Category: Business Insider

• The rules are always a little different for Elon Musk.
• The Tesla CEO keeps it cool and keeps investors on his side.
• Despite his track record, Musk's promises still carry weight.

Once again, Elon Musk managed to buck expectations this week when the company's stock soared despite dismal earnings results.

Tesla quelled weeks of investor angst with Musk's word on two important future products: a long-awaited affordable model and the eventual activation of a self-driving ride-hailing fleet.

Musk did not give a timeline for when either of these things would happen (we might see one in August). Even if he did, the billionaire is famous for missing his own deadlines.

Still, Tesla's stock, which had been in a free-fall heading into Tuesday's earnings, has soared 16% in the days after. (It's still about 35% off recent highs, though).

Facebook owner Meta, on the other hand, reported relatively strong earnings for the first quarter — only to see its stock price plummet as investors worried over the cost of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's future AI ambitions.

While Musk talked cost-cutting, Zuckerberg had to warn investors the bets wouldn't pay off immediately.

Meta stock plunged in trading Thursday following the Wednesday report and is set to close down nearly 11% despite a healthy run of 27% since the start of the year.

From a bird's-eye view, the contrasting results are confusing. How can one company be rewarded by Wall Street for a sizable earnings miss, while the other is punished despite beating expectations for the quarter?

The answer is simple, but no less maddening: Elon Musk.

Over and over again, Musk has been able to quell investor worries simply by appearing calm and collected on the quarterly earnings call. For a bombastic and unpredictable executive, simply showing up as "the adult in the room" is often enough to get anxious investors back on his side.

Tuesday night was no different. Musk was cool heading into the quarterly earnings call, assuring investors that Tesla still had plans for an affordable model (without citing the reports that originally spooked investors) and painted a rosy picture of Tesla's future self-driving robotaxi business.

Sure, some of the blind trust in Musk's promises may be sycophantic. The list of things Musk unfulfilled promises for Tesla runs a mile long.

But Tesla's biggest believers often remind me that the list of things Musk has pulled off against serious odds is also impressive.

Industry experts and executives have told me several times over the years that Musk keeps investors' trust by consistently defying expectations, like making a once doomed car — the Model 3 — one of the best-selling cars in the world.

These moments are enough to keep the believers going, and Tesla's stock afloat, for now.

"The bears so far in 2024 have won this battle and been very right," Wedbush analyst and noted Tesla bull Dan Ives wrote in a Wednesday morning note to clients."But we believe the next wave of the Tesla growth story and autonomous vision is now forming and that is what we are focused on for our bullish investment thesis looking ahead."

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• Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson seemed alarmed about Trump's ask for sweeping immunity for presidents.
• Jackson wanted to know how future presidents would be disincentivized to commit crimes. 
• She expressed fear it could turn the Oval Office into "the seat of criminal activity in this country."

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was animated on Thursday when she discussed the potential of what could happen to the presidency if the Supreme Court were to grant presidents the sweeping immunity former President Donald Trump is seeking.

"The most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority could go into office knowing there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes," Jackson said during oral arguments. "I'm trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country."

Trump's lawyer, John Sauer, argued for sweeping absolute immunity for former presidents that would shield Trump from special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution related to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. As multiple justices outlined during oral arguments, the issues in the case could have major implications for the future of the presidency.

Jackson appeared alarmed that some of her colleagues, especially some of the court's conservatives, seemed more afraid of limiting presidential immunity the court would neuter by the presidency by forcing future leaders to question if a political rival would try to prosecute them after they left office.

Instead, Jackson said there should be at least equal consideration given to the possibility that by granting sweeping immunity, the nation's highest court would give a green light to presidential criminality if a future president could even tangentially tie criminal actions to carrying out the job of leading the nation.

"Presidents from the beginning of time have understood that that's a possibility," Jackson said later of how past leaders understood they could be prosecuted after leaving office. "That might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I'm envisioning."

Jackson repeatedly underlined her points when questioning Sauer, underlining how far future presidents could push the envelope. She seemed particularly drawn to a brief filed by Georgetown Law School professor Martin Lederman that outlined how presidents with immunity could commit perjury, destroy or conceal documents, or bribe other public officials.

