Morning Brew Daily - US-UK Reach Major Trade Deal & Bill Gates Giving Away $200B By 2045

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Episode 579: Neal and Toby dive into the first deal made in Trump’s tariff-era with the UK, seen by many as a win for both Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Then, Bill Gates is hanging it up soon and plans to distribute all of his wealth and end the Gates Foundation. Also, AI is making its way through everyday life…including the afterlife. Meanwhile, SharkNinja is our Stock of the Week and Krispy Kreme is our Dog of the Week.  Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Visit https://planetoat.com/ to learn more! Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.swap.fm/l/mbd-note  Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC. APY as of 3/18/25,  subject to change. *Terms and Conditions apply. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Terms and conditions apply. Good morning brew daily show. I'm Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, AI is resurrecting dead people to give testimony in court and teach writing classes, innovative or creepy. Then Trump announced a framework for a trade deal with the UK. We're sending them Guy Fierry, and we're getting back, David Beckham.

It's Friday, May 9th. Let's ride. As white smoke billowed from the Sistine Chapel's chimney yesterday, signaling the election of a new pope, the screech of a bald eagle could be heard in the distance. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a Chicago-born Villanova University math major, was elected as the first American Pope in history, taking the name Leo the 14th. As the new Pope made his first appearance on the balcony overlooking St. Peter Square, the crowd went wild, and so did people in his native United States, who were delirious that a Chicago boy known to his friends as Bob was now the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. Many questions remain about what direction he'll take the church in, but at least one mystery has been solved.

According to the new Pope's brother, he is a White Sox fan, not a Cubs guy. First of all, everyone who bet on the Pope yesterday was totally wrong. Prevost was at 0.3% on Polly Market right before the announcement. So whoever backed an American Pope made a pretty penny. But yesterday was an all-time day on the internet. I'm just going to run through some of the best jokes I saw. First, a Chicago Pope, Rome will finally have some good pizza, followed by a lot of jokes about Chicago Deep Dish being the new body of Christ. Then lots of tariff content.

The tariffs worked. We're even making popes in America now. And then finally, lots of Chicago's sports jokes. Prevost is a Chicago White Sox fan. The Chicago Sun-Times found a picture of him back at the 2005 World Series, which means a fan in the stands, became the Pope before the White Sox made it back to the World Series. Also, Chicago producer Pope before a QB who is throwing for over 4,000 yards. So American Pope, really, really great for lots of good jokes. And now a word from our sponsor, Planet Oat.

Neil, you know what I love? A great duo. Batman and Robin, peanut butter and jelly, Toby and Neil. I'm iconic combos. And I'm going to add one more to the list, Planet Oat and Breakfast. Instant Hall of Famer right there. Blends like dairy milk, frost like a dream, and somehow makes your morning cup feel.

twice as good. It's rich, creamy, and smooth enough to go toe to toe to with any fancy cafe creation, but it's right in your fridge. And if you go for the barista lovers version, only three grams of sugar, but still feels indulgent. Or unsweetened if you want zero sugar without giving up that velvety texture. Planet oat and coffee, the duo you didn't know your mornings were missing. Or as I like to think of it, the Toby and Neil of Breakfast. Get your hands on the oat that has it all. Visit planetoat.com for more. Wireless can feel like a world of traps But not with Visible It's one-line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot

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Terms apply limited time offer subject to change See Visible.com for plan features and network management details Like ice cubes in the summer, some trade tensions with key U.S. partners are beginning to melt. President Trump announced a still-to-be-finalized trade agreement with Britain yesterday that lowers tariffs on British steel, aluminum, and cars in exchange for the UK buying more U.S. goods like beef, ethanol, and aircrafts. The blanket 10% tariff that Trump applied to all U.S. trade partners will remain in place. While details are still murky, we know that the UK got the green light to ship 100,000 cars. to the U.S. at a 10% rate down from an original 27.5%. That's a win for luxury brands like

