Winning the AI Race Part 4: Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, Chris Wright, and Doug Burgum

(0:00) Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary (17:44) Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior and Chris Wright, Energy Secretary (35:11) Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary Thanks to our partners for making this happen: NYSE : https://www.nyse.com Visa: https://usa.visa.com Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Secretary Bessent, it's wonderful to see you. Before we maybe deep dive into AI, do you want to give us the high-level update on the 3-3-3 plan? How are things going? You had an incredible clip, by the way, with Maria Bartiromo, where you talked about some of the things that were happening economically. Maybe just level set everybody on what's going on.

• 0:22Scott Bessent?

  So, just for good framing, during the campaign, I had a 3-3-3 plan.

• 0:28Jason Calacanis?

  I think his microphone's off. Can we get the microphone on for Scott? Test, test?

• 0:32Scott Bessent?

  Test.

• 0:33Jason Calacanis?

  There it is.

• 0:33Scott Bessent?

  Okay, good. So, I had a plan that I called 3-3-3, and the idea was to get the budget deficit, which was running about 6.7% of GDP under the Biden administration, highest that we'd ever had when we weren't at war or in a recession, down to 3%. 3-plus percent economic growth on a persistent basis, and to create 3 million more barrels of energy equivalent, so oil and gas, before President Trump leaves office. And, look, we're full speed ahead.

• 1:14Scott Bessent?

  We had the first, June was the first positive June for the Treasury since 2015. We actually had a surplus. And we did that in a good way. We took in more revenues, some from tariffs, and we brought down spending. And when I think about what we can do here, that what I'm really excited about is the idea, with AI, that we can go back to the paradigm when I was younger in the 90s. Alan Greenspan was able to run the economy very hot in the 90s.

• 1:58Scott Bessent?

  And because it was the IT boom, and we had this very powerful, non-inflationary growth, and I think that it's highly likely we could have that now. And so, that kind of growth would bring down

• 2:19Scott Bessent?

  The deficit very quickly.

• 2:21Chamath Palihapitiya?

  You, there's been a lot of talk today about the amount of capex spending that needs to go into AI and all of the jobs that it creates and you posted as well, actually, a couple of days ago and you talked about that there's just been an inflection point that you've seen in capex spending, sort of as a steward of the US economy. Can you tell us about what's happening?

• 2:42Scott Bessent?

  So it's a combination and it's a barbells. So I've been in Pittsburgh twice in the past four weeks. Four weeks ago, I went with President Trump when he announced the US Steel, Nippon Steel deal, substantial investment by Nippon Steel into an old, very important industry. And then last week, on Tuesday, there was an AI summit in Pittsburgh, all the big players, and Pittsburgh is a natural location for AI. Lots of cheap energy,

• 3:21Scott Bessent?

  Carnegie Mellon, Pitt are there. And so it was very interesting to see the juxtaposition there. But we are seeing this incredible capex. The hyperscalers are obviously been in an arms race, kind of the big five, the big seven. We estimate that that is approximately 1% of GDP a year.

• 3:45Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Wow.

• 3:45Scott Bessent?

  So $300 billion.

• 3:48Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Wow.

• 3:48Scott Bessent?

  That's being spent on AI. And in my perfect world, which never happens, we would go through this big capex boom and then sometime in 26, the capex boom would hand off to a productivity boom.

• 4:05Chamath Palihapitiya?

  And it's an incredible thing because it's sort of, you mentioned, alluded to this a little bit earlier, but it does violate a lot of economic theory in the sense that it just hasn't had the negative pernicious effects. Do you think is that, is that a yet thing? Or do you think that we're in a structurally different kind of economy now?

• 4:24Scott Bessent?

  You mean the AI boom?

• 4:26Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 4:26Scott Bessent?

  Well, look, we've seen throughout history that technology can drive these things. If you go back, I'll talk about the ones I was around for. I was not around for the railroads, but I used to teach economic history. 1880s, 1890s, the railroads made it 10 times faster across the United States. We had this incredible productivity boom. It was the gigantic GDP growth and it was disinflationary. So imagine you're having double-digit GDP numbers and inflation was minus 2, minus 3, minus 4%

• 5:11Scott Bessent?

  just because the costs were coming down. Then in the 1980s, under Reagan, we had what I would call a deregulatory boom. Because hard for anyone, everyone in this room to remember, but everything used to be regulated. You know, price of airline tickets, the telephone bills, banking services. So 1980s, we had a deregulatory boom. You know, Paul Volcker brought down inflation, but it was also the deregulation. 1990s, which I previously mentioned, we had had a electronic buildup.

• 5:55Scott Bessent?

  And then finally it kicked in, especially in office work. And that led to a big productivity boom and we paid down, paid down the national debt.

• 6:08Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 6:08Scott Bessent?

  You know, I mean.

• 6:09Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Had a surplus.

• 6:10Scott Bessent?

  We had a surplus. And I mean, it seems crazy. I found a paper the other day that people were wondering, well, what are we going to do if there aren't any government bonds?

• 6:21David Friedberg?

  But we didn't have the.

• 6:22Scott Bessent?

  But we fixed that. There are plenty of government bonds. But I do think there's a chance now that we could have this growth acceleration and if.

• 6:35Scott Bessent?

  I'm shooting for 3%, but I can tell you the trajectory of the debt path really changes. And if we can also have lower interest rates because it's non-inflationary. And I think the Fed's going to have to be open to this idea.

• 6:54David Friedberg?

