Hello, Thursday N2K’ers!

It turns out it’s quite hard to be the boss of Twitter but less hard to be the boss of Nvidia. Plus, the TSA will no longer require you to take off your shoes!

God Bless [the political candidate of your choice] now that churches can endorse them, according to the IRS. Also, the President has threatened a 200% tariff on pharmaceuticals in an effort to get the manufacturers to shift production here, but it seems most investors see the move as the opening gambit in a negotiation, shrugging off its impact on drug stocks yesterday.

In other words? There’s plenty of news you Need2Know today!

—Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor

News You Need2Know

• Linda Yaccarino steps down as CEO of X

• Nvidia becomes first company worth $4 trilliion

• TSA: You can keep your shoes on, now…

• IRS says churches can endorse candidates

• Trump mulls 200% tariff on pharmaceuticals

Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter

$XCORP ( 0.0% )  $AAPL ( ▼ 0.63% )$MSFT ( ▲ 0.38% )  $NVDA ( ▲ 0.61% )  $AMZN ( ▲ 1.44% )  $GLAXO.NSE ( ▼ 0.39% )  $NVO ( ▼ 2.85% )  $UBS ( ▼ 1.16% )

Linda Yaccarino steps down as CEO of X

Linda Yaccarino has decided to make an ex-employer of X (formerly Twitter). After two years of navigating owner Elon Musk’s changeable moods, the CEO announced her departure in a post on X, saying, “When Elon and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Apparently, that lifetime was two years long. Yaccarino did not provide specific reasons for her decision to step down, although her announcement comes a day after Musk’s xAI chatbot started calling itself “MechaHitler” and going full-on anti-semitic after some…updates.

Yaccarino’s tenure a X coincided with a tumultuous period following Musk’s 2022 acquisition of the platform. Under Musk’s leadership, X underwent major transformations — including employee cuts of nearly 75% and relaxed speech restrictions — which alienated advertisers and caused a decline in the company’s ad revenue after Musk reinstated accounts belonging to avowed white supremacists. Antisemitic hate speech surged on the platform in the months after. Musk later sold X to his AI start-up, xAI, in a stock-based deal valuing the companies at $33 billion and $80 billion, respectively.

Musk is known for high turnover among his executives, although he has retained other loyal leaders like Gwynne “My Last Name Is A Good One For The Boss of A Rocket Company” Shotwell of SpaceX, who’s been there since 2002.

Song of the day: Look down on us

Thunderously confident and industrially melodic, Manchester’s post-punk band Maruja’s 10-minute saga of a new single focuses on perceived inequalities, ahead of their “Pain to Power” album launch set for September 12. It’s not exactly a lullaby, this one, but it’s rather cathartic to listen to if you’re in the mood.

Nvidia becomes first company worth $4 trilliion

Move over Apple $AAPL ( ▼ 0.63% ) and Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 0.38% ) — Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 0.61% ) just became the world’s first publicly traded company to hit a $4 trillion market valuation. On Wednesday, Nvidia’s stock climbed 2.5%, catapulting the U.S. chipmaker past this historic milestone, cemented by its central role in the AI revolution.

“This is a historical moment for Nvidia,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, calling it “the one chip fueling AI.”

The company’s success lies in the increasing demand for its powerful chips that fuel AI models, from Microsoft to Amazon $AMZN ( ▲ 1.44% ) . Nvidia’s recent quarterly revenue of $44.1 billion marked a 69% increase year-over-year, adding credibility to its dominance in the AI gold rush.

CEO Jensen Huang, now worth $140 billion according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, sees major growth ahead: “AI is this incredible technology that’s going to transform every industry — from software to health care, transportation, manufacturing. And we’re at the beginning of that,” he said.

Although he would say that, wouldn’t he, like, four trillion times?

Today on the ‘gram: Is it a bird?

Post of the day: New York Times parody account slams mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdami

Quote of the Day

TSA: You can keep your shoes on, now…

Travelers, rejoice! After nearly two decades, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that passengers in the United States will no longer be required to remove their shoes at airport security checkpoints.

Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, revealed the immediate change on Tuesday, saying, “We want to improve the travel experience, but while maintaining safety standards and making sure that we are keeping people safe.”

Implemented after the 2001 shoe bomber incident, shoe removal became mandatory due to intelligence about potential threats. Over time, TSA’s technology and practices have evolved significantly.

Noem credited President Trump for initiating the review and hinted that additional TSA rules might be reevaluated soon. Maybe they could make their agents a little more polite?

