Vice President Kamala Harris, President Isaac Herzog of Israel, Elon Musk and other business and political leaders spoke about everything from artificial intelligence, economic tensions between the United States and China, and the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel in the Annual DealBook Summit in New York on Wednesday.
The event, organized by New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, has been held since 2011.
Here are the conclusions:
Elon Musk, the owner of X, used an insult to dismiss a move by big brands to pull their advertising from the platform after he endorsed anti-Semitic comments. He apologized for the post but accused the companies of “blackmail” and said the public would blame them if the platform died due to lost revenue. His forceful directive added to the challenges faced by Linda Yaccarino, X’s CEO, who was in the audience. She has been tasked with attracting advertisers to the platform after many were scared off by Musk’s erratic posts.
(For select interviews from today’s DealBook Summit, follow and listen to our limited podcast series.)
vice president Kamala Harris defended the Biden administration’s economic record as polls show the president trailing Donald J. Trump in battleground states ahead of the 2024 election. Harris said President Biden has done more to address inflation.” than most advanced economies,” but that more work was needed to convince voters.
Isaac Herzog Israel’s president said on Wednesday that discussions were continuing on extending a ceasefire with Hamas, as he seeks to bring more hostages home. Herzog said Israel was doing “everything possible to increase and improve humanitarian aid to Gaza,” where local health officials say at least 13,000 people have been killed during the Israeli military response. “But we have to do the job and get Hamas out of there,” he said.
Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, a former Republican House speaker, did not commit to running for re-election next year after being ousted from office last month. But he said that if he were to step away from electoral politics, he would like to focus on artificial intelligence. McCarthy said he would support Trump as president and questioned President Biden’s ability to govern at his age.
Jensen Huang, CEO of chipmaker Nvidia, said it will be a decade before AI companies reach so-called artificial general intelligence, or AGI, the state in which a computer could tackle tasks the same way a computer does. human brain. Mr. Huang also said that his company was not worried about competition in the industry.
Jaime Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said the bank would “fight back” Texas efforts in 2021 to restrict the state from doing business with financial firms that embrace environmental, social and governance policies. Texas approved two laws in 2021 that limit the state’s work with banks that regulators determine restrict its work in the energy and firearms industries.
Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan, said she does not expect any imminent invasion from China due to the mainland’s economic problems. Ms. Tsai also said she was not concerned that the United States’ plans to bolster its domestic semiconductor industry could threaten Taiwan’s chipmaking sector.
David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, defended unpopular decisions made to reduce Warner Media’s colossal legacy debt. Those decisions included canceling the release of the “Batgirl” movie and firing CNN executives and personalities. “When we took over the company, we said there were no sacred cows,” says Zaslav.
Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO denied that any of the company’s media assets were for sale after publicly speculating about a possible cut to the company’s portfolio. Iger said that he “didn’t want to be accused of being an old media executive” that he was afraid to make bold decisions.
Lina Khan, chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, explained her antitrust enforcement philosophy. Agencies, she said, have to ask themselves: “Is it better to be wrong in the sense of acting, or is it better to be wrong in the sense of not having acted?” Following the government’s long-term hands-off strategy, Khan said people were realizing that the “bias towards inaction” had “enormous costs across our economy”.
Jay Monahan, the commissioner of the PGA Tour, said he was working to close a deal with Saudi-backed rival LIV Golf before the end of the year. Monahan took a leave of absence a week after a tentative deal was reached and on Wednesday shared that he was struggling with mental health issues at the time.
Shonda Rhimes The creator of shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Bridgerton” described the television network’s transition to streaming giant Netflix, saying the latter has given her more freedom and creative resources. When asked about the recent writers’ strike, she said the labor action was “not complicated at all,” adding, “I consider myself a writer first and foremost.”