  So let me ask two questions on that. The first is that the examples you gave, we didn't have some of the tariff that now, since we last talked, several of these trade deals have been negotiated out further. You have better clarity probably on what the tariff rates are going to be. What do you estimate the dampening effects on the growth rate to be, if any, associated with the tariffs in those trade deals? And second is, I'd love to hear your point of view on the Chinese report of selling half of their US Treasuries. And where's the market for Treasuries going to kind of fall over time here? So two parts.

• 7:26Scott Bessent?

  So.

• 7:28David Friedberg?

  To address the interest rate.

• 7:30Scott Bessent?

  Yeah, so I think that in terms of the, well, I'll take the second one first. We expect that the Chinese will slowly divest, but with the passage of the genius legislation last week, I think that we could see several trillion dollars of demand for T-bills because the way the legislation works, it's under 90 days. And I think that that's really going to lock in the US dollar in terms of individuals

• 8:14Scott Bessent?

  on the street in, whether it's Nigeria, Kuala Lumpur, are going to be using US-backed stable coins. And if I think about the alternative, if you think about a central bank digital currency, China, Euro, or ECB, or even Canada, a lot of you will remember during COVID, the Canadian government, they didn't like what some truckers were doing, and they seized and froze their bank accounts. So with a central bank digital currency, you could put out a meme tweet, not that any of you are aware of it, but if you put out a meme tweet.

• 8:55David Friedberg?

  No one up here is known for doing that.

• 8:56Scott Bessent?

  Ever.

• 9:01Scott Bessent?

  If you have a government backed, then they can shut you down as opposed to this unbridled choice that consumers are going to have for US dollar stable coins.

• 9:16David Friedberg?

  And on the first question about growth rates being hampered by tariffs, is the revenue you're seeing offsetting effectively the rates?

• 9:23Scott Bessent?

  We haven't seen that yet, and I think there's a good chance that we could see. So if we think about China, so China has a high tariff rate, it's 30%. The Chinese business model is like the brooms and the water buckets from Fantasia. They just keep going, and it's an employment agency.

• 9:52David Friedberg?

  I'm thinking of the song, I know the theme.

• 9:54Scott Bessent?

  And it's an employment agency, so they will just keep cutting costs to maintain market share, so we haven't seen that thus far. And a lot of the other foreign producers have cut price to maintain market share. A lot of the US companies have eaten into their margins to maintain market share. But the other thing we're seeing is the tariffs are creating the onshoring. So you might have seen, can't remember whether it was yesterday, the day before, AstraZeneca said that they were going to build- 50 billion. 50 billion. Incredible.

• 10:39Scott Bessent?

  And plant here. So we're seeing this big onshoring move that I think can accelerate all that. So I think there's a very good chance that we see, just like with AI, we're seeing now we're in the construction boom phase, then we're going to be in the use case. I think we could have this massive construction boom, and then the factories get populated. And part of President Trump's one big beautiful bill, the most powerful part of that is the 100% immediate expensing-

• 11:19David Friedberg?

  Right.

• 11:20Scott Bessent?

  -of equipment, and we also did it for factories. So not only- Are we trying to make the US the best destination regulatory wise? We're also making it tax wise. So you can immediately write off all the equipment. For the next five years, you're going to be able to write off the factory structure. And I saw Secretary Bergman write, and we're going to have cheap energy.

• 11:49Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 11:49Scott Bessent?

  Which seems like a pretty good combination.

• 11:52Jason Calacanis?

  Should the Fed remain independent?

• 11:54Scott Bessent?

  Sorry?

• 11:55Jason Calacanis?

  The Fed, should it remain independent? Should Trump replace the Fed chair? You know, you guys seem a bit frustrated with him. What are your thoughts there? Because you guys have done such a good job in terms of the confidence in the markets. CPI went up a little bit in June, and it does seem like the economy is very strong and people are very confident. So then, polymarket is showing no rate cut is the most likely case in September. So how do you think about the Fed?

• 12:21Scott Bessent?

  Well, I think if you, if you, the Fed publishes something called the Summary of Economic Projections. And it's, it's pretty politically biased. But we're seeing that we could see one, two rate cuts this year. And I think that once we see, over the next one, two months, that the tariffs haven't been inflationary. And I, I have breakfast with Chair Powell almost every week. And I just keep saying that a one-time price level increase is very different than the notion of a persistent inflationary spiral.

• 13:06Scott Bessent?

  I think that, we used to say TDS was Trump Derangement Syndrome. I now say TDS is Tariff Derangement Syndrome.

• 13:14Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 13:15Scott Bessent?

  And when you think about it, the market crashed, then it had the fastest recovery in history over a 54-day period. We're back at a new high. So I think the market's looking through all this to next year with the productivity boom and to the question.

• 13:36Scott Bessent?

  I think minimum on a forward 12-month basis, we're going to take in at least $300 billion in tariff income.

• 13:44Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Yeah.

• 13:45Jason Calacanis?

  Are they punishing you in a way for maybe the rollout of the tariffs was a little bit shock and awe, or a little bit effervescent, however you want to describe it? It was pretty intense. Is the Fed sort of punishing you for that in your mind?

• 14:00Scott Bessent?

  No, I think that they're just stuck in an old way of thinking.

• 14:05Jason Calacanis?

  How much should they cut? What should they, how should they think?

• 14:07Scott Bessent?

  I'm only going to talk about the mistakes they've made, not the mistakes they're going to make.

• 14:16Scott Bessent?

  I do think at a point, they're just going to have to kind of admit that they have been wrong. Because if you think about it, I don't believe that a tariff is a consumption tax.

• 14:31Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right, right.

• 14:32Scott Bessent?

