the investment firm WndrCo, both new to Harvey, and the existing investors Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Conviction and Elad Gil. Alongside the new round, Harvey will also allow some existing employees to sell their equity, letting them cash in on the start-up’s rising valuation. The company is growing rapidly, according to Winston Weinberg, one of Harvey’s founders: Annual recurring revenue has now surpassed $150 million, triple the amount at the beginning of the year. “They’ve become the de facto leader” in A.I. legal assistants, David George, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz who led the fund-raising round, told DealBook. Harvey is also racing to expand its non-law-firm user base. Nearly 35 percent of its customers are companies like Comcast, the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates and the energy giant Repsol. One way to help expand its customer base, Weinberg said, is a new tool Harvey is introducing that lets law firms and their clients work together in shared virtual spaces on the platform. It’s meant to help them collaborate — and get them to use Harvey beyond a case-by-case basis. A question of competition: Harvey faces pressure from both fast-growing rivals like Legora, a Swedish start-up that’s now valued at $1.8 billion, and from established providers including Luminance and CoCounsel of Thomson Reuters. But Weinberg said he was also worried about competition from model makers like OpenAI, whose software helps power Harvey’s tools. (The ChatGPT maker was also his start-up’s first major investor.) OpenAI and Anthropic have increasingly been hiring professionals to help train their models on industry-specific tasks, potentially eating into specialists’ businesses. But, Weinberg told DealBook, Harvey has continued to build industry-specific features that the larger companies can’t recreate. Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow. We’d like your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.
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