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- [00:00]
Yonatan Adiri
Foreign. You are listening to an art media podcast.
- [00:10]
Michal Evram
So, Yonatan, what's your number?
- [00:12]
Yonatan Adiri
This week it's 123. Is 123 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas exported each year by the U.S. just to say 10 years ago, that number was less than 1. America grew in a decade from 1 billion export to 123. And being the biggest liquefied natural gas.
- [00:32]
Michal Evram
Exporter in the world, My number is 500 million. Take that. That's $500 million. And this is the amount that Israeli crypto and securities trading platform Etoro seeks to raise in its upcoming ipo. Could be even more because reports are that this is a widely oversubscribed. So anyways, I won't go into bitcoin numbers because then I know I'm going to win this one. But who wins?
- [00:59]
Yonatan Adiri
Well, honestly, I think that the American position for energy dominance is very consequential. We are recording when President Trump is en route to the Middle East. This is the first time a president is visiting the Middle east when America is energy dominant, the biggest exporter of lng. I think it's a very big number. But as an Israeli patriot having an Israeli company trying to open the IPO window in Wall Street, I'm going with your number this time.
- [01:25]
Michal Evram
I think IPO beats liquefied natural gas. Sorry. Welcome to what's yous Number? The newest podcast from Ark Media where we focus on Israel's economy through a global lens. I'm Michal Evram.
- [01:46]
Yonatan Adiri
I'm Yonatan Adiri. Drinking water as I'm supposed to present myself.
- [01:49]
Michal Evram
Well, you got to keep that voice fresh, you know.
- [01:52]
Yonatan Adiri
Yep.
- [01:52]
Michal Evram
It is 3pm here in Palo Alto.
- [01:55]
Yonatan Adiri
Happened to be New York this time, so the hour here is 6:00pm okay.
- [01:59]
Michal Evram
Nice to have you a little bit closer to my time zone for a change. And we're going to hear about your east coast trip because I know you spent a lot of time in D.C. in just a bit as well.
- [02:07]
Yonatan Adiri
That's true.
- [02:08]
Michal Evram
But let's kick things off. So as we will in every episode, we're going to start by taking the temperature of the Israeli economy with our market signals. And then we'll get to our big shorts. This is our brief analysis of the most interesting news items of the week. And today we're going to be talking about what's at stake for Israel with a Saudi American deal and a mega AI fundraise in the works in Israel. Can the country build an OpenAI competitor? Then we'll wrap with Our long play. This is our deep dive into one vital issue that's impacting the Israeli economy. And today our focus is going to be on Israel's surprise, surprising path to greater energy independence. Yonatan has promised that he's going to bring sexy back to energy. Right? You're gonna make this super, super interesting. I don't know if it was ever sexy. But stay with us. Let's kick things off with our market signals. The dollar to Shekel exchange rate is at 3.56 compared to 3.62 last week. This is some strength that we're seeing in the dollar actually after weeks of decline. And this is large US China talks leading to a temporary tariff truce. The euro to Shekel exchange rate is at 3.95. That's compared to 4.11 last week. When it comes to the Nasdaq, that was up 0.63% over the week of May 5th through 9th. So slight increase last week, but as we record this today, early in the week, we are seeing numbers soaring across the board again, largely on the heels of U.S. china, temporary truth. When it comes to the trade wars.
- [03:50]
Yonatan Adiri
And the market erasing all the Independence Day tariff notes from April 2, all the decline has been recovered in full. And now we're in positive territory already this morning.
- [04:00]
Michal Evram
Liberation Day just occurred. Liberation.
- [04:02]
Yonatan Adiri
Liberation Day. Independence Day.
- [04:04]
Michal Evram
Liberation Day, yes. It's, you know, similar, related, but separate. Okay, and now for our very own what's your number index, AKA the Windex. This is our index of the stock performance of 50 publicly traded companies on U.S. exchanges that are headquartered in Israel and or founded by Israeli founders. So, Yonatan, how are things looking now?
