- THE FLAG
- Posts
- Trump Talks, Musk Moderates
Trump Talks, Musk Moderates
Plus, a fresh start.
Good morning and Happy Wednesday! Here are the Flag’s Top Five stories that should be on your radar to start the day:
US: Roger Stone targeted in Trump hacking scheme as campaign blames Iran for document leak (The Independent)
World: Iran will attack Israel if Gaza ceasefire talks collapse: report (Fox News)
Business: Starbucks’ CEO is out. Chipotle’s Brian Niccol is taking over (CNN)
Technology: OpenAI unveils new GPT-4o model, but provides little detail (Seeking Alpha)
Sports: Jordan Chiles must return bronze medal after USA Gymnastics appeal fails (The Guardian)
And of course, some good news: 4th Generation Farmer Helps Youth Flunking Out of School to Grow and Sell Food for Disadvantaged in Minnesota.
POWERED BY MASTERWORKS
The news is true: Masterworks’ 15th sale just weeks ago returned an impressive 77% to investors. While such a high return is an outlier for the blue-chip art investing platform, you might be wondering what their prior sales delivered. Glad you asked…
Every one of their sales has returned a profit to investors, with 12 of them delivering double-digit returns, and 1 delivering triple-digit annualized returns.
In full, Masterworks has over 300 paintings and their 16 exits have delivered: 32%, 39.3%, 36.2%, 27.3%, 9.2%, 33.1%, 21.5%, 17.8%, 13.9%, 35%, 10.4%, 325.5%, 4.1%, 17.6%, 77.3%, and 13.4% net annualized returns.
Every sale but one outperformed the stock market in the period from when it was offered to when it was sold.
With performance like that, offerings on the platform can sell out in minutes. However, [Newsletter] readers can skip the waitlist to join with this exclusive link.
Past performance is not indicative of future returns, investing involves risk. See disclosures masterworks.com/cd
TRENDING
Left: Five Major Questions Facing Kamala Harris, Now, Myah Ward, Politico
Left: Kamala Harris Is Beating Donald Trump at His Own Game, Chauncey DeVega, Salon
Left: These Pennsylvania Voters Illustrate Harris’ Suburban Challenge, John King, CNN
Right: Bigoted Harris Has History of Faith-Based Discrimination, Ashley McGuire, New York Post
Right: Kingmaker of Chaos: Soros' Failed Experiments, Gabe Kaminsky, Washington Examiner
Right: Candidates Have Changed, But the Fundamentals Haven't, Michael McKenna, Washington Times
TRUMP
Trump Talks, Musk Moderates
Today’s Top Story in One Sentence: On Monday night, Former President Donald Trump joined X owner Elon Musk for a live chat on the platform that lasted roughly two hours following a 40-minute delay due to technical difficulties.
Reporting from the Left: Trump and Musk talk about assassination attempt and deportations during glitchy chat on X (AP)
Reporting from the Right: Trump chats with Musk in lengthy, overarching interview as Harris continues snubbing media (Fox News)
LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT
Disastrous Display of Egos
The Top Argument From The Left: Trump rambles, slurs his way through Elon Musk interview. It was an unmitigated disaster., Rex Huppke, USA Today: “For a fascism-curious billionaire who loves cuddling up to right-wing loons, Elon Musk sure is good at making right-wing politicians look stupid. …the online interview went off (the rails) with a multitude of hitches. X users erupted with either frustration or laughter as the planned start time passed, and nothing could be accessed. It took more than 40 minutes before the interview could start and be heard by anyone. It was amateur hour, the last thing a campaign struggling to project competence needed. … He was rambling, babbling on about crowd sizes and immigration and President Joe Biden and whatever else seemed to pass through his mind. He was also badly slurring his words, raising questions about his health, and doing nothing to knock down rising concerns about his age and well-being. He sounded like a disoriented, racist Daffy Duck. … Musk, meanwhile, has the interviewing skills of a stoned introvert. He did little but cheerlead Trump and agree with every bizarro thing that fell out of his mouth, while occasionally going on the kind of odd right-wing tangents you’d expect from a man too rich to ever be told to pipe down.”
