Market Performance:

• Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA): Current price high $415.90, low $411.42 today
• S&P 500 ETF (SPY): Current price high $552.57, low $546.96 today
• Nasdaq Composite ETF (QQQ): Current price high $464.43, low $457.34 today

Reasons for the Decline:

1. Trump's tariff policies raise market concerns President Trump recently threatened to impose tariffs on all trading partners, especially on auto imports, causing global stock markets to fall as investors move to safer assets.
2. Growing expectations of economic recession Due to tariff policies, markets are worried about US economic growth prospects. Goldman Sachs raised the probability of US economic recession in the next 12 months to 35%, matching predictions from JPMorgan and Moody's.
3. Tech stocks lead the decline Major tech stocks like Nvidia, Microsoft and Tesla saw significant drops, dragging the Nasdaq index to a six-month low.

Billionaire hedge fund investor Bill Ackman, who endorsed President Trump last year, is offering a stark warning about the risks of the White House’s tariff plans, arguing they could cause the economy to collapse while hurting Trump supporters the most.

“Business is a confidence game. The president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe. The consequences for our country and the millions of our citizens who have supported the president — in particular low-income consumers who are already under a huge amount of economic stress — are going to be severely negative,” he wrote.

Ackman began a lengthy post on the social platform X by praising Trump’s strategy, arguing the nation is “100%” behind Trump on fixing a trading system that disadvantages the country.

But while Trump has elevated the issue and gotten everyone’s attention, “by placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital,” Ackman wrote.

He argued that Trump should consider calling a “90-day time out” that would allow him to negotiate and solve “asymmetric tariff deals, and induce trillions of dollars of new investment in our country.”

If that doesn’t happen and instead the U.S. launches “economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate,” Ackman wrote.

“What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term, economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war? I don’t know of one who will do so.”

Ackman predicted that if markets crash, “new investment stops, consumers stop spending money, and businesses have no choice but to curtail investment and fire workers.”

So far, markets have plunged for two days in reaction to the large tariffs Trump announced, with futures down significantly on Sunday evening ahead of the Monday morning open.

Ackman argued big companies as well as small and medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs will suffer pain if the negative consequences unfold. And he predicted prices will rise, something Trump officials on Sunday were downplaying.

“Almost no business can pass through an overnight massive increase in costs to their customers. And that’s true even if they have no debt, and, unfortunately, there is a massive amount of leverage in the system,” he wrote.

Ackman also warned that Trump risks causing negative consequences for those who support him.

“This is not what we voted for. The President has an opportunity on Monday to call a time out and have the time to execute on fixing an unfair tariff system. Alternatively, we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down. May cooler heads prevail.”

The stock of DNA testing company 23andMe ($ME) dropped 59% Monday after filing for federal bankruptcy protection and the exit of its CEO, a dramatic collapse for a biotech company that once dazzled Silicon Valley and attracted 15 million consumers.

23andMe filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code after it failed to find a buyer. The company announced in January that it would seek a sale of its assets.

Its petition seeks court authorization to pursue a structured sale of its assets through an auction.

The 23andMe board rejected a nonbinding acquisition offer from co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki, who stepped down on Friday.

Wojcicki has been trying to take the company private since April.

In September, all of 23andMe's independent board members resigned, citing differences with Wojcicki concerning the company's direction.

Wojcicki posted on X Monday that she was disappointed the board rejected her bid but intended to continue to pursue an acquisition.

"I have resigned as CEO of the company so I can be in the best position to pursue the company as an independent bidder," Wojcicki wrote.

23andMe made its public debut with an initial public offering in 2006.

It has since struggled with litigation, including a data privacy breach in 2023 that raised concerns that hackers tapped into customers' genetic information.

A consumer class action lawsuit followed, and the company settled with complaining customers for $30 million.

The UK and Canada also launched investigations into 23andMe after the 2023 breach.

In its early days, 23andMe was ordered by the FDA to immediately discontinue marketing its widely publicized cheek swab tests after making unsubstantiated claims that the company could identify risk levels for a number of diseases.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta warned 23andMe's California customers on Friday that they are legally entitled to scrub their genetic data from the company's systems, including their DNA, identity, and biological samples — saliva test samples submitted to the company.

