Elon Musk Wants A Piece of Your 401(k)

Summary

Everybody's Business – Episode Summary

Podcast: Everybody's Business
Episode: Elon Musk Wants A Piece of Your 401(k)
Date: April 3, 2026
Hosts: Max Chafkin & Stacey Vanek Smith
Guests: Dana Hull (Bloomberg Tech Reporter), Laura Curtis (Bloomberg Trade Reporter)

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Episode Overview

This engaging episode dives into the financial and societal reverberations of two major business headlines:

1. SpaceX’s Confidential IPO Filing – What it means for Elon Musk, retail investors, and your 401(k).
2. One Year After “Liberation Day” Tariffs – How President Trump’s global tariffs upended U.S. economics and everyday life, and what the aftermath looks like for businesses and individuals following landmark Supreme Court decisions.

The hosts, joined by expert guests, explore the intersection of the public markets, regulatory changes, and personal finance, all with the wit and irreverence their listeners expect.

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Main Discussion Sections

1. The Spectacle of SpaceX’s IPO (01:45–15:24)

SpaceX Goes Public: Historic Scale

• Breaking News: SpaceX, Musk’s privately held space venture, has confidentially filed for an IPO aiming to raise $75 billion at a rumored $1.75 trillion valuation.
• Context: Musk once publicly hated the scrutiny of public companies, vowing never to take SpaceX public.
• Dana Hull: “He always looks for the limiting factor and then he solves for the limiting factor. If capital is the limiting factor, he will figure out what is the most efficient way to raise $75 billion. It’s going public and you have this rabid fan base.” (09:23)

Retail Investors Beware

• Musk’s fanbase is enormous; many expect high retail investor demand.
• By getting SpaceX quickly included in major indexes, many Americans may end up indirectly investing via 401(k)s and retirement funds—even if they’re not SpaceX superfans.
• Max Chafkin: “A lot of people’s 401ks are going to wind up in this company if everything goes according to plan, at an absurd valuation—potentially as much as $2 trillion.” (14:43)

AI, Mars, and Musk’s Motivation

• SpaceX formerly resisted the IPO route but now needs huge capital infusions to fund ambitious projects, especially with a shift from Mars exploration to AI/data center initiatives.
• Dana Hull: “We saw SpaceX acquire X.AI. Now, SpaceX is also an AI company.” (07:53)
• The timing is theatrical: The IPO is rumored to align with Elon’s birthday—or maybe with cosmic events. The aura of “spectacle” as strategy is discussed.

Memorable Quote

• Stacey Vanek Smith: “This feels like end of days stuff, like planets aligned — Elon turns 55, becomes the first trillionaire. I don't know.” (10:47)

Political Subplots

• The complex (sometimes turbulent) relationship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump is explored, now repaired “detente style.”
• Dana Hull: “He’s like the most influential non-state actor as I like to talk about it. … I think there’s a detente.” (16:09)

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2. Liberation Day: The Tariff Roller Coaster (19:43–33:35)

One Year Since Tariffs Overturned Free Trade

• Trump’s sweeping tariffs (“Liberation Day”) reversed decades of U.S. policy, intending to boost manufacturing and cut trade deficits.
• The Supreme Court recently ruled the new tariffs illegal, setting off a scramble for refunds—over $160 billion is potentially at stake.

How Tariffs Hit the Street

• Street Views: Ordinary New Yorkers describe feeling pinch at the register, but struggle to isolate tariffs from broader inflation. Construction costs and some imports have noticeably risen.
• Max Chafkin: “It doesn’t seem like things are moving in a cheaper direction. But I don’t know that I can place things being more expensive squarely on the sort of tariffs.” (21:43)

Expert Insight: What the Numbers Say

• Laura Curtis: “The actual tariff rates haven't changed much. They're at historic highs. … If you compare them to the threats President Trump made, it’s been chaotic. There are Liberation Day tariffs, country-specific tariffs, reciprocal tariffs, emergency tariffs…” (22:55)
• The legal confusion is rampant—multiple overlapping tariff authorities, unclear refund processes, and ambiguous rules for importers.

Business Impact

• Small Business Suffering: Harley Sitner of Peace Vans shares direct economic pain: his $8–10 million business paid $100k in tariffs over the year, held back hiring, and is skeptical about seeing refunds.
  • Harley Sitner: “Santa is going to bring me my refund this year. Not going to happen. I have zero faith—zero.” (27:32)
  • Profits down 25%. (31:43)
• Major Companies Cope Better: Larger firms, with legal teams and balance sheets, can “wait out” regulatory changes; small firms face dire uncertainty.

K-Shaped Economy Warning

• The policy has enlarged divides between large and small businesses—big firms absorb costs, small ones freeze growth and shrink.