- [04:26]
Yonatan Adiri
So, you know, overall, another good week for Windex. Overperforming both S and P and Nasdaq. That's the week prior to the good news coming from Geneva, China, US dynamics. So this week, 2.05% rise for the Windex compared to 0.31 and 0.63 accordingly for both other indices. I think an interesting mover this week was Israeli company SolarEdge, rising almost 50% on the week, reaching almost a $20 per share mark. That sounds like a great dynamic for this share, but remembering that two years ago it was traded at over $300 per share. So still a lot of ground to cover for SolarEdge, but a good week. Hoping, you know, this company is going on a positive trajectory from here on.
- [05:12]
Michal Evram
And we'll get into renewables and all things energy related in just a bit here. But as I mentioned before, you've Seen spent some time in D.C. this past week. You're in New York now. Before we get into the situation on the ground in Israel, economically speaking, just a few takeaways from some of your meetings that you've had in D.C. over the past few days.
- [05:31]
Yonatan Adiri
It was a great three days in Washington, getting to meet folks in the administration and in quite a number of agencies. I'd say three quick things that kind of come to mind when it comes to Israel or the overall dynamics of saying one Doge is real and it matters. Got to meet a couple of folks from leadership as well as folks embedded in some of the secretaries. What you see on the ground in Washington is a very interesting dynamic from a bureaucracy perspective. Bureaucracies usually tend to ask you to justify why they need to change the status quo. And I think the mood I saw in Washington for the first time over, I would say 20 plus years, where I kind of go in and out wearing different hats, was status quo isn't working. Tell us what you think needs to change. That is a sea change, a very positive change in how the administration and how leadership is looking into their respective portfolios. The second piece that I think is really important is obviously the critical preference that China and relationship with China has in Washington. While I was there, the kind of orange green light to the dynamics that led to the meeting in Geneva started coming in and you could see how China is the cornerstone of American diplomacy, both economically but also geopolitically. And I think the market responses from this morning that you presented a couple of minutes ago are very indicative of that. I think the President and the team are looking to Wall street for signals and taking that heavily into consideration. So that kind of dialogue, the White House Wall street dialogue, I think, is in full impact when it comes to China. The third thing, and we're going to get into that today, was how central energy dominance, and this is the term that you keep on hearing in Washington, from like energy dependence a decade ago to energy independence five years ago to energy dominance. This plays into a significant part of where the administration's going. A number that I heard this week time and time again was that in 2023, the American grid was at a point that 4.4% was used for AI and cloud computing. And it's very clear that with energy dominance, yes or no, the American grid cannot keep up with AI and the demand of cloud. We're going to see that play out in the Middle east as well, I think.
- [07:41]
Michal Evram
Okay, lots going on in the US what's the mood in Israel, there's so much to talk about. We won't get to everything, but what are some of the key things that you're looking at that are impacting the economy?
- [07:50]
Yonatan Adiri
Yeah, I think two quick observations on that. One, Israel is still in suspense. Fog of war is still strong. Fog of war vis a vis Gaza. Suspense. Ahead of Trump's visit in the Middle east, we have seen the president's comments and the release of the hostage soldier Idan Alexander making headlines. You know, positive headlines on many fronts, but also negative headlines in the sense that it took the American president weighing his full weight before the trip to release this hostage via what seems to be direct discussions with Hamas. So this is sort of weighing heavily on the Israeli jubilation that we're used to seeing when hostages are being released. And so there's much suspense. Folks are not making decisions. It's kind of like what you'd get in Israel, Hagim around Pesach and New Year's. Right.
- [08:36]
Michal Evram
Like after the holidays.
- [08:37]
Yonatan Adiri
Talk to me after the holiday. So talk to me after the Trump visit because we still don't know a lot about what's going to happen there. At the same time, we're seeing the tech industry continue to move ahead. It's kind of like parallel tracks right now.
- [08:50]
Michal Evram
Yeah. A little bit of two alternate realities that we're seeing.
