Peter Thiel: Elon Musk Abandoned Mars Colony Dream

Welcome back!

Here’s your must-read news for this morning:

• U.S.-China rare earths deal 

• Peter Thiel vs Elon Musk over Mars

• Brazil’s social media ruling

I’ve got all the details for you, so let’s dive in.

— Josh

MARKETS

💰 U.S., China Formalize Rare Earths Deal in Trade Breakthrough

The Scoop: The U.S. and China have finalized a trade framework to facilitate rare earth exports and ease technology restrictions, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced Friday, signaling a further thaw in bilateral relations following high-level talks.

The Details:

• China will review and approve export applications for controlled rare earth minerals, critical for semiconductors, electric vehicles, and defense systems, while the U.S. will lift various restrictive measures against Beijing.

• The agreement builds on a London meeting this month led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, implementing a prior Geneva consensus that faltered over China’s delays on rare earth exports and U.S. tech and visa curbs.

• President Donald Trump announced Thursday that a deal was signed with China, with a White House official clarifying it as “an additional understanding” to stabilize the Geneva agreement, which had suspended most bilateral tariffs for 90 days.

What’s Next: The framework’s success depends on China expediting rare earth export approvals and the U.S. rolling back tech and other restrictions, but mutual skepticism lingers after prior setbacks. China holds a near-monopoly with over 70% of global refined production.

Markets Roundup

🏦 Economy & Policy

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: The U.S. economy contracted at an annualized rate of 0.5% in the first quarter, a final revision released Thursday confirmed, steeper than the previously reported 0.2% decline. (YF)

• The national average gasoline price stabilized at around $3.20 per gallon this week, the lowest summer level since 2021. (NYT)

• Orders for U.S. durable goods surged 16.4% in May, rebounding from a revised 6.6% drop in April, driven by a spike in aircraft bookings. (RTS)

• The National Association of Realtors reported a 1.8% surge in pending home sales, far exceeding economists’ 0.2% forecast, signaling a robust boost for the economy and the dollar.
  The White House signaled Thursday that Trump’s July 9 deadline for new trade deals may be extended, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying, “the deadline is not critical.” (INV)

• The EU is considering cutting tariffs on U.S. goods, reducing nontariff barriers, and aligning with U.S. China policy to secure a favorable trade deal with Trump. (WSJ)

• China’s industrial profits dropped 9.1% in May from a year ago, signaling Beijing’s stimulus measures are failing to lift corporate profitability. (CNBC)

📈 Stock Market

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: U.S. stock futures hit record intraday highs Friday, with S&P 500 futures up 0.11% at 6,202.00 and Nasdaq 100 futures also up 0.11%, surpassing February’s peaks, while Dow futures gained 62 points, or 0.14%. (CNBC)

• Walgreens reported Q3 adjusted earnings of $0.38 per share, beating estimates of $0.31, with sales up 7.2% to $39 billion, topping forecasts of $36.79 billion. (WBA)

• Nike's fiscal Q4 earnings beat estimates with 14 cents per share and $11.10 billion in revenue, though sales fell 12% to $11.10 billion year-over-year. (CNBC)

• Coinbase closed at $375.07 per share, its highest daily close since its April 2021 public market debut. (TB)

• Roundhill’s HUMN and KraneShares’ KOID, two new ETFs focused on humanoid robotics, began trading, capitalizing on the expanding AI-driven market projected to reach $5 trillion by 2050. (BZA)

🏢 Industry

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: Xiaomi targeted Tesla with its luxury YU7 electric SUV, priced at 253,500 yuan ($35,322), undercutting Tesla’s Model Y by 10,000 yuan. (CNBC)

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk has fired Omead Afshar, the vice president overseeing sales and manufacturing in North America and Europe. (FOR)

• DoorDash and Flytrex have partnered to launch a drone delivery service in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area. (RD)

• GE Appliances will move its washing machine production from China to Kentucky with a $490 million investment, creating 800 jobs and strengthening its U.S. manufacturing hub. (LCJ)

• Nike plans to reduce its dependence on Chinese production for the U.S. market to counter the impact of U.S. tariffs on imports. (RTS)

• CoreWeave is negotiating to acquire Core Scientific, a bitcoin miner, following the latter’s rejection of a $5.75-per-share offer last year. (WSJ)

• J.M. Smucker announced it will phase out FD&C artificial colors from its food products by the end of 2027. (DJ)

• Police took six people into custody as protesters blocked the entrance to Palantir’s New York office, opposing the tech company’s work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israeli military. (CNBC)

💵 Energy & Commodities

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: Fermi America, co-founded by former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, plans to construct the world’s largest energy and data campus in Amarillo, Texas, combining nuclear, natural gas, solar, and energy storage capabilities. (HE)

• Energy Secretary Chris Wright warns the U.S. power grid is nearing its capacity limit, as the Trump administration issues emergency orders to prevent plant closures and avert a potential energy crisis. (FNB)

• Platinum surged to a 2014 peak of $1,416 an ounce, driven by supply worries and speculative buying. (MIN)