Delayed Economic Impact

• Laura Curtis: “The delayed impact is absolutely a thing … right after tariffs are imposed, the economy slows, prices may even drop because demand drops. But several months on, price increases finally bite.” (29:09)

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3. Underrated Stories: A Kit Kat Caper & the End of Desert Skiing (36:18–43:10)

The Great Kit Kat Heist (37:39)

• 12 tons of Kit Kats vanished from a shipment in Italy, causing social media uproar and speculation—crime, PR stunt, or both?
  • Stacey Vanek Smith: “It is mysterious. What … why would you steal Kit Kats? What are you going to do with them? Is there a secondary market?” (38:22)
  • Laura Curtis: “You might have some hot Kit Kats.” (39:19)

Skiing Cancelled in Saudi Arabia (41:03)

• Saudi Arabia’s extravagant Neom ski resort plans (in the desert!) are dead, seemingly a casualty of ballooning costs and geopolitical instability.
  • Max Chafkin: “It was going to be outdoors. … It was going to cost $38 billion … The superstructure that they were building is partially completed and the contractors … just had their contracts canceled.” (41:41–42:46)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Musk’s IPO Motivation:
  “Having the biggest IPO in history is a spectacle. Being the world’s first trillionaire would be an amazing spectacle for Elon Musk.”
  — Max Chafkin (10:11)
• On Tariff Confusion:
  “We could not figure out what the tariffs were on furniture coming from the EU and there were several different sources that said several different things…It was just so indicative of the confusion.”
  — Stacey Vanek Smith (23:48)
• On Small Businesses Coping:
  “As a small business owner, you’re just whipsawed…We want to hire and buy inventory, but we’re just super cautious and hesitant.”
  — Harley Sitner, Peace Vans (27:32)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:45 – 15:24 SpaceX IPO: scale, implications, Musk’s motives, retail investor exposure, political context.
• 19:43 – 33:35 Liberation Day tariffs: impact on prices, business, legal confusion, and Supreme Court repercussions.
• 36:18 – 43:10 Underrated stories: Kit Kat heist and canceled Saudi ski resort.

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Takeaways

• SpaceX’s IPO may transform markets and land in Americans’ retirement accounts, even for non-techies—driven by Musk’s quest for spectacle, capital, and control of the narrative.
• Tariff policy chaos continues to ripple through the U.S. economy. For small businesses, the uncertainty and liquidity crunch loom larger than the political headlines.
• Even the most surreal headlines—from Mars missions to 12-ton candy heists—are now part of the “new normal” in business.

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The episode blends in-depth analysis, policy insight, and offbeat business news—retaining the original lively, conversational, and slightly irreverent tone of the hosts.

Transcript

[Max Schaffer]

Modern enterprise. It's a lot of moving parts.

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Comcast Business helps orchestrate it all with

[Max Schaffer]

SD Wan keeping 150 hospital locations connected and zero trust security protecting a bank's 2000 branches.

[Comcast Business Announcer]

No one does business like Comcast Business. Support for the show comes from Public. Lately it feels like there are two types of investing platforms. Some are traditional brokerages that haven't changed much in decades, and others feel less like investing and more like a game. Public is positioned differently. It's an investing platform for people who are serious about building their wealth on public. You can build a portfolio of stocks, options, bonds, crypto without all the bugs or the confetti. Retirement accounts?

[Max Schaffer]

Yep. High yield cash?

[Comcast Business Announcer]

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[Cincinnati Insurance Announcer]

Bloomberg Audio Studios

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Podcasts Radio News Max Jaffkin Stacy, do you know what day it is?

[Max Schaffer]

It's Passover. And maybe when you hear this podcast, it'll be Good Friday. And it's almost Easter Sunday. It's a real holiday season.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Well, that is true, but I was thinking of something that looms in the universe of our show a little bit larger.

[Max Schaffer]

Stacey, you're not talking about Liberation Day, are you?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

The anniversary of Liberation Day? Of course I'm talking about Liberation Day. Listen, this was a day when decades of free trade policy, ever Since World War II were suddenly reversed, throwing the global economy into chaos. What could be more significant than that? Granted, Passover and Easter might be close seconds.

[Max Schaffer]

Companies paid billions of dollars in tariffs. Prices went up. We talked about this nonstop. And just at the very moment when it seemed like the kind of like, tariff madness might be dying down, with the Supreme Court really ruling that these tariffs or that the Liberation Day tariffs in particular were unconstitutional, Trump found like a whole new way to raise prices. Where we had the war in Iran, gas prices. It's basically been a year of economic craziness.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

They've been deemed illegal. But maybe they're back. But it is also quite a significant week for one of the very special people in your life. Max.

[Max Schaffer]

Yes, Acquaintance of the show, Elon Musk. We are gonna be talking about him. I'm in San Francisco right now. Stacey yes. And while that is happening. So SpaceX, Musk's rocket company, is filing confidentially for an IPO. This is gonna be the biggest IPO anyone has ever seen. I am not just exaggerating. And we have really the perfect person to talk about it. Dana hall is gonna be joining me here in the SF studio to discuss this IPO and what it means for the larger sort of conversation around AI and also what it means for all of us because as we'll get into we, we're gonna all end up owning a little bit of SpaceX probably, and

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

possibly going to Mars.

[Max Schaffer]

From Bloomberg Businessweek, this is Everybody's Business. I'm Max Schaffer.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

And I'm Stacey Vanek Smith. Today on the show, we look at our new economic normal, high valuations, high prices, and apparently Rhino Cat. Excuse me, you will learn. So we are gonna do something a little bit different now here at Everybody's Business. We are going to do a dramatic reading a of a deposition from a lawsuit that Elon Musk filed against Sam Altman and OpenAI. And this will feature Max Javkin as Elon Musk and Bloomberg tech reporter Dana hall as Altman's lawyers. Here we go.

[Dana Hull]

You attended burning man in 2017, didn't you?

[Max Schaffer]

I may have.

[Dana Hull]

You were with Tim Schultz. With who? Tim Schultz.

[Max Schaffer]

Who?

[Dana Hull]

Tim Schultz.