Should you check your 401(k) today?

👍️ 

Yep.

IRS says churches can endorse candidates

The IRS has given its blessing for churches to endorse political candidates from the pulpit. One thing that annoys me about the Episcopal church’s hymnal is there’s a song called “Come Thou Almighty King” sung to the same tune as Britain’s national anthem, “God Save the King” but adapted to be about Jesus Christ when obviously it should be about my native country’s royal family. We sang it in church last Sunday, actually, and it took all my strength not to get my always-pocketed Union Jack out and start ranting up and down in the aisles about King Charles. Likewise, William Blake’s poem and the hymn based upon it, “Jerusalem” is adapted in America to be called “Oh day of Peace that Dimly Shines.” Which, like, guys…you are missing some epic lyrics, there.

🎶 BRING ME MY ARROWS OF DESIIIIIIIRE. 🎶

You know? And don’t get me started on the butchery of “I vow to thee my country.”

Still, one thing I like about my church is that every single penny of the $5 million we just raised to fix the leaky roof will go to fix that roof and we don’t pay tax on it. We don’t pay tax on it because we steer clear of politics. Jesus himself had something to say on this front when he said “Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's,” I think.

But what did Jesus know? It turns out I think he might have in fact meant “Vote for Caesar,” if the IRS’s latest court filing is to believed. They’ve argued that if a religious leader throws in a political endorsement while discussing faith during services, it’s not campaigning — it’s a private matter, like “a family discussion concerning candidates.”

This could have some, let’s say, effects on churches in the years to come.

“It basically tells churches of all denominations and sects that you’re free to support candidates from the pulpit,” Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame told the New York Times. “It also says to all candidates and parties, ‘Hey, time to recruit some churches.’”

The National Council of Nonprofits, which represents 30,000 such groups, warned that allowing tax-exempt groups to endorse candidates could lead to a future where political groups use nonprofits as a kind of legal disguise.

Diane Yentel, the group’s president, said in a statement Monday that the I.R.S.’s move was “not about religion or free speech, but about radically altering campaign finance laws. The decree could open the floodgates for political operatives to funnel money to their preferred candidates while receiving generous tax breaks at the expense of taxpayers who may not share those views.”

Amen?

Trump mulls 200% tariff on pharmaceuticals

Investors largely dismissed former US President Donald Trump's threat to impose a 200 percent tariff on pharmaceuticals on Tuesday, brushing it off as political posturing unlikely to materialize. Given that nearly $10 billion of India’s pharmaceutical exports go to the US annually, such tariffs would shake global supply chains if implemented.

But while the initial announcement briefly impacted stock prices, shares in major European drugmakers like $GLAXO.NSE ( ▼ 0.39% ) and $NVO ( ▼ 2.85% ) recovered, trading flat or slightly up. Similarly, India’s pharma sector, which supplies about 40% of the US generic drug market, showed resilience, with the S&P BSE Healthcare index barely moving.

Trump said on Tuesday that 200% tariffs on pharmaceuticals are coming “very soon,” but they may not take effect for some time in an effort to get more companies to move to the US. The president now argues that the United States needs more domestic drug manufacturing so it does not have to rely on other countries for its supply of medicines. Multiple drug makers have announced expansions of their U.S.-based manufacturing initiatives, though some were in the works prior to Trump taking office in January.

Analysts saw little reason for alarm. Emily Field of Barclays told the Financial Times that the threat is “rhetoric,” adding, “No one is taking it seriously. The idea of the Taco trade [Trump always chickens out] still prevails.”

Experts also questioned the feasibility of Trump's one-and-a-half-year timeline for re-shoring drug production to America. Matt Weston, a pharma analyst at UBS $UBS ( ▼ 1.16% ) , told the FT that building high-tech facilities and securing regulatory approval would take “four to five years at minimum.”

Poll of the Day: Bring me my arrows of desire!

Poll Results: You’re still shopping online, actually

Yesterday we ran a story about a report showing online shopping is down related to the tariffs. It said people are delaying or speeding up purchases to avoid tariff-inflated prices. So we asked: Which describes your online shopping behavior lately?

And it turns out, you’re less bothered than we expected. You answered:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I'm delaying purchases to avoid tariff-inflated prices (138 votes)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I'm accelerating buy timelines to get ahead of tariff-inflated prices (59 votes)

 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 I'm just doing the same old stuff I was doing six months ago (509 votes) 

706 Votes via @beehiiv polls