WSJ What’s News - Musk Sets Donations for New Pro-Trump Super PAC

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

A.M. Edition for July 16. Elon Musk has said he plans to commit around $45 million a month to America PAC, a group backing former President Donald Trump’s presidential run. The WSJ’s Dana Mattioli has the scoop. Plus, our team in Milwaukee recaps an eventful day at the Republican National Convention and speaks to Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wisc.) about tariffs and the economy. And, data from Disney’s internal Slack workplace collaboration system are leaked following a hack. Kate Bullivant hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's BetterHelp.com. Elon Musk has said he is committing tens of millions of dollars a month to a new pro-Trump super PAC. Plus, we have a dispatch from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. There was this cheer that went up when Donald Trump first appeared on the screens throughout the arena here that was by far the loudest moment of the night. This cathartic high point that so many people here had been clearly waiting for since the attempt on his life on Saturday. And a hack exposes internal communications at Disney. It's Tuesday, July 16th.

I'm Kate Bullivan for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. And here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. We begin today with a scoop. Elon Musk has said he plans to commit around $45 million every month to a new super PAC supporting Donald Trump's presidential run. Here's journal reporter Dana Mattioli with more details on the recently founded America PAC. They are going door to door, registering voters in different areas to get them to sign up to vote, to request mail-in ballots in swing states, trying to get them to commit to voting early. And this was an acknowledgement from the people involved in the America PAC, which include Elon Musk, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, the Winklevoss twins. They realized that the Democrats have historically been very

good and dedicated a lot of resources to get out the vote campaigns and swing state dedication on the ground efforts. So this is their attempt to do some of that themselves for the Republicans. This is their attempt to do some of that themselves for the Republicans. Bloomberg News reported earlier that Musk had donated to the PAC without specifying the scale of his planned commitment. We asked Dana to put the $45 million figure into context. That's a really large sum, a recurring sum. And as of right now, the largest known donation of the 2024 election is a $50 million donation given by the great grandson of banker Thomas Mellon to a different super PAC supporting

Donald Trump. We're learning about Musk's commitment just days after the billionaire formally endorsed Trump for president. According to Wall Street Journal reporting, the two men have grown closer in recent months and have even discussed a possible advisory role for Musk in a potential second Trump administration, though the Tesla CEO later denied this. Turning now to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where the Wall Street Journal has a contingent of reporters and editors covering the event live. Last night, former President Donald Trump made his first major public appearance since the assassination attempt against him this past weekend.

Arleuk Vargas was in Milwaukee's Pfizer Center to seeatt, and he filed this report. There was this cheer that went up when Donald Trump first appeared on the screens throughout the arena here that was by far the loudest moment of the night. This cathartic high point that so many people here had been clearly waiting for since the attempt on his life on Saturday. The actual sort of optics of it, Trump is standing in this corridor, On Saturday, the actual optics of it, Trump is standing in this corridor, and he comes out to the strains of Proud to be an American, introduced by singer-songwriter Lee Greenwood. He will not take this man down. He has the courage, the strength, and he will be the next president of the United States.

And I'd say, although the night had been energetic before this moment, before Trump emerged, the crowd basically from that point on took on this new energy. They were chanting, filling the silence, including at one point with the words that Trump himself had called out after he was struck by a bullet on Saturday

in Butler, Pennsylvania. In contrast to that and the attitude that we've seen him project at his rallies through the year, last night he looked different. He was wearing this soft, humble smile and really appeared relaxed and grateful for the affection directed toward him. Even before Trump appeared, though, there was another trend that emerged across a long list of speakers throughout the evening, and that was a spotlight on people of color, among them Bob Unanowi, the CEO of Hispanic-owned Goya Foods, as well as two black lawmakers whose stars have been rising in Washington, Florida Representative

Byron Donalds and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. We are not simply the party of our leaders. We are also the party of a young woman in Wisconsin taking over her family farm, an Hispanic father working 16-hour days in Nevada, and a black teenager in Philly starving for opportunity. This is something I wanted to ask WSJ reporter and editor Aaron Zittner about. And he said that our own polling shows the GOP is in fact making inroads with groups that have traditionally aligned more with Democrats. In each of our last three polls, two of those were national polls and one was a poll of the seven battleground states. Donald Trump had 20 to 22 percent support and Joe Biden had 68 percent support. So it was 68 to 22. Now that's a big lead, but it's really a significant deterioration for Joe Biden when

you consider that in 2020, Joe Biden got 91 percent of black support to Donald Trump's 8 percent. And on the night when Republicans chose make America wealthy once again as their unifying theme, we saw the party show off a few parts of its America first economic policy. That included a pledge by Trump to eliminate taxes on tips. This is an issue some of his surrogates here have been really loudly promoting and will probably hear more about. At times, though, the politicians ceded the stage to a cast of everyday Americans who talked about the effects of inflation continuing to hammer the Biden administration on that issue. And although it didn't come up as much on stage last night, there was another key part of the GOP's economic plans, tariffs, especially on goods coming from China.

