The markets: The S&P 500 closed up half a point yesterday at 5,975.38 … The Nasdaq Composite was up over 1% on news of new chips from Nvidia … Bitcoin is back: trading at the $101,000 level … Europe and Asia markets were in the green this morning … US futures were largely flat pre-opening bell.
Today: Elon Musk is annoying Europe’s leaders. For weeks, Musk has been using X to hurl insults at them, make (often misleading) accusations of criminality, and rally support for anti-immigration parties in Europe and the UK. Now some of them are pushing back. “Ten years ago if someone had told us the owner of one of the world’s biggest social-media companies would support a new international reactionary movement and intervene directly in elections, including in Germany, who would have imagined that?” said French President Emmanuel Macron.
CEO Daily insight: Fortune at CES and Davos
Good morning. My colleague Andrew Nusca spoke with Mark Cuban last night at our annual Fortune Brainstorm Tech dinner at CES in Las Vegas. The topic: Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs startup that’s disrupting how drugs are manufactured and sold.
“There’s nobody who looks at the health care system or the pharmaceutical industry and says ‘wow, that’s well run, that’s just the way we want it, it’s great for us, we love participating in it,’” he said. “We’re up to 2,500 medications now and all the big guys have to copy what we’re doing.” Here’s a link to the full conversation.
Fortune’s Jason Del Rey also discussed “agentic AI” with leaders from Land O’Lakes, Salesforce, and OpenTable at the dinner. On Thursday, Ellie Austin will lead a conversation on the race for female longevity.
These kinds of events are the highlight of my job—modern-day salons that bring people together for meaningful conversations, connections and content.
If you’re heading to the World Economic Forum in Davos later this month, join us for a series of invitation-only discussions there. At the annual Fortune CEO Dinner on January 23, I look forward to speaking with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan about AI and the media landscape, among other things. We’ll also welcome other special guests.
Other Fortune events at Davos include:
- A lunch discussion about ethical AI development and the evolving regulatory landscape, hosted by Jeremy Kahn on January 21.
- A lunch roundtable with chief communications officers about how they’re tackling new challenges and opportunities, which I’ll moderate on January 22.
- The Fortune Most Powerful Women reception on January 22, hosted by Fortune CEO Anastasia Nyrkovskaya and Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell.
- A lunch roundtable on the private equity and corporate venture capital landscape, hosted by Fortune’s Peter Vanham.
- Alyson will also lead a discussion about the state of trust at the launch breakfast for the latest Edelman Trust Barometer, now in its 25th year. Executive Editor Clay Chandler is coming from Hong Kong to lead some conversations and I’ll moderate several other panels with partners like BetterUp, Brazil’s JBS and others.
For more information on our events, contact conferences@fortune.com.
Also on the radar:
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, wearing another of his trademark jackets, unveiled the next generation of RTX Blackwell GPUs at CES 2025. He also declared the rise of “Agentic AI,” predicting AI agents will drive a multi-trillion-dollar industry.
Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, is considering a run to replace Justin Trudeau as leader of Canada’s governing Liberal Party. Carney, currently chair of Brookfield Asset Management ($1 trillion in AUM), was a safe and mediagenic pair of hands during his time as a central banker.
Donald Trump’s busy lawyers are trying to stop special counsel Jack Smith from releasing a final report on the president-elect’s two dismissed federal criminal cases. At the same time, they are arguing (unsuccessfully) to halt his sentencing in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case.
McDonald’s is the latest company to back off its DEI efforts, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision against affirmative action in college admissions. By amazing coincidence the burger chain was also recently contacted by Robby Starbuck, the conservative campaigner who has persuaded several other companies to end their DEI policies.
Donald Trump Jr. wants to stage an IPO for online gun retailer GrabAGun.
The first human in the U.S. has died from avian flu, H5N1. The disease is most likely to affect anyone who regularly comes into contact with birds, poultry or cows. CDC’s monitoring data is here.
From the analysts:
- Goldman Sachs’ Lina Thomas and Daan Struyven say the price of gold will reach $3,000 per ounce in Q2 2026, according to a note seen by Fortune. The rise in its value will be slowed by fewer than expected Fed rate cuts, the pair argue.
- Bloomberg’s John Authers notes that the U.S dollar dropped and then rose by about 1 point against the dollar index after Trump trashed a Washington Post report saying he would ease off on tariff demands. Trump can move currency markets with a single social media post, in other words.
- Citi says European auto stocks are oversold on Trump tariff fears. “We continue to like Porsche, RNO, and VW in the OEMs,” per a note seen by Fortune.
Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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TOP NEWS
Trump denies tariff report
President-elect Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Monday to deny a Washington Post report claiming that the incoming Trump administration plans to tone down the intense tariff proposals that he promised on the campaign trail. Sources told the publication that tariffs would be tailored to specific sectors important to the American economy, which Trump derided as “fake news.” Fortune
Klarna CEO “gloomy” about AI taking his job
In a post on X over the weekend, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski explained that he’s “not super excited” about the prospect of AI taking over his job, which he thinks the technology is capable of. The chief of the buy-now-pay-later company believes, however, that “we need to be honest with what we think will happen.” Fortune
Altman cautiously optimistic about Musk in government
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a blog post over the weekend that he doesn’t believe Elon Musk will use his stature in the upcoming Trump administration to go after his business rivals, though he “may turn out to be proven wrong.” Musk, formerly an OpenAI cofounder, has feuded publicly with Altman and is currently suing OpenAI to disclose their AI research. Fortune
AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
Sam Altman says Airbnb’s CEO and a ‘legendary’ VC saved OpenAI and ‘stopped me from making several mistakes’ after he was briefly fired in 2023 by Sasha Rogelberg
Gucci will need to make a comeback under its new CEO—and it won’t be the first time for the languishing Italian luxury brand by Prarthana Prakash
Bayer attacked bureaucracy by firing some 5,000 managers and asking teams to ‘self-organize.’ Here’s how it’s going after one year by Lee Clifford
The Disney-Fubo deal to create a live TV behemoth also quietly paves the way for a controversial sports streaming service by Chris Morris
Elon Musk eyes €1.5 billion Italy SpaceX deal after confidante Giorgia Meloni visits Trump at Mar-a-Lago by Ryan Hogg
This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Joey Abrams and Jim Edwards.