Jackson's concerns are based on another element of Trump's arguments, which propose that a president could not be charged with a crime unless the law they are accused of violating specifically mentions that it applies to the presidency.

The court's newest justice has considered Trump's conduct and the power of the presidency before. As a Circuit Court judge, Jackson torched the Trump White House for arguing that former White House counsel Don McGahn didn't have to cooperate with Congress' investigation.

"Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings," Jackson wrote in 2019. "Rather, in this land of liberty, it is indisputable that current and former employees of the White House work for the People of the United States, and that they take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

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• Self-pardoning wasn't on the table at Thursday's Supreme Court hearing.
• It was clearly on the justices' minds as they weighed if Trump should enjoy presidential immunity.
• Justice Alito asked whether every president could just pardon themselves before leaving office.

Before leaving the presidency, Donald Trump considered whether to pardon himself.

"I was given an option to pardon myself. I could've pardoned myself when I left," Trump once told NBC News. "People said, 'Would you like to pardon yourself?' I had a couple of attorneys that said, 'You could do it if you want.'"

Trump opted against it. But that was before he was the subject of four criminal prosecutions.

The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether such a move would be permissible. But in oral arguments on Thursday, they danced around the question.

None of the justices tipped their hand on how they might decide the issue. But two conservative justices — Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — demonstrated that they were taking the question seriously.

The purpose of the hearing was for the Supreme Court to hear arguments over whether Trump should be immune from criminal prosecution for his conduct as president.

Trump's lawyers have argued that the high court should recognize a form of immunity that would shield him from Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith's indictment over his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

If Trump were to pardon himself, he would be able to get rid of the case, as well as another case brought by Smith, over his hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the presidency.

Gorsuch, himself a Trump appointee, entertained hypothetical questions about what presidents might do if they had to live with the constant worry that their successors would pursue criminal cases against them. He asked whether the dynamic would be an incentive for presidents "to try to pardon themselves" before leaving office.

"Perhaps, if he feels he has to, he'll pardon himself every four years from now on," Gorsuch said.

Gorsuch appeared cautious about tackling the subject.

"We've never answered whether a president can do that," Gorsuch said. "Happily, it's never been presented to us."

Alito, on the other hand, seemed eager to dig into the subject. He told Michael Dreeben, the lawyer representing Smith's team, that the question might be crucial as the Supreme Court deliberates the scope of presidential immunity. If the court decides former presidents could be prosecuted, then the obvious next step would be that they'd all try to pardon themselves, Alito said.

"Don't you think we need to know at least the Justice Department's position on that issue in order to decide this case?" Alito asked. "Because if a president has the authority to pardon himself before leaving office, and the DC Circuit is right that there is no immunity from prosecution, won't the predictable result be that presidents on the last couple of days of office are going to pardon themselves from anything that they might have been conceivably charged with committing?"

Dreeben referred to a 1974 memorandum from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel deeming "that there is no self-pardon authority," while noting the courts haven't decided the issue. But, he said, self-pardoning would "contradict a bedrock principle of our law that no person shall be the judge in their own case" and come with "political consequences," like the political fallout former President Gerald Ford experienced after giving Richard Nixon a blanket pardon.

"Those are adequate deterrents, I think, so that this kind of dystopian regime is not going to evolve," Dreeben said.

If Trump wins the 2024 election over President Joe Biden, he could find other ways to scuttle the two Justice Department indictments against him without necessarily pardoning himself.

As the leader of the executive branch, he may be able to order the Justice Department to withdraw the indictments, although that may not insulate him from the cases being revived under another administration.

Trump is currently on trial in New York under state criminal charges alleging he falsified business documents.

Because those aren't federal charges, a pardon couldn't make that case go away, but it could introduce complications.

The Manhattan district attorney's office has alleged that Trump faked documents in order to cover up federal election laws, keeping secret an affair with Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

In Georgia, where Trump faces another set of state-level charges, immunity is similarly out of reach. In order to obtain a pardon, he would have to be convicted and serve at least five years of a sentence.

