☕️ Blocking the steel deal

The US Steel sale runs into politics... September 05, 2024 [View Online]( | [Sign Up]( | [Shop]( [Morning Brew]( PRESENTED BY [Impact.com]( Good morning. The NFL is back tonight, and your fantasy team, “Sam LaPortaPotty,” is looking dangerous with that B+ draft grade. Nothing can go wrong this season. —Matty Merritt, Molly Liebergall, Cassandra Cassidy, Abby Rubenstein, Neal Freyman MARKETS Nasdaq 17,084.30 -0.30% S&P 5,520.07 -0.16% Dow 40,974.97 +0.09% 10-Year 3.768% -8.0 bps Bitcoin $58,170.22 +0.75% US Steel $29.38 -17.47% Data is provided by *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 7:00pm ET. [Here's what these numbers mean.]( - Markets: Stocks [seesawed]( more than a fifth grader at recess yesterday, with only the Dow eking out gains at closing time as the market tried to recover from Tuesday’s sell-off. US Steel fell hard after bad news emerged about its agreement to sell itself to Nippon Steel (more on that in a sec).  MANUFACTURING [Biden expected to block US Steel acquisition]( [United States Steel Mon Valley Works Clairton Plant and Clairton Coke Works facility in Clairton Pennsylvania, Monday, September 11, 2023.]( Images President Joe Biden really wants to make sure there’s enough stuff from his four years to fill up those presidential library plaques. The president is gearing up to [block]( Japan’s Nippon Steel from acquiring US Steel, according to the Washington Post—a move that could end the highly politicized deal. If you’re more familiar with the copper beat…Nippon Steel first agreed to buy 122-year-old US Steel last December, and the deal was expected to be worth $14.9 billion. But politicians and the steelworkers union [pushed back]( immediately, saying the deal would jeopardize national security and union jobs. In response, Nippon Steel promised not to close plants or lay off employees through the union’s current contract, which ends in 2026. The United Steelworkers, the union representing about 10,000 US steelworkers, said it hasn’t seen a formal commitment to those promises and says the company has engaged in anti-union activity before. Recently, both sides have been turning up the heat. - VP Kamala Harris spoke out against the deal this week, saying the company should remain domestically owned, which puts her in line with Biden, but also with Republicans Donald Trump and JD Vance. - US Steel CEO David Burritt shot back yesterday, saying that not taking this deal and missing out on the investment from Nippon Steel would likely mean having to close mills and move the company’s headquarters out of Pittsburgh. The deal is currently undergoing a national security review, which would give Biden the grounds to block it if it’s deemed a threat. But even if Biden does block the deal, the companies could still sue to try and keep their agreement alive. Politically, the deal is a nightmare Despite the US’ friendly relationship with Japan, the president and both presidential candidates fear the optics of letting the deal proceed. Allowing the deal to go through would mean not only going against the steelworkers union, but also letting a foreign-owned company buy a manufacturer that at one time was the pinnacle of American industry. But times are changing. The US steel industry has been lagging behind heavyweights like China, Japan, and India for some time. And industry experts say the US could benefit from Nippon’s more advanced technology, while some claim that the push to reject the deal comes from plain old xenophobia.—MM WORLD [Tour de headlines](#) [Law enforcement and first responders respond to Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, after a shooting was reported.]Christian Monterrosa/Getty Images Four killed in Georgia school shooting. Two students and two teachers were killed and at least nine people were hospitalized with injuries in a [shooting]( yesterday at Apalachee High School in Winder, GA, a rural area about an hour outside of Atlanta. Authorities said a suspect was taken into custody, and later revealed it was a 14-year-old student who will be charged with murder as an adult. The Internet Archive lost its appeal to preserve its book lending program. A federal appeals court [upheld]( a lower court’s decision that the Internet Archive’s Free Digital Library—a large-scale program that digitizes books and lends them to the public for free—violated publishers’ copyrights. The appeals court rejected the nonprofit’s claim that its book scans fell within the “fair use” exception to copyright law, finding that the Internet Archive simply copied the books and did not transform them in any way. The ruling is a win for the