Reuters World News - Flight cuts, tariffs and Musk’s paycheck

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Airlines are scrambling and passengers panicking as the U.S. orders 10% of flights to be cut at 40 major airports. Host Kim Vinnell discusses how the cuts will be phased in over the weekend as Democrats say this is an attempt to force their hand into ending the longest shutdown in history. A government lawyer warns a tariff defeat in the Supreme Court will add more trade chaos, as the justices appear skeptical over their legality. And Tesla shareholders could vote to make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.   Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here. Find the Recommended Read here. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy anddata protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Kim Vinell in Wanganui, New Zealand. It's Thursday, November 6th. Today, 10% of all flights are said to be cancelled across the US due to the government shutdown. The Supreme Court appears skeptical over the legality of President Trump's wide-ranging tariffs, and Tesla shareholders get ready to vote on a trillion-dollar pay package for CEO Elon Musk. This is Reuters World News. bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. The US is ordering a 10% cut in flights at 40 major airports across the country

in a bid to deal with the fallout from the now record-breaking government shutdown in the US. Thousands of air traffic controllers and tens of thousands of TSA agents have now gone 36 days without pay. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says they need to alleviate pressure on the system. It'll be frustration. We are working with the airlines. They're going to work with passengers. But in the end, our sole role is to make sure that we keep this airspace as safe as possible. Reuters' aviation correspondent David Sheperson has more. This sent airlines ground because a 10% cut in 36 hours is an extremely drastic action. given what it does in terms of flight crews and so on.

So the FAA had a call with the airlines and clarified that the plan is to start at 4% on Friday, 5% Saturday, ramping up to 10% early next week, assuming the shutdown is continuing. And that will be challenging, but that's a lot more doable than, you know, a 10% cut in 36 hours. The FAA is not publicly disclosed to the 40 airports where the cuts are going to be in effect.

And so that has said a lot of people, you know, freaking out because, you know, there's so little clarity. I got a direct message from a former reporter who's getting married on Saturday and wondered, what's going to happen to my wedding and my guests are coming on Friday? And are they going to get there? And I said, well, at this point, the FAA doesn't know, the airlines don't know, and I certainly don't know

because there's just so many unanswered questions. The Trump administration has repeatedly leaned on the threat of aviation chaos to turn up the heat on Democrats, hoping it will push them to end the shutdown. Democrats contend Republicans are to blame by refusing to negotiate over key health care subsidies. To the U.S. Supreme Court, where arguments are being heard for the legality of President Donald Trump's tariffs, justices are considering whether Trump was allowed to use an emergency powers law from the 70s to justify broad tariffs against almost the whole world, tariffs which are central to his foreign policy and which have upended global trade.

The administration's lawyer, D. John Sauer, says changing things now would be disastrous. Unwinding those agreements, he warns, would expose us to ruthless trade retaliation by far more aggressive countries. The law in question allows a president to regulate commerce in a national emergency. But as Chief Justice, John Roberts pointed out, it wasn't necessarily designed for this. And the statute doesn't use the word tariffs. The case is also seen as a test of Trump's executive power. Legal reporter Jan Wolfe was at the hearing.

There were a lot of skeptical arguments from the justices. You know, the three liberals on the court are very unlikely to rule for Trump. And so the question is, can they peel off at least two conservatives to join them? And I think some of the questions from Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Neil Gorsuch, maybe even some of the others, leaned against Trump. The court, when Joe Biden was president, said there's something called a major questions doctrine, which essentially means that you really need clear congressional authorization to implement a policy with sweeping economic consequences.

This came up in the student loan debt cancellation case. And I think, you know, the court is aware that it might, interpreted as odd if they struck down these Biden policies and then allow Trump's terrorists to take effect. Jan says that even if the court rules against the Trump administration, it has vowed to find other legal mechanisms to enact its tariffs. President Trump says he's instructed the Department of War to prepare for possible military action in Nigeria. We're going to do things to Nigeria that Nigeria is not going to be happy about and may very well go into that now disgrace country,

guns are blazing to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible, horrible atrocities. He says Christians are being targeted and killed. Nigeria rejects that assertion and says the country faces terrorism, not a Christian genocide. Nigeria has struggled with insurgents, but the majority of those killed have been Muslim. One last bit of Trump news now.

After ordering the US to restart the testing of nuclear weapons to keep up with rival powers, Trump now says he may be working on a plan to denuclearize with both Russia and China. Neither Beijing or Moscow has commented. And Russia's Vladimir Putin has actually ordered his top officials to draft plans for nuclear weapons testing of their own. That hasn't happened since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. President Trump has yet to clarify whether the resumption he ordered refers to nuclear explosive testing or to flight testing of nuclear-capable missiles. We ran a poll on Spotify yesterday, asking you whether we should keep the bell or lose it. You resoundingly said the bell is iconic and so it stays.

But in the actual market news, Tesla shareholders will vote today on whether to award CEO Elon Musk a nearly $1 trillion. dollar pay package. Norway's sovereign wealth fund, which is Tesla's sixth largest outside investor, has said it will vote against ratifying the deal. But it is still likely to go through. Consumer Enterprise reporter Chris Kirkham says it's by far the largest pay package in corporate history with Musk's previous 2018 pay package in a distant second place. Basically, the board's argument for why shareholders should give Elon Musk, you know, this really kind of historically large pay package is essentially shareholders win when Musk wins. If shareholders don't get anything, Musk gets nothing. So the way this is structured is there's 12 separate steps that he needs to achieve and he gets an additional 1% of company stock each time he achieves one of these tranches, they call. It's sort of like a step up in different goals. So the top end of the pay package requires him essentially moving the market cap of Tesla from about $1.5 trillion where it is today to $8.5 trillion, about the six-fold increase. And very few executives have ever been able to grow a company to that degree.

But when you start to kind of dig into it, there are several of these product goals and even market cap goals that might not be that difficult for must to meet. and they would still allow him to earn net compensation that exceeds any other executive in history. If you look at a goal like getting to 20 million vehicles, Tesla is already almost halfway there. And even if they reduce the amount of annual production compared to last year, if they were actually about 20% lower, they would be able to meet this goal within 10 years. Typhoon Kalmagi's death toll in the Philippines has climbed to more than 100, with 120. still missing. The storm flattened homes and left streets choked with debris in Chebu, the hardest hit province. More than 200,000 people were evacuated before landfall,

but many returned to find their homes destroyed. The typhoon is now regaining strength over the South China Sea and is expected to hit Vietnam next. Mexico's president, Claudia Shinebaum, announcing she is filing charges against a man who groped and tried to kiss her while she was greeting members of the public, saying if she doesn't file a complaint, what does that mean for other Mexican women who experience similar things? Video of the incident, which went viral, shows a middle-aged man putting his arm around Shinebaum, touching her chest and attempting to kiss her.

She moves his hands away before a member of staff steps between them. And for today's recommended read, inside King Tutankhaman's Treasure Trove, a stunning photo story from Egypt's Grand Museum, where more than 5,000 artifacts from the Boy King's tomb are on display together for the first time. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.