  But if tomorrow, we put on a 1% consumption tax, you would never say that's 1% inflation.

• 14:39Chamath Palihapitiya?

  That's right.

• 14:40Scott Bessent?

  But, so, I am hoping that in their infinite wisdom, that the, I can't remember, it's 350 PhD economists, which I said on TV yesterday, the day before, my worry is that the Fed is turning into universal basic income for PhD economists.

• 15:06Scott Bessent?

  But, I don't know what they do, they're never right. If you were to...

• 15:11Jason Calacanis?

  Maybe you should double the number of PhDs. If you go to 700, they might get it right.

• 15:15Scott Bessent?

  Well, look, I mean, if you were to look at the central value tendency versus how they've done, it's shocking. It's shocking. I said, like, if air traffic controllers did this, no one would get in an airplane.

• 15:28Jason Calacanis?

  They do seem to put a little tailspin on everything, yeah.

• 15:30Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Last question, maybe, as we wrap this up. Secretary, as an economic historian, maybe just very briefly tell us the lessons of these previous economic expansions, technological booms.

• 15:43Chamath Palihapitiya?

  What we need to learn from those things, whether it was railroads, or whether it was the agrarian revolution, or the industrial revolution, so that we don't screw up the AI revolution. What are the few critical things we need to do it?

• 15:54Scott Bessent?

  Well, I think the most important thing that we are doing is getting out of the way and setting the conditions for it, because I would say one of the surprises that I've had, and I've had a lot of them, when I went from civilian to a public servant, has been that in the US, we've made it so hard to build things.

• 16:21Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right, right.

• 16:22Scott Bessent?

  And it's just very frustrating. I'm sure Doug and Chris will talk about it, but this idea, TSMC wants to build a gigantic fab system in Arizona, and I think it might be able to produce up to 7% of the chips that the United States needs. And they're dealing with local building inspectors. And evidently, these chip design plants are moving so quickly, you're constantly calling an audible, and you're saying, well, like, three months ago, it looked like this, but

• 17:05Scott Bessent?

  in 18 months, we've now decided it needs to look like this. And you've got someone saying, well, you said the pipe was going to be there, not there, we're shutting you down. So, and just the level of permitting, we always talk about how, I think I may have even talked about it on your podcast, how Germany had deindustrialized.

• 17:25Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 17:26Scott Bessent?

  We even made the decision to deindustrialize through our environmental regulations. And I think the most important thing we can do is make it easy to build things again, and stay out of the way, and not overregulate.

• 17:45Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Secretary, thank you very much.

• 17:48David Friedberg?

  Thank you guys for being here. I know it's been a rushed afternoon. We did not expect the incredible turnout that we've had, but thank you both. You're the Chair and the Vice Chair of the National Energy Dominance Council. We've talked at length today about the boom underway in AI. We've talked about this on the podcast. The US energy production capacity, electricity production capacity is about a terawatt today, growing to an estimated 2 terawatts by 2040. China's going from 3 to 8. They're adding in America every 18 months. Maybe you guys could just give us an update on the National Energy Dominance Council, how that work is going to try and accelerate energy production in the United States to help enable this AI boom?

• 18:31Speaker 04

  Well, happy to do that. And I just want to say again, thanks to the all-in for pulling together this amazing team.

• 18:38David Friedberg?

  And Hill and Valley.

• 18:39Speaker 04

  Yes. And Hill and Valley, too. Thanks, Christian. When we look back on this day, when historians look back on the challenge of our times, which is like the summit called, winning the AI arms race, I think one of the things they're going to conclude is that the reason why the United States won the AI arms race was because of President Trump. And I'm not saying that as a political statement. I'm saying that the policy of the Trump administration is more energy fast and an understanding of how important it is for the AI arms race. And so with that, as you've just outlined, we've got a huge challenge ahead of us. You know, China is deploying everything. I mean, they added 94 gigawatts of coal last year,

• 19:20Speaker 04

  1 gigawatts Denver. They're 60, over 60% of their power is still coming from coal. They're just pouring, pouring that on. The Wall Street Journal ran an article yesterday talking about what a great job that China was doing with EVs and with solar. I read the whole article. They never mentioned coal. It's 2/3 of their electrical power. And so then, just by definition, I mean, 2/3 of the EV cars in China should have a bumper sticker that says powered by coal. So they are, this is a, we're in a race of our lifetime. They're also doing nuclear. They're doing hydro. They've got no permitting issues. I mean, they build a hydro dam and be like the equivalent of us putting a dam. On the Grand Canyon, what they're doing on the Yangtze, so we've got real competition. We can lead in technology, but we haven't been leading on electric production.

• 20:05Speaker 04

  So the National Energy Dominance Council, part of the job that Chris and I have, is helping through cut red tape, produce more electricity, whether it's hydro, geothermal, nuclear, and of course LNG, natural gas is a key part of this. And then bringing back coal and making sure that we stop shutting down baseload in America has been a key part of what we're doing.

• 20:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, to riff off that, where United States gets electricity today, in order, natural gas by far, then nuclear, then coal. Those three sources are 75% of US electricity and 90% of what matters, which is electricity that's there, whether the sun's shining or the wind is blowing. But we had, in the previous administration's plans, to remove 3.5 gigawatts of hydropower. We're going to stop that. There's plans between now and 2030 to close 100 gigawatts of power plants, 100 gigawatts. And we're stopping most all of that. Yeah, I see the head nodding. If we need to add 100, after the meetings I had this morning, I think it's more than

• 21:12Speaker 05

  100 gigawatts in the next five or seven years, the first thing to do is stop subtracting 100 at the same time you want to add 100. But I think America became great by big, bold people making big, bold investments. That's where we got here. And then we've just drifted off track the last bunch of years and made it so hard to build something, so easy to stop something, and just a crazy love affair with intermittent, unreliable energy sources.