publishers that sued over the program: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House. Harris proposes a smaller capital gains tax hike than Biden. VP Kamala Harris may have been swapped in so quickly as a candidate that the party platform approved at the Democratic National Convention still had Joe Biden’s name on it, but now she’s putting her own policy spin on things, breaking with the president on the size of a [proposed increase]( to the capital gains tax rate. Speaking in New Hampshire, Harris pitched a 28% top tax rate for when investments are sold, more than the current 23.8% top rate, but less than the 39.6% rate Biden supported. PRESENTED BY IMPACT.COM [Referrals reign king]( [Impact.com]( Your annual revenue for next year could be up 20%…if you stop ignoring just one channel. We’re talking referral marketing. It’s 2024, and consumers lean on recommendations from people they know and trust more than ever—aka referrals hold real weight, so you’ve gotta structure a referral program that actually converts. [Impact.com’s State of Referral Marketing 2024 report]( digs into how marketing teams use referral marketing to counteract fierce competition, budget constraints, and an ever-changing marketplace. Inside, you’ll learn about: - how brands structure their referral programs - conversion trends brands are using to define success - referral marketing trends by industry [Read it here](. And check out how [impact.com/advocate]( can set your business up for success. AI [Trouble in chip paradise]( [Nvidia building]( Images A bad day for Nvidia got even worse on Tuesday when Bloomberg reported that the Department of Justice [subpoenaed]( the chipmaker as part of its investigation into whether the world’s hottest company unfairly wields its industry dominance. Yesterday, Nvidia denied it was technically subpoenaed. Bloomberg [followed up]( to say that Nvidia was merely splitting hairs about the type of request it received from the DOJ but that it was in fact asked to answer questions about its empire. One-two punch: Bloomberg’s initial Tuesday afternoon dispatch came when Nvidia was already down. Worrisome economic data sparked a mass sell-off of AI stocks that wiped $279 billion (9.5%) from Nvidia’s market cap—the largest single-day decline in stock history—and dragged on the entire tech sector. Nvidia hasn’t bounced back. The chipmaker dipped a little more yesterday, possibly reflecting investors’ budding concerns over whether AI-hyped companies are worth their dizzying values. Nvidia’s latest [earnings]( indicated slowing (but still doubling) growth last quarter, while traders worry that companies could start paring back AI investments. Looking ahead…Nvidia is being asked to turn over info that may help the DOJ determine if the chip giant’s acquisition of the software company RunAI is kosher and if Nvidia gives preferential treatment to clients that buy more of its products. The company has money in countless other AI-adjacent companies and vice versa (Microsoft and Meta spend more than 40% of their hardware budgets on Nvidia), so the antitrust probe could dent the whole sector…and [ignite]( a political firestorm.—ML TOGETHER WITH TREVI [Trevi]( A $505b glass of water. Water purification is energy-intensive—aka costly. So when [Trevi]( invented a way to treat the dirtiest wastewater using ⅓ the electricity, experts took note. That’s earned 14 government grants, commercial deals to supply water in Oman and Kuwait, and a projected $8.7m in revenue this year. Trevi has ambitious plans to 30x revenue by 2028 across $505b in combined markets. [Invest in Trevi and secure your stake in the future of sustainable water innovation](. RETAIL [A touchstone of American style returns]( [Instagram post showing a J Crew catalog]( Anna Kim, Photo: J. Crew via Instagram Miss pouring over pages of colorful sweaters, chinos, and tan people who look like they’re having more fun than you? Good news: J. Crew’s adored catalog is back, seven years after it was retired, as the brand bets on nostalgia and its own resurgence in the cultural zeitgeist to drive profit. The reimagined catalog will come to mailboxes three times a year and will be [available]( in stores, according to the WSJ. The latest one, which features Demi Moore on the [cover]( maintains the classic J. Crew look—all photos were taken on film—but there are a few digital updates, like QR codes. What’s so special about the catalog? Between 1983 and 2017, J. Crew’s catalog epitomized the chunky sweater, Ivy League crew team, JFK-on-a-boat aesthetic. Even as the company struggled through the 2010s, people remained attracted to its vintage [catalogs]( and the idealized vignettes they offered (though the company filed for bankruptcy in 2020). The new magazine reflects the brand’s newfound success: Sales in 2024 are approaching a record $3 billion, according to CEO Libby Wadle, who took over after the bankruptcy. Big picture: J. Crew isn’t the only [mall]( brand of the aughts rising again after getting relegated to retail irrelevancy. Gap has enjoyed TikTok virality, while Abercrombie & Fitch was the top-performing stock in the S&P 1500 Composite Index last year.