- [08:53]
Yonatan Adiri
Yeah.
- [08:58]
Michal Evram
Let's get into the big shorts, the headlines that are driving conversation in Israel and beyond. Our first topic is what's at stake for Israel with a potential Saudi American deal. And I should note that we are recording this on Monday, May 12th. President Trump is headed to the, can't call it the Persian Gulf anymore. It is the Gulf of Arabia, but he's heading to the Gulf countries on May 13. So a lot that's going to be determined over the next few days. This is a very consequential visit and series of meetings because. But all eyes are on this potential Saudi American deal as Trump heads to the region. What's becoming clear is the fact that at least at the moment, Israel is not part of the picture. There are movements towards a civil nuclear agreement. Reports are that that's on the table and is looking likely to happen. And other economic engagements with Riyadh and, you know, of course, the rest of the Gulf countries, including potentially a new luxury jumbo jet, as we've, as we've.
- [10:03]
Yonatan Adiri
Hear, a flying palace.
- [10:04]
Michal Evram
Yes, a flying palace. I will be headed to Riyadh next week and I will be flying commercial, not on a Qatari plane.
- [10:12]
Yonatan Adiri
So there's that Qatar Force One. You're not going to be flying on Qatar Force One.
- [10:16]
Michal Evram
Yeah, that's right. That's right. Maybe I'll get a free drink. I don't know. But anyways, lots of concerns. Look, we're hearing about reading about all the uncertainty in Israel right now, the worries about being sidelined. What we want to talk here is really about the economic implications. And I think my first question here, my big question in Yonatan, hopefully you can answer it, is, you know, with this US Saudi deal, however, it looks like moving forward without Israel. Does Riyadh still need Israel for anything when it comes to its own strategic plans, its vision 2030 or anything else?
- [10:51]
Yonatan Adiri
So look, I think first of all, we still don't know. Israel was very much in manic depressive mode last week with every leak coming out of Washington or supposedly coming out of Washington. Are we in? Are we out? Is there going to be a deal with Iran? Remember over the weekend there was also the fourth round of conversation related to the nuclear program of the Iranian regime. And so every small bit of news really impacted the Israeli macroeconomic dynamics and discussion. This is going to be very consequential. And I think what we're seeing is Riyadh really needed Israel so long as the administration tied the nuclear peace with the big deals with the defense pact. Because for a defense pact to go through senate, you need 61 votes. And Israel sort of was top of the agenda whereby the Senate was cautioning the White House also during the Biden administration. There's going to be bipartisan support if the defense pact is part of a normalization in a broader Middle East. We are also familiar with the imec. We spoke about that, the India Middle east path that America is designing to kind of battle the Belt and Road Chinese initiative. So all of these things are coming together, huge financial opportunities for the region. What came out of Washington last week and we don't know if that's true again, that's sort of the leak that started the snowball. The negative one was America's one. The White House is willing to separate those tracks. So it's not going to be a grand bargain. It's not going to be defense pact that would need the Senate therefore leverage on Saudi to bring Israel into the fold. It's actually going to be a dual track, parallel track. It's going to be one track that's going to be civilian nuclear for Saudi Arabia, plus the trillion dollar deal. We're also seeing reports that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg And Sam Altman are all going to be present in Saudi on Tuesday. And so, yeah, I think if that's the architecture of the discussion, Saudi doesn't need Israel.
- [12:46]
Michal Evram
Okay, so does Israel need Saudi?
- [12:49]
Yonatan Adiri
I think the big prize remains the imec. I think the fundamentals for this dynamic, India, Saudi Emirates, Jordan, Israel, kind of the land passage as part of the bigger counter dynamic to China is still, you know, the fundamentals for an Israeli, Saudi normalization are still there and are very powerful incentives. So I think over the long arc it's going to happen.
