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Musk v. Altman Gets Fiery & Coca-Cola’s Cash Cow is…Milk?
00:32:15
Altman fires back at Musk & Coke has their cash cow
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- [00:00]
Samsung Galaxy
I can say to my new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, hey, find a keto friendly restaurant nearby and text it to Beth and Steve. And it does without me lifting a finger so I can get in more squats anywhere I can. 1, 2, 3.
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Cashier
Will that be cash or credit?
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Neal Freyman
Credit.
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Cashier
4 Galaxy S25 Ultra the AI companion that does the heavy lifting. So you can do you get yours@samsung.com compatible with select apps. Requires Google Gemini account. Results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy.
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Neal Freyman
Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.
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Toby Howell
And I'm Toby Howell.
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Neal Freyman
Today Sam Altman called Elon Musk not a happy person. Let's go inside the billionaire battle over the future of AI then.
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Toby Howell
The publishing world is locked in a heated debate over those little blurbs you see on the back of books. It's Wednesday, February 12th.
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Apple Card
Let's ride.
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Neal Freyman
The super bowl wasn't the only contest that everyone you know is talking about this week. The Westminster Dog show was held last night and best in show went to a giant schnauzer named Monty. It's the most prestigious prize in the US Dog show world, where dogs are judged according to how closely they match the ideal for their breed. Monty's owner and handler could barely hold back tears on the podium. Puppy did the damn thing and I'm so proud of him, she said. Having been named the top dog, Monty will now be retiring from competition to be. What did you accomplish when you were 5 years old?
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Toby Howell
Absolutely nothing compared to Monty. This was Monty's third time in a row representing the Working Group classification of dogs. So screw the Chiefs Dynasty. I'm all in on the Monty Dynasty. Hopefully it kicks off a new era for the Working group though this was its first win since 2004. You also got a feel for Bourbon, the Whippet, who is a runner up for the third time at the competition. And get this, the nine and a half year old came out of retirement just days before the competition. So what a performance out of Bourbon. Other finalists did include the crowd favorite, Neil. The British B Sean Frise representing the non sporting group, Neil. Never heard of a dog called Neil.
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Neal Freyman
That is. That is also the first time I've heard of a dog named Neil and I feel bad for that dog to be honest.
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Toby Howell
But get this Neil heel does kind of roll off the tongue. But congrats to Monty. Its owner says it's retiring from the competition on top. What a performance. Now a word from our sponsor, Wise Business. Neal, I notice you've been getting into jigsaw puzzles lately.
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Neal Freyman
I love it. Very meditative.
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Toby Howell
But you also do them without looking at the picture on the box. That is wild to me.
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Neal Freyman
I like the challenge you're puzzling with.
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Toby Howell
One hand behind your back. It's like trying to send and receive international payments without using Wise. You are choosing to ignore a tool that could make things faster and easier.
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Neal Freyman
Well, I'm not an international business owner. I'm just a humble puzzler.
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Toby Howell
Thank goodness you aren't, because growing businesses know that wise business is the move. Just like a real puzzler knows that looking at the picture can speed up your process.
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Neal Freyman
I'll admit Wise business is the move, but you can never make me look at the picture.
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Toby Howell
Don't be like Neil. Visit wise.com/business to speed up your payment processes abroad. That's wise.com/business. Well mom, the billionaires are fighting again Sam Altman and Elon Musk escalated their beef yesterday with the two trading barbs on X in interviews over Elon's last ditch attempt to hijack a deal to make Open Air a for profit company. Earlier this week, Elon shocked the tech bro world by making an unsolicited bid to purchase the nonprofit arm that controls OpenAI for $97.4 billion. Elon Co founded the multibillion dollar startup with Sam Altman as a nonprofit back in 2015, but has spent much of the past few years railing against Altman's plan to convert the company into a for profit entity through submitting a bid. Elon has thrown a wrench into those carefully laid plans. Open AI's board doesn't have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize returns since it's technically a charity. But by submitting a bid, Elon is setting a public floor price for anything Altman ends up offering, likely forcing him to paying a higher price to take control. Almond spent much of yesterday morning discrediting Elon's Hail Mary as an attempt to slow down a competitor, reminding everyone that Elon has his own AI company, X AI. But also, Altman also took the time to offer up some personal jabs, adding that Elon's whole life is from a position of insecurity and that he quote, feels for the guy. Neil, it is Real Housewives of AI out there with billions of dollars in the future of artificial general intelligence at stake.
