It ain’t over yet. Slagging off Fed chair Jerome Powell, and threatening to fire him didn’t do Donald Trump any favors. “If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me,” Trump told reporters at the White House a week ago. The stock and bond markets balked, with the S&P 500 dropping 3.36% on Monday when markets reopened after the Good Friday holiday. So Trump backed down for now, which at least got the S&P back up about 4.2%. (Though it’s still down over 11% since Trump took office.)
But that doesn’t mean everything’s copacetic between the White House and the Fed. As Trump sees it, the Fed chair’s job is to help the sitting president look good. Never mind that Trump himself named Powell Fed chair in 2018, Trump thinks Powell cut rates under Joe Biden’s presidency in a failed effort to help the Democrat win the 2024 election. Now, he wants Powell to cut interest rates to help Trump look good now that Trump’s unprovoked tariff war has the U.S. and possibly the rest of the world headed for a recession. “I would like to see him be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates…but, no, I have no intention to fire him,” he told reporters in the Oval Office.
The crux of the matter is that the Fed’s independence from politics is what gives it—and by extension the entire U.S. economy—its credibility. Powell is bent on preserving the independence of the Fed to make up its own mind on how to achieve its dual mandate: Keep inflation low and employment high. “We will only make our decisions based on…our best analysis of the data,” Powell said last week. “That’s the only thing we’re ever going to do.”
Even if Trump can’t control Powell or can’t bend the Fed to his will, Fed watchers say Trump is trying to set up Powell as the person to blame for the economic destruction that’s already been wrought and the damage yet to come as the tariff turmoil drags on. “It’s tempting to want somebody else to ride to the rescue, or at least have someone else to blame,” Phil Gramm, the former GOP senator from Texas, told the Wall Street Journal.
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The Usual Suspects
- Zuck on the hook? As Meta’s $META monopoly trial continues in Washington, Instagram founder Kevin Systrom accused Meta chief and Facebook founder Mark “Hoodie Man” Zuckerberg of stifling Instagram shortly after he bought it, to protect Facebook from a “network collapse.” Systrom is a witness for the Federal Trade Commission, which brought the charges against Meta. Systrom said that fear was a “major driving force” behind Zuck’s 2018 decision to throttle back investment in Instagram. Zuck’s lawyers, however, point to Instagram’s rapid growth and rising profits since Facebook (now Meta) bought the platform. The feds are hoping to split up Meta, forcing it to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp.
- Boeing’s China Woes: The Trump Tariff Turmoil (TTT) is hitting Boeing $BA right where it hurts, just as the troubled planemaker tries to return to profitability after years of losses and declining sales. On Wednesday, Boeing reported a first-quarter loss of $31 million, beating analysts’ expectations and showing a whopping improvement from the $350 million lost a year ago after a poorly-installed door panel fell off a 737 last January. Boeing delivered 130 planes, up from 83 a year earlier, and won a contract to make the Air Force’s next fighter, the suggestively named F-47. Boeing also raised some cash by agreeing to sell some of its digital businesses—which mainly have to do with navigation—to a private equity firm for $10.5 billion. But Boeing’s taking a big blow from the tariffs. China has put a hold on deliveries of Boeing planes, and Boeing now says it may have to sell those planes elsewhere to maintain its cash flow. CEO Kelly Ortberg called 2025 Boeing’s “turnaround year,” but hasn’t said how tariffs will affect the company’s finances.
- Coke v. Pepsi: Forget about the monkeys. Pepsi’s $PEP decades-old decision to make some of its concentrate in Ireland because of the Emerald Isle’s lower tax rates is backfiring now that Trump has imposed 10% tariffs on all imports. Coke $COKE makes its secret concentrate in Atlanta and Puerto Rico. Pepsi also makes concentrate in Texas, and it hasn’t said how the tariff will affect costs. But both soda makers are expected to face pressure from Trump’s 25% tariff on aluminum imports, most of which come from Canada.
- Oil troubles: Oil prices keep falling, which may be good for consumers but not so great for OPEC members and the big energy giants. It certainly doesn’t help Donald Trump’s plans to “drill baby, drill.” Benchmark Brent crude fell more than 2% after OPEC+ said it will increase production in May by 411,000 barrels a day, up from a planned increase of 122,000. The extra production will mean more income for cash-strapped members, including Russia, but it threatens plans to expand drilling in the U.S. by flooding the market with cheap fuel. It comes as Trump’s tariffs limit demand for oil, with the International Energy Agency cutting its forecast for oil demand growth by about a third, from 1 million barrels a day to 730,000. “Concerns that the measures could stoke inflation, slow economic growth, and intensify trade disputes weighed on oil prices,” the IEA wrote in its April Oil Market Report, referring to Trump’s tariffs.
- Pope’s Death Ratings: Amazon $AMZN and Netflix $NFLX saw viewership soar after Pope Francis died on Monday. “Conclave,” a 2024 Oscar Winner which Amazon streams, saw a 32-fold jump in viewership (measured, bizarrely in millions of minutes watched) on Tuesday; Netflix’s 2019 “The Two Popes,” a biopic about Francis and his conservative predecessor and Hitler Youth member Pope Benedict XVI, saw viewership jump 417%.