- [13:14]
Michal Evram
Okay, we will be diving into this quite a bit more in the coming weeks, but let's move on for now. Another big piece of news. This is directly out of Israel is AI21 reportedly raising a 300 million Series D round. We were able to confirm that this is indeed in the works. We don't know exactly who's in on the deal and when it'll close and all of that, but it is in the works. There are lots and lots of AI startups in Israel. I mean everybody basically calls himself an AI company these days. They've got the AI somewhere there in the name. Yeah, but this is a megadeal and it's not just any megadeal. This is a company. This is kind of the company that's actually building out their own full stack AI system here. The other thing here that's really worth noting are the founders. So Yonatan, talk a little bit about who's involved here.
- [14:01]
Yonatan Adiri
So Yoav Shaw, I'm a serial entrepreneur, sold quite a number of companies, including the last two to Google, was a Stanford professor, one of the sort of fathers of types of what we call today AI. So statistical models at large scale. Partnered with Amnon Shashua, the founder of mobileye, one of the world's top AI companies when it comes to mobility. I think that's very important to see that this company continues to grow. We have another AI sort of stealth mode dynamic in Israel right now. That's Ilya Sutskever, the co founder of the CTO of OpenAI. The ex CTO of OpenAI. We had a quarrel with Sam Altman and left and declared this sort of responsible super AI company raising billions already and declaring an office in Tel Aviv. So we really don't know a lot about what's going on there, but it's been on the table. So these are the two kind of big players operating independently out of Israel. And then you have the envelope of other AI companies at the application layer. But I think the last Insight. I want to share on that before we move on. We discussed about how, like these last few weeks under the fog of war and the suspense of the Trump visit and so on, weigh heavily on Israel. But the tech industry continues this capital raise. Other companies, you know, triple dot giant was bought by an Israeli company last week, Applovin. I mean, that's an $800 million acquisition. So a lot going on. Another 150 million cumulatively raised just last week by a number of startups, some in the cyberspace. So there's a geopolitical element that's weighing heavily. But the AI, the cyber, the kind of tech industry overall continues to move really fast. And I think that's a trend we're going to follow in the next few weeks. Are we seeing this decoupling continue to move or are we going to see a weighing of the geopolitical dynamics kind of getting heavier around the local ecosystem? I think that's, that's something we're going to continue to follow.
- [15:55]
Michal Evram
Let's move along to our long play. Today we're talking about Israel's surprising path to energy independence. And this is, again, it's a big, meaty topic. We're going to try and bring as much newness to it as possible, but it's a super important one when it comes to understanding the Israeli economy and where it's headed and, of course, the geopolitical situation. Israel was once pretty much completely isolated from the world's energy systems and dependent on imports for nearly all of its energy needs. And the discovery of natural gas fields off the coast in the Mediterranean was a big game changer a couple of decades ago or so. Domestically produced natural gas has now become the primary source for generating electricity in the country, which I think is probably a surprise to a lot of people. So I think maybe we'll start with like a very, very basic question here, which is just why electricity matters. I'm going to turn to you like, you know, Bill Nye the science guy here, Yonatan, to kind of just lay out the foundational elements here of why are we even talking about this within the context of an economic podcast.
- [17:06]
Yonatan Adiri
So, first of all, I'd like to start with a saying that's attributed to David Ben Gurion, who used to say that the Middle east is divided into two types of countries, oily countries and holy countries. And unfortunately, Israel is only a holy country, and that's no longer true. Right. We're the oily and holy country as of 2008. And those foundings we have that in.
- [17:25]
Michal Evram
Common with Saudi Arabia, by the way. So there's something in common.
- [17:29]
Yonatan Adiri
Exactly. Those findings, you know, kind of pave the way for, first and foremost, an Israeli path for energy independence, which I think you're totally right in framing it that way. But modern economies need a robust and reliable energy source. We've seen the German economy more or less collapse because it was based on cheap electrons coming from Russia, converted into expensive molecules in Germany's amazing industrial base and then exported all over the world. Russia goes into Ukraine, no electrons. Right. At least not cheap electrons. Big stall on the industrial base and zero almost export market dynamics the way they used to know them a decade before. And now the German economy is scrambling. Right. Economies, modern economies, as digital as they may be, still require a very strong energy resource. And I think Sam Altman said it super well in his hearing in the U.S. senate this week. Let's give it a listen and then we'll take it from there.