"Due to the trove of sensitive consumer data 23andMe has amassed ... Californians who want to invoke these rights can do so by going to 23andMe's website," the attorney general's office said in a statement that outlines the steps consumers can take.

"Given 23andMe's reported financial distress, I remind Californians to consider invoking their rights and directing 23andMe to delete their data and destroy any samples of genetic material held by the company," Bonta said.

23andMe filed its voluntary petition for reorganization in the bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

The filing reported $277 million in assets as of the end of 2024 and debts of $215 million.

Tesla’s deliveries tumbled in the first three months of this year, marking its worst quarter since 2022, as the electric-vehicle maker faced a consumer backlash in Europe, fierce competition in China and weakness even in its home market.

The Texas-based EV group, led by Elon Musk, delivered 336,681 cars in the first quarter, far fewer than the 390,000 forecast by analysts and 387,000 in the same period last year.

The figure lagged behind that of China’s BYD, which has regained its crown as the world’s best-selling electric-vehicle maker after this week reporting sales of 416,388 EVs in the same period.

Tesla shares briefly dipped by 6.3 per cent in early trading in New York on Wednesday but later rose more than 5 per cent after Politico reported that US President Donald Trump had told his inner circle Musk would soon leave the administration.

Musk’s alliance with Trump and his controversial leadership of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) have caused a backlash in the US, with dealerships being picketed and cars vandalised.

President Donald Trump’s so-called Liberation Day is coming on April 2, with the launch of his new reciprocal tariffs. Investors are hoping for freedom from the cloud of uncertainty that has been hanging over the economy.

As Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Tom Barkin put it last week in explaining monetary policymakers’ cautious new outlook, “How does one drive in fog? Carefully and slowly.”

But the fog may lift only to roll right back in. The details of those tariffs won’t be the last policy hit to the market from the new administration. Politics is creeping into the market through just about every asset class—and more than usual, some experts say. The markets for U.S. Treasuries and gold, and to some degree in stocks, are dependent on the fragile mood in the country and the fight over political institutions.

The U.S. is “basically looking more and more like an emerging market,” political scientist Mark Rosenberg says.

“You have higher policy uncertainty, you have greater questions about rule of law, you have concerns about the ability of the state to tackle its fiscal problems, a dysfunctional political environment,” Rosenberg says. “All the stuff that you would get if you were talking about South Africa or Brazil.”

Rosenberg’s firm, GeoQuant, builds models of political risk. It quantifies legal, social, and other similar sources of data for countries around the world, including the U.S. His clients use those indicators as early-warning signs of risk in countries of interest and as aids in portfolio allocation. Fitch acquired the company in 2022.

The difference between developed and emerging markets for Rosenberg is in how much politics matters to market outcomes. “In an emerging market, elections matter a whole lot more,” Rosenberg says, “because the underlying social instability and institutional uncertainty mean that a political contest like an election can produce a very large policy swing and/or a changing of the rules of the game for the political economy, which you just would never anticipate in a developed market.”

Policy just about always changes in the U.S. after an election, and uncertainty is natural. April 2 is tariff day because April 1 is the deadline for a set of trade reports and investigations that will determine tariffs’ legal and policy basis. (Also, the president wanted to avoid April Fools’ Day.) Normal enough.

Then, apparently, everything gets filtered through Trump’s personal feelings about world leaders. Canada’s Justin Trudeau gets called “governor” in a “joke” about the 51st state, while Mark Carney, who now leads the same party and has the same job, is “prime minister.” Meanwhile, U.S. companies need to jump through new regulatory hoops to get their exports certified under the USMCA trade deal so they can avoid 25% tariffs.

There are always periods of extreme politics under any president. But you don’t usually have that alongside the kind of battle that is going on over Elon Musk. And that one goes straight to the deficit. The Tesla CEO is also running DOGE, an initiative to slash government spending.

The “Tesla Takedown” drew protesters around the country on Saturday, animated by opposition to cuts to the federal government driven by Musk and DOGE. That protest movement has accelerated despite warnings from officials such as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who on March 18 said “violent attacks on Tesla property” are” “nothing short of domestic terrorism.” (Nonviolent protest is a constitutional right.)

