Vice President Kamala Harris, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Elon Musk and other business and political leaders spoke on everything from artificial intelligence to economic tensions between the United States and China and to the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7 during the annual DealBook summit in New York on Wednesday.
The event, hosted by New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, has been taking place since 2011.
Here are the points to remember:
Elon Musk, the owner of He apologized for the post, but accused the companies of “blackmail” and said the public would blame them if the platform died from lost revenue. His blunt directive added to the challenges facing Linda Yaccarino, X’s chief executive, who was in the audience. She was tasked with wooing advertisers to the platform after many were scared off by Mr Musk’s erratic messages.
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vice-president Kamala Harris defended the Biden administration’s economic record, as polls show the president trailing Donald J. Trump in battleground states ahead of the 2024 election. Ms. Harris said President Biden has did more to fight inflation “than most advanced economies,” but that more work was needed to convince voters.
Isaac Herzog, Israel’s president said Wednesday that discussions on extending the ceasefire with Hamas were continuing, as Hamas seeks to repatriate more hostages. Mr. Herzog said Israel was doing “everything in its power to increase and improve humanitarian assistance to Gaza,” where local health officials say at least 13,000 people have been killed in the conflict. Israeli military response. “But we have to do the job and get Hamas out of there,” he said.
Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, has not committed to running for reelection next year after being removed from office last month. But he said if he were to retire from electoral politics, he would like to focus on artificial intelligence. Mr. McCarthy said he would support Mr. Trump for president and questioned President Biden’s ability to govern at his age.
Jensen Huang, chief executive of chipmaker Nvidia, said it will be a decade before AI companies reach what’s known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI, the state in which a computer can approach tasks in the same way that a human brain does. Mr. Huang also said his company is not worried about competition in the industry.
Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said the bank would “fight back” against Texas’ efforts in 2021 to restrict the state’s business with financial companies that adopt environmental, social and governance policies. Texas adopted two laws in 2021 that limit the state’s work with banks that regulators say restrict their work in the energy and firearms sectors.
Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s president, said she does not expect an imminent invasion of China due to the mainland’s economic woes. Tsai also said she was not concerned that U.S. plans to strengthen its domestic semiconductor industry could threaten Taiwan’s chipmaking sector.
David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, has defended unpopular decisions taken to reduce the colossal debt inherited from Warner Media. Those decisions included canceling the release of the “Batgirl” movie and firing CNN executives and personalities. “When we took over the company, we said there were no sacred cows,” Mr. Zaslav said.
Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive has denied that the company’s media assets are for sale after publicly speculating about a possible reduction in the company’s portfolio. Mr. Iger said he “didn’t want to be accused of being an old media executive” who was afraid to make bold decisions.
Lina Khan, chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, developed her philosophy on antitrust enforcement. Agencies, she says, need to ask themselves: “Is it better to be wrong by acting, or is it better to be wrong by not having acted?” After the government’s long-term hands-off approach, Ms Khan said people were realizing that “bias towards inaction” had “huge costs across our economy”.
Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, said he was working to finalize a deal with Saudi-backed rival LIV Golf before the end of the year. Mr. Monahan took a leave of absence a week after reaching a tentative agreement and said Wednesday that he was suffering from mental health issues at the time.
Shonda Rhimes, the creator of shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Bridgerton,” described the transition from network television to streaming giant Netflix, saying the latter gave her more creative freedom and resources. Asked about the recent writers’ strike, she said the union action “wasn’t complicated at all”, adding: “I consider myself a writer first and foremost. »