Rangelver and Asson Martin, who now have a slightly smoother road into American garages. Rolls-Royce engines in planes will also fly into the U.S. tariff-free in an unnamed UK airline just agreed to buy $10 billion worth of Boeing aircrafts. This deal framework is probably not going to make a major impact on trade figures, though. The U.S. imported just 96,000 U.S. imported just 96,000 UK-made vehicles last year, compared to 3 million from Mexico, our number one auto supplier. And Britain was only the United States' ninth biggest trading partner last year behind Vietnam and ahead of India, while trade in the first quarter totaled just 2.9% of all U.S. imports and exports. As for the rest of Europe, the European Union unveiled a plan to pressure the U.S. into trade talks

by proposing tariffs on $107 billion worth of American goods and launching a WTO dispute. It might already be working. Trump said yesterday that we intend to make a deal with Europe soon. As for China, top U.S. and Chinese trade officials are set to meet this weekend in Switzerland to work on de-escalating their trade war, even though a deal remains unlikely for now. So trade talks, Neil, they are happening. And stocks, they are going up. The S&P surged yesterday. It has risen 11 of the past 13 days. So stocks are going back up after plunging post-April 6. second. And that is probably not because of this particular trade framework with the UK. As you mentioned,

it covers a very small piece of, you know, global trade and U.S. trade with the U.K. But it appears to be that Trump is willing to engage with these trade partners and work out some, you know, arrangements like exporting beef and ethanol products into the UK market, you know, applied more broadly that could lead to, you know, a little softening in all of these trade wars happening all around the world. And maybe why you saw stocks react so positively, even though that the deal was relatively small, it did signal that Trump is very willing to, you know, get over these trade conflicts and make a deal. The anecdote that kind of showed that was that Trump called Kier Starmor late on Wednesday to finalize the detail. The prime minister was actually watching the Arsenal

Champions League game and took the call. Arsenal ended up losing, by the way. Starmers said that they hadn't planned to announce a trade deal on Thursday. So this was definitely kind of a last minute thing, but it shows that Trump is open to negotiating. And maybe this is more of a deal, a win for Britain than anything else, given lots of post-Brexit governments have been chasing a broader trade deal with the United States. This agreement falls short of that deal, but it is kind of the first deal that they have gotten, that they've been waiting for for many years. But Ryan Peterson from the logistics company Flexport tweeted out, As one of the only countries with the trade surplus

in the United States, the UK was still only able to negotiate a 10% tariff rate. That does not bode well for the rest of the world. So that's one interpretation of this deal. I think one of the big takeaways is that 10% tariff on the rest of the world that Trump implemented is not going away. It's never going to get below 10%,

which economists say would drag on economic growth. I thought this was probably the most illuminating part of this press conference that Kier Starmor and Trump had. So Starmor was asked by a reporter if Britain would still face higher tariffs under the deal than it faced before Trump was elected. Starmer replied, the question you should be asking is, is it better than it was yesterday? And maybe that is true, but it certainly is not true than before Trump elected and put 10% tariffs. So if you're looking at the global trade infrastructure right now, there's just going to be 10% tariffs as a baseline throughout. Obviously, the biggest cheese here is

US China trade talks, Scott Besson and another trade representative are going to Switzerland to meet with Chinese representatives this weekend. That will be more consequential than anything that was announced here between the United States and the UK. But yes, I think the biggest winners are probably McLaren, Aston Martin, and Jaguar Land Rover because they're only going to face 10% tariffs instead of 25. The Bill Gates Foundation is marking its 25th year anniversary. And how do you celebrate 25 years of being the most influential philanthropy in the world, you announce your retirement. At least not for a while, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that the Gates Foundation would close its doors in 20 years. That's 2045, if you're counting, while ramping up its giving

to deplete Gates' personal wealth by 99% before he dies. So far in 25 years, the Gates Foundation has given $100 billion to causes like global health, anti-poverty efforts, and education around the world. It aims to double that spending. to $200 billion before it calls time in 2045. That's because Gates said the foundation's ultra-ambitious goals can be accomplished in that time span with all this additional cash. They have three key targets in mind that no mom, child, or baby dies of a preventable cause that the next generation grows up in a world without deadly infectious diseases and that hundreds of millions of people break free from poverty, putting more countries