• 21:39Jason Calacanis?

  You're talking about solar. Why are you so down on solar? This is the cheapest thing you can install. Batteries are here and they're being produced at an incredible rate. Why are we so anti-solar? Well, why are you so anti-solar?

• 21:52Speaker 05

  Oh, I'm not anti-solar.

• 21:53Jason Calacanis?

  Well, why do you keep saying then that like this unreliable solar? If you put batteries on it, it's totally reliable.

• 21:59Speaker 05

  If you take all the batteries in the United States, you can store five minutes of power. Five minutes.

• 22:03Jason Calacanis?

  Of the entire country, but if we've had many days in California and in Texas where solar's been the majority of it. So why are you so down on solar?

• 22:11Speaker 05

  It can be the majority on a sunny day in the summertime.

• 22:15Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 05

  That's not what matters. In PJM where we are right now, at peak demand this year, 97% of electricity, wind, solar, and batteries delivered 3%. That's when it matters. If you're 20% on average...

• 22:30Jason Calacanis?

  Well, you're cherry picking DC? You're cherry picking DC. Let's talk about California and Texas. These are very voluminous states in terms of population.

• 22:37Speaker 05

  Absolutely. Let's talk Texas. So the peak demand times in Texas have been cold spells, lobe their high-pressure systems in the wintertime.

• 22:44Jason Calacanis?

  Yep.

• 22:45Speaker 05

  Wind and solar go on vacation. They're 35% of the capacity in Texas, 8% of the delivered power at peak demand.

• 22:51Jason Calacanis?

  Talking about two weeks. I live in Texas.

• 22:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, but those are the two weeks that matter, right?

• 22:56Jason Calacanis?

  No, the other 50 are the ones that matter, actually, but sure.

• 22:59Speaker 05

  In Yuri, when they weren't ready, over 200 people died. We don't want people to die. We want the lights to go on when people need them. And it's the system cost that matters. If you're not there at game time, all you are is a parasite on the systems that is there at game time.

• 23:15Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Let me redirect this back to AI because...

• 23:19Speaker 05

  Good idea!

• 23:20Jason Calacanis?

  Good idea.

• 23:21Chamath Palihapitiya?

  So if you actually forecast the growth of just the servers and then the robots and all of these things, we're gonna need terawatts and terawatts. That's on one side. And so the obvious solution would be to build, right? To drill, to do what we need to do. And then on the other side is this latent fear that some people have that this will somehow upset the apple cart, sustainability, the climate, etc. How do we create the logical bridge so that people really understand that this is all possible? That this is not gonna destroy the Earth and that we can get this abundant energy? Especially because, as you guys have said very well,

• 24:05Chamath Palihapitiya?

  if we don't do it and somebody else has marginal, costless energy... They will de facto win. So how do we frame the argument so that people can understand this better?

• 24:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've been writing and talking about that for 20 years, and you're 100% right. And to me, it comes down to the same thing AI is focused on, which is on data and facts. We've increased atmospheric CO2 by 50%, 100%. It absorbs infrared radiation. It's been a force for warming. That's all true. But if you look at the trade-offs on it, it's not in the top five problems the planet focuses. And what has been the biggest source of decarbonization, not just in the United States, but globally, has been market forces. Cheap natural gases displaced coal. And what's a lower carbon energy source? Nuclear, that's on all the time. So this administration, all in to get the nuclear industry moving again? Natural gas is the fastest-growing energy source on the planet.

• 25:00Speaker 05

  Get out of the way of that. Let natural gas grow. It's the cheapest source of electricity in the US. I'm pro-solar as well. I just don't want taxpayers to pay for it. I want businesses to pay for it. But solar's gonna keep growing. Solar's gonna keep growing.

• 25:12Chamath Palihapitiya?

  When you're looking at nuclear expansion? I just want to talk about nuclear expansion for one second. So how do we actually build these things faster? Have the capability and the technical construction know-how so that these aren't 15-year projects? But also, how do we incentivize the states to basically get out of the way? Or like, you know, these other organizations that can launch the frivolous lawsuits, slow it all down? How do we do that?

• 25:40Speaker 05

  So a lot of regulatory firm things. One, we're working on FERC. Like, FERC has this inefficient queue system that just gets gummed up with mostly stuff that's never gonna happen. FERC came out yesterday with a new system where you're gonna prioritize things that matter. They're gonna move through faster.

• 25:56Speaker 05

  You saw the Supreme Court decision on NEPA. We gotta get NEPA back to where it was. A process check on the environment, not an avenue for lawfare to stop things and kill things. So there's structural changes. There's just common sense reforms. We're gonna get rid of Clean Power Act 2.0 that says you're gonna have to have carbon capture and storage, you know, 15 years out on any natural gas. is what's going to power AI. Let's just be honest. What's going to be the main source of new electricity in the United States? By far and away, natural gas. Just because it's cheapest, fast, it's reliable and dependable. Solar is going to play a role, nuclear is going to play a role, hydro, geothermal, stop closing coal, lots of pieces. But it's dominantly going to be natural gas.

• 26:38Speaker 05

  It's the fastest growing energy source, not just in the US, but in the whole planet. There's a reason for it. It's cheap, it's massively abundant, it burns clean, the machinery lasts longer than machinery burning oil or coal or something else. But it's a let businesses. Doug and I are not here to tell anyone what to build and what not to build. We're here to get roadblocks out of the way so capitalism and consumers and investors can decide where capital flows.

