Good morning. Panasonic will open its $4 billion electric electric battery plant in DeSoto, Kansas today. This is an optimistic green shoot in a market with tariffs and major policy changes, the latest of which is End of $7,500 EV Tax Creditthanks for the “big and beautiful bill” signed for the law now. (Ford was able to retain its federal tax credit at the last minute. Meanwhile Honda recent Delay its electric vehicle investment In Canada, Tesla’s largest electric car factory demand decline. )
I talked with Megan Myungwon Lee, CEO of Panasonic North America, about today’s news and what to do next in a muddy, clean energy environment. “This is a huge long-term commitment that began four years ago four years ago,” she said. “Every CEO’s work is to navigate and make decisions in times of very ambiguous and uncertainty.”
Lee prefers to focus on being positive. “I’m not saying it’s easy,” she told me. “But the current government and the previous administration believe that bringing technology to the market and creating manufacturing jobs, that’s what we do.”
Although the new policy environment may delay the timeline for increasing production, about 1,100 of the 4,000 expected employees are employed. Lee expects that despite AI, tough market conditions, and the recently announced plans of Japanese companies to lay off 10,000 jobs worldwide, accounting for 4% of their workforce.
“Our manufacturing process is highly automated and for the amount we produce, we still need thousands of employees to operate our plants in Kansas.”
She is dealing with the challenges that everyone in the industry is facing now: “Especially in the battery business, the supply chain is global; there are some raw materials that we cannot get locally,” she added. However, Panasonic changed its supply chain during Covid, “Our goal is to have at least 50% of our supply chains in the region by 2030.”
“It’s a great start and definitely a celebration, but we have to make sure the business is successful and there is a healthy return.” More news below.
Contact CEO every day through Diane Brady diane.brady@fortune.com
Top news
New tariffs in the EU and Mexico
On Saturday, President Trump imposed 30% tariffs on his two largest trading partners, Europe and Mexico. CNBC Attention The market closed that day. The EU is still developing a response.
Why does tariff-driven inflation fail to emerge?
Economists have warned for months that tariffs will lead to a surge in inflation, but as of July, there is little evidence in economic data, despite the Treasury’s $100 billion tariffs. wealth Economist asked Explain the reason. Possible reasons range from “too early” to “consumers won’t stand it.”
NEC directors say Trump can fire the Fed’s Powell.
Kevin Hassett, Director of the National Economic Commission Leave the door Addressing ABC on Sunday, forcing a removal from office to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Powell responded to a July 10 letter sent to him by Ross Vourch, head of the Office of Management and Budget, which accused Powell of allowing the renovation of the Fed headquarters to get out of control. “I think whether the president decides to push this path along this path will depend heavily on our answer to the questions Russia sent to the Fed,” Hassett said. The vought letter provided Powell with a seven-working day response.
Google’s Chrome may be vulnerable to AI browser competition
AI startups are breaking into the web browser business, posing a threat to one of Google’s biggest businesses. Confused, this week launched its own AI-a-able-Web browser Comet, a difficulty leading the fee. Experts say Google’s relatively slow openness rate on AI may give AI startups a chance to grab market share.
Prices for preparing coffee rise
Trump’s 50% tax on Brazil’s imports could reach U.S. coffee prices 30% of all coffee The United States is drunk from Brazil. In May, coffee was $7.93 per pound, up from $5.99 a year ago New York Times Report.
Trump seems to be serious about arming Ukraine
The president said he would send Patriot missiles to Ukraine and he seemed to be away from Putin. “I haven’t agreed to the number of people (of the missiles), but they’ll have some because they do need protection,” Trump said on Sunday. “But we’ll send them…we’ll send patriots they desperately need, because Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks well, and then he bombs at night.” Some arms may include long-range missiles that can go deep into Russia, Axios Report.
Tim Cook of Apple
Apple has faced a significant backlash in the competition to develop and launch AI products and services. wealthGeoff Colvin analyze How this lag is tagged on CEO Tim Cook’s successful legacy.
Benioff vs. humans
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is dedicated to Financial Times Last week Adopt AI This led to a pause in engineer recruitment and led to a large number of employee redeployments in the first quarter. Benioff said AI agents now process 85% of customer service queries and developed 25% of new R&D code this quarter.
Trade experts Explode “Unreliable” tariffs
Trade expert Christine Hopewell Tell wealth President Donald Trump’s “unreliable” trade strategy means “any deal you make with the administration is not worth writing about papers.” Hopewell said: “He could simply come back and ask for more.”
market
S&P 500 Pre-sale, expectations fell by 0.39%. The index itself closed 0.33% on Friday, but is still close to its all-time high. Bitcoin Now over $122K, the highest in history. South Korea kospi This morning it rose by 0.83%. this Stoxx Europe 600 Early trading fell 0.41%. UK FTSE 100 It increased by 0.37% in early trading. Hong Kong Hang Increased by 0.26%. Japanese Nikkei 225 0.28%. China’s CSI 300 Index It is flat and remains above 4,000, its highest level in history.
From the analyst
Wedbush in AI usage: Consumers have increased their use of Gemini over the past three months, while preference for other consumer-oriented generative AI tools continues to shrink. 30% of consumers said they used Gemini in the past three months (from 23% in our previous survey), consistent with CANTGPT (29%) and the META AI (22%) mentioned above (22%). 48% of consumers said that AI overview improved their search experience (from 45% in the last survey), while 42% did not observe no change, and only 9% believed that AI overview worsened the experience. ”
Goldman Sachs appreciates the price of homes: “We will lower our forecasts for U.S. home prices to ++0.5% in 2025 over the next two years, while 2026 forecasts are 3.2% and 1.9% from previous forecasts, respectively,” Vinay Viswanathan et al.
Wedbush on stocks: “The S&P 500 is almost over-buyed, and investor sentiment/exposure is rising, but we remain at the same level. Market breadth is increasing, interest rates may be lower, and stimulus (cutting the taxes before) should help reduce the hit to tariffs and alleviate the “weakness” of the job. Seth Basham and Abe Rimatzki were surprised.
Around the water cooler
Cybercrime is a big business in Asia and AI could make things worse Nicholas Gordon
Elon Musk and some Democrats like Reid Hoffman actually share a common stance on U.S. debt Jason Horse
Openai’s $3 billion deal with AI-encoding startup Windsurf crashes, Google swops licensing agreement Allie Garfinkle
Wall Street sees 35% Canadian tariffs as a negotiation strategy: “Tariffs are the hammer of every Trump nail” Authored by Paolo Confino
CEO Daily is edited and edited by Joey Abrams and Jim Edwards.