on a path to prosperity. Gates noted the awkwardness of the timing for winding down the phone Foundation, mentioning Elon Musk's sweeping doge cuts of foreign aid. Still, he believes now is the time to act for his philanthropy to make the biggest impact in the shortest period of time. I mean, he already has made a gigantic impact. This pledge probably puts them into the largest philanthropic gifts ever, far bigger than John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, even when you adjust for inflation. Only Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett could potentially nip him at the end because he has a larger fortune than Bill Gates does right now. But yeah, if you go through the Bill Gates's history, $100 billion since its founding, by the way, speaking of Warren Buffett, 41% of the foundation's

money so far has come from Warren Buffett. So they've kind of been the number one and number two biggest philanthropic donors over the last, you know, quarter century right now. And now, Gates just says, I want to accelerate the timeline. Like this has been my second calling, my second career. I do, I want to make this impact while I'm still alive here, which is why. you saw this pledge basically just speed up the timetable for his giving and there was a certain number of metrics that they like to point to to show that their impact on global health uh is working their most prize metric is probably that there's been a drop in childhood deaths from preventable causes by almost half between 2000 and 2020 according to the u and they don't take you know full credit for that

but they say they their money was a huge catalyst in making this happen the share of the world's population living in extreme poverty also has fallen by almost 75% between 1990 and 2014. But since 2014, that's pretty much stagnated. So I think that's why you see Gates really accelerating the timeline here, saying these are things that we can accomplish if we just kind of overload the system with $200 billion in cash. I don't want this to be a perpetual thing that gives out, you know, a few billion dollars here and there.

Let's give out $10 billion a year and make this thing go from 75% to 100% in terms of alleviating poverty. He also made headlines, we have to mention, for absolutely bashing Elon Musk. He said in an interview to the Financial Times, the picture of the world's richest man, killing the world's poorest children is not a pretty one. This is an extension of a feud that Gates and Musk have had for years. And, you know, Gates really is very much against what Doja is on cutting USAID budgets and foreign aid around the world. AI usage has reached a new frontier after a family.

tech to resurrect their dead brother to give an impact statement during a trial. In an Arizona courtroom this week, an uncanny representation of Christopher Pelke, who died from a gunshot wound four years ago, played in front of a courtroom of his now convicted killer's trial. The video was created by Pelke's sister, who set off on a mission to humanize her brother using the technology. She collected a total of 48 victim impact statements and relied on her husband and friend to cobble together the simulation using a variety of different A.

tools. In another life, we probably could have been friends, the video version of Pelke said. Towards the end of the hearing, the judge said, I loved that AI. Thank you for that. Experts say that this is likely the first time in the U.S. that an AI-generated rendering of a deceased victim has been used to deliver an impact statement. But it's far from the only attempts companies are making to bring people back from the dead. Case in point, BBC Maestro, a service kind of like Masterclass, launched a writing course last week, taught by an AI version of the mystery writer Agatha Christie in cooperation with her estate trained on her writing in interviews. Neil, the courtroom resurrection was well received and both Christy and Pelke were

resurrected by members of their families, but still creating digital clones of dead relatives is always going to be a controversial capability of AI, but one that companies are increasingly exploring. For sure, my first question was, is this legal in Arizona? It is. Victims can give impact statements in any digital format. So this family, this sister, you know, really catalyzed this particular AI rendering of Pelke to give the impact statement. It was well received. Some critics have come out saying, well, this is a slippery slope here. If you're bringing AI into the courtroom, we could have deep fake evidence and other shenanigans. And there was an instance last year of a man without a lawyer using an AI generated avatar to argue his case in a video. And that video started

playing and the judge was like, wait, what was that? Okay, that's an AI. Like, we cannot allow this to proceed. So there is, you know, some concerns around, you know, how far AI will, you know, influence a courtroom's proceedings. At least in this case, they consider this, you know, one of the least unobjectionable versions because it is an impact statement endorsed by the family. But you can see how AI will certainly impact legal proceedings going forward. And digital ghosts in general are certainly a thing that are coming down the pipeline. Companies are trying to train algorithms on people's digital data to seize people's digital data so they can offer comfort for friends or family. They think that

