Right now big business is all about the transition to cleaner energy sources, as the world shuns coal and oil. General Electric spin-off GE Vernova $GEV makes high efficiency gas turbines and its shares are up 260% in the last year.
“GEV isn’t a pure-play bet on traditional or green energy; it’s a bet on the transition itself, recognizing that shifting to cleaner energy will be a gradual, essential process,” Dan Buckley, Chief Analyst at DayTrading.com wrote in an email.
In other words, natural gas turbines aren’t quite as dirty as making electricity from oil or coal, and so they’re having a moment. Natural gas emits about 50% fewer toxic pollutants than oil, making it comparatively clean. As a result, Vernova’s got a backlog of orders through the end of 2027, with more in the pipeline. CEO Scott Strazik “continue(s) to see this market normalizing to a higher-for-longer gas market,” he said on an earnings call in April.
President Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia brought about $12 billion in potential new business to Vernova, whose turbines and electric grid technology are part of the oil kingdom’s plan to be carbon neutral by 2060. The company also hitched up with MIT to develop new green energy technologies, and is building the first small modular nuclear reactor in the West in Canada with Japan’s Hitachi $HIT.
The biggest challenge for Vernova’s growth, say analysts, is regulation in its many forms, from tariffs to national energy policies to competition rules. Fortunately for the share price, there’s not been too much of that around, lately. There’s also a new risk from lawsuits, as we’ll hear later 👇🏻. The NAACP is suing Elon Musk’s xAI company for using gas to produce energy in Black, low-income areas in Memphis, and calling it an environmental injustice.
—Peter S. Green
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The Usual Suspects
- Sam’s clubbed by tariffs: Walmart-owned $WMT deep discount big box Sam’s Club says it may have to raise prices on air fryers, coffee makers, and other small appliances in one of the first moves by a major retailer to cover the costs of tariffs. The trouble is that keeping prices low has been the key to the outlet’s success, and more than 80% of its profits come from selling memberships that let shoppers access those prices. Awkward.
- Zas’s paycheck gets an edit: And the Oscar for most outrageous comp package goes to: Warner-Bros-Minus-Discovery $WBD chief David Zaslav. Last year, Zas got $51.9 million, but in a non-binding vote this month, shareholders gave that package a symbolic rebuke. Now that WBD’s board has decided to unmerge the company Zaslav created when his Discovery bought Warner, he’s going to be taking a haircut. At the new company, Zas would keep his $3 million-a-year salary, but his target bonus would fall to $6 million, with a cap of $12 million, compared to a payout of $24 million last year. Still it’s not exactly poverty, is it?
- 23andMe Is Under New, Wait…Old…Management: Anne Wojcicki, who co-founded and then led DNA data firm 23andMe $MEHCQ into bankruptcy, just bought back the company, using a non-profit she funded called the TTAM Research Institute (“TTAM” stands for…“Twenty-Three and Me”), outbidding Regeneron Pharmaceutical $REGN with a $305 million offer. Wojcicki got a court to reopen the bidding after Regeneron offered $256 million. Wojcicki twice offered to take 23andMe private, the last time for only $40 million. 23andMe’s only real asset is the genetic data it holds on some 15 million people worldwide, which could be used to develop new drugs.
- Meta’s Mega job offers to OpenAI: In its bid to revive its fortune with a massive bet on AI, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta $META is paying it forward. Remember the last time Zuckerberg went all-in on changing the company’s name from Facebook to bet big on the “metaverse?” Us, either. Meanwhile OpenAI chief Sam Altman says Meta has tried to poach his employees with signing bonuses of $100 million or more, and even larger annual comp packages. Meta says it wants to build a “superintelligence” (because it can’t find one in-house?) and Altman told the Uncapped podcast that he’s flatterred. “Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped, and I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things,” he said, almost sounding sincere.