[Max Schaffer]

I don't recall.

[Dana Hull]

Do you know when Burning man happens? Labor Day weekend, late August, early September.

[Max Schaffer]

Yeah.

[Dana Hull]

Do you know what Rhino ket is?

[Max Schaffer]

No.

[Dana Hull]

Do you know what Rhino ketamine is?

[Max Schaffer]

No.

[Dana Hull]

Do you recall at burning man in 2017 ingesting rhinoket?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

And scene.

[Max Schaffer]

Stacey?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes.

[Max Schaffer]

Thank you for indulging that wonderful dramatic reading. And we are, of course talking today, Dana Hull, our colleague at Bloomberg, Elon Musk, reporter, my longtime collaborator on the Elon Inc. Podcast, because Elon Musk is back in the news and not only not just because of alleged drug use this time around. SpaceX, one of his many companies, has just filed, according to Bloomberg, for an IPO. It's trying to raise $75 billion. That is three times the the largest ever IPO in history. I believe it would also make Elon Musk a trillionaire, the world's first.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes. And I think it is important to dig into this a little bit because on one level, Elon Musk is just a very rich man who keeps getting richer. But I think it's important to understand how this ipo, how this company going public and selling stock to you and me and everybody is going to affect everyday people in a way that we might not expect or immediately hear about.

[Max Schaffer]

All right. Yeah. And I guess at this point, we need to welcome the thespian herself, Dana Hall. Welcome to us here with me in San Francisco.

[Dana Hull]

Great to be back.

[Max Schaffer]

All right, so, Dana, you and I, I think, caught that deposition last week. That. That was from the litigation that's been playing out between Sam Altman, the. The founder, CEO of OpenAI and Musk. And it's. Altman's lawyers are trying to kind of, like, undermine him or undermine his credibility by suggesting that he was on ketamine while he was negotiating this deal with OpenAI. So I have, like, two questions for you. One is, how is a guy who is in the news and constantly, with all of this potentially erratic behavior, allegations of drug use, how is he going to be the guy who can do the world's largest ipo? And the second. Second question, Dana Hull. What is rhinochetamine?

[Dana Hull]

Okay, I'm gonna answer the second question first. I don't know what rhinochetamine is. My brain immediately goes to, like, horse tranq.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah.

[Dana Hull]

And like other street drugs that are also named after animals, Is this like

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

when the horse trank is not strong enough or something?

[Dana Hull]

You go to the rhino, then you go.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

That's the next step up.

[Max Schaffer]

Heavy duty ketamine is my assumption.

[Dana Hull]

That would be my assumption also. But no, I don't know what it is actually. My drug use days are long past.

[Max Schaffer]

Just to kind of recap the headline, we're recording this on April 1st. We knew this was coming, but Bloomberg reported that SpaceX had filed confidentially. This is like a sort of newish procedure that the SEC came up with to allow companies to essentially start their IPO filing without publicizing all the details. The valuation, Bloomberg is saying, could be more than $1.75 trillion. We're talking about $75 billion in capital. A huge amount of money will likely come from retail investors. And like you, somebody who's followed Elon Musk for a very long time, is that he has specifically said for many years he would never take SpaceX public. He, in fact, hates running a public company so much that he tried to take Tesla private in this incredibly controversial maneuver.

[Dana Hull]

I always thought if they were gonna do a public offering, that it would be like Starlink, that they would like Space out Starlink and take StarLink public, but SpaceX private. But just in the past couple months, we saw, you know, SpaceX basically acquired Xai. Now, SpaceX is also an AI company. I guess it's very telling to me that we get the news of this filing on the day that NASA is planning to send astronauts around the moon. So this is like a huge day for space in general with the Artemis launch. But to your point, yeah, like Elon hates running a public company, but he they need the money to do what they want to do. The public markets have always showered Elon and his companies with money. And this is a guy who, he's just very competitive. So that we're going to have mega IPOs this year if everything goes to plan. SpaceX Anthropic OpenAI I guess SpaceX will be the first out the gate and we'll see what the appetite is for that. But it's just going to give us a level of insight into SpaceX. Who's on the cap table? Who are the largest investors? How many Chinese and Russian investors are there? What is Google's percentage like? It's going to be super fascinating to actually see those documents.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So, Dana, like you say, this kind of transparency that you have to do with an IPO is something that most business owners do not like. They don't want to do it, but they do it because you can raise so much money with an IPO. And you mentioned that SpaceX, there's all kinds of things they want to do with that money. So why is Elon Musk doing this? Why take SpaceX public even though it means having to disclose all this stuff?

[Dana Hull]

So Elon, the way that Elon thinks is he always looks for the limiting factor and then he solves for the limiting factor. So if chips are the limiting factor, he's going to announce that he's building a tariff app. If capital is the limiting factor, he's going to raise money and the IPO market waxes and wanes. If capital is the limiting factor, he will figure out what is the most efficient way to raise $75 billion. It's going public and you have this rabid fan base. The retail investor base in Tesla is north of 30%. And you will, believe me, get an equally rabid fan base.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Retail investors are individuals as opposed to big funds. So you have a lot of just regular pouring money into the stock and

[Dana Hull]

you'll have regular people being very excited to get into SpaceX as well as a lot of longtime institutional investors.

[Max Schaffer]

So I think Elon Musk has this tendency to just find these grandiose challenges. Dan, I think you were kidding to some extent that he was trying to kind of one up this moon launch. But I do think part of it is this is a guy who Loves a spectacle. Having the biggest IPO in history is a spectacle. Being the world's first trillionaire would be an amazing spectacle for Elon Musk. Oh, sure.