- [18:31]
C
Well, you touched on a great point with energy. I think it's hard to overstate how important energy is to the future here. You know, eventually chips, network gear that will be made by robots and we'll make that very efficient and we'll make that cheaper and cheaper. But an electron is an electron. Eventually the cost of intelligence, the cost of AI will converge to the cost of energy. It'll be how much you can have. The abundance of it will be limited by the abundance of energy. So in terms of long term strategic investments for the US to make, I can't think of anything more important than energy, chips and all the other infrastructure also. But energy is where this, I think this ends up.
- [19:05]
Yonatan Adiri
So what is Sam basically saying? We used to think once an economy becomes deindustrialized, we're not creating metals and it's not heavy industry and so on, we're going to be less reliant on energy. Well, that's not the case. Right. AI is ultimately going to cost us as much as the electrons that feed it. Basically that's his comment in the Senate this week. And I think that's a very important understanding that even modern economies are going to be heavily reliant on energy. And again, you see that in the President's visit in the Middle East. The idea that America needs to generate enough energy and fast enough to adapt to the needs of cloud computing and AI we saw last year and Khalil, you may actually have a better sense of that than I do. We saw some cloud and AI companies in the US I think Amazon was the first one renting land in American nuclear facilities, right. So that they get a reliable energy source. So it's that big of an issue for the US economy. So fast track that to Israel. So Israel 2008 is a country without any independent energy source. And then we start finding those amazing findings in the Mediterranean Sea and Israel's economic water. It started with Tamar, then Livyatan and Karish. These are Charlottes. Yeah, exactly. And these were actually significant gas discoveries worldwide. And then basically Israel shifts from having zero security, zero independence, fully dependent in terms of energy, into becoming energy independent. And over the next few years, obviously there was a big debate on taxation and how do we form the sovereign wealth fund on the basis of taxes coming in from the natural resources. And then the debate kind of shifted. And this is what we had in the last couple of weeks in Israel, another government committee submitting its conclusions. How does Israel balance its own needs for energy independence with the ability to export in gaining geopolitical influence in the region? And I think that's a dynamic that's keeping Israel busy right now as we look 24 years in the future.
- [21:13]
Michal Evram
So how does Israel kind of parlay what it's sitting on and what it's using in its own market? How does it parlay that into becoming a more ingrained part of not only the region, but the energy system, the energy grid? You know, overall, is there an opportunity there?
- [21:31]
Yonatan Adiri
So I think there is an opportunity. And I think going back to sort of wrapping up some of the other topics we spoke of, Does Israel need Saudi, what's at play? And so on, I think you got to ask yourself, how does Israel go from a half a trillion dollar economy to a trillion dollar economy, call it in the next 20 years? How do we double our GDP? So one path is the whiz path, right? Do we have Companies that generate 1%, 2% growth per year based on intrinsic value that gets bought by the global giants? That's one path. The other path is commerce. Do we get to normalization with Saudi Arabia? That IMEC path goes from India through Israel. Those are industrial jobs and you grow the economy that way. And the third path is you actually sell some of the energy, right? You become a small Qatar or a small Saudi Arabia and grow through that. I think the macro perspective is we grow to a trillion dollar economy through a combination of all three. Part of that path may be blocked over the short term, but as I said, I think the fundamentals are taking us there also on the energy path. So we gotta generate elite technologies. We can't kind of forgive that that's gonna be a primary path for Israel on its road to becoming a trillion dollar economy. But energy is going to play a role. And so that's why this is a very critical public debate in Israel and how do we go forward? So I think, shall we put the numbers out there for folks to kind of understand what are the kind of top four or five numbers to keep in mind?
