Good morning. Ho-hum, just another Everest summit for Kami Rita Sherpa. The 55-year-old Nepali guide scaled the world’s tallest mountain again on Tuesday, breaking his own record with a 31st Everest summit. He said it all boils down to his daily routine of waking up and immediately opening Instagram.
—Dave Lozo, Sam Klebanov, Matty Merritt, Adam Epstein, Neal Freyman
Markets: Stocks soared yesterday on the hopes that the US could reach a trade agreement with the EU. While that was happening, the trade war claimed another victim, as Temu owner PDD Holdings went kersplat after it said tensions between Washington and Beijing hurt its profits.
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Less than a week after pledging to scale back his government duties to become “super focused” on running his companies, Elon Musk took a respite from posting quote tweets with exclamation points to oversee the launch of SpaceX’s Starship rocket last night.
The ninth flight of the 400-foot rocket got farther than the prior two tests, but ended in fiery failure for the third straight time.
Why it matters: The test flight was a pivotal step toward achieving Musk’s goal of sending a Starship rocket to Mars next year—and landing humans on the Red Planet as early as 2029.
Mr. Musk Leaves Washington
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may not have met its goal of finding $2 trillion in federal budget savings, but it did succeed in damaging the reputation of at least one of his companies. Now, he is exchanging a MAGA hat for a CEO cap at a time when the billionaire’s brands need him most:
Tesla: The EV-maker endured months of boycotts in response to DOGE laying off thousands of federal workers, contributing to a profit drop of 71% in Q1. Yesterday, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association reported Tesla’s sales in Europe plummeted by 49% in April.
X: The social media platform dealt with outages that left tens of thousands of users without access on Saturday. X traffic was down ~8% from the 2024 presidential election through March.
Neuralink: It’s actually good news—Semafor reported yesterday that the brain chip company raised $600 million at a $9 billion valuation.
Big picture: While Musk has taken a hit in the short term, the value of his companies has surged over the past four years, and he remains the richest man in the world.—DL
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Trump Media raised $2.5 billion to buy bitcoin. The media company partly owned by President Trump and his family announced it raised the funds from institutional investors to finance what CNBC called one of the largest ever bitcoin investments by a public company. Investors were not initially pleased, with the stock dropping 10% after the news was reported. It further marks the rapid expansion of Trump Media, which owns Truth Social, into the finance and crypto sectors. It’s also another step toward Trump’s personal courtship of crypto: The president hosted a black-tie gala at his Virginia golf club last week for the biggest buyers of his memecoin.
Salesforce made an $8 billion acquisition to boost its AI capabilities. Informatica, a data management software company, is now owned by Salesforce, the cloud giant announced yesterday. It’s Salesforce’s biggest purchase since it acquired Slack for $28 billion in 2021. The goal is to leverage Informatica’s data catalog to improve Salesforce’s fleet of AI agents. Informatica had been a Salesforce target before, but talks broke down last year before being revived when Informatica’s share price fell, reportedly as a result of the failed initial talks.
Trump wants to cut all federal ties to Harvard. The White House plans to cut the federal government’s remaining contracts with Harvard, worth about $100 million, the New York Times reported. The cuts would represent a “complete severance” with the prestigious Ivy League institution, per the NYT, following the Trump administration’s freezing of $3.2 billion in grants and its attempt to stop the university from enrolling international students over claims that it’s failed to address antisemitism on campus. A federal judge has temporarily blocked the White House’s effort to stop Harvard from enrolling international students.—AE
Toss an AirTag on that duffle and write your phone number really big, because “Bags fly free” is officially dead.
Southwest Airlines will begin charging $35 for your first checked bag on flights starting today, marking the official end of the company’s longtime policy offering flyers free luggage. Some more details:
A second bag will cost you $45. Members of the airline’s highest loyalty level will still get two free checked bags.
Southwest is also rolling out basic economy fares, which will replace its “Wanna Get Away” low-fare option.
Flight credits you receive if you cancel your trip will now expire in six months (they previously never expired).
Big picture: The airline first announced the upcharge update in March, spooking flyers accustomed to its famous freebie policy. Though Southwest execs had held firm on the iconic perk for years (even trademarking the phrase “Bags Fly Free” as recently as 2023), activist investors and a souring airline industry forced the company to adopt some of the nickel-and-diming methods of its rivals.—MM
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A soothingly nasal voice is telling the White House “see ya in court!” NPR and its three affiliate stations in Colorado sued the Trump administration yesterday over an executive order cutting off funding to public media, including NPR.
Terry Gross’s employer alleges that President Trump pulling the plug on public media funding violates the First Amendment:
NPR’s suit called it a textbook example of unconstitutional “retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination,” since Trump cited biased coverage as the rationale for the move.
The radio network also claims that Trump violated a federal law that prevents the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which receives taxpayer dollars to support public radio and TV, from being controlled by federal agencies. NPR maintains that Trump is usurping the authority of Congress, which apportioned $535 million to the CPB for each of the next two fiscal years.
The Planet Money side
Trump’s order threatens a significant source of cash for NPR and its affiliates. The DC-based radio organization receives just 1% of its funding directly from Uncle Sam. However, federal dollars account for 10% of its total budget via payments from local stations that license its content.
Looking ahead…PBS—which is also impacted by the executive order but not involved in NPR’s suit—told CNN that it may bring its own legal action.—SK
Looks like you’re going to have to learn how to spell Mounjaro. About 4% of US adults are taking GLP-1 drugs, Axios reported.
About half of that 4% take them specifically for weight loss or obesity—up by almost 600% from 2019. The other half use GLP-1s for Type 2 diabetes, which is what they were originally meant to treat before the FDA approved semaglutide for weight loss in 2021, and copious celebrities, including Oprah, revealed they were using them.
Per a report from FAIR Health, Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic is the most popular GLP-1, followed by Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, with Wegovy and Saxenda (Novo Nordisk) and Zepbound (Eli Lilly) behind them. Expect the usage to skyrocket as researchers discover all sorts of other benefits beyond weight management.—AE
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Trump Media raised $2.5 billion to buy bitcoin. The media company partly owned by President Trump and his family 
Salesforce made an $8 billion acquisition to boost its AI capabilities. Informatica, a data management software company, is now 
Trump wants to cut all federal ties to Harvard. The White House 
Protect: A cult-favorite sunscreen with a green tint to 