• Palantir has partnered with The Nuclear Company to co-develop the Nuclear Operating System (NOS), a pioneering AI-driven software platform tailored for nuclear reactor construction. (NT)

🌕 Crypto

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: Dinari became the first U.S. platform to secure regulatory approval for offering tokenized stocks. (RTS)

• Kraken launched its peer-to-peer payments app, Krak, enabling transfers of crypto and fiat across over 100 countries. (BBG)

• UAE-based Aqua1, a Web3-focused fund, announced Thursday a $100 million purchase of World Liberty Financial governance tokens to advance decentralized finance. (DC)

• A New York judge rejected Ripple and the SEC's request to lift an injunction, potentially preserving hefty fines imposed by the agency under the Biden administration. (TB)

• Former Tether and Blackstone executives are raising $1 billion to create a publicly traded crypto treasury holding Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and other digital assets. (CD)
  

TECH

🚀 Peter Thiel Believes Elon Musk Has Abandoned Mars Colony Plans

The Scoop: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has abandoned his dream of colonizing Mars as a political project, tech billionaire Peter Thiel declared this week in an interview with Ross Douthat of the New York Times.

The Details:

• Thiel, a close Musk ally, said the SpaceX CEO’s belief in Mars as a political refuge collapsed in 2024, driven by a realization that “the socialist U.S. government, the woke AI would follow you to Mars.”

• A conversation with Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis reportedly altered Musk’s outlook, with Hassabis asserting that AI advancements would “follow you to Mars.”

• Thiel compared Musk’s original vision to a libertarian paradise inspired by sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein, but said Musk now believes “there’s nowhere to go,” signaling a retreat from space as an escape from Earth’s political and cultural conflicts.

• Musk responded to Thiel’s comments, writing on X: “Of course moving to Mars is not yet an option, but it will be if civilization can last another 25 years or so.”

What’s Next: Musk remains focused on a Mars mission by late 2026, as outlined in a May meeting with SpaceX staff. Musk cautioned that success depends on overcoming intricate challenges, notably in-orbit refueling, with just a 50% likelihood of hitting the 2026 Earth-Mars alignment window. Failure to do so could push the mission to 2028, testing the resilience of his recalibrated space ambitions.

Tech Roundup

🧠 AI

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: Elon Musk announced the xAI team aims to release Grok 4 "just after July 4th." (X)

• DeepSeek is struggling to advance its next-generation R2 model due to stringent U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors. (TI)

• Meta is nearing a deal to acquire PlayAI, a startup specializing in artificial intelligence that mimics human voices for highly responsive user interfaces. (BBG)

• Uber is in talks with former CEO Travis Kalanick to fund his acquisition of the U.S. operations of autonomous vehicle firm Pony AI, with Kalanick set to lead Pony AI while continuing as CEO of CloudKitchens. (NYT)

• Google launched Gemma 3n, a multimodal AI model optimized for mobile devices, capable of processing text, images, audio, and video with just 2GB of RAM. (NEO)

• Google introduced Doppl, an experimental AI-powered app that visualizes outfits on users, launching Thursday on iOS and Android in the U.S. (TC)

• Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said artificial intelligence handles 30% to 50% of the company’s workload, with the firm achieving approximately 93% accuracy in its applications. (CNBC)

🤖 Hardware & Robotics

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: China’s $50 billion chip fund is shifting focus to bolster domestic lithography and semiconductor design software to counter U.S. restrictions. (BBG)

• Y Combinator, in partnership with Reindustrialize and New American Industrial Alliance, launched a request for startups to apply modern software to industrial production, including energy, materials, and manufacturing, to drive a new era of U.S. industrial dominance. (YC)

• Frontier Valley founder James Ingallinera proposes transforming Alameda Point, a vacant former Naval Air Base near San Francisco, into a U.S. robotics manufacturing hub akin to China’s Shenzhen. (PW)

• Civ Robotics is using its CivDot robot to speed up pre-construction surveying, marking build layouts eight times faster than human workers. (NA)

• The RoBoLeague World Robot Soccer League hosts its first-ever 3-on-3 AI-controlled humanoid robot soccer match this Saturday in Yizhuang, China. (NYP)

🚀 Defense & Space

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: Axiom Space’s Axiom-4 mission, carried by a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, successfully docked with the International Space Station. (SP)

• Maxar Intelligence, a provider of satellite imagery that recently captured Iran’s Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz nuclear facilities before and after U.S. airstrikes, has unveiled a new AI-driven platform designed for continuous global monitoring. (BBG)

• France’s Thales and KNDS France unveiled a new land-based advanced air defense system that neutralizes hundreds of UAVs, drones, light aircraft, helicopters, and rocket, artillery, and mortar attacks in one sweep. (PR)

• Canada’s KWESST Micro Systems secured a prototype order for its advanced Battlefield Laser Detection System (BLDS) from a major North American armored vehicle program, designed to detect invisible laser threats. (IE)