Honorable Mention #1: The Musk-Trump X interview: a surprisingly dull meeting of two planet-sized egos, David Smith, The Guardian.
Honorable Mention #2: Team Trump Fumes After Trainwreck Elon Musk Interview, Hafiz Rashid, The New Republic.
RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT
“Like Overhearing a Telephone Call”
The Top Argument From The Right: Trump and Musk, on X, Discuss Immigration and Shared Vision for U.S., Vivian Salama et al., The Wall Street Journal: “For more than two hours, Elon Musk and Donald Trump bantered on X about national security, energy policy, immigration and more, in a freewheeling conversation that gave the former president a forum to launch personal attacks on his political rivals as both men reveled in their largely shared vision for the country. … It was hyped by Trump’s team as ‘the interview of the century,’ but the audio-only event felt more like overhearing a telephone call, often with rambling, between two figures who have grown closer as Musk’s politics have shifted to the right. … There were few revelations about Trump’s second-term agenda—and Musk struggled at times to get a word in. The tech entrepreneur struck an overall more nuanced tone than Trump on issues, including immigration. Trump was largely in attack mode. Musk said most people who enter the country ‘are actually good hardworking people,’ but some aren’t. Trump was decidedly more negative, suggesting criminals and ‘nonproductive’ people were flooding the country.”
Honorable Mention #1: Five Takeaways from Trump’s X conversation with Elon Musk marred by rocky start, Mabinty Quarshie, Washington Examiner.
Honorable Mention #2: In Musk Interview, Trump Warns Country ‘Won’t Survive’ If Kamala Harris Becomes President, Jordan Boyd, The Federalist.
FLAG THIS
How Many Tuned In
Determining how many people listened to the conversation between Trump and Musk is somewhat difficult. This is because X counts any instance of a post appearing on your screen as a view, regardless of how briefly you saw it or if you sought it out. This includes posts seen on the home feed, in search results, on profiles, or even an individual’s own posts. Simply viewing a post, even briefly, adds to its total views. To that end, Trump shared a post saying that 16.4 million tuned in to listen (The Wrap).
Elon Musk also shared a post claiming that the combined engagement and discussion related to the interview generated around 1 billion views. To clarify, these figures don’t represent the views (listens) of the conversation alone. Rather, it illustrates the number of views of the conversation and other posts related to it (Fox News).
Do you think it would benefit the American public to see more live conversations between political figures and business leaders? |
WATERCOOLER
On this day in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. Press photographers snapped pictures as FDR, flanked by ranking members of Congress, signed the historic act, which guaranteed income for the unemployed and retirees. FDR commended Congress for what he considered to be a “patriotic” act.
Smithsonian Magazine: Your Microwave Is Teeming With Bacteria, Study Suggests
Mental Floss: 6 of the World’s Oldest Diseases
Today I learned the world’s shortest commercial flight takes less than one minute.
POWERED BY MASTERWORKS
The news is true: Masterworks’ 15th sale just weeks ago returned an impressive 77% to investors. While such a high return is an outlier for the blue-chip art investing platform, you might be wondering what their prior sales delivered. Glad you asked…
Every one of their sales has returned a profit to investors, with 12 of them delivering double-digit returns, and 1 delivering triple-digit annualized returns.
In full, Masterworks has over 300 paintings and their 16 exits have delivered: 32%, 39.3%, 36.2%, 27.3%, 9.2%, 33.1%, 21.5%, 17.8%, 13.9%, 35%, 10.4%, 325.5%, 4.1%, 17.6%, 77.3%, and 13.4% net annualized returns.
Every sale but one outperformed the stock market in the period from when it was offered to when it was sold.
With performance like that, offerings on the platform can sell out in minutes. However, [Newsletter] readers can skip the waitlist to join with this exclusive link.
Past performance is not indicative of future returns, investing involves risk. See disclosures masterworks.com/cd
Reply