these ghosts can give people a sense of agency when it comes to confronting deaths. But then you go on the downsides and the risk, which are numerous as well because one, a lot of data privacy laws are probably not well equipped to deal with companies that are mining through a dead person's data and then recreating a simulation of them, but then also healthy grieving, experts are saying that you're disrupting the grieving process by giving people access to their loved ones once they have a pass. So digital ghosts are certainly a controversial sector of the market, not even when you consider the fact that they could be introduced to legal proceedings as well. I mean, but I will say if you're not concerned by that and you want to live an AI afterlife, what you should do

is go into a room and video yourself talking for a half hour because you need to give the people who will create the AI avatar of you a lot of material and data to build, you know, your future AI dead self on. So this is what the sister of Pelke did, actually. She said, now I'm confronting my own mortality. She went and recorded a video of herself in 410 minutes, and Agatha Christie was recreated because there's a lot of footage of her. So that was the only way that they were able to do that.

So I will say, if you want to live a digital afterlife, go into a room, video tape yourself laughing and speaking, laughing and speaking, if you are a person who laughs. And that will be the key to help you live after your physical body is gone. Up next, let's talk about Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere in the crowd. But too often, life gets busy.

Or the price holds you back. Priceline is here to help you make it happy. With millions of deals on flights, hotels, and rental cars, you can go see the game live. Don't just dream about the trip. Book it with Price Line. Download the Price Line app or visitpriceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. Let's hit our Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week, the segment where Toby and I pick one stock that's planned an elaborate gift for Mother's Day and another that's scrambling at the last minute.

I won the pre-show packing a car trunk before a road trip contest, so I get to go first, and my stock is Shark Ninja. The appliance maker soared 13% yesterday after pulverizing earnings even more than its blenders pulverize your fruit. And not only did its sales outperform expectations last quarter, it's cranking up the setting to high by investing in new areas of growth. The company is expanding from vacuums, blenders, and other home products into lucrative markets like beauty and skin care. Analysts found patent filings for new products like light therapy devices, power-operated brushes for exfoliating skin, shavers and oral care products, and they're super amped about this move because of the higher margins they offer. Getting it to skin care would come on top of existing beauty investments by Shark Ninja, which has already dipped a toe into the sector with hairdriers and stylers.

Of course, developing new product lines also means you go up against more stiff competition, and many companies have failed miserably in trying to take the one thing they do well, and replicating it elsewhere. But Shark Ninja is undeterred and seeing solid results so far. For instance, it directly took on Yeti, a beloved brand, by recently launching its first cooler product, which it says is completely sold out. Shark Ninja is kind of crushing it,

and they are running the Dyson playbook here. If that sounded like a lot of products that Dyson makes, you are correct. Shark Ninja started with, you know, vacuums and blenders, and then Dyson started with vacuums. Then they expanded into hair care. I am especially bullish if you are Shark Ninja on this electric styling iron because the Dyson airbrush has become the de facto way that, you know, you get ready with. And it is.

I've seen an action. It is a remarkable piece of machinery. So the fact that Shark Ninja has identified this as well definitely looks like it's a growth opportunity. And then I will say that Shark Ninja is pretty well insulated from tariffs as well. They said that they've had this pretty multi-pronged approach to where they're sourcing. their materials from. And so they think that they will have virtually no exposure to China by the end of the fiscal year. You know, most companies say that maybe two, three, five years down the line they can move out of China. They have seen the writing on the wall here and have diversified their

supplier base, their manufacturing base to really remove a dependency on China, which is another reason why I think the market is especially bullish on this Massachusetts-based company. My dog of the week is Krispy Kreme, who reported earnings yesterday that were neither hot nor ready, is reassessing its big rollout with McDonald's and pulled its full year guidance due to economic conditions softer than a dozen fresh donuts. Crispy Cream's big partnership with the Golden Arch's was supposed to be a big national opportunity,

but after rolling out to 2,400 of McDonald's 13,500 domestic locations, the companies hit pause to reassess. We are shocked by the speed at which the story fell apart, truest analyst Bill Chappell wrote in a note. Especially since a year ago, Krispy Cream announced their donuts would be sold in all McDonald's U.S. locations by the end of 2026. While initially promising customers didn't bite on the prospect of pairing their quarter-pounder with even more calories in sales have fallen below projections, Krispy Cream had also been