Tesla’s market capitalization has fallen by $500 billion since the Jan. 20 Inauguration.

But Musk is also the administration’s point man for cost-cutting. He and DOGE are the only hope for deficits to fall since Congress’s latest plans to extend expiring tax cuts would raise the deficit by $2.8 trillion. His fate as DOGE head is tied to the rate of the nation’s interest payments now.

Yields on government debt typically move up and down with investors’ expectations of growth and inflation. Social and political issues play a role in driving rates, too. They are helping to drive rates higher than might otherwise be expected.

Yields on 10-year Treasury notes have declined from 4.8% in January to near 4.2% largely because expectations for growth are falling. But they are still higher than they have been since the 2008 financial crisis.

“If you want to explain where Treasury yields are now, and you take the core macroeconomic factors at their face, there’s still a pretty big gap between what those factors would predict and where we are now,” Rosenberg says.

Bond veterans have noticed an unusual pattern in yields. “If you look at moves in the 10-year Treasury, now we have more 10-basis-point moves than we’ve seen since right around the global financial crisis,” says Gregory Peters, co-chief Investment officer at PGIM Fixed Income. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percent.

The dramatic rate shifts suggest that investors and central bankers are dealing with “policy-driven schizophrenia,” he says.

Gold keeps rising in price, a trend Rosenberg says is likely to continue along as the policy mess continues. The metal hit a record high Friday.

The hit from tariffs over recent weeks suggests that equity investors are nursing a political hangover, too. The S&P 500 is down 9% from its record closing level.

Investors aren’t all rushing to change their trading strategies. “From a bond guy’s perspective, an emerging market is one where when the economy slows, the government’s rates go up, and vice versa. I think we’re still a developed market,” says Campe Goodman, a fixed-income portfolio manager at Wellington.

The worry about this talk of emerging-market status is that it is hard to rebuild trust once it disappears. Global investors are still eager to hold oceans of U.S. government debt for relatively low rates. Why make them think twice about it?

Source: Trump’s Tariffs Are Turning the U.S. Into an Emerging Market - Barron's

The S&P 500 is on track for its biggest comeback since 2022.

The market benchmark was up 0.3% in Monday afternoon trading after dropping 1.65% at its low this morning. That would be the largest reversal from an intraday low to positive territory since Oct. 13, 2022, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

The Dow was up 340 points, or 0.8%, after trading down more than 400 points. The Nasdaq Composite was still down 0.4% after falling more than 2.7%.

Tech continued to lag, but the other major S&P 500 sectors were mostly on the rise. Consumer staples, energy, financials, and real estate continued to lead the pack.

Wall Street may be worried about stagflation, but the major indexes have all fallen far in recent weeks.

Source：The S&P 500 Is Tracking Biggest Comeback Since 2022

Economists agree that a universal tariff plan from Trump would cost households thousands. But it could make things simpler for Trump.

A staple of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign trail rhetoric returned this week with a version of 20% "blanket" tariffs now apparently being considered as the president struggles to fill in the details of his “Liberation Day” promises.

The potential move, applying to all or most goods imported to the United States, would represent a dramatic pivot of sorts for the president amid implementation worries and political complications that have dogged the White House’s long-promised plan for more specific country-by-country duties.

But it would also mark a return to an approach to trade that Trump has long championed despite varied warnings from economists that it could have the deepest of consequences for the US economy.

The Yale Budget Lab Tuesday tabulated that a move toward true blanket tariffs would stoke inflation by more than 2% and — assuming no countermeasures from the Federal Reserve — create a loss of buying power of $3,400-$4,200 per household.

The researchers added that 20% duties, if added on top of existing tariffs, would make the average effective US tariff rate the highest since 1872 at 32.8%.

A previous estimate from the Tax Foundation has also put the cost in the thousands and found that 20% blanket duties would represent an average tax increase on US households of $2,045.

Even studies from Trump-friendly groups — such as one issued during the 2024 campaign by a group called the Coalition for a Prosperous America — acknowledge that tariffs would raise consumer prices.