—CC STAT [Prime number: Two weeks’ notice](#) [An image from the game Concord]Sony Sony probably didn’t even have time to clean up the confetti from the launch party before it [pulled]( Concord, a PlayStation game the company spent eight years and potentially $100+ million developing. The company announced plans to take the game that debuted Aug. 23 off the market as of Sept. 6 because its launch “didn’t land the way we’d intended.” That’s corporate speak for sales were in the toilet: Analysts estimate only ~25,000 units were sold, and the game’s peak concurrent players on Steam came in at a dismal 697, per IGN. For comparison, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a game so unpopular it dinged Warner Bros. revenue by $200 million, at least managed to pull in 12,786 players at once. Sony plans to refund the small group that bought the game. NEWS [What else is brewing](#) - [Former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever]( raised $1 billion for his safety-focused AI startup. - [The number of US job openings]( fell more than expected in July, new government data shows, in another worrying sign for the labor market. - [Volvo]( scrapped its plan to make only electric vehicles by 2030, reflecting the slow demand for EVs. - [Verizon]( is said to be in talks to buy Frontier Communications to bolster its fiber-optic cable network. - [Australian breakdancer Raygun]( said she’s “very sorry for the backlash that the community has experienced” because of her much-mocked Paris Olympics performance. RECS [To do list Thursday] Find your niche: [This quiz]( will tell you whether you spend money like a Gen Zer, millennial, or boomer. And [this one]( shows whether you’re up on Gen Alpha slang. Listen and learn: [A podcast episode]( about why imposter syndrome isn’t what you think it is. Work blue: Test your [color perception](. Own a piece of Westeros: We may never get the last book, but you can buy props, costumes, and weapons at this Game of Thrones [auction](. No crying at work: Nearly a quarter of employees (23%) [admit they’ve cried]( within their first week on the job. Help your new hires avoid the waterworks with BambooHR’s free, customizable [onboarding roadmap]( *A message from our sponsor. GAMES [The puzzle section](#) Brew Mini: Know of a famous plumber who’s also an avid coin collector? You’re one step closer to solving today’s Mini. [Play it here](. Three Headlines and a Lie Three of these headlines are real and one is faker than a TikTok “hack.” Can you spot the odd one out? - Austin, Texas, residents [voted]( most likely to be bad at hanging out - Teens are making thousands by [debating]( Trump vs. Harris on TikTok - Researchers gave a mushroom a [robot body]( - Missouri Botanical Garden is officially home to the world’s [strongest]( lily pad, competition finds SHARE THE BREW [Share Morning Brew]( with your friends, acquire free Brew swag, and then acquire more friends as a result of your fresh Brew swag. We’re saying we’ll give you free stuff and more friends if you share a link. One link. Your referral count: 0 [Click to Share]( Or copy & paste your referral link to others: [morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=4904f90a]( ANSWER We made up the one about Austin. Word of the Day Today’s Word of the Day is: xenophobia, meaning “fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners.” Thanks to Pia from Houston, Texas, and several other readers who are surely free of prejudice, for the suggestion. Submit another [Word of the Day here](. ✳︎ A Note From Trevi This is a paid advertisement for Trevi’s Regulation CF offering. Please read the offering circular at [invest.trevi.com](. Written by [Neal Freyman]( [Abigail Rubenstein]( [Matty Merritt]( [Molly Liebergall]( and [Cassandra Cassidy]( Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up [here](. Interested in podcasts? - Check out ours [here]( [ADVERTISE]( // [CAREERS]( // [SHOP]( // [FAQ]( Update your email preferences or unsubscribe [here](. View our privacy policy [here](. Copyright © 2024 Morning Brew. All rights reserved. 22 W 19th St, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10011