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• Satirical news website The Onion was sold to a company called Global Tetrahedron.
• Global Tetrahedron is also the name of a fictional evil megacorporation in a long-running Onion gag.
• But it's a real company, and Twilio founder Jeff Lawson appears to be behind it.

Jeff Lawson, the founder of cloud computing company Twilio, appears to have purchased the satirical news website The Onion from G/O Media.

A trust linked to Lawson is behind a San Francisco-based company called Global Tetrahedron, which shares the name of a fictional evil megacorporation in a long-running Onion gag, business records show.

G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller confirmed the sale of The Onion to Global Tetrahedron in an email Thursday to staff, first reported by New York Times journalist Katie Robertson.

"This company is made up of four digital media veterans with a profound love for The Onion and comedy based content," Spanfeller wrote. "The site's new owners have agreed to keep The Onion's entire staff intact and in Chicago, something we insisted be part of the deal."

Lawson resigned as Twilio's CEO in January following a year of deep layoffs and pressure from activist investors.

When asked whether he had purchased The Onion, Lawson played coy. "What's The Onion?" he replied. Then, "What's a Tetrahedron?"

Business Insider was unsure how to respond to these questions.

"Am I talking to Twilio founder Jeff Lawson or am I just taking crazy pills today?" Business Insider's reporter replied. Lawson did not respond.

G/O Media's spokesperson declined to comment.

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• The cofounders of crypto mixer Samourai Wallet were charged with money laundering.
• The service anonymized hundreds of millions of dollars for dark web criminals, prosecutors said.
• Samourai's cofounders invited the laundering, prosecutors allege.

The cofounders of a cryptocurrency mixing service called Samourai Wallet — which rendered crypto transactions anonymous — have been arrested and charged with money laundering, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday.

Prosecutors for the Southern District of New York claimed the crypto mixer made $2 billion worth of transactions untraceable, and that its founders — Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill — knew criminals were using the service to launder funds.

Rodriguez and Hill were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.

The Samourai Wallet website has been seized. Rodriguez and Hill were arrested Wednesday, and the US will seek Hill's extradition from Portugal to stand trial, according to a press release.

About $100 million of the transactions executed by Samourai Wallet originated from "illegal darkweb markets, such as Silk Road and Hydra Market" — as well as various online schemes and other illegal activities, prosecutors alleged in the indictment.

And Rodriguez and Hill were well aware, the prosecutors said. They "openly invited users to launder criminal proceeds" publicly on X, in DMs, and in marketing materials passed to potential investors, according to the indictment.

Rodriguez was Samourai's CEO, and Hill was its CTO. They founded the company in 2015, according to the indictment, and the app has been downloaded over 100,000 times. All told, it netted them $4.5 million in transaction fees, according to the indictment.

"The FBI is committed to exposing covert financial schemes and ensuring no one can hide behind a screen to perpetuate financial wrongdoing," FBI Assistant Director James Smith said in a statement.

Lawyers haven't been listed for either Rodriguez or Hill and an attorney who has represented their company in the past did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. If convicted, they each face a maximum of 25 years in prison.

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• Trump's lawyers say a president can get away with crimes if Congress doesn't find out about it while they're in office.
• If a president leaves before Congress can impeach and convict, they're home free, Trump's lawyers say.
• The Constitution's framers "assumed the risk of under-enforcement," his lawyer told the Supreme Court.

As the saying goes: It's not the crime; it's the cover-up.

If former President Donald Trump gets his way, a good cover-up will be enough.

In arguments before the US Supreme Court Thursday, Trump's lawyer, John Sauer, said a former president can escape criminal culpability so long as they keep their conduct secret from Congress and don't get impeached.

Trump has asked the court to formally recognize sweeping legal immunity for presidents, with his lawyers arguing that impeachment and conviction would be the "gateway" for any potential criminal prosecution.

Such a ruling, Trump hopes, would squash Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith's indictment against him, alleging he criminally obstructed Congress with a plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost.

In oral arguments Thursday, Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked what would happen if potential criminal conduct wasn't discovered until after a president already left office.

"What if the criminal conduct isn't discovered until after the president is out of office, so there was no opportunity for impeachment?" she asked.