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Neal Freyman
Yeah, OpenAI right now is trying to pull off a routine of Simone Biles level difficulty. What they're trying to do right now is one of the most complex maneuvers in American commercial history. It's got this $500, $500 billion data center project called Stargate with Oracle and SoftBank. At the same time, it's raising $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation. That would be the largest venture capital round by orders of magnitude in American history. For those to happen, it needs to be able to convert from this nonprofit for profit structure that it's in right now to, to streamline that into one cohesive for profit company that allows it to raise money. Right now, it is, you know, handcuffed to raise money because of this weird structure that it's in. So it needs to be able to execute this deal. And Elon Musk, as Sam Altman is probably correctly saying, is trying to throw a wrench in it and slow it down, even if he's not able to stop it. Elon OpenAI has a lot on their agenda, a lot of mouths to feed, this very complex maneuver. And Elon Musk is certainly making that more difficult.
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Toby Howell
Yeah, and what needs to happen is the board needs to, you know, pick a side. Essentially, OpenAI did completely overhaul its board members. Remember the blow up that happened between Altman and the old board of directors last year? So in theory, right now the board is, you know, on Altman's side. It oversees a nonprofit arm which in turn controls the for profit business. Also. Who is on that board? None other than the former chairman of Twitter, Brett Taylor. He was the chairman of Twitter when Musk made his other unsolicited bid to buy that business and then tried to back out before, you know, he was eventually forced to buy the business. So he has a very fraught history with Elon Musk, to say the least. It is just like this. Brett Taylor cannot escape Elon Musk trying to buy every single business he's on the board of. So the same time, though, the board could hypothetically say, wait a second, this is a legitimate offer. Let's see what you have to cook up. Altman. They can't just dismiss it completely out of hand. So hypothetically, the board should side with Altman, but you never know in instances when you know, you have billions of dollars on the line.
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Neal Freyman
And there's also a chance this is a complete smokescreen because OpenAI board director Larry Summers, who's the former Treasury Secretary, said he had not received any formal outreach from Elon Musk in that consortium of investors who put forward this nearly $100 billion bid. Sam Altman also told employees that he hasn' received anything official from the Musk team. So we'll see whether this is bluster. Or actually a real bid in the first place.
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Toby Howell
And then the final point to make here, I mentioned that the board doesn't have a fiduciary responsibility like most for profit boards do, but they do have an obligation to fulfill OpenAI's kind of legal purpose. And that legal purpose is safely advancing artificial intelligence to benefit humanity. So the question of price is secondary to the question of whether this sales fulfills the mission that the nonprofit arm set out to achieve. So it gets a little nebulous there. But that is one other aspect of this that you have to pay attention to.
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Neal Freyman
And this is very all soap opera obviously, but there is so much at stake, billions of dollars, but also the future of AI. OpenAI is the one of the leading AI companies in the world. Every corporate exec and technology leader says this is the next industrial revolution. So who controls what happens going forward with this? Technology is of crucial importance to everyone around the world. And right now these two guys are duking it out to be that person. Is milk the future of Coke? And by that I don't mean milk flavored Coke, which would try. But Coca Cola, the drinks conglomerate which is leaning into the white stuff to become a quote total beverage company amid declining soda sales. In its earnings call yesterday, Coca Cola touted the milk brand Fairlife for continuing to perform well throughout the year. That is an understatement. It's Coke's fastest growing brand in the United States and the centerpiece of its plan to diversify away from soda into beverages that people, you know, drink. On the surface, milk might seem like a bad choice. US per capita milk consumption has plunged nearly 30% since 2010 as Americans have turned to plant based alternatives. But Fair Life is not ordinary milk. It's milk but fancy. It filters milk to create higher levels of protein while cutting sugar by half and getting rid of lactose altogether for happier stomachs. Fans worship its creaminess, propelling sales to grow 1,000% from 90 million in 2015 to seven years later when it became $1 billion brand for the first time. Toby Food and drink companies are under a lot of pressure from changing consumer trends, high inflation and the Ozempic craze. So here's the big question. Is it milk or milk?