• The Navy is soliciting proposals for the rapid development and testing of the Ocean Explorer, an "ultra-large" autonomous underwater vehicle designed for extended, ocean-scale missions with a substantial modular payload. (ID)

💰 Venture Capital & Deals

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: London-based AI startup PhysicsX raised $135 million in a Series B round led by Atomico to advance its engineering software for aerospace, automotive, and energy sectors. (TEC)

• Tacta Systems, a robotics startup advancing dexterous intelligence for human-level tactile skills and spatial awareness in robots, secured $75 million in funding led by Matter Venture Partners. (LNJ)

• Centific, a Redmond, Wash.-based startup, raised $60 million in a Series A round led by Granite Asia’s Jenny Lee to enhance its AI data pipeline solutions for enterprises. (GW)

• Certify, a New York-based healthcare data intelligence firm, raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Transformation Capital to advance its AI-powered provider data platform. (PRN)

• DataBahn.ai, a Dallas-based developer of a security-native data pipeline platform for enterprises, raised $17 million in a Series A round led by Forgepoint Capital. (AX)

FREEDOM

⚖️ Brazil’s Supreme Court Makes Social Media Companies Liable for User Content

The Scoop: Brazil’s Supreme Court, in an 8-3 ruling on Thursday, held social media giants like X, Meta, and TikTok accountable for user-generated content, requiring proactive monitoring and removal of hate speech, racism, and incitement to violence.

The Details:

• The ruling mandates platforms to actively police content, bolstering a prior Brazilian law often ignored by companies, which required content removal only post-court order.

• Upon publication, individuals can sue platforms for failing to remove illegal content after notification, though the court’s undefined “illegal” standard leaves enforcement subject to case-by-case rulings, raising risks of inconsistent application.

• U.S. critics warn the law could erode free speech, as platforms may preemptively censor to dodge liability, a concern underscored by a U.S. federal judge’s previous ruling that Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes lacked jurisdiction to order Rumble to suspend U.S.-based accounts.

• On February 19, Trump Media and Rumble sued Moraes, alleging his orders to remove accounts violated U.S. First Amendment rights by targeting “legitimate political speech.”

What’s Next: As Brazil’s ruling rolls out, social media firms face mounting pressure to comply or risk lawsuits, potentially stifling expression through censorship. With the Trump administration making protecting free speech a priority, the ruling could further strain U.S.-Brazil relations if American companies are targeted further.

Freedom Roundup

🏛️ Economy

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) will not challenge Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough’s ruling against Medicaid cuts, which blocked GOP plans to limit state healthcare provider taxes for federal Medicaid funding. (TH)

• The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that South Carolina can block Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood clinics, affirming the state’s authority to control its Medicaid program allocations. (FOX)

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged Republicans to remove the “revenge tax” (Section 899) from the "Big, Beautiful Bill," which would impose up to a 20% tax on investments from countries with economic policies deemed unfair to U.S. businesses. (TH)

• The Internal Revenue Service’s workforce has been slashed by 26% since January, falling from 102,113 employees to 75,702, according to a report. (TEP)

• DOGE announced that agencies cut 312 wasteful contracts valued at $2.8 billion, saving $470 million, including a $286,000 DoD Harvard course and a $485,000 USAID Madagascar advisor deal. (X)

• The Trump administration will propose a rule allowing immediate fines of up to $1,000 per day for individuals in the U.S. illegally, eliminating the current 30-day notice period. (ABC)

💻 Business & Tech

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: The Trump administration is preparing executive actions to bolster energy supplies for the U.S.'s expanding artificial intelligence sector, as the nation vies with China in a high-stakes technological arms race. (RTS)

• Meta risks daily fines if its proposed tweaks to the pay-or-consent model fall short of an EU antitrust order, as the company accuses regulators of unfairly altering compliance expectations. (RTS)

• A top German privacy regulator warned Apple and Google that DeepSeek is illegal due to its exposure of user data to Chinese authorities. (BBG)

• The White House and lawmakers aim to advance comprehensive crypto legislation by September, focusing on regulatory clarity and investor protections. (TB)

• Lazard CEO and former Obama official Peter Orszag warned that the Democrat Party is growing increasingly antisemitic and anti-capitalist, following Zohran Mamdani’s upset in the NYC mayoral primary. (CNBC)

💬 Free Speech & Woke Overreach

• ⭐ Editor’s Pick: The Justice Department is investigating the University of California system for “potential race- and sex-based discrimination” in its hiring practices. (BBG)

• America First Legal has filed a third lawsuit against IBM, alleging discrimination against older White male employees to advance the company’s DEI policies. (FBN)

• Major insurers and brokers are cutting back on public references to DEI programs, scaling down or rebranding them to manage legal, regulatory, and reputational risks. (BI)

• Nashville Pride will have a single presenting sponsor this year, as Dollar General and Bridgestone Americas, long-time presenting sponsors, have withdrawn. (TT)

• A whistleblower alleges Cornell University DEI administrators manipulated the hiring process for an evolutionary biology professor, intentionally excluding white men. (CJ)

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