[Dana Hull]

And the IPO is timed around his birthday. It's supposed to be like timed around his birthday.

[Max Schaffer]

Also like the astral. It's like when the planets are lining up. We reported something about this, but his

[Dana Hull]

birthday, he'll be 55.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

This feels like end of days stuff, like planets aligned. Elon turns 55, becomes the first trillionaire. I don't know.

[Max Schaffer]

I think there are two things that happened. One is that in the early days of the Trump administration, when Elon Musk was the most powerful person in the White House or besides Donald Trump, Elon Musk was lobbying pretty hard to have a significant change in space policy, to move the US space policy away from this moon mission, which is happening today, and to focus more on a Mars mission, which is the thing that he is most focused on. It's what his, the rocket that he is building starship is for. And that he basically struck out there, that NASA is not going to fund a Mars mission in a big way anytime soon. Elon Musk is going to have to play within that structure. And as part of that, of course, there was the famous breakup. Elon and Trump are back together. But now he needs to find another way to point SpaceX. And he's decided to point it out at the hottest thing in the world, which is artificial intelligence, where instead of focusing on Mars, we're focusing on the moon. And these AI data centers that we talked about back in February when the X SpaceX merger was announced. Dana, do you think, besides being all of the things we talked about, this would be the first of several AI companies to go public? Do you have any sense of whether investors will look at this as an AI company or as an Elon Musk company, or as both of those things?

[Dana Hull]

I think it'll be an. I think they'll look at it as an Elon Musk company. And investors who have invested in Elon's companies have been handsomely rewarded for their loyalty and for sticking with the company through thick and thin. And we have to remember that SpaceX is older than Tesla, like SpaceX was. Like, Elon Musk made his first millions with PayPal and founded SpaceX in Los Angeles in 2002. So this is a company that is like, it's like been around for like 24 years. And so that's a really long time to be private. I think that Elon also Just has a really keen sense of the market and he. Timing is everything and he feels like this is the time to go out. He's made mistakes, obviously. Like he overpaid for Twitter and then regretted it. There is an art and a science to IPOs and, like upsizing them and getting the most in your rounds. And I think that he just feels like this is the window to go and go out before the midterms and then, yeah, it'll be seen as an Elon company, a space company company, and he will try to position it as an AI company.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Do we have any idea of when this will actually happen? Is it definitely happening this year or do we know, like, when we can actually start to buy SpaceX stock?

[Dana Hull]

There could be some force majeure and he could. Like, they could pull the S1. Like, it's not a guarantee, but it sounds like they want to go out by July, right?

[Max Schaffer]

Yeah, yeah. This summer.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Is this like a July 4th?

[Dana Hull]

No, no, it's by his birthday. Like, his Elon's birthday is late June, so they want to have the IPO by his birthday.

[Max Schaffer]

But one thing is. And they're gonna force Majeure. Dan is 100% right. There is a chance that this won't happen. They are saying, and we are reporting that they are saying that they're gonna do this within a couple of months, by this summer. It's totally dependent on what the market is. And you never know what the market is in an IPO until you start taking it on the road and until people get an actual look at these, at the finances. If the reporting on these companies is to be believed, they're not good. This is a company that's going to be losing huge amounts of money, largely because of grok. And part of the way that Elon Musk can potentially fix this, frankly, is by drumming up enough interest from retail investors, as well as by getting SpaceX into indexes very quickly. That's another thing that's sort of happening behind the scenes. So not only will people buy SpaceX directly, but a lot of people's 401ks are going to wind up in this company if everything goes according to plan at, you know, an absurd valuation. Potentially as much as $2 trillion.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

That's, like immediately too big to fail before it even goes public.

[Dana Hull]

When Tesla went public, everyone thought that Tesla was going to go bankrupt. And Tesla now has, what, like a $1.4 trillion valuation? It's still the most valuable car company, even though they basically don't make cars that much anymore. They've piv away from cars and towards AI and robotics at the cyber cabs. He's a financial engineer and he has long standing, deep relationships with Wall street. And everybody wants a piece of the ipo.

[Max Schaffer]

All right, last question for Dana and this kind of will will transition nicely to our next segment. What's the status of Elon and Trump these days? Because remember, they had the big. The breakup. You and I covered it very closely. It's very exciting. Elon accused Trump of being in the Epstein files correctly. It turns out Trump threatened to like take out all of Elon Musk's contracts or whatever. That didn't happen, but we've seen a few signs that they are back together, right?

[Dana Hull]

Yeah. I mean, Musk spent. Was it over the New Year's holiday or over the Christmas or New Year's holidays? He had dinner at Mar a Lago with Melania and President Trump. He has put some money into congressional races for this cycle.

[Max Schaffer]

He was on a call, according to the New York Times with Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India and Trump.

[Dana Hull]

He's like the most influential non state actor as I like to talk about it. They are very much aligned around the SAVE act, which doesn't sound like it's gonna pass Congress, but like they're sort of aligned around this idea that you need to prove US Citizenship in order to vote. And yeah, I mean, I think that there's a detente. You know, my suspicion was always that the dust up was a little bit overplayed and that Elon was trying to get his pay package and he had to be seen as being distant from politics or done with the White House in order to get that pay package. Now that he's got that pay package, all bets are off. And I think he's obviously still very close to JD Vance and Peter Th and it'll be interesting to see how he plays in the midterms.

