Good morning! Todayâs edition covers how the biggest companies in the world have recalibrated through the first month of Trump 2.0. First time reading? Join 190,000 self-directed investors gaining an edge every morning. Sign up here.Â
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Corporate USA embraces Trumpworld
Smart money follows incentives, not ideology.Â
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, some of Americaâs most powerful boardrooms have unwound progressive social policies and pandemic-era inclinations.
Consider the recent flurry of announcements across Wall Street and Silicon Valley:Â
Appleâs $500 billion investment in US manufacturing and jobs
Citadel Securitiesâ embrace of cryptocurrency
JPMorgan scrubbing diversity languageÂ
Individually, you could argue that each is a rational business decision. Taken together, they signal something bigger: Corporate America is positioning itself for Trumpâs America â a landscape that looks likely to outlast Trump himself.
To be clear, none of these companies have endorsed the current administration. They are, however, giving the White House something far more valuable in recalibrating for an economic environment thatâs increasingly aligned with the presidentâs vision â pro-digital assets and AI, domestic investment, a retreat from DEI.Â
Apple, for one, has spent decades building its supply chain and roots in China. But days after chief executive Tim Cook met with Trump, the worldâs most valuable company announced its plan to pour $500 billion into the US and hire 20,000 people.
The move de-risks Apple from China while re-shoring business and manufacturing to America.Â
âWeâre thrilled to expand our support for American manufacturing,â Cook said in a statement Monday (which followed Trumpâs comment on Friday that Apple wants to avoid tariffs).Â
Hours later, Bloomberg reported Ken Griffinâs $64 billion firm Citadel Securities intends to push into market-making for cryptocurrency exchanges including Coinbase and Binance â reflecting a separate bet on Trumpâs ambitions to make the US the âcrypto capital of the planet.â Â
Citadel, like others on Wall Street, largely remained sidelined on digital assets under former president Joe Bidenâs more restrictive regulatory regime.
To that point, Robinhood announced Monday, too, that the SECâs investigation into its crypto-trading business ended this week.Â
While Trump has indeed embraced crypto, he hasnât initiated any meaningful crypto-related policies. That hasnât stopped Wall Street from pivoting as if new rules have already been written.Â
The final detail worth noting is that JPMorgan â in addition to Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America â scaled back its public support for diversity and equity this month. Itâs a quiet acknowledgement that Wall Street is suddenly less keen on social activism.Â
Other corporations including Meta, Alphabet, Ford and McDonaldâs have done the same in recent weeks.Â
The irony is that many of these decisions will last well beyond Trumpâs four-year term limit. Whether you call it capitulation or pragmatism, companies like Apple and JPMorgan rarely pivot without believing in the long-run repercussions.Â
So, for better or worse, even if the president resigned tomorrow, his economic policies have already left their mark.Â
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Elsewhere:
đUS stocks dropped Monday, continuing Fridayâs deep sell-off which was marked by weak consumer and business sentiment reports on inflation and and tariffs. The Fedâs preferred inflation gauge, the PCE Index, is due Friday, as well as reports on US GDP and housing.
đ˘Â Trump says he will move forward with tariffs. The president once again threatened to hit Mexico and Canada with 25% across-the-board duties after he announced they would be postponed a few weeks ago. The moves, he said Monday, are âon time.â âWeâve been mistreated very badly by many countries, not just Canada and Mexico.â (Yahoo Finance)
đ¤The US moves forward on Ukraine-Russia peace talks. On the third anniversary of the war, the US sided with Russia and China to gain the UNâs backing for a resolution crafted in Washington that didnât blame Moscow for the war, and called for an end to the conflict. (WSJ)
đ¨Â C-suite executives across business and finance trust our friends at Semafor. Their twice-weekly business newsletter is packed with scoops, interviews and analysis youâd expect to find on a Bloomberg Terminal. Stay ahead of the curve â subscribe to Semafor Business for free.
Rapid-fire:
JPMorganâs Jamie Dimon called the US government inefficient and supported Elon Muskâs DOGE efforts (CNBC)
Microsoft reportedly cancelled some data center leases amid its $80 billion AI push (Yahoo Finance)
Nvidia stock tumbled Monday ahead of its critical earnings this week (Barronâs)
Starbucks is laying off more than 1,000 workers (WSJ)
Alibaba stock dropped Monday after Trumpâs latest executive order stirred US-China trade fears (Yahoo Finance)
Chegg sued Alphabet, saying that Googleâs AI search summaries have tanked its business (Bloomberg)
Trump appears to be initiating the Mar-a-Lago Accord, which includes tariffs, monetizing assets, and reducing debt (Pomp Letter)
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Robinhood says the SEC enforcement division has dropped the investigation into their crypto division.
The regulatory treatment of the industry has definitely shifted in the last 3 months.
3:50 PM ⢠Feb 24, 2025
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