And earlier in the day, I had a chance to sit down with Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson. He is a vocal supporter of Trump, but at times voiced skepticism about how effective tariffs actually are. And I asked him what he made of both Trump and Biden now campaigning on keeping the tariff dial turned up on China. Well, China's a problem. And they just are. They're using industrial policy. They're using the power and the wealth of the state, you know, bankrupting industries.

You know, how do you react to that? It's not easy. You know, when you have China, for example, just produce overcapacity in the steel business, that destroys industry. So you've got to react to that. So I'm not carte blanche opposed to tariffs, but as I've explained to the president when I flew up to the Green Bay rally with him, I also recognize tariffs are a double-edged sword. And I hear it all the time in Wisconsin. So you put, slap tariffs on steel, so you have all these manufacturers in Wisconsin that utilize steel,

and they're competing against global manufacturers that also utilize steel but are buying it in the open market a lot cheaper than they're able to source it. So now we're at a competitive disadvantage to those people. So again, I'm a business guy. I'm an accountant. I truly do understand the double-edged nature of tariffs, recognizing we need them in some circumstances. So I would hope we'd be more surgical in how we apply them. Does that feel like where we're headed, or are you concerned the temperature is as high as it is? I'm a little concerned on the strong bipartisan support for a more massive number of tariffs

than what I think would be most helpful. Would you support a 10% tariff on all imports to the U.S.? Well, I do believe, and it's true, that it's American consumers who pay that cost. It hurts the countries you're imposing tariffs on, and then there's going to be retaliation, so it's going to hurt any manufacturer or any exporter here in America.

So again, in a perfect word, it'd be tariff-free. I think President Trump believes that as well. But again, there are problems. It's not totally fair trade. So you have to deal with it. Trade is an incredibly complex issue. Looking through the recently adopted 2024 GOP platform, there is a statement that as tariffs on foreign producers go up,

taxes on American workers, families and businesses can come down. Do you think any increase in tariffs should be accompanied by a tax cut for American producers, consumers? Well, again, I think that's a general direction that President Trump would like to take it is, you know, increase some tariffs. And as long as you're doing that, give tax relief. I mean, don't just put that in the government coffers. That was Senator Ron Johnson speaking to our Luke Vargas in Milwaukee. We'll have a lot more dispatches from the RNC this week, so be sure to listen in. Coming up, an anonymous hacking group says it has leaked a trove of data

from Disney's internal Slack channels. That story and more after the break. Slack channels. That story and more after the break. is the single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. Do more and spend less like Uber, 8x8, and Databricks Mosaic. Take a free test drive of OCI at oracle.com slash wallstreet. oracle.com slash wallstreet. It's shaping up to be an action-packed week for the Republican campaign, but in the Democratic camp too, President Biden is busy trying to turn back a tide of doubts after his performance at last month's debate. In an interview aired yesterday, he expressed regret for saying during a call with donors that it was, quote, time to put Trump in the bullseye,

a comment he made before Saturday's assassination attempt against the former president. Speaking to NBC News' Lester Holt, Biden said it was a mistake to use the word bullseye, but signalled he would continue to criticise Trump. I mean, focus on him, focus on what he's doing, focus on his policies, focus on the number of lies he told in the debate. I mean, there's a whole range of things that, look, I'm not the guy that said I want to be a dictator on day one. And while the race for the White House is top of mind, one issue we aren't hearing about as much on the campaign trail this year is federal debt. We want to know your questions about the national debt and what it means for the US and its citizens. Send us a voice memo to WNPOD at WSJ.com or leave a voicemail with your name and location at 212-416-4328.

We might use it on the show. And data from Disney's internal Slack system have been leaked online. According to files viewed by the Wall Street Journal, the leak includes discussions about ad campaigns, studio technology and interview candidates. An anonymous hacking group that calls itself Null Bulge said in a blog post that it published data from thousands of Slack channels at the entertainment company, though its claims about the scope of documents taken and how it obtained them couldn't immediately be verified. Null Bulge said it targeted Disney due to its handling of artist contracts, its approach to artificial intelligence and its, quote, pretty blatant disregard for the consumer.

A Disney spokesman said the company is investigating. Here's a look at what else is moving markets today. Match Group shares have jumped in off-hours trading. That's after the Wall Street Journal exclusively reported that activist investor Starboard Value has built a stake of more than 6.5% in the Tinder parent and is pushing for the online dating company to improve its margins or pursue a sale. Starboard is at least the third activist group to target match this year, following stake building by Elliott and Anson. And investors are expecting earnings from Bank of America,

Morgan Stanley and others later this morning. And that's What's News for Tuesday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach and Anthony Banzi. Our supervising producer was Christina Rocker. And I'm Kate Bullivant for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for Luke Vargas. We'll be back tonight with a new show. And until then, thanks for listening.