• 27:05Jason Calacanis?

  Solar is cheaper than coal plants, right?

• 27:07David Friedberg?

  Okay, so some of the, um, some of the

• 27:11Speaker 05

  It's just a fact.

• 27:11David Friedberg?

  The scalability of

• 27:13Speaker 05

  That is simple as that.

• 27:14David Friedberg?

  Yeah, the scalability of nuclear, I think, is unbounded. And what we've seen in China in the past couple of years is these generation four nuclear reactors. This Pebble Bed reactor is probably the most elegant, beautiful energy system designed in human history. It's incredible. What it can do, the scalability, the cleanliness of it, how it works. We have no effort in this country today to build and deploy Gen 4 reactors because there's no economic incentive. The path to get there is so far, the cost is so high. What can the Energy Dominance Council, what are you guys doing in your roles to make Gen 4 reactors? Because everyone's like, go back to the AP 1000, these old Westinghouse designs from like 50 years ago, and build that for nuclear. Why can't we build for the future? What can we do to create the incentive to make this work?

• 27:58Speaker 04

  I was going to say, I mean, the one thing that's already happened if people are interested in nuclear, which doesn't help us in the near term race that we're in. The near term race, as Chris said, is going to be won by us getting natural gas power online and stop shutting stuff down. But President Trump signed four executive orders on nuclear about six weeks ago. And there's been a flood of capital, fresh capital coming in. We've got a bunch of venture capital going towards, you know, over over close to a dozen different SMR startups. There's a lot of interest going on in that. Field Chris's work with the national labs redirecting that. I mean, nuclear's got a future, but it's it's not the thing we need in the next 24 months. Right now, that's got to keep moving ahead. President Trump's executive orders help that, but we've got to get focused on getting more power right now.

• 28:44Speaker 05

  Nuclear is the single biggest issue I work on. We will have three next generation Gen 4 reactors critical in Idaho National Lab next summer. We have, we are supplying HALU, the fuel for these next generation reactors to the, we've already committed to five and we'll give it to a dozen of these next generation reactor companies. We worked in the one big beautiful bill to keep in the nudge, the tax credits for nuclear. Because the government smothered the industry and killed it for three decades. Even a free market guy like me thinks we need to get a little help to get it started.

• 29:19David Friedberg?

  How far away are we till it's free market running?

• 29:22Speaker 05

  Uh, probably 10 years.

• 29:24David Friedberg?

  10 years.

• 29:24Speaker 05

  10 years, because it's just a learning curve. With the, the small modular reactors, you got to build up the supply chain, you got to build up and build them in volume. The cost can come down dramatically, but the first ones won't be cheap.

• 29:34David Friedberg?

  As you guys look at your energy demand curves, do you account for this revolution happening in physical AI? Because every time I look at it's data centers, this and buildings that, but no one talks about physical AI, which is batteries in robots. And some people are estimating hundreds of millions or billions of these things being built and run. Trillions, is this part of the, the energy calculus as you think about demand?

• 29:56Speaker 05

  It, it is, it is a meaningful part of it. And, and yes, the more you look at that, the more you see increased consumption of energy there. And the more excited I get, the more we can build things at scale, the better we can get the economics. One, one other data point, we put out at the Department of Energy. We got 16 locations to build data centers. We said, who wants to come build one? We'll permit them right away. We'll help you build power generation right next to it. We got 300 responses. We, we will announce tomorrow, the first four of those sites that will be developed. And then you'll hear many more coming behind that.

• 30:28Chamath Palihapitiya?

  How do we solve the? The supply chain issues around the turbines and the other enabling technologies that we need for things like nat gas, because I agree with you. I have a data center project in Arizona, it's a gigawatt, it would be $25 billion of capital, but we're stuck in this weird situation where onshoring the nat gas turbines are extremely difficult. Then, you know, you see certain people will just buy the nat gas entire plant and then ship them over. So, how do we solve the supply chain constraints to generating the energy we need?

• 31:02Speaker 04

  Well, I wouldn't say if, again, back to the immediate need right now, we need more power and we need the power for factories that are producing AI, like using Jensen's word, which I think everybody should stop saying data centers, because a data center, if you have a data center the way America thinks about them, you're processing a shopping claim, you know, it helps the seller, the buyer, and maybe a third party. If you're processing a healthcare claim, it's a provider, a payer, and a patient. But in AI, it's general purpose technology. We're actually literally manufacturing every day, over and over, more intelligence, and so that's different. It's not data centers, it's AI factories. And we've taken a look at NEDC, at the supply chain. If any of you are trying to build an AI factory and you need power and you haven't talked

• 31:45Speaker 04

  to Chris and I and our team inside the White House at the National Energy Dominance Council, you need to come and talk to us, because we're mapping out, talking to everybody in the industry. We're a neutral party, but we're saying, here's where the shortages are. We've talked about things like the Defense Production Act, we've talked to companies that are producing turbines. Everything we're doing, we say, hey, you've got to amp up, because some of these people are sleeping on the sidelines and they don't think there's going to be real demand. And we're saying, if anything, the demand is underestimated. So, we're trying to jack up the supply into the supply chain, but please, contact us, we're there. Think of us not, we're not a group that writes papers, we're a group that helps people, we help people build projects, that's what we do.

• 32:23Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Can't wait to visit.

• 32:24David Friedberg?

  Just build a data center, Jake Allen, you'll get an invite.

• 32:27Speaker 04

  AI factory.