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Toby Howell
It is a milk, Neal. Also I have tried Fairlife and it is very deliciously creamy. A lot of fans do just like it because it's got a Genesis quad to it. It's got that creaminess. I didn't even know that at fact that it got rid of lactose when I first Tried it. You just think it's really good milk. But I think it shows that Coke is on this path towards evolving away from, you know, its bread and butter, which is soda. They do, they're reading the consumer wins right now that are saying that we want healthier things. We don't want these sugary beverages to be our main thing that, you know, props the company up. So we have been seeing them pour money into coffee, into sports drinks. They bought body armor a few years ago, they've bought these coffee brands and now they have this milk brand that I don't think they had high hopes for when they first bought it. You don't think about milk as a tent pole product, but when you kind of innovate and you add these extra layers that consumers really start flocking to, you see how milk can be Coke's fastest growing US brand.
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Neal Freyman
Yeah, I don't think they knew what they were getting into as a very. This deal has a very interesting hit history. Back in 2012 they entered a joint venture with a milk co op, a dairy co op, which created the Fairlife brand in response to declining milk sales. And their initial outlays were about $320 million. But this deal had some performance based payments that continued through this year. And the performance was really good for Fairlife. So they kept having to pay over these performance based payments. So now at this point they forked which started as a $320 million deal, has now morphed into $.4 billion deal over five years. And that's now the largest acquisition in Coke's 133 year history. So it's cost them a lot, but it seems like it is, they're, they're getting their return.
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Toby Howell
Right. It's kind of a good problem to have. What's ironic about this whole thing too is the US milk industry isn't doing very well. The sector has been facing the same sort of headwinds that you know, the soda industry has been facing where a lot of kids and a lot of people just aren't drinking milk anymore. Also you look at plant based alternatives, oat milk, you know, soy milk, they have surged. So US per capita milk consumption is down nearly 30% since 2010. It does closely mirror the soft drinks industry's fall as well. Since 2000, the total amount of soft drinks consumed in the US each year has sunk by 37%. So somehow we're combining a soft drink company with a milk company and yet one plus one is equaling three in this instance because of just the approach that Fairlife has taken. Shopify finally booted the artist formerly known as Kanye west from their platform after the rapper used a Super bowl ad to direct traffic to a site that only sold swastika shirts. Towards the end of Sunday's game, Ye's ad appeared on screen in markets including L A, Atlanta and Philadelphia. In the 32nd spot, he told people to go to Yeezy.com but within an hour of the commercial airing, Ye's website got rid of its normal inventory and Instead only had one product for sale, a $20 T shirt with a swastika on the front. Shopify drew widespread condemnation for keeping Ye's store open for orders throughout Monday before it took the site offline yesterday morning, citing a violation of its terms. This isn't Shopify's first scandal either. Despite months long public outrage, another Shopify powered store that sells holocaust denial merch is still active. Neal. Last year Shopify removed a ban on, quote, hateful content from its user policies. So those recently loosened acceptable use policies are in the spotlight again after this incident.
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Neal Freyman
Yeah, my first question for this was also how did this commercial pass mustard to air? I mean, we didn't see it because we were watching in the New York market, but apparently he bought 30 second spot on three Fox owned channels. And the ad, which many people in America did not see, but many people did see, was him in a seemingly dentist chair filming on an iPhone. And you know, this has to go through legal approval. So these station directors looked at this and said, okay, well I guess there's nothing apparently wrong or illegal here. And when he did direct people to this website during the super bowl itself, but during the super bowl, this, this store sold very generic, non branded merchandise. Nothing like the swastika shirts. And then hours after is when he flipped it, leaving these studio execs being like, what did we just. But it speaks to the fact that super bowl commercials are also not always national. And these very slick productions, sometimes they're local car businesses and lawyers and often more controversial advertisers will buy, you know, spots in local markets for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's still very expensive, but kind of skirt the national spotlight and seems like this is kind of what Kanye did.