Sauer said the framers of the US Constitution "assumed the risk of under-enforcement" with the system they devised, which Sauer argues requires impeachment first.

"The separation of powers prevents us from righting every wrong, but it does so that we do not lose liberty," Sauer said, quoting the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Trump was impeached — for the second time — by the US House of Representatives in the final days of his presidency over his attempts to subvert the election.

The US Senate held a trial in February, after he had already left office, and did not reach the two-thirds majority needed to convict him. No US President has ever been convicted after an impeachment.

Smith didn't bring his indictment against Trump until the summer of 2023 — more than two years after Trump left office.

While some of the conduct described in the indictment refers to Trump's open attempts to pressure members of Congress not to certify now-President Joe Biden's win, other elements of the indictment refer to details that were not fully known during his presidency.

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• Donald Trump appears unlikely to get the sweeping presidential immunity he wants.
• But a majority of Supreme Court justices appear ready to hand the former president an immediate victory.
• The justices appear likely to further delay a trial on Trump's efforts to overturn the election.

Donald Trump might not get the sweeping immunity he wants.

Still, the Supreme Court justices do not appear likely to dismiss the former president's claims quickly, raising the likelihood that Trump may not face trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election before November.

During arguments Thursday, Justices repeatedly underlined the historic weight of the case before them.

But for Trump the most immediate effect is that the significant issues at play will likely cause the criminal case against him to be delayed until after he wins or loses his next election.

Special counsel Jack Smith wanted justices to quickly deal with Trump's claims and then move the case to trial, which was originally scheduled to begin last month.

A back-and-forth in oral arguments underlined that enough justices would rather kick the case back to a lower court level to determine which of Trump's acts, as alleged in the indictment, are officially related to his job.

"I think you've acknowledged in response to others' questions that some of the acts in the indictment are private, and your view is that some are official," Justice Brett Kavanaugh told Sauer. "Is it your position then that that analysis of which is which should be undertaken, in the first instance, by either the DC circuit or the District Court?"

As Kavanaugh suggested, further arguments over the official and private line between Trump's actions could fall to US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, in DC, who could be charged to hear and rule on the case.

A delay of this kind would make it almost impossible for Smith to try Trump before the November election. If Trump were to beat President Joe Biden, it's not hard to see how Trump would use his presidential powers to wiggle out of the case.

Smith's prosecution of Trump is the main avenue for the former president to face repercussions for his actions to overturn the 2020 election.

John Sauer, Trump's lawyer, argued that a former president should hold absolute immunity for actions that might only be tangentially related to a president's actual job. He drew his arguments from an earlier Supreme Court case that mapped the line for presidential immunity in civil matters.

Some of the court's conservative justices, especially Justice Samuel Alito, seemed especially sympathetic to Sauer's related point that there should be an extremely high bar for a court or prosecutor to question, after the fact, whether a president was truly doing their job when they ran afoul of the law.

Not every justice appeared as sold as Alito.

But even Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who appeared skeptical of some of Sauer's other arguments, suggested that Smith's team may have to alter the current indictment against Trump significantly if they want to proceed with the case quickly.

Barrett indicated the special counsel could focus solely on actions that Trump was doing outside his job.

Michael Dreeben, who argued on behalf of Smith's team, seemed hesitant to agree to such a fix.

"There's really an integrated conspiracy here that had different components, as alleged in the indictment — working with private lawyers to achieve the goals of the fraud, and as I said before, the petitioner reaching for his official powers to try to make his conspiracies more likely to succeed," Dreeben said in response. "We would like to present that as an integrated picture to the jury so that it sees the sequence and the gravity of the conduct and why each step occurred."

Barrett and other justices pressed both Sauer and Dreeben to go line-by-line through some of Trump's conduct as outlined in the indictment.

It is possible that the Supreme Court could rule that a more detailed review of Trump's conduct is best left to a lower court.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson offered what was almost a last-minute plea to her colleagues, questioning whether the case before them is really the one they want to use to draw a definitive line for every future president on what exactly is an "official act" in the scope of their job.