• 32:29David Friedberg?

  AI factory.

• 32:30Speaker 04

  Somebody else can build a data center.

• 32:31Chamath Palihapitiya?

  We've got enough data.

• 32:32David Friedberg?

  Secretary Bergen, right?

• 32:33Speaker 06

  As we finish up, hit on the point we were talking about a little bit earlier, which is that you take a step back, the focus here upstream on these prioritizations from energy to critical minerals is not just you have a new market, obviously, on the AI side and there's huge demand, and this build out is important for national security, this build out is important for winning the AI race, but the derivative impact is what's most interesting, right? These are thousands of jobs, tens, hundreds of thousands of jobs, and then on any of these manufacturing build outs, particularly in factories, nuclear capabilities, they're going to lead to usually 10x the amount of indirect jobs as well. Back to Chamath point on the supply chain for these things, can you talk a little about the job impact now that we're seeing, and then if we're successful here in this build out capacity, how many jobs are we talking about? How much can we actually help the middle class here?

• 33:13Speaker 04

  Well, it's a fabulous question, Christian, and I'm so bullish on the US economy because there's our friend Scott who was just on here before us, but I mean, you take the combination of lower taxes, dramatically lower regulation, accelerated permitting time, just accelerating permitting, there could be a trillion to a trillion and a half dollars stuck in this two to four year federal government permitting thing. We accelerate that expenditure capital, the onshoring, the greatest economic developer in history, bringing foreign direct investment back to the United States, President Trump with these tariffs, you know, what did we announce in Pittsburgh, $15 trillion, that's coming back. So with AI, software has always been the one thing that's extended human capability more than any other in our

• 33:55Speaker 04

  lifetimes, and now with AI, it's just a massive multiplier of that, but to make the factory happen, we're going to have an explosion in jobs in the trades. I mean, you're going to be able to skip college, go directly into develop a trade, you don't make 150 grand, 120 to start in my home state, and again, and for people that are spending money on site selection, I'll tell you one thing, you want to build it faster, go to where the stranded gas is, build your power plant there, build the AI factory next to it, you don't have to permit a transmission line, you don't have to permit a pipeline, those are the two things. Linear infrastructure has been weaponized by the people that are opposed to energy development in this country, they weaponize the blocking of those things. I say pipeline, you say protest.

• 34:40Speaker 06

  Hundred percent.

• 34:40Speaker 04

  You know, so go to the same place. President Trump himself has said in speeches, "We're gonna let you operate off the grid. We can build all this stuff and keep rates for electricity for small businesses, consumers, down because we've got to add to the supply." But, you know, which if you're gonna go to where the gas is, there's sweet places to go: the Marcellus, the Permian, or the Bakken. And you can save tens of millions hiring site selection guys. Go find the people with stranded gas and get going.

• 35:06David Friedberg?

  Great. Secretary Wright, Secretary Bergen, thank you for being with us. That was great. That was great.

• 35:12Jason Calacanis?

  Well done. Thank you. Nice to see you, brother. Nice to everything.

• 35:16Howard Lutnick?

  Guys, good to see you. Jacob?

• 35:18David Friedberg?

  Welcome back. Thanks for doing it. How are you?

• 35:21Howard Lutnick?

  Nice to see you.

• 35:22Jason Calacanis?

  Howard, I noticed you had that incredibly smooth, refined tequila at your birthday. How was it? Take us through it. Every sip.

• 35:28David Friedberg?

  We have 14 minutes. Just let's get to it.

• 35:30Jason Calacanis?

  Smooth?

• 35:31David Friedberg?

  Yeah. Well, thanks for being with us. Jacob's gonna kick us off.

• 35:36Speaker 08

  So, the White House just rolled out a massive deal with Japan, which obviously plays a critical part of the semiconductor supply chain. Could you tell us a little bit about what the nexus is between this new, exciting trade deal with Japan and how it fits with the current debate around winning the race on artificial intelligence?

• 35:54Howard Lutnick?

  So, it was fundamental for Japan to lower their tariff because their car industry and their manufacturing industry is fundamental to their economy. And they paid a $550 billion, what the president likes to call a signing bonus, right? The greatest signing bonus of all time. So, they've committed $550 billion to finance projects in America that are important to the president and to American infrastructure. So, we can build power. Means we can build 10 nuclear power plants. We could build fabs, right? We could build critical minerals. We could do shipbuilding. Power, power, power.

• 36:36Howard Lutnick?

  We could do anything, and they will finance it, and we split the profits of the project. 90% for America and 10% for Japan. And I don't think people can actually understand how powerful that is. This is the National Security Sovereign Wealth Fund, the United States of America, funded by President Trump's tariff policy

• 37:03Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 37:03Howard Lutnick?

  that produced that kind of money committed to America. It's awesome.

• 37:09Jason Calacanis?

  Would that actually go into, congratulations, would that go into a sovereign wealth fund that you've been talking about and the President has been talking about?

• 37:17Howard Lutnick?

  No, I think this is, this is separate. What the President says about the sovereign wealth fund is, we do a sovereign wealth fund that invests when we've done paying off our deficit.

• 37:27Jason Calacanis?

  Okay.

• 37:28Howard Lutnick?

  Right? First, we gotta pay off our deficit.

• 37:29Jason Calacanis?

  There's some work to do there.

• 37:30Howard Lutnick?

  Before we're trying to make money. So what this is, is this is the Japanese government says, "I will finance and I will pay for."

• 37:38Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 37:39Howard Lutnick?