Thus far, there are signs from media reports that 20% duties are being considered by the Trump team, including a report Tuesday from the Washington Post that detailed the latest machinations Thus far, there are signs from media reports that 20% duties are being considered by the Trump team, including a report Tuesday from the Washington Post that detailed the latest machinations.

Some in the administration are openly pushing for aggressive revenue goals where the math would likely require some flavor of universal duties.

On Sunday, senior White House trade and manufacturing counselor Peter Navarro said the Trump 2.0 tariffs could add around $700 billion a year annually to US coffers — combining $100 billion from recently announced 25% auto tariffs to $600 billion more from other duties.

Such an ambitious top-line number can't be achieved without a wide array of duties. 20% blanket tariffs, one of the most aggressive options to raise revenue yet, are estimated to raise only about half the amount floated by Navarro, assuming that other countries retaliate.

'You’re going to see'

A 20% blanket tariff rate would represent a dramatic turn for Trump back to outsized campaign trail promises of his stewardship of the US economy at a delicate time for markets.

It could also be seen as a recognition of sorts that his oft-repeated promises of actions where "what they do to us, we do to them" is more challenging in the face of already overtaxed ports and also political constituencies that have spent recent months clamoring for exceptions.

If nothing else, a blanket tariff would be simpler to implement and is likely not to add significantly to what is known as the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States — an already overstuffed 99-chapter-long guide that duty collectors and importers rely on at ports.

A move toward universal tariffs — if Trump follows through — could also lessen some political pressure with less opportunity for exceptions.

Garrett Watson, the director of policy analysis at the Tax Foundation, previously noted to Yahoo Finance that the move toward reciprocal country-by-country tariffs was one that presented political pitfalls that could be weighing on Trump’s team today.

He said selective tariff considerations present "the risk of creating a political bonanza ... that makes the situation complicated and uncertain and can create political winners and losers."

Trump has declined to offer much in the way of specificity. When asked Wednesday about applying universal versus individual tariffs, he responded, “You’re going to see in two days,” while declining to offer specifics.

The president nonetheless continued to up the stakes. In addition to his oft-repeated use of the moniker “Liberation Day” for this Wednesday, he said he is now considering the implementation of tariffs that he believes represents a "rebirth of the country."

It's a topic that Democrats are also likely to hammer the president on, especially if this week's rollout goes poorly and already shaky markets continue to sell off.

“Perhaps if they are blanket 20% across-the-board tariffs that are imposed tomorrow, markets may have some certainty going forward,” former Biden administration official Alex Jacquez said Tuesday morning.

But then he quickly added, "It's hard to see that they'll like those either."

Source: Yahoo Finance

President Donald Trump offered to lower tariffs on China if the country approves the sale of social-media app TikTok.

“China is going to have to play a role in that, possibly, in the form of an approval maybe, and I think they’ll do that. Maybe I’ll give them a little reduction in tariffs or something to get it done,” Trump said in an Oval Office press conference Wednesday.

TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, faces an April 5 deadline to sell or divest the app. If a deal isn’t reached by then, U.S. companies that help make it available domestically would face fines under a law passed by Congress in 2024. Those companies include Apple and Google through their app stores, and Oracle , which stores TikTok’s videos on its servers. 

The initial deadline for a divestment passed on Jan. 19, a day before Trump’s inauguration. The app briefly cut off service in the U.S. before restoring it as it became clear U.S. authorities were looking to keep it operating. On taking office, Trump issued executive orders to extend negotiations for 75 days and to defer any legal action against U.S. service providers.

TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. China would need to issue regulatory approval to allow a TikTok sale. Officials have indicated they aren’t inclined to do so. “We’re going to have a form of a deal,” Trump said. “But if it’s not finished, it’s not a big deal, we’ll just extend it.”

Source: TikTok Is Tied to China Tariffs, as Trump Offers an Extension to the Ban Talks - Barron's

CoreWeave’s disappointing IPO is not reflecting well on NVDA today,” Gil Luria, a D.A. Davidson analyst who rates Nvidia’s stock at neutral, said in an email to MarketWatch. “In spite of Nvidia stepping in to save the IPO, shares priced well below the initial range and are down more today, putting at risk its ability to raise more capital to continue to buy Nvidia chips.”