"If we see the question presented as broader than that, and we do say, 'let's engage in the core official versus not core and try to figure out the line,' is this the right vehicle to hammer out that test?" Jackson asked.

But Jackson's colleagues seem unlikely to be receptive to such a view based on Thursday's arguments, and recent history.

In June 2022, Chief Justice John Roberts admonished the court's other conservative justices for not limiting their decision in Dobbs v. Jackon to just the facts of the abortion rights case before the court. Justice Alito led a 5-4 majority that explicitly overturned Roe v. Wade. Conservative justices expressed similar concerns about Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges that found there is a nationwide right to same-sex marriage.

Throughout history, justices have reached for more sweeping language than the facts of the case before them.

Multiple conservative justices, including Alito and Kavanaugh, stressed they were concerned about more than just Trump's conduct as alleged in the indictment.

"I appreciate that, but you also understand that we're writing a rule for the ages," Justice Neil Gorsuch told Dreeben at one point.

Trump would benefit from waiting for such a rule.

Because it would take so long to craft such a standard and then figure out how it applies to him, Trump could effectively avoid prosecution for any post-2020 election offenses at the federal level.

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• The H5N1 bird flu virus is spreading through US cattle herds for the first time.
• The mammal-to-mammal transmission has scientists worried the virus could mutate to spread between humans.
• Former surgeon general Jerome Adams fears the US is making the mistakes of 2020 all over again.

Bird flu is flying wild. In recent months the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus has been spreading through US cattle herds for the first time ever.

The cow-to-cow transmission is the latest escalation in a global outbreak that began when the virus reemerged in Europe in 2020. It has since killed tens of millions of birds and more than 40,000 sea lions and seals in South America.

World Health Organization chief scientist Jeremy Farrar called this an "animal pandemic" on April 18.

Genetic fragments of the virus, discovered in grocery store milk on Tuesday, suggest the cattle outbreak is more widespread than officials believed, The Washington Post reported.

Experts told the Post that drinking pasteurized milk is probably still safe. Pasteurization deactivates pathogens, probably including H5N1, according to the Food and Drug Administration. However, no studies have specifically tested whether pasteurizing milk deactivates H5N1. According to the New York Times, the FDA is testing that now.

One human in Texas has tested positive for the virus after exposure to dairy cattle. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that person's only symptom was eye redness.

There has been no known human-to-human transmission. Still, future mutation could allow the virus to spread more easily to and between humans — a possibility of "great concern" to Farrar.

Dr. Jerome Adams, a former surgeon general and the director of health equity at Purdue University, is getting deja vu.

"If it keeps spreading in animals, then it is eventually going to cause problems for humans, either because we don't have food because they've got to start exterminating flocks, or because it starts to make a jump in humans," Adams, who served under former President Donald Trump and was on the administration's initial COVID-19 task force, told Business Insider. "The more it replicates, the more chances it has to mutate."

Though he agrees with the CDC's assessment that the current risk to humans is low, Adams fears the US is repeating many mistakes it made in the early days of COVID-19.

Weak messaging with no clear leaders

Who is in charge of an animal pandemic in the US? The CDC? The US Department of Agriculture? The FDA?

The answer is, sort of, all of them. That decentralized responsibility could be behind the lack of widespread, clear public messaging so far.

For example, Adams says he hasn't changed anything about his diet, since pasteurization and proper cooking procedures should kill any live virus present. But he isn't sure everyone is getting the message.

He compared it to the development of COVID-19 vaccines, when people distrusted a process they didn't understand.

"The public needs good consistent communication from the White House, from the USDA, helping reassure them what the process is to keep them safe," Adams said.

Rather than consumers, the people most at risk are agricultural workers or anyone with close or prolonged exposure to chickens or cattle. It's those groups who need strong, targeted guidance right now, Adams said.

Only testing the sick

So far, the USDA has only been testing cattle herds when an animal appears sick. That means asymptomatic spread could be flying under the radar.

"An animal can't tell you, 'Hey, I feel a little under the weather today.' So they're literally waiting until an animal is collapsing or showing fatigue or showing severe symptoms," Adams said. "We need a testing strategy that is proactive and allows true surveillance, and not reactive."