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Toby Howell
It's also, you know, created some uncomfortable moderation questions at Shopify particularly. But it also creates, it goes beyond, you know, Shopify in recent months right now because remember, they loosened its acceptable use policies last year, but also they're not the only ones doing that. Metta announced it was ending its fact checking system in favor of this community note system that you see on a platform like X. Google also has recently told the EU that it's not adding fact checkers to search results in YouTube videos. So it is part of the climate that we're in right now that it does seem like we're in this loosening of content moderation. Which is why sometimes you're going to see these instances like what just happened with Shopify start popping up more and more. And then also just to zoom out here, this kind of ends the ability of Kanye west or he's known as Yay now to, you know, be a force for, you know, any sort of selling of anything. Because remember he had this big collaboration with Adidas that ended in 2022 over anti Semitic remarks back then. Remember he had another big deal with Gap where he was going to partner with them to release a line of clothing that fell through as well. So you have seen ye had a sports industry that signed athletes like Jaylen Brown, Aaron Donald, they all left back in 2022 as well. So you are seeing just kind of this collapse of the Kanye west economy. Whatever last vestiges there were, it is now completely gone. Up next, what's up with this blurb drama going down on the back of books? This message?
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I said what I said up to.
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- [17:49]
Neal Freyman
Now to a page turner of a story that you won't be able to put down. It truly is a tour de force that redefines how we think about the genre. I of course, am talking about the controversy sweeping the publishing world around book blurbs. You know, those short, cliche, heavy sentences you see plastered on books from other authors, goading you into buying it? Well, maybe they're not as permanent a fixture as we thought. Earlier this month, Simon and Schuster generated a storm when publisher Sean Manning wrote an essay, a gripping read if you ask me, railing against the book blurb industrial complex and stated that the company would no longer require authors to solicit blurbs for their books. I believe the insistence on blurbs has become incredibly damaging to what should be our industry's ultimate goal, producing books of the highest possible quality, he wrote. That tremor followed another literary earthquake in December, when bestselling author Rebecca Mackay said she'd stop blurbing books for at least the next two years, calling it a drain on her time and energy. Toby blurbs are an incredibly touchy topic among authors. No one actually likes to ask for them or receive requests to write them, but you seemingly should do it because this is what the industry has demanded. Can the blurb economy be reformed?
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Toby Howell
At stake at all this worrying about blurbs is also this underlying fear about the state of publishing and, you know, the book industry in General. Remember in 2020, 2022, there was this lawsuit blocking a merger between Simon and Schuster and Penguin Random House. In that lawsuit revealed that just how much publishing relies on the top 0.1% of authors too, that they expect to sell very, very well. They put most of their resources and most of their marketing behind the big names of the industry, and what that does is leave very little, just scraps over for kind of the rest of the 99% of the book industry. So a lot of authors have come out and Say we still need blurbs because we have no marketing spend. This is our one chance to get some, you know, advertising for free by hitting up our peers, hitting up the. Our author friends that we know. And a lot of authors say, listen, it's not for people like you and me, Neal. It's not for people just cruising the bookshelves of your random bookstore. We don't care that much about burbs blurbs. But what you know who do does care are people who read professionally. Book reviewers who, when they're sorting through a mountain of books, they will glance at the blurbs and say, all right, who did recommend this to maybe move a book from the bottom of the pile to the top of the pile. So it's not as cut and dry as. It's just this cronyism. And it's just, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. It does still have a place in the publishing industry.
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Neal Freyman
It's for the gatekeepers. Right? But it was interesting to me to learn how this process comes together because I guess I didn't really think about it that much. When you see a blurb on a book, you know, you don't really think about how it got there. But apparently before a book is published, the author. The authors of books who don't have mass sitting, massive marketing behind them, which is most of them just literally cold email thousands of other authors asking them to read their book and blurb it. And oftentimes it is their teachers from their MFA programs. But anyway, so they send these. They do this, like, grind, you know, hit the pavement for three weeks trying to get these blurbs. And then. So that does not sound fun, but you have to do it at the other end. If you're an author, you are getting all of these requests going into you at the same time you're sending them out. So this is. This is very painful for everyone involved. A huge time suck. So that's sort of the. That's sort of why everyone hates doing it. Even though if they feel they must. At the same time, it's. It's unclear whether these blurbs actually move the needle in terms of sales.