quickly expanding their capacity in order to serve McDonald's sprawling restaurant footprint, which weighed on the company's overall profits. So now, Neil, Krispy Cream is a shell of its former self. Its stock fell 24% yesterday, and is now down seven. 70% of the last year. The combination McDonald's and Krispy Cream hasn't worked out as well as the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. And that may be more of a McDonald's story than a Krispy Cream story. McDonald's is coming off its worst quarter since peak COVID. Sales are falling. Traffic is falling across the fast food sector. It's been hit really hard by inflation, really hard by souring economic sentiment. So perhaps Krispy Cream just inked a deal with the sector at the worst possible time. and it is pain on top of more pain because they were increasing their capacity to fulfill all of these new McDonald's locations and this partnership has really hit the skits.

Yeah, and they also had a big cybersecurity instance back in November 2, which hurt its online ordering systems. Online makes up 15.5% of the company's donut shop sales. So it is a rather digital first company as well, which you wouldn't really expect from Kris cream. So yeah, the hits just keep coming, which is tough because they're good donuts. I mean, come on, the product is there. So good luck, Krispy Kreme.

Let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. New Zealand has long been home to more sheep than humans, but like the Matrix, humans are staging a comeback. According to latest government figures, there are just four and a half sheep for every one person on the Ovine dominated island. That is down from a ratio of 22 to 1 back in 1982. While nearly five sheep to a man is still a lot of sheep. A shifting agricultural landscape has led to a drop-off in the amount of woolly creatures roaming New Zealand's green fields. Back in the 80s, farming sheep for wool and meat was the nation's primary economic driver, but the rise of synthetic fibers has a knee-capped the industry, leading many farmers to remake their fields to pursue dairy farming or pine

forestry in order to sell carbon offsets, which both make more money. New Zealand has always been the butt of a lot of sheep-related jokes, so make them now because humans are still. staging that comeback. I mean, in the 80s, those were very appropriate because in 1982, more than 70 million sheep were in New Zealand compared to 3.2 million people. So that is a great ratio if you're a person. And you're right, Australia had been making a lot of jokes at New Zealand's expense about the amount of sheep that they had. But now the gap is narrowing, and it's possible that Australia will have more sheep per person than New Zealand in the coming years. There are about three sheep per Australian currently, and you said there's four and a half sheep per person in New Zealand, so we'll see when they reach parity.

Finally, a Soviet spacecraft from the 1970s could crash your Saturday barbecue or more like crash into. At some point in the next day, Cosmos 482, which failed to land on Venus when it was launched 53 years ago, is expected to hurdle uncontrolled. controlled back to Earth. Unfortunately, scientists have no idea where this half-ton hunk of metal is going to land, but they project it could fall anywhere from 52 degrees north to 52 degrees south, where virtually all of you are listening to this from. But you probably don't need to strain your neck looking up all weekend. The creaky spacecraft could burn up upon re-entry, and more importantly, most of the Earth is water. So the likelihood that it startles a few fish in the ocean is far more likely than it plunking down on your head.

Yeah, the Cosmos 4802 is only about a meter wide but weighs 1,190 pounds. So it is short, but it is stout. And modeling suggests that it'll hit the ground at around 150 miles an hour, which honestly doesn't sound crazy fast to me because right now it's currently traveling at 17. You should try it. No, that's not going to feel good if that hits you. But it is not expected to break up into that big, you know, meteor-esque, uh, shower that happens when objects typically burn up in the earth's atmosphere because it is meant

it was designed to reenter in one piece. So you got to be really, really unlucky if the one meter wide object, first of all, hits land in general, not in the ocean. And second of all, if it somehow found its way into someone's personal property, that would just be deeply, deeply unlucky. But it's going to hit somewhere. Yeah, it's got to hit somewhere. It's going to hit somewhere. We hope it's the ocean. Okay, that's it. That's our shows for the week. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us. Have a wonderful Friday and an even better weekend. If you have any thoughts on the show,

send an email with your questions, comments, or feedback to Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Lute is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and the birthday girl, Olivia. Leigh, Happy Birthday, Olivia. Scoop, Dardaris is on audio, hair and makeup wishes all the MBD moms. A Happy Mother's Day.

Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Great. So today, Neil. I wish you all well. All. Pay off your home, travel for life. Drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29th. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary.

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