- Timex time for TikTok: That TikTok clock just keeps ticking, as President Trump extended, yet again, a Jan. 19 deadline for TikTok parent ByteDance to sell the popular app to a non-Chinese owner or be banned in the U.S. No clear bidders have emerged. Meanwhile a major donor with a stake in the company has been donating heavily to Trump.
- Kraft drinks the Kool-Aid: Kraft Heinz $KHC, the food giant known for red ketchup and even redder Jell-O, is removing all chemical dyes from its products by the end of 2027. Kool-Aid and Kraft Mac & Cheese are among the products that will remove artificial dyes. Pepsi also is promising natural colors for its brands, including Doritos, Cheetos, and Gatorade, in the next few years. That may push up prices, because it takes a lot more Cochineal beetles (aka Natural Red No. 4) to make a Dorito its distinctive orange color than it does to use plain old synthetic Red Dye No. 40.
- WhatsAd? So you thought WhatsApp, the Meta-owned $META messaging app, was supposed to keep your data private with “end-to-end encryption?” Think again. After more than a decade of ad-free operation, Meta is putting targeted ads on WhatsApp, in the “status” and “update” areas. Meta says it will be collecting some user data, namely “limited info like your country or city, language, the channels you’re following, and how you interact with the ads you see.” It promises that your messages will remain encrypted and off-limits. But if you link your WhatsApp to your Facebook or Instagram accounts, all that info will be used to bring you targeted ads. Presumably this is a hedge against Zuckerberg’s “superintelligence” bet we mentioned earlier, albeit slightly less visionary and slightly more cash cow-ish. Moooo.
- How to train your studio: Universal’s release of the live-action “How to Train Your Dragon” remake took in $83 million at box offices in North America last weekend, putting the film on track to cover its $250 million-plus production cost, and giving a boost to the expansion of Comcast-owned $CMCSA Universal’s Orlando resort, which is basing attractions on the movie. It’s part of a trend of live-action movies for kids and families, including Warner Bros’ $WBD “A Minecraft Movie” and Disney’s $DIS “Lilo & Stitch.”
- Steel yourself: The Trump Administration has sealed its deal for the sale of U.S. Steel $X to Japan’s Nippon Steel $NPSCY, with an agreement that gives the President $TRUMP an almost unprecedented amount of power over a private corporation. The White House, not a federally chartered corporation, a court, or a government department, will have a single so-called “golden share” requiring Nippon to get Trump’s approval for acts including transferring production or jobs outside the United States, closing or idling plants before agreed-upon time frames, and changing how it sources raw materials. Steelworkers union chief David McCall blasted Trump’s reversal and said the president had sold out the company to foreign ownership.
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Elon’s World
- It’s been a quiet week for the man who was very recently the loudest voice on the internet. The NAACP on Tuesday notified Elon Musk’s xAI that it plans to sue the company over air pollution from its AI data center in Memphis. "These turbines have pumped out pollution that threatens the health of Memphis families. This notice paves the way for a lawsuit that can hold xAI accountable for its unlawful refusal to get permits for its gas turbines," said an attorney for the NAACP.
- Say, hold on. At issue in the case? Gas-burning turbines used to create the power. Remember the company whose stock price has risen sharply by profiting from those, from our lead story, up above? It turns out 50% as dirty as coal and oil is still sorta polluting. And when you’re mainly polluting economically disenfranchised Black neighborhoods in Tennessee? That’s a problem. xAI responded that its generators are “operating in compliance with all applicable laws," Reuters reported.
- Meanwhile, X filed its own lawsuit this week, challenging the constitutionality of a New York law requiring social media companies to disclose how they monitor hate speech, extremism, disinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference, or face heavy fines. Deciding what content social media platforms can allow "engenders considerable debate among reasonable people about where to draw the correct proverbial line," X said. "This is not a role that the government may play."
