| | | | That's the low-end estimated cost of the Bezos-Sánchez wedding in Venice, which took place over the weekend. |
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| | Europe's Military Boom Begins America's First New Nuclear Plant in Over a Decade S&P Hits Record High — Even as Layoffs Jump 80% Newsletter Exclusive: What Tesla's New Robotaxi Logo Gets Wrong
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| | NATO's 5% Pledge Sparks Defense Stock Rally | NATO leaders have agreed to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 — more than doubling the current 2% target. It's the largest increase in alliance history and a win for President Trump, who's long pushed European allies to spend more on defense. | European defense stocks surged on the announcement: | Germany's Rheinmetall was up 3%. Italy's Fincantieri was up 6%. The U.K.'s BAE Systems was up 4%. Europe's STOXX Europe Aerospace and Defense ETF rose 1.4%.
| NATO members will be expected to spend 3.5% of their GDP on core defense (troops, weapons) and 1.5% on security infrastructure (cybersecurity, energy, pipelines, ports). | Hitting the 5% target will require $1.9 trillion in additional annual spending across NATO — a windfall that's fueling growth for American defense contractors, too. | | To secure business and align with Europe's push for local production, U.S. firms are forming joint ventures and co-production partnerships across the region. | RTX (Raytheon) expanded its partnership with Norway's Kongsberg Gruppen for air defense systems and recently signed a deal with Germany's Diehl Defence to co-produce the Stinger missile in Europe. Anduril partnered with Germany's Rheinmetall to build unmanned aerial defense systems. Honeywell acquired Italy's Civitanavi Systems and runs a major European R&D hub.
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| | | | We are a competitive species. From the beginning of time, people have used violence to gain more than their fair share. The U.S. is 4% of the world's population but controls 34% of its wealth — and that's not just from innovation, it's because we've been willing to deploy violence to protect our shores or replace dictators such that we can grab their oil. | We can still advocate for peace, but that only works if we start from a position of strength. That's why military alliances like NATO exist — because the moment a stronger army believes it can take something by force, it usually does. | You don't have to like that. I don't. But it's reality. No nation in history has maintained prosperity without the power to defend — and sometimes, attack. That's why we spend $824 billion annually on defense. Is it wasteful? At times. But it's the price of being the most prosperous nation on Earth. |
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| | | | Defense used to be this sort of old, kind of stuffy industry dominated by the same legacy giants: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing. | Defense is being rebranded as a growth industry. There's more conflict, more government money, and suddenly more upside. CNBC's disruptor list ranks all of the hot new companies. Last year, OpenAI was No. 1. This year, it's Anduril. Palantir has been on a tear. This is becoming more of a tech industry. | I'm uneasy with what that means. Silicon Valley — a place built on "move fast and break things" — is now being incentivized by government money and private capital to build weapons. | I'd rather live in a world where investors are more interested in funding products and services that promote peace. I believe that if most people had their basic needs met, there'd be far less incentive to kill people. |
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| | Regulation Slowed U.S. Nuclear for Decades — Now AI Demand Is Forcing a Rethink | The U.S. is building its first new nuclear power plant in over a decade. The reactor, announced this week by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, will add at least one gigawatt (GW) of capacity — enough to power a million homes. Without it, the state could face rolling blackouts. | This is the latest in a wave of nuclear momentum. Meta recently signed a multibillion-dollar deal with Constellation Energy to power its AI infrastructure with nuclear. Amazon inked a similar deal with Talen Energy, and Microsoft is backing the reopening of Three Mile Island. | Nuclear energy stocks have surged: | NuScale Power is up more than 220% YoY. Vistra Corp. is up 110%. Constellation Energy, the leading nuclear power plant operator in the U.S., is up 57% YoY.
| Why now? AI is devouring power. By the end of 2025, global AI systems are projected to consume 23 GW of electricity worldwide — twice the total annual power use of the Netherlands. | There's geopolitical urgency, too: Over the past decade, China has nearly tripled its nuclear capacity, while America's has declined. With electricity demand expected to more than double by 2050, failure to scale fast enough could threaten both energy security and global competitiveness in AI. | The problem? Nuclear construction in the U.S. has been plagued by "negative learning" — projects get more expensive and slower over time, despite technological advances. Red tape is a major culprit. A 1980 study found that tighter regulation between the late 1960s and mid-1970s drove a 176% increase in plant cost. | | Timelines have ballooned: In the 1960s, a plant could be built in four years. By the mid-1970s, most took 10 to 15 years. Georgia's Vogtle plant, the only new U.S. nuclear project in the last 30 years, took over 14 years and ran $21 billion over budget. | Momentum is finally building to fix this. In May, Trump signed executive orders to fast-track permits for new and existing plants, with the goal of quadrupling U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050. |
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| | | | Last year, we predicted that nuclear would be the energy of 2025. It creates high-wage, shovel-ready jobs, it's scalable, and it's critical as AI power demands explode. | The problem is, nuclear has been one of the worst-managed brands in modern history. Thanks to The China Syndrome and Silkwood, the public sees it as dangerous and dirty, when the reality is that's just not true. My favorite bumper sticker is: "More people have died in Ted Kennedy's car than in a nuclear power plant." | | |
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| | | | To really understand the stakes here, you have to look at China. Its energy buildout is staggering. It's approved at least 10 new nuclear reactors this year alone — the fourth year in a row — and now have 30 under construction, which accounts for nearly half of all global projects. That should be setting off alarms. One of the most fundamental signals of long-term prosperity is energy capacity, and the U.S. is falling behind fast. | | |
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| | First Half of 2025 Delivered for Investors — But Key Metrics Foreshadow Trouble for Everyone Else | The first half of 2025 has been politically volatile and geopolitically tense, but you wouldn't know it from the equity markets. Since bottoming out on April 8, the S&P 500 has surged 24% to hit a record high. | | Zooming out, however, broader economic indicators look more fragile: | GDP contracted 0.5% in Q1 — the first drop in three years. Most forecasts peg 2025 U.S. GDP growth at 1.2% to 1.9%, down sharply from 2.8% last year. The labor market is wobbling. Monthly job growth is down nearly 33% from 2024 levels. Layoffs are up 80% YoY, and new grads are staring down a hiring rate 44% lower than that of 2022. Housing is cooling, with new home sales falling to an eight-month low.