[Max Schaffer]

Okay, so what are the chances? The SpaceX roadshow on the south lawn of the White House. Just like a year ago, we had the Tesla sales pitch on the south Lawn.

[Dana Hull]

I don't think we're gonna see that.

[Max Schaffer]

Give us the odds.

[Dana Hull]

Yeah, I don't think we're gonna see that. I think you're gonna see everybody go. Going down to Starship though.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Dana, thank you so much for joining us. And please come back as this rolls forward.

[Max Schaffer]

Modern enterprise has a lot of moving parts.

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Comcast business helps you orchestrate it all

[Max Schaffer]

with SD WAN working at scale to keep 150 hospital locations connected and working as one plus SASE and zero trust security, protecting financial data across a bank's 2000 branches and AI powered networking that optimizes traffic across five continents.

[Comcast Business Announcer]

No one does business like Comcast Business support for the show comes from Public Lately it feels like there are two types of investing platforms. Some are traditional brokerages that haven't changed much in decades, and others feel less like investing and more like a game. Public is positioned differently. It's an investing platform for people who are serious about building their wealth on public. You can build a portfolio of stocks, options, bonds, crypto without all the bugs or the confetti. Retirement accounts? Yep.

[Max Schaffer]

High yield cash?

[Comcast Business Announcer]

Yes again. They even have direct indexing. Public has modern design, powerful tools and customer support that actually helps go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market and paid for by Public Holdings Brokerage Services by Public Investing Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors SEC Registered Advisors Crypto Services by 0/ all investing involves risk of loss. See complete [e-mail] disclosures if you follow

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[Stacey Vanek Smith]

it has been one year since President Trump introduced the raft of tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world, including islands that are uninhabited by people. The tariffs started at 10%. They went way up from there. And this was just a huge reversal of the free trade era, which is basically had done away with tariffs since the 1940s had been moving in the direction of free trade as a way to prevent war. Now since Liberation Day, of course, the tariffs have changed hundreds of times. It's been kind of chaos and the whole global economy has been in flux since then. The goal here, the stated goal of this was to bring manufacturing back home to reduce the trade deficit. The results though, I would say have been complicated.

[Max Schaffer]

Yeah. And we wanted to just get a read on what, how they're affecting normal people's lives. We sent our producer Jasmine JT Green out on the streets of New York to ask people how the tariffs were affecting their spending or how it seemed that the tariffs were affecting their spending. Let's, let's listen to that. With the one year anniversary of Liberation Day, I'm curious if the tariffs have affected your spending at all in the past year. It's just, yeah, you can obviously just see like slow uptick in general pricings. Yeah, I think that's kind of like my main observation right now. My dad's a, my dad works in construction in South Florida and he was saying that construction equipment has got or like, like supplies basically gotten more expensive. It seems like it's happening more in the last three to six months versus it was happening all, you know, suddenly a year ago. In general, just things are getting more expensive. I don't think it's had a positive impact.

[Laura Curtis]

I don't think it's affected my spending so, so much. I definitely feel like it's something I've noticed more on like imported things.

[Max Schaffer]

I feel like everything's expensive these days.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

It is kind of this thing of

[Dana Hull]

where I go to the store and

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

if I'm really craving something and I

[Laura Curtis]

really want something, I'm gonna kind of

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

buy it as a snack anyway.

[Max Schaffer]

It doesn't seem like things are moving in a cheaper direction. But I don't know that I can place things being more expensive squarely on the sort of tariffs. So it's a little bit hard to know for sure. Thank you last guy for being careful. We journalists really appreciate that.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I do find it pretty interesting that it can be hard to tell what prices are being affected by tariffs versus other kinds of inflation. I feel like tariffs are a little tricky that way. But luckily we have an expert here to talk us through what has changed and what has not. Laura Curtis, a Bloomberg reporter covering trade. She's here to break down the numbers and see how we have or have not been liberated. Welcome, Laura.

[Laura Curtis]

Hi, thanks so much for having me.

[Max Schaffer]

Stacey, your co author as well. Stacey and Laura just wrote a piece that published, I believe yesterday as you're, as we're recording this on Bloomberg.com, all about this issue.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes, indeed. We published a little guide for businesses wondering, businesses and individuals wondering how to get Their tariff refund. Laura, I'm going to start out pretty. Basically you cover trade all the time. What is the last year been like? Can you give us some numbers? What has happened since Liberation Day?

[Laura Curtis]

Oh, man. If you look at the actual tariff rates that have been in place for the last year, they haven't changed all that much. They're at historic highs, that's for sure. But if you compare them to the threats that President Trump has made lobbying different 200% on champagne. It did that twice in the last year. And so that's been really hard for importers to, to kind of navigate and to gauge because these things are changing so fast. It's also just really complicated. Right. There are all these different tariff authorities. Trump's favorite one is now illegal. So we're dealing with Trump's favorite tariff

[Max Schaffer]

thanks to the Supreme Court ruling against these Liberation Day tariffs in particular.