- [22:59]
Michal Evram
Go ahead.
- [22:59]
Yonatan Adiri
All right, so right now, after the discoveries, Israel has, according to the oil companies, mainly Chevron, by the way, now controlling, I would say the majority of the gas produced In Israel, about 1 trillion or 1,000 BCM, right under the Mediterranean, waiting to be executed and produced over the foreseeable Future. Israel requires 25 billion per year and we export 11. Okay. The government committee basically says we don't trust the numbers coming out of Chevron. We want to be more conservative. We're going to assume 800 billion to 850 billion. So if you add the numbers 25 that we consume plus 11, 12, that's allowed for export, considering a certain growth. So let's call it 40 billion spent each year, we're going to run out of gas in 2050. And so the question to be asked on the path to a trillion dollar economy, is that good enough? Is 25 years of energy dominance plus export good enough? And are we happy with this strong reliable source running out in 25 years, given its geopolitical implications and its importance for the Israeli economy? I think that's a top question, top of mind right now. And we're trying to figure out where the balance is in this context.
- [24:18]
Michal Evram
So maybe Israel needs a Vision 2050, I don't know. But obviously some contrasts here. For starters, the economy was very diversified. It already comes from that starting point. You know, this whole time, out of necessity, Israel's been very innovative and advanced when it comes to renewal. And just a quick story. Quite a while back, I was visiting. My grandparents were still alive in Jerusalem. And one of my jobs there at their house was always to help hang the laundry. Because like a lot of Israeli families, especially in these old houses, you know, old neighborhoods in Jerusalem, there was no dryer.
- [24:52]
Yonatan Adiri
My brothers and I used to fight, you know, who folds and who hangs. That was our, that was our thing.
- [24:57]
Michal Evram
Exactly, exactly. That was. So this was one of my jobs there. And I was telling a former colleague of mine who wrote about green tech, kind of the first wave out here in Silicon Valley years ago, I was telling him about my stay and how I was, you know, folding laundry And I remember he said to me, it's so great that your grandmother does this thing that's so good for the environment. And I was like, what? No, my grandmother doesn't. She wants a dryer. She doesn't have one. You know, this is necessity anyways. It just always comes to mind when I think about the innovation by necessity. Right. So what do you think about the role of renewables today versus the role of renewables in 2050 both for Israel and again as we're talking about it within the context of the broader energy system, what it has to offer there with its innovations.
- [25:44]
Yonatan Adiri
So I think it goes to the question, is 25 years enough? Right. Is by 2050, are we going to see natural gas or oil kind of being less important to generate energy at quantity in reliability? While in Washington last week, a name that came up, four letters that came up time and time again in supply chain Energy were CATL, the giant Chinese battery company. Over 50% of the batteries produced today for industry and for cars are produced by catl. So I think the dynamics of batteries and we're seeing them growing by capacity, kilowatt hours, declining in weight and becoming cheaper. So that's sort of one path to look for. No matter how you make your energy, if you have batteries to store over the next 20 years, I think that's a very reliable trend. We've seen solar going in that path and we've seen wind going down that path. But again all concentrated in China like silicon generation. And wind generation is heavily like to the 70, 80% today concentrated on China. So I think from technology perspective there's all nuclear fusion dynamic. Is it going to work, is it not going to work by 2030? I think most efforts are going to tell us if they have a net positive reaction on nuclear fusion that would be a huge story for climate change. So there are those things that I think over a 20 year window are going to definitely work out such that natural gas, you know, that's the whole 2030 and the Saudi, Qatar and so on. Perspective is they're looking at it from the other way around. By 2050 we may not have anything to export, we'll have it underground, but no one's going to be interested in buying. Right. So we're looking at an inverse type strategic posture from Israel and the region. That said, Israel doesn't have the land mass for condensed solar energy as well as wind. So it's not just if it's cheap or not, it's also, do you have enough land to produce degree of Energy. So that's going to remain an issue in of itself overall, if you ask me, I think 20 plus years of energy independence, plus there might be new discoveries, plus exporting 10 to 15 billion cubic meters per year, it's a pretty good balance. And I think it's good that the commission kind of opens up every five years. So now there's. Every five years there's going to be like an evaluation. Were there more discoveries, did the prices change and shift around the world, so on. Can we move more from local consumption into the energy dominance piece? I think it's a pretty good middle ground and balanced. It is a geopolitical tool and should be related as such.