The USDA took a step forward on Wednesday, ordering that all lactating dairy cows must be tested for H5N1 before they're moved across state lines and that all positive test results must be reported.

New York Times columnist Zeynep Tufekci reported that same day that, until now, the USDA has not been keeping track of positive test results in cattle.

Election distraction

In late 2019 and early 2020, the big news story was the impeachment, and later acquittal, of President Trump. Now a different Trump trial is dominating the news.

And, as in 2020, this is an election year.

"The Biden administration, particularly the White House, has been incredibly quiet on this bird flu situation. Why? To me, it looks like they very much don't want to scare the public and spook the economy in an election year," Adams said.

Business vs. public health

Just like the lockdowns of COVID-19 were devastating for the restaurant and hospitality industries, a crackdown on avian flu can be devastating to the chicken industry.

The treatment for a bird flu outbreak is to kill all the chickens. Even before that, just testing the flock can slow down production.

"We're seeing the same tension between business interests and public health interests," Adams said.

What's more, many of the workers who handle chickens and cattle are undocumented immigrants. That can make them and their bosses hesitant to call in authorities over diseased animals.

Many vulnerable groups were hesitant to report illness in the early COVID days, too, including migrant workers and people who didn't have sick leave from work.

"My concern is we keep making the same mistakes over and over again," Adams said. "Because we keep focusing on the wrong things instead of focusing on the root causes."

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• The first-quarter GDP report surprised investors with disappointing growth, while consumer prices kept rising.
• The provides the backdrop for stagflation, which can't be combated with rate cuts.
• The 1970s offer a warning of what could happen if inflation spirals out of control.

The latest GDP and inflation readings were what investors were least eager to see, and could hint at serious trouble ahead.

"This was a worst of both worlds report – slower than expected growth, higher than expected inflation," wrote David Donabedian, chief investment officer of CIBC Private Wealth US.

First-quarter growth fell well behind estimates, rising at an annualized rate of 1.6%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Not only is that far under forecasts of 2.5%, but it also fails to live up to the 3.4% increase achieved in the fourth quarter.

While such a cooldown would usually bolster calls for interest rates to start easing, the report noted a hotter-than-expected rise in consumer prices as well. That puts serious limits on the Federal Reserve's ability to take action, as the central bank has made clear it needs inflation to climb lower before any rate cuts can happen. Stocks — which have long priced in those cuts — sold off sharply.

It's also bad news for the economy, as sputtering growth and higher prices are the key ingredients for stagflation, which is characterized by economic listlessness and stubbornly elevated inflation over a prolonged period. Such a scenario that can be even harder to combat than a recession, because of the dynamic outlined above: the Fed's hands are largely tied.

America's last dalliance with stagflation came in the 1970s. The precedent can offer a glimpse into how the US economic picture could unfold, and makes it clear why economists are desperate to avoid a re-run.

Early that decade, geopolitical disagreement prompted the OPEC coalition to restrict crude exports to the US, and energy prices rocketed in response. With additional help from high government spending and the dollar's de-coupling from gold, inflation surged into double digits, while the economy tumbled.

The period was so tumultuous that it undid long-standing macroeconomic theories, and required the Fed to step up its role in the economy. In order to finally reign things in, then-Fed Chairman Paul Volcker was forced to raise interest rates a staggering 20%, calming price highs but throwing the US into a deep recession. 

It's for this reason current analysts shudder at comparisons to the period 50 years ago, and why stagflationary forecasts bear weight. 

JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon is among those who have recently made allusions to the stagflationary 1970s, warning that markets have become too cheerful about the state of the economy.

"I worry it looks more like the '70s than we've seen before," the prominent bank chief said at the Economic Club of New York last week.

His point — one he's asserted on multiple occasions —  comes from the fact that fiscal spending has once again exploded, while the economy is poised to bear a number of inflation-drivers: from green industrialization to global remilitarization.

But stagflation remains a long shot. Despite sticky-high inflation, markets continue to price in at least one rate cut this year. Further, Barclays analysts led by Pooja Sriram pointed out after the GDP report that final sales to domestic purchasers rose by enough to suggest "demand conditions remain strong." 