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Trumplandia
- Rate Relief Rebuffed: The Fed on Wednesday declined to reduce its headline interest rate from the current 4.25%-4.5 % range, warning that inflation is likely to kick up in response to Trump’s tariffs. "Everyone that I know is forecasting a meaningful increase in inflation in coming months from tariffs, because someone has to pay for the tariffs ... between the manufacturer, the exporter, the importer, the retailer," Fed chair Jerome Powell said after a two-day meeting of the Fed. "People will be trying not to be the ones who can pick up the cost. Ultimately, the cost of the tariff has to be paid, and some of it will fall on the end consumer.“ “Jerome Powell is costing our Country Hundreds of Billions of Dollars,” Trump fumed in response. “He is truly one of the dumbest, and most destructive, people in Government.”
- The Gulf of Error: Just hours after the Trump family introduced their latest money-making venture, licensing their name to a cell-phone service promising to use phones that the Trumps say will be made in America (although no smart phones are currently made in the U.S.), the company pulled its coverage map after someone noticed that that big body of water between Florida, Texas, and, um Mexico, was labeled the “Gulf of Mexico.” Reuters also looked at the code behind an online map of the service’s coverage and found it an exact match to…T-Mobile’s.
- Rememebr that Big Beautiful Bill? Remaking the Federal budget is not going very well for Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and White house Budget chief Russell Vought. After squeaking through the House on party lines, it’s stuck in senatorial mud. The Congressional Budget Office has also weighed in, upping their previous forecast on the bill’s contribution to the national debt by a mere trillion dollars, saying it will now cost $3.4 Trillion over the next decade.
- Oil turmoil: Israel’s ongoing air war on Iran and its nuclear facilities has hit the world’s oil markets. The Islamic republic pumps 2% of the world’s oil, and shutting that down could have some knock-on effects. While in theory the U.S.should be immune as a net exporter of oil, the existence of a global market lets U.S. producers mark their oil to market, of course. “Your guess is [as] good as mine’ in future price divination,” analyst John Evans at oil broker PVM told CNBC on Wednesday.
- Picky, picky: Last week Trump told ICE to lay off farm, hotel and restaurant workers in a slightly rambling note, after Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins convinced him that without undocumented immigrants, there’d be no food, no clean sheets and no meals in America. Then he changed his mind and said “go ahead, regardless.” America’s food CEOs say they need immigrants, with or without papers. “We need to be very realistic,” Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya said at a Wall Street Journal food forum. “We need immigration and we need workers for our food system to work.” “Without farmworkers, vegetables will be left in the fields, fruit will remain unpicked, and cows will go unmilked,” American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said at the event. “The end result is a reduced food supply and higher grocery prices for all of America’s families.”
The Short Stack
- High Times: The original stoner mag is back, with new-ish owners. Josh Kesselman, the owner of RAW brand rolling papers, paid $3.5 million for the intellectual property rights, and is reviving the print magazine with special editions. He’ll also relaunch the Cannabis Cup pot competition, working with former High Times co-owner Matt Stang. PE firm Oreva Capital bought the magazine from in 2017, but it went into receivership last year. This is the sort of content we’re here for:
- Homes out of range: What’s wrong with the residential real estate market? Too many sellers and not enough buyers. According to an analysis by real estate brokerage Redfin $RDFN, many buyers are still priced out, with home prices up 50% in the past five years and mortgage rates at over 6.5%. Also, a mortgage costs a lot more than it used to because of inflation.
- Cryptomania is in the House! After the U.S. Senate approved a bill to authorize stablecoins, a new Crypto law goes to the House of Representatives, where its passage is less certain. Crypto watchers and some Democrats warned the bill doesn’t do much to prevent abuses or trim the involvement of politicians like President Trump, whose own crypto empire has netted his family millions, and from investors who have benefited from Trump’s policies. The Senate passage came after massive lobbying campaigns by the crypto industry, whose SuperPACs spent more than $130 million to influence tight races across the country, winning 53 of the 58 they spent on.
Peter S. Green is a veteran reporter and editor who has spent more than two decades covering business and finance from Eastern Europe to New York City, and has worked for Bloomberg News, The New York Post, The New York Times and The Messenger. He lives in New York City and is always looking for the next big story.