- [28:16]
Michal Evram
Okay, so I'm going to ask you a question that you can answer with a definitive answer. Okay. It's very important one, if there is another reserve that is found, another natural gas reserve. So we've got Karish, which is shark, right? That's like whale. Ish. Leviathan.
- [28:36]
Yonatan Adiri
Leviathan. Whale, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [28:37]
Michal Evram
All right, what would you name it?
- [28:41]
Yonatan Adiri
Some of the early discoveries. By the way, there's a guy called Yossi lan Gutsky, he's an Israeli geologist who was responsible for kind of delineating them. The original names, I don't remember them, but he named them after his daughters.
- [28:52]
Michal Evram
Oh, interesting.
- [28:53]
Yonatan Adiri
So they were like names of, I think Tamar. Again, I hope I'm not mistaken. I think Tamar is a remnant of that. But I will tell you one, like, on a serious note, if there is another discovery, what I would do is I would totally cash out on it. I think we have more than what we need. Let's say there's whatever $100 billion worth over the next 25 years. In a new one, I'll take 80 cents on the dollar. I wouldn't want Israel to become reliant dependent on that. I think what we have right now is great. And any future discoveries, I would basically cash out at $0.80 on the dollar, $0.85 on the dollar, and invest the money in transformative change in basic science in Israel. Basic research. That would be my play on that.
- [29:33]
Michal Evram
Okay. And I'm gonna code name it Medusa, which is what we call jellyfish. Done. Are we good? We're good with that.
- [29:40]
Yonatan Adiri
Medusa is going to be the next finding and it's going to be. The fund is going to be called Medusa1 and then Medusa2 and Medusa3. We're going to invest that money in basic research. I buy that strategy.
- [29:50]
Michal Evram
I'm in.
- [29:51]
Yonatan Adiri
Yeah, I'm in. Exact.
- [29:58]
Michal Evram
Well, we began our show with the numbers of the week and we are going to end with the words of the week. Talked about Saudi Arabia a bunch. We talked about all the uncertainty and the worries in Israel about the Israeli side being kind of sidelined here, cut out of a potential deal. And this is actually a concern that was expressed here by US Senator Lindsey Graham, who posted this on X on May 8th. I would like to make it crystal clear that I will never support support a defense agreement with Saudi Arabia or other elements of a proposed deal that does not include normalizing the relationship with Israel as a part of the package. Normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel is an essential element.
- [30:38]
Yonatan Adiri
He just gave us the rationale of why the administration decoupled the defense pact from all the deal of the millennium and the other dynamics in the upcoming trip. That's exactly it.
- [30:47]
Michal Evram
Well, much more to talk about Saudi Arabia in future episodes, but for now, that is it. Thank you for tuning in to ARC Media's what's your number? We hope you found it interesting and if you did, be sure to like, subscribe rate review. You know the drill, but most importantly, please share it with others who you think will find it interesting. If you want to make suggestions or share your feedback, please reach out to us at what's YOUR number? @arc media.org.
- [31:23]
Yonatan Adiri
What'S your number is produced by Ilan Benatar and edited by Michal Evram, sound and video editing by Martin Huro and our theme music is by Midnight Generation. I'm Yonatan Adiri.
- [31:33]
Michal Evram
And I'm Michal Evram. See you back here next week.
- [31:36]
Yonatan Adiri
See you next week.
- [31:43]
Michal Evram
This podcast offers general business and economic information and is not a comprehensive summary for investment decisions. It does not recommend or solicit any investment strategy or security.