[Laura Curtis]

That's right. Yeah, exactly. So the. And they're called a bunch of different things, which I think also adds to the confusion. They're Liberation Day tariffs, they're country specific tariffs, they're reciprocal tariffs. There's all these emergency tariffs. All of those things fall in that bucket of the potential refunds that, that Stacy, I wrote about.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I have to say, one of the interesting things about writing this article was we got into this long discussion because we could not figure out what the tariffs were on furniture coming from the eu and there were like several different sources that said several different things. And ultimately, I mean, it was just so indicative of the confusion. It's like, wait, where do we go to actually see the actual number? It was like, well, it's complicated question

[Max Schaffer]

for both of you. So Supreme Court makes this ruling, says that the Liberation Day tariffs are illegal. Laura, you hinted at this. There are all these other tariffs that are still going on. Trump has also said that he's gonna find a way through different laws to essentially reimpose some version of the tariffs. But like, if I'm a, if I'm somebody who paid these tariffs, like the hundreds of thousands of businesses in the United States, what happens? They send me a check, like tomorrow or yesterday or whatever. How do companies get their money back?

[Laura Curtis]

We don't know yet. That's the short answer. But the customs authorities, Customs and Border Protection is making progress on building this whole new system to handle these refunds. To the people who on paper imported all of these goods, it could be a few months before we see the first payments go out for the most simple entries. That's a pretty optimistic view. But that's what they're saying now for all of the other ones, I don't think we know yet. Think about all of the, all the goods, for example, that came in with different tariff rates applied to them and stacking differently. And CBP has to go through those ones and say we're removing this IPA tariff, but maybe this means a metal tariff now applies and so maybe this importer potentially owes a different amount or God help us, even maybe more. I don't know.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I mean, the stacking we should say is like when there's like some, there's like a tariff because of the country it's from. And then you have to add on the tariff because of what it is. It's like when things start adding up.

[Max Schaffer]

Is there a possibility that Trump could just say, nah, sorry, no. Not sending checks back?

[Laura Curtis]

Sure. He says all kinds of things all the time. I think that's part of the confusion for everybody. The Supreme Court has ruled these things illegal. It's about $160 billion that the government collected over the last year. That's potentially on the line for to be returned.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

And that's 330,000 businesses or something like that.

[Laura Curtis]

That's right. And I forget how many millions of individual entries shipments, but it's 50 million something that we could go check. It's a lot of different. That's a lot of paperwork.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Right.

[Laura Curtis]

So that's one of the things that they're dealing with. I think if Trump does say nah, then it's just going to be a longer court battle. Right. It might even end up back at the Supreme Court to hash out again. So I think that's what the sort of less optimistic folks are worried about.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

We did actually talk to one of the less optimistic folks.

[Laura Curtis]

Yeah. So Peace Vans is a really fun company based in Seattle. They retrofit, restore, rebuild all kinds of camper vans. A lot of your classic VW camper vans, I think some sprinter vans, I'm not sure. And then their new project is the new ID Buzz by Volkswagen. It looks like a really retro 60s vibe camper van, but it's all electric.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah, they kit them. It essentially kit them out for campers so they can put in like a pop top tent or they fit all kinds of furniture in it. But when we talked to him, this was what he said about. He estimates that his company, which he said it was worth between 8 and $10 million, has paid out $100,000 over the last year in tariffs. And when asked about his expectations of a refund. Here is what he said, Santa is

[Max Schaffer]

going to bring me my refund this year. Not going to happen. I have zero faith. Zero. You know, and like that actually could have material impact on like my day to day operations. As a small business owner, you're just whipsawed. You know, we want to hire and, you know, and we want to invest and we want to plan and sign leases and buy inventory, you know, but we're just super cautious and hesitant.

[Laura Curtis]

He was approached by one customer, for example, who as soon as the Supreme Court ruled that these tariffs were illegal, was asking for his money back. And Harley's going, I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't seen any of this money yet. I don't know when it's coming. He had to figure out how to be pretty nice about it and I think handled it well. In the end, that was something. You're right, Stacey. It was like a 450 tariff surcharge that he put on this customer's bill. And in the end the tariff that Harley had to pay on that piece was actually more like $600. It's just a really tricky spot for him.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

What stood out to me about this, economically speaking is small businesses employ about half of Americans. And what Harley was saying about how he's held off on hiring, how he's canceled leases, how he hasn't expanded. And Laura, you saying you've heard this from all of these business owners. This feels like a huge impact. Not necessarily an impact we might see as the economy shrinking, but in growth that was lost. Like those are people who might have been hired who aren't getting hired. I just feel like the economic impact of that is pretty epic. And then this whole mess that's happening.

[Laura Curtis]

That's right, yeah. I think I was struck by one of the voices on the street earlier in the episode who noticed that the, that the prices really stayed pretty stable for the first bit of last year. And then in the last three to six months he said he was noticing price increases. And that's something that economists have really pinpointed with some studies over the last couple months just showing that right after these tariffs, tariffs like these are implemented, the economy slows down, prices stay, maybe even drop a little because demand slows so much. People don't know what to do. They can't hire, they're not going out and getting new jobs, they don't feel spending. And it takes a little while for these price changes to trickle through. So I think you're right. It's a, it's absolutely A delayed impact of this.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

And one thing that's interesting in the context of the show, because we were talking about SpaceX going public, is one of the potential effects of these tariffs is to create this kind of K shaped economy among businesses. Because Harley made the point a bunch of times that for big businesses, they have so many options here. They have slush funds, they can lobby, they can hold off, they can move money around. But for small businesses like his, they're kind of month to month and so they end up shrinking, closing their doors. They take the big hit here.