  Not finance, "I will pay for." You want to build a nuclear facility? Build it. You want to build 10 nuclear facilities? You go build them. You want to go build a pipeline? You go build it. You want to build fabs? You go build it. Whatever you think is necessary, you build it, we'll pay for it. You net lease it to an operator and we'll split the lease payments. 90 for you, 10 for Japan. It's a blockbuster if there ever was one.

• 38:06Jason Calacanis?

  But it's an incredible deal structure. How, how do you get to that?

• 38:10Howard Lutnick?

  Well, I got to that. So this, I came up with this idea in, in January. And then I kept restructuring it to try to figure out how to do it. Because I met with some Japanese senior executives while, before election, before inauguration day. And they said, "You know, I understand your tariff policy, but Japan's never gonna open." Right? They're just never gonna open. I mean, in 1850, Perry took an armada and tried to break it open in 1850. Couldn't open it. Opened the Japanese market. So... Come up with another idea. And the other idea was they buy it down. And so what structure we used, how they did it, they offered us.

• 38:53Howard Lutnick?

  They originally started offering us loans or loan guarantees. And the president's like, I don't need someone else to loans. Like, I don't need to borrow money from someone else. And then finally, we figured out that really it just needed to be committed capital to back projects that we want. And so it was five months in the making. And and I'm me talking to the president about about doing different structures. And eventually, in the middle of last week, we came to the structure, the president said, OK, I like it. Let's bring him in and talk. And then the president made the deal better.

• 39:26Jason Calacanis?

  Are you going to replicate this? Is this like a new blueprint? Or is it unique to Japan, which is protectionist and its own unique culture?

• 39:34Howard Lutnick?

  Well, I mean, the problem that Korea has is they're staring at it. You know, they view themselves deeply competitive to Japan. They both produce huge amounts of cars. They both produce huge amounts of electronics. They both do these things. And now they're looking at the price.

• 39:49Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 39:50Howard Lutnick?

  And they're thinking, ouch. So, you know, how quickly did they come to see me? Let's say when we announced the deal and they were in my office today.

• 39:59Jason Calacanis?

  The Koreans were.

• 40:01Howard Lutnick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:01Jason Calacanis?

  Fantastic.

• 40:02David Friedberg?

  How much have you prioritized market access for American businesses into some of these countries versus some of the other kind of trade considerations? What is it prioritized? And we've talked about this a lot, particularly as it relates to AI. And I think that part of this is in the the action plan and in the EOs being signed later today. But this is a broader question for American businesses. I work in agriculture. It's very hard to access overseas markets. And there's not a lot of parity. Has that become key to some of these conversations? And where does it sit on the priority run?

• 40:34Howard Lutnick?

  That's the priority rule. So the rule is you must open your market. Open, open, open. And and let's be clear, these markets have never been open. We have Stockholm syndrome in America. These markets have never been open. There's tariffs, there's non tariff trade barriers. Like, you can't sell an American car in these locations. Whether you want to or not, you're not allowed. Or they won't buy them because the seatbelt is like this. Or this is like, they make these rules. So we are demanding the markets are open. And the issue with Japan was they were never going to open it. So what are we going to do? And the answer was. Right, that's where he came up with this, you know, signing bonus, right?

• 41:18Jason Calacanis?

  So reciprocity or something interesting?

• 41:21Howard Lutnick?

  Correct.

• 41:22Jason Calacanis?

  If you want something more bespoke.

• 41:23Howard Lutnick?

  Vietnam completely open, Indonesia completely open, Philippines mostly open, small deficit, relatively higher tariff, right? So it's all, there's a sort of a lot of levers and you pull those levers.

• 41:38Jason Calacanis?

  When are you gonna wrap all this up? This has been like a really shocking and now I think kind of, you know, more mundane, methodical approach. So when does it all wrap up and we can kind of put the tariff issue behind us?

• 41:52Howard Lutnick?

  Okay, so on August 1st, whatever hasn't been settled will be settled.

• 41:59Jason Calacanis?

  You get the bill.

• 41:59Howard Lutnick?

  And the tariffs go into effect, right? So all this 10%, they'll all just pop up to some higher number. He sent the letter to a lot of people, right? And now, nothing stops them from negotiating the next day, but they're paying on that day. So that's next Friday. I mean, that's not that far away. So we're very busy because a lot of people are now coming to the table with their best, best offer, but the price has gone very, very high. And let's be clear what that price is. You will open your market to America. You will open it to ranchers, farmers, fishermen, you will open it, you know, you couldn't sell lobster to all these places.

• 42:40Howard Lutnick?

  Like for instance, Indonesia is completely open except for two products. Muslim country, no pork, no alcohol, right? We're talking India, obviously no beef, right? I mean, you do things like that, you say, but we need it open. If they don't want it open, there's your tariff. It's 26%, 27%, 31%, 19%, whatever it is. And then if you decide to open it later, come on, but that's what we're doing.

• 43:08David Friedberg?

  You'll find out over time what other kind of regulatory processes they have put in place. This is always the issue when any of us work in foreign markets, you've worked in foreign markets, you go in and then you find out, well, there's this thing I gotta do. And this thing takes 18 months or 36 months and they make it hard to get the permit or the whatever you need. There's always a way. Does this become like a continuous policing exercise for your department? And how does this become part of American trade? Like, is this an ongoing kind of?

• 43:38Jason Calacanis?

  Kind of iterative process here?

• 43:40Howard Lutnick?

  They've bought their tariff rate down by opening the market. So if they mess with that, they're messing with the president. And I don't know if you guys have seen him on TV. But that doesn't really work well.

