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That’s rich… Donald Trump, a self-proclaimed “free enterprise” guy, has accused ExxonMobil and Chevron of “making too much money.”
Taking a page from Bernie Sanders’ playbook, the billionaire president wants Big Oil to cut gas pump prices in order to give the little guy a break. Don't hold your breath, Donald.
He’s miffed that the two giants chalked up a combined $27B profit during the second quarter largely to Trump’s nonsensical bombing of Iran. That craziness caused the spike in oil prices to fill the financial coffers of ExxonMobil and Chevron. Trump apparently wants a cut of their windfall profits. The energy giants also benefitted greatly from Trump's 2017 tax cut that slashed the corporate rate.
The president is bashing the same guys that he had urged to donate $1B to his campaign because he was going to be the greatest fossil fuel president ever.
His hypocrisy knows no bounds. If he’s serious about helping out the little guy, the president should disgorge the more than $2B that he made in 2025, largely from cryptocurrency ventures.
He could donate his ill-gotten windfall to food pantries across the land. “TrumpMeals” has a nice ring to it. The TrumpMeals should be placed in golden packages with the face of the scowling president on them.
It is rocket science. SpaceX investors have to understand that rocket science is hard, as their shares in their company trade at $110.72, far off the $225.64 high and below the $135 offering price.
During SpaceX’s first quarterly earnings call, CEO Elon Musk said rocket science is an idiomatic expression for extreme technological difficulty. That because during every flight rockets desperately want to blow themselves up into tiny pieces.
“The engineering struggle is to convince the rocket not to blow itself into tiny pieces and actually deliver payload to orbit,” he said. “You’ll note that some of our competitors do in fact blow their rockets up. This does not mean they’re incapable. In fact, I think our competitors are very smart people, but despite being very smart, the rockets still blow up.”
SpaceX is shooting for the 14th test flight of its StarShip mega-rocket by the end of the month. The company also plans to “catch it” on its return to earth, which is very hard to do.
Dreaming of Jeannie… I would put money on Jeanine Pirro, the volatile US attorney for DC, to win the cage match showdown over The Reflecting Pool chaos against Doug Burgum, the smarmy Secretary of the Interior.
Pirro claims a “botched” repair job is why the pool is out of commission. She blames the Interior Dept. for failing to oversee the fix-up.
Burgum said vandals are responsible for damage to the pool. He posted on X: “The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool. Some of these acts were even caught on camera. We also provided the U.S. Attorney's office expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals and provided every piece of evidence they asked for in the requested time line detailing each area of damage at the pool.”
Pirro and Trump engaged in a shouting showdown over the pool on Aug. 3 in which she called Burgum a liar.
Trump, Pirro, Burgum, chief of staff Susie Wiles and White House counsel David Warrington were the only people at that session.
That begs the $64K question: who leaked the story to NYT reporters Katie Rogers, Glenn Thrush and Tyler Pager?
My money is on Jeanine.
Adapting to the madness. Omnicom CEO John Wren said most of his firm’s clients have adapted pretty well to the chaos that is occurring overseas.
During his Q2 earnings call, Wren said nobody is happy with what’s going on in the Middle East and he hopes things turn out alright.
“What is remarkable, and I think has made clients a little bit more optimistic or cautiously optimistic, is that if you go back several months, these same events were in play and they were more frightening actually then in terms of what the impact would be on business,” he said.
The same “we’ll muddle through” attitude applies to Trump’s tariffs and the Ukraine war.
“People seem to have digested those, or they’ve changed their supply outlets and have adjusted to these things, which is fairly remarkable, and we’re pretty pleased,” he said.
Wren said Omnicom has been working with clients through the global disruptions. He’s cautiously optimistic about the future as Omnicom has transitioned from a holding to an integrated operating company structure.
The new Omnicom has brought together talent and capabilities across creativity, media, commerce, consulting, data and technology.
“We’ve aligned leadership teams, connected our capabilities across the enterprise, and unified our data and AI assets through Omni,” said Wren. “This gives clients easier access to the full strength of Omnicom and allows us to deliver smarter decisions, faster execution, and better business outcomes.
"Omnicom is now a more agile and connected organization, one that is better equipped to help our clients grow, transform, and compete in a rapidly changing world," according to Wren.
Who is your next acquisition target, John?
It’s evident to all that our 80-year-old president is a man stuck in the past but did he really have to invoke the spirit of disgraced FBI director J. Edgar Hoover?... NYC probes prediction markets. Kalshi Polymarket, Coinbase and Gemini Titan... Does anybody want Karoline Leavitt's job? It's no fun playing second fiddle to Trump, who serves as his own press spokesperson.
Kudos to the American Academy of Pediatrics for pulling no punches in blasting Trump's new childhood vaccine recommendations as "dangerous."... Billionaire Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is tired of hearing about people struggling with the economy... Trump delivers priceless gift to Iran's propaganda machine.
Understatement of the Year: FIFA president Gianni Infantino concedes mistakes were made in his scheme to sell-out the World Cup... Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch charges Israel with deliberately targeting and attacking journalists in Lebanon... It will take images of US soldiers throwing rocks at the People's Liberation Army as it invades Taiwan before Trump admits the munitions shortage.
FIFA chief Gianni Infantino’s audacious scheme to sell stakes in a new subsidiary that will manage the World Cup is the payoff for his obnoxious pandering to Donald Trump... PwC's "thought leadership" pieces on AI and electric vehicles are riddled with "hallucinations."... 
As Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to meet with Donald Trump, the influential Israeli media outlet, Haaretz, has called on the country to end of the country’s influence ops campaign targeted at the US.