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Trumplandia
- CryptoTrumping: Wanna have dinner with Donald Trump? Just be one of the 220 biggest spenders on his $TRUMP memecoin, and you’re in. “At this Intimate Private Dinner, Hear First-Hand President Trump Talk about the Future of Crypto,” according to an online ad. The campaign is effectively an opportunity to buy access to the President by enriching him and his family. After the announcement went public Wednesday, $TRUMP memecoin spiked 54%, shooting up to $14.32 from $9.29 in less than an hour, as some $842 million of the memecoin changed hands. “This is really incredible,” Corey Frayer, who ran crypto policy for the SEC during the Biden administration, told the New York Times. “They are making the pay-to-play deal explicit.” The $TRUMP memecoin hit a peak of $75.35 on January 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration. A Trump Organization affiliate, CIC Digital, and a firm called Fight Fight Fight together own 80% of the $TRUMP memecoins.
- The Truth about ETFs: Trump Media & Technology Group $DJT, the parent company of Truth Social, said it’s reached a deal with a Florida investment firm and the Crypto.com trading platform to launch a series of ETFs, as it seeks more revenue to prop up the unprofitable Truth Social platform. When Trump took office, the SEC closed an investigation into Crypto.com. Shares in Trump Media are up 15% since the news, but down 26% since Trump’s inauguration.
- TTT Update: So what’s going on with the Trump Tariff Turmoil? A lot of talk about negotiations being started, a lot of talk about unilateral lifting of tariffs by Trump himself, and a lot of U.S. trading partners now looking elsewhere to do their business. China stopped buying U.S. soybeans and Boeing jets. Truckers are losing business and are expected to lose vast amounts more as China and other nations stop shopping goods to the U.S. Then there’s the effect on the global economy: The International Monetary Fund warns Trump’s tariffs, which it notes are higher than U.S. tariffs were at the beginning of the Great Depression, will shrink global growth to 2.8% from a previous forecast of 3.3%. The U.S. economy will grow at only 1.8%, down from a 2.7% forecast in January. Mexico, which was looking at 1.4% growth, will see its economy shrink by 0.3% this year.
- Debt alert: The IMF warned global government debt could reach 117% of global GDP up from today’s 92.3%, a level not seen since the end of World War II. Why does that matter? Because instead of an efficient economy producing goods and generating taxes to pay for government services, governments will have to borrow even more money just to keep the lights on.
- Tariff tiff at home: In a foray to block Trump from implementing his planned mega-tariffs and rolling back the ones he’s already implemented, states are taking to the courts themselves. A dozen states have joined a lawsuit in U.S. International Trade Court, arguing the Trump tariffs are illegal. “The president does not have the power to raise taxes on a whim, but that’s exactly what President Trump has been doing with these tariffs,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement on the lawsuit.
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Elon’s World
- One big ouch! Tesla’s $TSLA profit dropped 71% in the first quarter to $409 million, and not from selling cars. The electric car maker made $400 million in interest on cash and investments and $595 million from selling emissions credits to other carmakers (Trump has pledged to end those credits). Tesla reported it delivered 336,681 vehicles in the first quarter of 2025, a 13% decline from a year ago. Tesla shares have lost half their value since December. “This is the worst performance I’ve seen in Tesla’s history. I get Elon will tell everyone about trillions of TAM and robots taking over the world… anything to get you not to look at the facts,” said prominent Tesla investor Ross Gerber. After the earnings report, Musk said he plans to cut back the amount of time he spends DOGEing the U.S. Government in Washington and will spend more time with Tesla.
- Excuses, excuses: Musk says China’s trade war hold on key magnets made from heavy rare earth metals will delay his plans to produce his Optimus humanoid robots. The magnets are 15 times smaller than regular magnets and are used to build the electric motors that make robots flex and move.
The Short Stack
- Discord at Discord: Just as Discord, every gamer’s favorite co-playing app, is preparing for a multi-billion-dollar IPO, co-founder and CEO Jason Citron is stepping down. He’ll remain a board member and adviser to incoming CEO Humam Sakhnini, a veteran of game maker Activision, whom Citron called a better fit for taking the firm public.
- The rich keep getting richer: Now, 19 U.S. families control a record 1.8% of America’s wealth—$2.6 trillion—and they accumulated $1 trillion of that just last year. In 2023, according to an analysis by UC Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman, those 19 households held only 1.2% of the country’s wealth, the Wall Street Journal reported. Last year’s surging stock market helped create much of that wealth, and the numbers aren’t in on what happened since Trump took office. One indication could be the Dow, down 10% through Wednesday since Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
- Times 2, Palin 0: Former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lost her second libel trial against the New York Times this week, when a jury took just two hours to determine that the Times had not acted recklessly or with malice when it suggested that a Palin ad targeting Democratic Congressional districts with a rifle’s crosshairs had possibly prompted the shooting of Arizona Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. There was no indication that Giffords’ assailant had ever seen the map, and the Times immediately published a correction and apology. Conservatives are expected to continue their push to overturn a 1964 Supreme Court decision, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, that ruled media could only be sued for defamation if there was “actual malice” involved in deciding to publish.
- Cultured: New York-based yogurt-maker Chobani said it plans to open a $1.2 billion, 1-million square-foot factory in Rome, New York, to turn out 1 billion pounds of dairy products a year. With one-fifth of the U.S. yogurt market, Chobani said it had sales of $2.96 billion last year and profits of $509 million, or nearly 16%. While Chobani gets its milk from American cows, the machines it uses to make yogurt and other food products come from Europe, and the company is concerned about the impact of tariffs.
- Card tricks: Federal banking regulators have approved a $35 billion deal for bank and credit card issuer Capital One to buy Discover in a move regulators say will add a serious competitor to the credit card duopoly of Visa and Mastercard. The enlarged Capital One will be the largest U.S. credit card issuer by balances and the eighth-largest U.S. consumer bank. Consumer advocates called the deal anti-competitive and are asking state regulators to block it.
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.