In February, Luria recapped Nvidia’s earnings with a note titled: “As Good as It Gets?” Then, he noted that while near-term demand for the company’s AI-chips was strong, “we still believe a decline in demand for Nvidia compute is inevitable as customers begin to scrutinize their [return on investment] on AI compute.”

According to Dow Jones Market Data, Nvidia shares ended the month of March down 14.4%. That’s the stock’s steepest monthly drop since since September 2022, when it fell 19.6%. Nvidia was also the third-worst-performing stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, has acquired his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, in an all-stock deal, he announced in a post on X Friday.

“xAI has acquired X in an all-stock transaction,” Musk said. “The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt).”

Musk went on to describe the two companies’ futures as “intertwined.” He added, “Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent.”

The acquisition places X — the highly influential social media platform Musk purchased in 2022 under its former name, Twitter — firmly under the umbrella of Musk’s AI startup, which he founded in 2023 to compete with OpenAI. While xAI’s products, including its AI chatbot Grok, were tightly integrated into the X platform before this deal, Friday’s acquisition further combines two of Musk’s most high-profile companies.

According to publications including The Wall Street Journal, shares of X and xAI will be exchanged for shares of a new holding company called xAI Holdings Corp. The WSJ also reports that executives at both companies believed that it would be easier to raise money for a combined entity.

Musk — who also leads Tesla, SpaceX, and Neuralink — notes in his post that this deal values X at $33 billion (lowered from an enterprise value of $45 billion due to the company’s $12 billion in debt). Musk originally purchased X for $44 billion in October 2022 and took it private. However, the valuation has swung dramatically in recent years. At one point, Fidelity valued X at less than $10 billion.

In the months since the inauguration of President Donald Trump — for whom Musk aggressively campaigned and for whom Musk now serves under as a special adviser leading DOGE — X’s valuation has risen, largely because investors believe the platform more influential now. Musk said in his post on Friday that X has more than 600 million active users.

Musk launched xAI in 2023 and has since beefed up the startup with industry-leading AI researchers from Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and OpenAI, and built out the massive AI data centers needed to catch up with other frontier AI developers. To fuel these efforts, Musk has gone on a historic fundraising campaign, including a $6 billion funding round in December that valued the startup at $45 billion. According to Musk, xAI’s valuation is now even higher, at $80 billion.

xAI has largely been successful in its mad dash to catch up with OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic. In February, the startup released Grok 3, a frontier AI model that’s competitive with the industry’s leading AI models on benchmarks measuring math, science, and coding.

But xAI’s successes have not stopped Musk from meddling with OpenAI, a startup he co-founded with Sam Altman. Musk is currently trying to thwart OpenAI’s for-profit transition — which it needs to complete to secure future funding — in more ways than one. The billionaire owner of xAI has made OpenAI’s for-profit transition the centerpiece of his lawsuit against OpenAI. Musk also submitted a $97 billion takeover bid for Altman’s startup in February. OpenAI’s board promptly rejected the idea, but it already may have driven up the market price for OpenAI’s assets.

One of the major advantages that xAI has over OpenAI and other startups is its access to X. The large body of posts that X has accumulated over the years gives xAI a significant advantage in the race for AI training data. Further, X gives Musk’s AI startup a huge consumer app to reach users in.

Musk has a history of blurring the lines between his many companies, which has landed him in legal trouble before. With xAI’s acquisition of X, the two are now effectively one — and the move suggests that X’s true value may lie in advancing Musk’s broader AI ambitions.

China, Japan and South Korea agreed to jointly respond to U.S. tariffs, a social media account affiliated with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said on Monday, an assertion that Seoul called "somewhat exaggerated."The state media comments came after the three countries held their first economic dialogue in five years on Sunday, seeking to facilitate regional trade as the Asian export powers brace against U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.

Japan and South Korea are seeking to import semiconductor raw materials from China, and China is also interested in purchasing chip products from Japan and South Korea, the account, Yuyuan Tantian, said in a post on Weibo.All three sides agreed to strengthen supply chain cooperation and engage in more dialogue on export controls, the post said.When asked about the report, a spokesperson for South Korea's trade ministry said "the suggestion that there was a joint response to U.S. tariffs appears to have been somewhat exaggerated," and referred to the text of the countries' joint statement.