[Max Schaffer]

Yeah, they can. Stacey, you're saying, you're not saying they're doing anything on tour. They just have lines of credit and they can. And big balance sheets and they can afford essentially to wait this thing out and just. And I think a lot of big companies, including like Walmart and stuff did this. They basically just ate the tariffs while they're waiting to see what happens. Cuz they don't know that looking ahead to the Supreme Court or Trump having another taco or whatever else.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

And same is true, I think, even with, with all these lawsuits in this mess. Right. Because if you're Walmart or you're Costco, you have a team of lawyers that can deal with all this uncertainty and do all the filings that need to be done. And if you're Harley Sitner in Seattle, retrofitting vans, like you don't necessarily have that time. So one of the things that, you know, as Laura was mentioning, his customers are starting to write in being like, hey, what about this tariff surcharge I paid? Can I get it back? We asked him what he was planning on doing with the money when he got it and here's what he told us.

[Max Schaffer]

I would offer it back and I would sort of do the passive aggressive thing. Like, you know, we've actually already spent this money like, like you put the energy out there and hopefully it comes back.

[Laura Curtis]

It's peace fans after all, you know?

[Max Schaffer]

Right, Yeah, I mean we're peace fans. You know, it's like, it's the brand, you know, it's like, wait, what is the brand? Is it passive aggressive?

[Laura Curtis]

Yeah.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

So he's gonna basically, and Laura, correct me if I'm wrong here, but his plan is basically that he's gonna offer customers their money back with a little bit of a, are you really gonna do this to us? His profits, he said, are down by 25% because of the tariffs. So he's gonna like offer it in a sort of. If you really need your money back, we can make that happen.

[Laura Curtis]

But I think he said he would also potentially offer to donate it someplace or it could help with his teenage daughter's coffee fund. But yeah, he's trying his best. Not super hopeful that they'll come through anyway.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

But yeah, or if they do come through, it could take years.

[Laura Curtis]

Right?

[Max Schaffer]

One last question from me. I was just wondering if at any point he talked about the upside of these tariffs or any of the customers have brought this up. If we go back to the kind of rationale for Liberation Day a year ago, is it so that we would have a glorious American manufacturing industry? That seems to not have happened yet. But are there any of these? Has he been able to source any van parts in the US and are any Peace van customers, like happy about the like? Is there any kind of like. I'm guessing the answer is no. But like is there, is there like going to be a sort of renaissance of domestic van conversions as a result of these of these policies?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I would say he is in the manufacturing business a little bit, but our economy's become so global that he needs parts from overseas, as does so many other small businesses, even if they are doing the assembly here in the US So he's having to order all these parts from Germany, from overseas, and it's really hard to escape them even if you are an American US Based manufacturer. As I don't know if I would categorize him as a manufacturer, but he's a person putting things together in the US but he's really been slammed by this. So Laura, please stick around. We have our underrated stories up next and we would love to have you weigh in on these. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card members can earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases wherever they shop. This means you could be earning daily cash on just about anything, like a slice of pizza from your local pizza place or a latte from the corner coffee shop. Apply for Apple Card and the Wallet app to see your credit limit offer in minutes subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and

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[Max Schaffer]

Yep. High yield cash.

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[Cincinnati Insurance Announcer]

markets, you know the value of long term thinking. You plan, you diversify, you prepare for volatility. But in life, even the best strategies can't prevent every bad day a fire, a loss, a disruption that demands immediate attention. When that happens, what matters isn't just what you planned. It's who shows up. That's where Cincinnati Insurance comes in. For more than 75 years, they've helped individuals and businesses navigate life's toughest moments with care, expertise and personal attention. Together with independent agents, Cincinnati Insurance focuses on relationships, not transactions. Their approach is grounded in experience, follow through and trust built over time. Bad days happen and when they do, you deserve an insurance partner who understands risk, respects what you've built and is ready to help you move forward. The Cincinnati insurance companies, let them make your bad day better. Find an independent agent@cin fin.com Max and

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Laura, it is time for our underrated stories of the week.

[Max Schaffer]

But before we do that, Stacey, just want to acknowledge you had doubts about talking about baseball.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I did and they had a lot to say.

[Max Schaffer]

And I just wanted to acknowledge a couple emails, one from listener Brian who was bringing up the other technical some other rule changes that have been made to the baseball season that we didn't mention, including the infield shift. I suppose we'll have to dedicate another episode, perhaps a whole miniseries.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I mean, I think is one episode enough? I don't think so.

[Max Schaffer]

Thank you, Brian. Also thank you to Richard for pitching an idea. He basically said that if we're gonna talk about sports that are hot right now, we gotta talk about Formula one which also having a moment quote, demographically the audience is substantially younger and more diverse than the old white guy pren me stereotype and pays big money for the excitement and international glamour. Stacey, I think we gotta. We're gonna have to bring either bring Randall back or somebody else to talk about this because I have been watching the Netflix F1 show so I'm basically

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

oh, there was the F1. There was the Formula One Brad Pitt movie. I guess Formula One.

[Max Schaffer]

I watched that as well, so I guess my expertise is even greater. Anyway, Richard, thank you.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

All right, now to our underrated stories. Max, you want to go first or you want me to go first?

[Max Schaffer]

You go first. Stacey, you've got a good one.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

All right. This is very delightful.

[Max Schaffer]

Laura. Listen closely. This, this has bearing because this has

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

to do with international trade. I don't know if you have heard this, Laura, but there has been a big global heist that happened this week. 12 tons of kit Kats were mysteriously stolen from a shipment going out in Italy.