Friday's personal consumption expenditures report — viewed as the Fed's main inflation bellwether — will offer investors a clearer picture of where inflation is headed. If it goes higher, the Fed will have little choice but to become more tighten policy, according to Donabedian.

"We are not far from all rate cuts being backed out of investor expectations. It forces Chair Powell into a hawkish tone for next week's FOMC meeting," he said.

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• Former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst's new memoir was finished by her mother, April Simpkins. 
• Simpkins discussed Kryst's struggle with high-functioning depression before her death in 2022. 
• The term describes depression among people who maintain happy-looking, productive lives. 

A new memoir by former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst was released on Tuesday. "By the Time You Read This" was finished by her mother, April Simpkins, who said it was one of her daughter's final wishes. 

It explores Kryst's experience competing for Miss USA and Miss Universe, as well as Simpkins' journey after her daughter died by suicide in January 2022. 

"My life's purpose has changed, and I realize more clearly my life's mission to continue to shine a bright light on mental health and wellness," Simpkins wrote in the memoir.

Simpkins also discusses her daughter's struggle with high-functioning depression. The term, which is not an official medical diagnosis, describes depression among people who maintain, or even appear to thrive in, happy-looking, productive lives, experts told Business Insider.  

"Although successful and oftentimes leaders in their fields, these individuals are conducting their lives much like running a race with a weight belt carrying 100 extra pounds," John Huber, a psychologist at Mainstream Mental Health, told Healthline. 

Kryst was an attorney, reporter, and Miss USA titleholder 

Kryst won the Miss USA title in 2019 while representing North Carolina, and made the top 10 at Miss Universe that same year. She was also a complex-litigation attorney and worked as a host for Extra TV.

In a statement sent to BI after Kryst's death, Simpkins said that while her daughter's "life on this earth was short, it was filled with many beautiful memories." 

"We miss her laugh, her words of wisdom, her sense of humor, and mostly her hugs," she said. "We miss all of it, we miss all of her. Cheslie — to the world, you were a ball of sunshine wrapped in smiles."

Simpkins added that she "talked, FaceTimed, or texted" her daughter "all day, every day." 

"You were more than a daughter — you were my very best friend," Simpkins said. "Talking with you was one of the best parts of my day. Your smile and laugh were infectious. I love you baby girl with all my heart. I miss you desperately. I know one day we'll be together again. Until then, rest easy and in peace." 

Kryst worked pro bono with clients serving long sentences for low-level drug offenses. She helped free one client who had been sentenced to life in prison. She also spent years raising funds for the nonprofits Dress for Success and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and also used her platform to support Black Lives Matter.

In 2019, Kryst was part of a historic moment when Miss Universe, Miss USA, Miss Teen USA, and Miss America all went to women of color. She told Business Insider at the time that being part of such a group was "surreal."

"I just think this is an important moment," she said. "And maybe people can carry this inspiration into other areas of their lives."

People in tech and entertainment may be vulnerable to high-functioning depression

About 8.4% of Americans 18 and over experience major depressive disorder any given year, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America reports. It's more common in women than men, and the medium age of onset is 32.5. 

Dr. Mimi Winsberg, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer of Brightside, told BI that clinicians think of depression on a spectrum from mild to severe, and also consider patients' level of functioning. Can they get out of bed? Go to work? Engage socially? 

"More often than not, severity correlates with a lower level of functioning, but some people can experience severe depression, even suicidal ideation, but continue to be high functioning in their outwardly facing lives," she said. 

Winsberg lives in San Francisco and has worked as Facebook's on-site psychiatrist. She says that high performers in the tech and entertainment industries may be compelled to hide their internal pain due to the "pressure to keep up public appearances, or an environment that does not culturally sanction depression or where lower levels of functioning are less acceptable." 

Getting help can be challenging since it "can involve acknowledging vulnerability and slowing down," Winsberg said. 

If you suspect a loved one is struggling — unstable moods, sleep, relationships, and substance abuse can be clues, though not always — encourage them to get care, Winsberg said.

"Good treatments are available, even online and from the comfort of your home," she added.

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