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Toby Howell
I mean, we said it ourselves, like, you probably do not look at it because they all kind of start to blend together like a dazzling display of this and that.
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Neal Freyman
So just the name attached to it, right? The name Stephen King.
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Toby Howell
Yeah. Neal Freyman. All of this said deal. If you do write a book, eventually I would definitely blurb your book because a lot of it is actually just your friends will do it for you. So if you do have friends in the author community and people joke that oftentimes when you see blurbs, all it does is show which MFA program the author attended to because it is most of your teachers. So all that being said, asking for praise is oftentimes a very undignified business. So it is tough for the authors out there. But we'll see if we start seeing less blurbs going forward. I think the ultimate flex is publishing a book. No blurbs necessary. Just let it, you know, speak for itself.
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Neal Freyman
Catch 22 at zero blurbs when it came out. Okay, let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. The DEA DI rollback continues apace across corporate America with more major companies reversing pledges on diversity, equity and inclusion under the directives of the new Trump administration. The U.S. arm of consulting behemoth Deloitte told its employees working on government contracts to remove gender pronouns from their email signatures. And they scrapped broader DI programs, citing the need to, quote, align with emerging government client practices and requirements. Also yesterday, Goldman Sachs abandoned ship on its pledge to refuse to work on IPOs for companies that had all white male boards. It made a rule back in 2020 that it would only take a company public in the U.S. if it had at least two diverse board members, including one woman. A spokesperson said as a result of legal developments related to board diversity requirements, we ended our formal board diversity policy.
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Toby Howell
You are seeing just this about face at so many companies because I Remember back in 2020, David Solomon made this really big deal at the World Economic Forum in CEO. CEO of Goldman Sachs said that, hey, we realized that the last 60 US and European companies in the preceding two years went public without a woman or a person of color on the board. So made this very big deal about instituting these diversity requirements. But now you see the wind blowing the other direction and they are kind of quietly sunsetting that big pledge that they made back in 2020. Same thing with Deloitte as well. Deloitte is trying to toe the line on both sides where they are trying to, you know, listen to the practices that they're hearing come down from the federal government. But they're also like their UK Arm said, we're still committed to its diversity policy. So they're trying to play both sides of it. Here. For our next headline, CEOs are starting to sound off on Trump's tariffs. First up, Ford CEO Jim Farley raised the alarm against President Trump's proposed 25% duties on Mexico and Canada, warning that their effect on the industry would be devastating. Speaking at an automotive conference yesterday, Farley said, let's be real honest. Long term, a 25% tariff across the Mexico and Canadian border will blow a hole in the US Industry that we have never seen. Though Trump paused those tariffs for 30 days early last week, the auto industry is continuing to scramble as it tries to prepare for levies that could add up to $60 billion in additional costs to the industry. Then Citadel CEO Ken Griffin offered up his displeasure at a financial services conference in Florida, saying, quote, it's a huge mistake to resort to this form of rhetoric when you're trying to drive a bargain because it tears into the minds of CEOs, policymakers that we can't depend upon America as our trading partner. His comments came after Trump signed an order that would impose 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. So, Neil, in the case of Griffin, those comments are coming from an ardent Trump voter and supporter. So they mean a lot.
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Neal Freyman
Yeah, you've heard this a bunch from a bunch of CEOs that these tariffs, threats and reversals are creating a lot of uncertainty. And Griffin cited multinationals and in particular that you need to plan 5, 10, 15, 20 years in the future because you're about to sink tens of billions of dollars into a factory or another kind of investment, requires a lot of planning, requires a lot of money, and you just simply can't make those kind of investments when you're uncertain of the trade policy that the U.S. is going to engage with with the rest of the world. So uncertainty bad for corporate America. And that's what Ken Griffin is saying. Gulf of America slash Mexico drama at the White House the Trump administration barred an Associated Press reporter from entering the Oval Office for an executive order signing ceremony because the AP style still uses the name Gulf of Mexico instead of Gulf of America, despite Trump's renaming of the body of water. The news service said it was alarming that the White House would punish AP or independent journalism, and that quot it not only severely impedes the public's access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment. The AP's guidance states that it will refer to that gulf by its original name, while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. And that's because the Gulf of Mexico name has been around for 400 years, and people internationally where the AP disseminates news do not recognize the change.