[Laura Curtis]

Not kit kats?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah, 12 tons. And they've just vanished. And now the whole Internet has exploded over. All of these companies are putting out these funny, like, directives about pretending that they stole the 12 tons of kit Kats. But they. It is mysterious. Like what?

[Max Schaffer]

Wait.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yes.

[Max Schaffer]

Both of you. I have not been following this story at all. What do we know who stole the Kit Kats or is there. Are there any clues?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

No clues.

[Max Schaffer]

Is it a cold case?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

It's a cold case. They have no clues who the cat burglar is?

[Laura Curtis]

Huh?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Thank you. We don't know. Like there's no clues and it's like 12 tons of kit Kats. Like where did they go? And why. Of all the things to steal, 12 tons of. Why would you steal Kit Kats? What are you gonna do with them? Is it a secondary market?

[Laura Curtis]

Is this like one container full of Kit Kats? Like how many tons of Kit Kats fit in a container?

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I think it's one container of Kit Kats that's stolen.

[Max Schaffer]

Not that many.

[Laura Curtis]

Is it from a ship? A truck.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

It's a truck.

[Laura Curtis]

A truck. Okay. Yeah, I guess that's a little easier. You don't need a crane.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah.

[Max Schaffer]

So if I'm buying Kit Kats like at a bodega next week in New York, I should check the lot number and see if these are potentially. Yes, they seem a little suspiciously low.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Gotta check the serial numbers. Yes.

[Laura Curtis]

You might have some hot Kit Kats.

[Max Schaffer]

I don't think I'm the first one to float this theory. Yeah, but this is obviously an inside job, right? This has just been an amazing PR moment for Kit Kat. Are we sure that there even was a stolen truck of Kit Kats or is this. Are we gonna find out it's April Fool's Day as we're recording this.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

That's true.

[Max Schaffer]

It's just been a slow played April Fool's joke. This reporting happened before April 1st though.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

But still it's possible. It is a brilliant PR stunt. If it's a stunt. And someone did point out on social media that this is cheaper than a Super bowl ad. I don't think so. I think it was just, like, a crime that happened that people thought was really funny and mysterious. I'm not sure what one does with 12 tons of iPhones. Yes, I can completely see how you cash in on that Kit Kats. Feels a little more complicated.

[Max Schaffer]

Speaking of things that should probably have been an April Fool's joke, but are not, in fact, an April Fool's joke, have my underrated story is. And I don't know, Laura, I don't know if you are a skier, but Stacey and I are into skiing. And we got some very bad news by way of the Wall Street Journal last week. Saudi Arabia's big plan to have skiing in their new city called Neom is no more. You will not be able to ski in Saudi Arabia. If you hear that and you say to yourself, how could you possibly ski in Saudi Arabia? It is a desert. It's very warm. It doesn't really snow too much there. Those would all be. I think part of the objection that caused this project to run into trouble. The other part of it is I think the amount of money and the fact that the war and all this other economic uncertainty is causing Saudi Arabia to rein things in.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

It feels like a conflict in the Middle east is, like, the lowest on the list of reasons why I feel like they would cancel skiing in Saudi Arabia. I don't know.

[Max Schaffer]

But the defending the Emirates is expensive, and Saudi Arabia, along with the uae, has been really splashing money around in a lot of places. And I. My assumption here is that this project, the Tro Trohanna project, which would have been the Middle east first outdoor ski resort, it just. It was going to cost $38 billion. And. And I think basically that it's too expensive.

[Laura Curtis]

It was going to be outdoors.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Yeah.

[Max Schaffer]

Oh, my God. You gotta look at the renderings because they are amazing. Like, they were built. It's like the most.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Would they make futuristic. There's snow.

[Laura Curtis]

There's not even snow in Colorado right now. It's too warm.

[Max Schaffer]

So it does snow a little bit in the mountain. It's right on the border with Jordan. They do get a dusting in those mountains, so it's high altitude. They were building this massive dam that was gonna bring desalinated water up there. And then they had this crazy plan to build. It's elevated. They had built these, like, elevated platforms. And if you look at the pictures, it looks phenomenal. I don't know if it looks $38 billion phenomenal, but it looks like a fun place to go skiing. And one thing that in the reporting on this, this is one of the places where they're not just canceling a thing that was just in the imagination of MBS or Saudi leadership. They'd actually started building this damn these, this superstructure that they were building to have the ski hills is partially completed and the contractors who were building it just had their contracts canceled.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

I do feel like too, I mean Saudi Arabia had a bunch of really ambitious plans to build like city of the Future and expand its tourism. And I do feel like a lot of money was going into that. It is interesting that it's getting scaled back. All right, Laura, hopefully you have been enriched by this discussion about Kit Kats and desert skiing, but thank you for joining us.

[Laura Curtis]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Max Schaffer]

This show is Produced by Jasmine J.T. green and Stacy Wong. Magnus Hendrickson is our supervising producer. Sam Rogich handles engineering and Dave Purcell fact checks. Special thanks to Jeff Muskus, Julia Rubin, Maria Ling and Angel Recchio. If you have a minute, please rate and review the show. It makes means a lot to us. And if you have a story that should be our business, email us@everybody's loombird.net that's everybody with an sloomberg.net also feel free to suggest baseball related topics.

[Stacey Vanek Smith]

Oh baseball related topics discussions.

[Max Schaffer]

Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.

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[Max Schaffer]

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