| A recent survey of institutional investors from Bank of America confirmed baseline uncertainty in the U.S. markets: | When asked which asset class will perform best over the next five years, 54% chose international stocks. Just 23% picked U.S. equities. Top overweight positions were in the eurozone, emerging markets, and banks. 59% of investors predicted that Trump's spending bill would provide no boost to U.S. economic activity in the next six months.
| What to watch in the second half of the year: | Tariffs: Trump's trade war hasn't fully hit earnings yet; third quarter earnings will be the first major test. AI's impact on jobs: Since ChatGPT launched in 2022, there's been a 31% decrease in job openings for positions highly exposed to AI, such as database administration and IT specialists. The Fed: Markets are pricing in two rate cuts before year-end. If inflation doesn't cooperate, that may be wishful thinking.
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| | | | I definitely did not expect we'd be back at record highs just six months in. I thought Trump's tariff policy alone would leave a lasting mark. But the truth is, we probably overestimate the impact the Trump administration — or any administration — has on the stock market. The gears just grind on. | But here's the part that bothers me: We're measuring the wrong things altogether. Meta's stock is up 25%, but it laid off 3,600 people. That's 3,600 fewer households making a great living — and somehow we call that progress. Teen suicide is up 62% over the last decade, and we still obsess over whether Nvidia is selling more GPUs. We're studying for the wrong test. We're fixated on garden yields while the house is on fire. | But I'll tell you what gave me hope: the New York mayoral race. A lot of the people I hang out with gave a ton of money to Andrew Cuomo, and young people and their command of technology and dedication to a charismatic candidate, Zohran Mamdani, just rolled over them. I love that. They're saying: The system that made you rich doesn't work for us. So even if some of Mamdani's policies make no f*cking sense, it's time. Tomorrow belongs to them. |
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| | Newsletter Exclusive: Branding Expert on What Tesla's New Robotaxi Logo Gets Wrong | Tesla's robotaxi launched two weekends ago in Austin … sort of. Between 10 and 20 vehicles hit the roads, but the rollout came with several major caveats: | Every vehicle had a human Tesla employee in the passenger seat, whose job was to act as a "safety monitor." The service was limited to a tightly geofenced area — no highways, no airport runs. The robotaxi can't operate in the rain, so conditions must be ideal. The only customers who were able to use the robotaxis were a handful of pro-Tesla influencers who were invited to try it out.
| The rollout also soft-launched a new robotaxi logo. We asked our resident design expert, Katherine Dillon, Prof G Media's executive producer and associate arts professor at NYU Tisch, for her take. |
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| | | | | A good logo or any visual branding typically has a few core characteristics:
It is Distinctive, Memorable, Appropriate, Practical, and often Clever. | This one is distinctive and memorable, but it falls short on appropriate. The graffiti-like treatment signals hipness and edge, which might work for a skateboard brand — but not a self-driving car. Part of the logo's job here is to communicate safety and credibility. This one doesn't suggest either. | So, what does communicate safety and reliability? |
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| | | | One example is the Prudential Insurance logo. "The Rock" (inspired by the Rock of Gibraltar) is an apt metaphor for stability, protection, and resilience, which aligns appropriately with Prudential's core values. | The classic, most successful brand identities are Nike and Apple, with McDonald's, Target, and FedEx as strong runners-up. I run an exercise in my class where I ask students to draw three logos from memory. Ninety percent include Nike and Apple in their set, and they're able to draw both with near-perfect accuracy, which is a true testament to their success. |
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| | | Defense stocks are just getting started in both Europe and the U.S. As spending ramps up, any competent aerospace, defense, or defense-adjacent company is likely to see massive demand. It's going to be like selling that reflective glass to Neom: If you make it, they'll take all of it. |
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| | | Scott weighs in on how to grow in marketing without going back to school, and what right-wing podcasts get right. Listen here. |
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| | | Pentagon Pizza Index: Can upticks in pizza orders predict seismic global events? Which countries produce the most (and least) uplifting movies? Stat Significant digs into the data What math can teach us about how to live (deeper); Modern day social etiquette (lighter)
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