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Toby Howell
AP style book is not only used by its own journalists either, it is used by news outlets around the globe, which is why this has, you know, some global reverberations, essentially and yeah, they are saying that, hey, this, our journalism doesn't just go out to people in the U.S. it doesn't just affect people in the United States. So we are going to continue offering or referring to it by the name that the rest of the world recognizes it by. That is not the case though for Mount McKinley because Trump changed that name from his former name, Denali. That area, Alaska is clearly in the United States. So Trump does have full authority to change that name, that name. So the AP says it will use the new name Mount McKinley. But I just can't believe how many words and how much ink has been spilled over this gold darn body of water off the coast of Florida here. But I guess you do have to make decisions. You have when you, when you run a style book, you have to make these decisions. So yes, it might be a, might be making a bigger deal out of it than it probably is in the grand scheme of things. But still these decisions do have widespread effects. Finally, if you happen to find yourself in Australia attending a Bryan Adams show, our condolences go out to you. Instead of hearing a delightful rendition of summer of 69, audiences were sent home after a giant sewer Fatberg made of grease and rags forced Adams to cancel his show in Perth. A Fatberg is the technical term for a giant rock like mass that forms when non biodegradable solids like wet wipes mixed with fat, oil and grease deposits to create a toilet clogging monstrosity in sewer mains. Over the weekend, authorities made the call that the Fatberg was menacing enough that it could cause the venue's toilets to overflow, which along with being a major vibe killer, is a health risk. Neal a 140ton fatberg discovered in London was autopsied to find all sorts of things from ketamine to condoms. A 330 ton one from 2021 nearly took down Birmingham in the U.K. and all told, NPR reporting from 2017 found that fatbergs were costing London's water provider more than $1.3 million a month to remove. These things are devastating you.
- [28:44]
Neal Freyman
You'll never be the same. My life is now divided into two parts. Before I knew that Fatbergs existed and now that I know that they exist, they are pretty terrifying and they do make sense on the surface. You're like, oh yeah, that probably would happen over time as all of these non degradable things mesh together in our sewer system and create blockages. My question is, how has a Fatberg anthropomorphized Fatberg not been a villain in a movie yet, like, you know, flushed away. Yeah, like me. What are we doing here?
- [29:16]
Toby Howell
I know it is. So where does the term fatberg come from? It's a portmanteau of fat and iceberg. It makes sense. I mean, over time, these things can't be broken down, so they just create these giant blockages. And dismantling them are a huge headache. I mean, I talked about that one in Lond. It took eight weeks and 36 tanker loads each, 3,000 gallons each, to remove the debris from the site. And all told, it costs over $100,000 to clear. So it is.
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Neal Freyman
How do you do it?
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Toby Howell
I think you just chip away down there. You must have to open the sewer main and do it manually. I don't understand any other way to do it. So it is horrifying to think about that these things are just moving silently underneath our feet.
- [29:54]
Neal Freyman
Let's wrap it up there. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Wednesday. For any questions, questions, comments or feedback, send an email to Morning Brew daily at Morning Broadcom. And if you're enjoying the show, share it with a friend, family member or coworker. Toby, who should people with share it with today?
- [30:10]
Toby Howell
I want you to share this show with someone you'd hit up for a book blurb. The person who would gas you up. No matter how awkward it is to ask for praise, that is who I want you to share the show with.
- [30:21]
Neal Freyman
Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Eugenwa Ogu is our technical director. Garrett Peck is on audio, hair and makeup is the voice of their generation spinning a heart wrenching tale of love and woe. Neal Freyman, host of Morning Brew Daily. Devin Emery is our chief content officer and our show is a production of Morning Brew.
- [30:42]
Toby Howell
Great show, Danielle. Let's run it back tomorrow.