• 43:55Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 43:55Howard Lutnick?

  Okay? So the idea is he's making the deal. He's closing the deal. So the way we talk about it together is I set the table. Right? And he closes the deal. And he is the best negotiator because he's just, he's done this his whole life. And he's the President of the United States. So that's amazing power. And he wields it to get the best deals.

• 44:18Jason Calacanis?

  Well, let's talk about the big issue, China. Where are we going to wind up with China? Reciprocity, TikTok, the whole shebang? Is this going to be one big grand bargain? Taiwan, TikTok? There's so many issues. Is there any way to thread the needle on this?

• 44:33Howard Lutnick?

  I think the way I think about China is draw a line. Okay? There's below the line, like they sell us baby clothes. And we sell them soybeans. That stuff, we need to do more of it. We want to buy more of that. They want to buy more of ours. We need to open that. Get this detente stuff, you know, where we're just flowing below the line.

• 44:58Jason Calacanis?

  Got it.

• 44:59Howard Lutnick?

  Above the line would be, you know, our best chips. Blackwell chips, you know, 200s and 100s, right? We don't want to sell them our best stuff. They don't want to sell us hypersonic missiles either, right? We would say, if it was open, we'd say, well, let's take a couple of your hypersonics. Let's see what you got.

• 45:16Jason Calacanis?

  Sure, yeah.

• 45:16Howard Lutnick?

  So that's not happening. So that's above the line. And then the question is, what's the line? That's the proper negotiation.

• 45:24Jason Calacanis?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:25Howard Lutnick?

  Right? Be open below the line. Let's get it on good for both economies. Above the line, we're competitors. Let's just call it what it is and stick with it. And then what we can really negotiate when we're together is the line.

• 45:39Jason Calacanis?

  Where's TikTok in all this? Jacob and I are both pretty adamant this is spyware. This is something that should not be on 100 million Americans' phones. It is way too dangerous. They've proven themselves to use it to spy on journalists already. And the fact that they won't divest from it, I think, tells you everything you need to know. They see this as a critical weapon against the United States. What do you think? What does the administration think?

• 46:03Howard Lutnick?

  Well, the president is reasonably positive about TikTok, provided it goes into American hands and it's controlled by American technology. Right? I think that's his view is that they've got to be out of it. It's got to be on an American technology stack and it's got to be owned by Americans. Period. And then how we work it on through there, we'll figure it out. Right now, it's sort of in that. Straddling the line for him. Yeah, you're sort of staring at each other, but eventually that'll get sorted out. I think that deal will happen and America will buy TikTok because the alternative is just shuts it off and that just seems illogical.

• 46:42Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Can I go back to the above the line, below the line?

• 46:44Howard Lutnick?

  Your favorite.

• 46:45Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Love that saying, buddy.

• 46:49Chamath Palihapitiya?

  How do you think about the, and you talked about the chips. How do you think about these export controls to various countries and various regions? What's your risk calculus about where those things should be?

• 47:01Speaker 08

  And if I could just actually add a question that builds on top of that. You've talked about creating AI economic zones where trusted partners could get preferential access for American technology. So could you describe a little bit what your vision is for that?

• 47:14Howard Lutnick?

  I think what we're wrestling with, and this is we're really discussing literally the intellectual wrestle we're going through now, is the idea that we are comfortable with allies buying significant numbers of chips, right? And having a large cluster, provided that cluster is operated by an American, a trusted American operator, and the cloud is a trusted American operator. So that we know that giant cluster is surrounded by us.

• 47:44Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 47:44Howard Lutnick?

  Right? As you go down from there, right? That's where we go, okay, if they want a smaller cluster, would you expand the number of people who are trusted, right? And the answer would be probably yes, right? And then when you go down from there to a smaller and smaller cluster, right? How do you deal with that? So I think it's cluster size is sort of the, a way of thinking rather than saying, you know, because I went to Poland and I was in, I was in Poland on a, on a mission for the, for the government and the prime minister of Poland chases me down and says, what did I do to America to be tier three? And I was like, I thought you were a part of Europe.

• 48:27Howard Lutnick?

  You know, like, I didn't understand what it could possibly be the issue. So I think the answer is ally or not.

• 48:34Chamath Palihapitiya?

  Right.

• 48:35Howard Lutnick?

  Cluster size and who controls it or not. I think once, once you sort of wrestle with those ideas and anybody who has ideas along those lines and you want to come and talk to us about it, because this is, this is really the thinking right now and we're sort of debating that right now.

• 48:50Jason Calacanis?

  Howard, I just want to say, thank you for, it's so great to have a sharp negotiator and such a creative mind representing America. It makes me feel like, really great about the administration.

• 49:01Chamath Palihapitiya?

  90% carry. There may never be a fun that has ever...

• 49:03Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, I mean, how do we get 90% carry? I love it. Yum, yum. I love that, you're a New Yorker, yeah?

• 49:09Howard Lutnick?

  I, I am, but the...

• 49:10Jason Calacanis?

  Where you, which borough?

• 49:10Howard Lutnick?

  Negotiator in chief, New York. Uh, I grew up on Long Island.

• 49:14Jason Calacanis?

  Got it.

• 49:15Howard Lutnick?

  My kids have grown in Manhattan, but, uh, the negotiator in chief is Donald Trump.

• 49:19Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, it's nice that he's got you as a right hand man.

• 49:20Howard Lutnick?

  He's amazing.

• 49:21David Friedberg?

  Well, thanks for coming. We're gonna make, uh, make some room for the president. He's gonna get ready. Howard, thank you for joining us. That was great. Thank you.