During Sunday's meeting, the countries' trade ministers agreed to speed up talks on a South Korea-Japan-China free trade agreement deal to promote "regional and global trade", according to a statement released after the meeting."The three countries exchanged views on the global trade environment, and as you can see in the joint statement, they shared their understanding of the need to continue economic and trade cooperation," the South Korean trade ministry spokesperson said.Japan's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The countries' trade ministers met ahead of Trump's planned announcement on Wednesday of more tariffs in what he calls "liberation day", as he upends Washington's trading partnerships.

Gold prices saw another strong rally Monday, with prices continuing their run to record highs, but analysts warned that prices may soon see a pullback, despite uncertainty surrounding U.S. tariffs set for April 2 that has been supportive for the safe-haven asset.

Prices that are now well above $3,000 an ounce may trigger some profit-taking, said Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst City Index and FOREX.com. “While dip buyers are lurking, a rug pull is becoming increasingly likely at these levels.”

On Monday, the most active June gold contract climbed $36, or 1.2%, to settle at a fresh record high of $3,150.30 an ounce on Comex. Prices were up 10.6% for the month and gained 19.3% for the quarter, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The gain for the quarter was the largest on record, based on data going back to 1975.

Gold prices have been rallying on the back of the correction in stocks and the “resulting reintroduction of the fear premium,” said Will Rhind, chief executive officer of GraniteShares. “Gold is establishing itself as the defector hedge against the U.S. dollar.”

As reciprocal tariffs came into effect on Wednesday, however, there may be a pullback in gold prices, with the day potentially becoming a “buy the news event” for stocks, which could provide some much needed support for risk assets, Rhind told MarketWatch Monday.

U.S. benchmark stock indexes saw mixed trading Monday, and were poised to end broadly lower for the quarter.

When risk appetite turns “sour” and U.S. stocks start falling, people also “tend to liquidate their profitable long gold positions to free up margin,” said Razaqzada.

A liquidation of long gold positions is possible, with a break below recent price support around the $3,057 to $3,066 level a potential “short-term trigger,” he told MarketWatch late last week. Longer term, a potential move below $3,000 would be needed to ignite a more meaningful drop, he said.

In his first remarks as Intel's (INTC) new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan on Monday outlined a leaner version of the iconic American chipmaker in which he would work directly with engineers to develop new products based on feedback from the company's customers.

Tan earlier this month took over at Intel, which once enjoyed more than 90% market share in both personal computers and data center servers but has lost out to rivals such as Nvidia in recent years.

Speaking at Intel's "Vision" event in Las Vegas, where the company was set to discuss products with its customers, Tan said he spent his first weeks on the job meeting with customers and said the company had fallen far short of their expectations.

"Please be brutally honest with us. This is what I expect of you this week, and I believe harsh feedback is most valuable," Tan said.

Reuters has previously reported that Tan plans to eliminate what he views as a slow-moving and bloated middle management layer.

On Monday, Tan repeatedly promised to give more power to Intel's engineers, saying that new ideas have not had "room to develop and grow" at Intel in recent years.

"We're going to really drive some new ideas, giving engineers freedom to innovate from within," Tan said. "My weekend is usually packed with a lot of engineers and architects. They have some brilliant ideas, they want to change the world, and that's where I get excited to work closely with them."

Tan said his primary focus will be on recruiting and keeping engineers.

"We lost quite a bit of talent. That's my top priority, to recruit some of the best talent in the industry to come back and then to rejoin or join Intel," Tan said.

Source: Reuters

"We see a clear uptick of interest in Lucid from Tesla buyers, because they're looking for another option," Lucid's interim CEO said.

EV maker Lucid Motors (LCID) is seeing a light at the end of the tunnel — and former Tesla (TSLA) buyers may be the reason.

The California-based company’s second product, the Gravity SUV, is now on sale, with deliveries to a wider swath of customers beginning in April.

Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff says there are new buyers coming in for both the Gravity SUV and Air sedan because customers want an alternative to Tesla.

“Definitely,” Winteroff said when asked if more Tesla owners were trading in their vehicles for Lucid EVs. Yahoo Finance spoke to Winterhoff following a Gravity event at the company's showroom in New York City's trendy Meatpacking District.

“Tesla buyers always were the source of our sales because they were already used to using electrical drivetrains, and they look for an opportunity to have something else, something better," he said. "And now, with recent changes, obviously, since the beginning of the year, we see a clear uptick of interest in Lucid from Tesla buyers because they're looking for another option.”

Winterhoff was alluding to the brand issues Tesla is facing of late. In addition to slower-than-expected new Model Y sales, CEO Elon Musk's vocal support of President Trump and his role in the White House's DOGE commission have also come at a price — the alienation of Tesla’s customer base.

Winterhoff said some customers were trading in Tesla Model 3s for Lucid’s luxury Air sedan, which in some cases cost twice as much.

The Gravity could have an even stronger effect, as the Air sedan was always seen as a niche product, rather than a volume mover.

“Americans want to have an SUV. That's the quintessential American car, the size of the pickup truck. It’s a much larger addressable market for us, and therefore much larger demand,” Winterhoff said about the Gravity.

If all goes well, Lucid is aiming to produce 20,000 vehicles by year end, and even at that level Winterhoff expects the Gravity to be supply, rather than demand, constrained.

While Winterhoff is optimistic, it must be noted that the cheapest Gravity will start at a pretty hefty $79,900, just under the price cap for the federal EV tax credit; however, if leased the price cap doesn’t limit usage of the EV tax credit.

What will also impact sales is competition from the likes of Tesla’s Model X; Cadillac’s full-size EVs, like the Vistiq and Escalade IQ; and even hybrid and traditional gas offerings from German luxury brands BMW, Audi, and Mercedes.

Lucid has one trick up its sleeve compared to foreign competitors: All of its vehicles are produced in Arizona, and thus are immune to President Trump’s 25% tariffs on foreign cars.

And it’s not just the cars; key powertrain components are also built in the US, even if some parts like battery cells are imported from elsewhere.

“We are very highly vertically integrated. So we're building our battery modules, building our battery packs also in Arizona,” Winterhoff said. “We have done this, you know, bringing manufacturing stateside as much as possible [even before the tariffs].”

Billionaire Elon Musk on Sunday handed out million-dollar checks to two voters in Wisconsin and promised smaller payments to others who help elect a conservative candidate to the state's top court in a closely watched election.The Tesla CEO, a top adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, handed out oversized checks at a rally in Green Bay as he sought to drum up enthusiasm for a state Supreme Court election that is already the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.

Musk said he would also pay supporters $20 for every voter they recruit over the next two days.He said he was spending the money to raise awareness of a race in which liberal Susan Crawford seems to be running ahead of conservative Brad Schimel."We actually are in serious danger of losing the election," he said. "We've got to pull a rabbit out of a hat."The April 1 contest will determine the ideological tilt of the state's top court as it considers abortion rights, labor rights and possibly election rules. Technically nonpartisan, the race is seen as an early referendum on Trump in a politically competitive state.

Musk warned the court might redraw legislative districts in a way that could cause Trump's Republicans to lose seats in the U.S. House of Representatives."I think this will be important for the future of civilization. It's that significant," Musk said. As of last week, groups affiliated with Musk had spent at least $17.5 million to support Schimel, according to New York University's Brennan Center for Justice -- more than one-fifth of the $81 million spent in total on the race.Musk's $1 million giveaway echoed his tactics from the 2024 presidential election, when he gave checks to voters who signed petitions supporting conservative causes.

Wisconsin's attorney general, Democrat Josh Kaul, sued to block the giveaway but the state supreme court ruled it could go ahead, according to the Washington Post.Musk spent more than $250 million to help elect Trump last year, far more than any other individual, and his appearance in Wisconsin showed his willingness to get involved in downballot races as well.Trump has deputized Musk to oversee an unprecedented effort to slash the federal government that has effectively shuttered several agencies and fired tens of thousands of workers.

Source: Reuters