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    Most of Elon Musk’s fortune now comes from his private companies

    Tesla said it needed to incentivize CEO Elon Musk with a record-breaking pay package in order to compete with his private companies, according to a proxy the company filed last week.
    The proxy highlights the surging valuations of Musk’s private companies and the competing interests of xAI, SpaceX and Tesla.
    Together, Musk’s stake in xAI and SpaceX are now worth nearly twice as much as his Tesla shares.

    Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk arrives to the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. 
    Chip Somodevilla | Via Reuters

    A version of this article appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
    Tesla said it needed to incentivize CEO Elon Musk with a record-breaking pay package in order to compete with his private companies, according to a proxy the company filed last week.

    The filing outlines a share award that could be worth $1 trillion if it all pays out. Tesla also said Musk’s other companies — mainly SpaceX and xAI Holdings — now account for most of his wealth and therefore will command most of his attention unless Tesla pays him more.
    “A majority of Mr. Musk’s wealth is now derived from other business ventures outside of Tesla, and he has more attractive options today than ever before,” the proxy said. The pay package of up to 423 million shares is necessary, it added, to prevent Musk from “prioritizing other ventures.”
    It will be up to shareholders to approve the package, of course. But the proxy highlights the surging valuations of Musk’s private companies and the competing interests of xAI, SpaceX and Tesla.
    Until last year, the vast majority of Musk’s wealth came from his Tesla stock. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index pegs Musk’s wealth at about $385 billion, while Forbes estimates his wealth is at $436 billion. The difference is likely tied to his 2018 pay package, which is still in dispute and is valued at between $60 billion and $100 billion. If the compensation plan is restored, and/or he receives an interim comp package proposed in the proxy, Musk’s net worth is closer to $436 billion.
    Today, less than half of that fortune comes from Tesla stock.

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    Based on his current ownership of 13% of the company, Musk’s Tesla shares are worth about $140 billion. Musk has argued that he needs at least 25% of voting control of Tesla to prevent the company from being taken over as it develops highly sensitive and powerful artificial intelligence technology and robots.
    At SpaceX and xAI, he has more voting control, with 42% of SpaceX and a majority stake in xAI. SpaceX is planning an insider share sale that would reportedly value the company at $400 billion, nearly double its valuation last year. At the $400 billion valuation, Musk’s stake would be worth about $170 billion — more than the value of his current Tesla stake.
    xAI’s valuation has grown even faster, from $80 billion at the start of the year to a potential $200 billion in a new fundraising round. Musk owns more than 50% of the company, putting his stake well over $100 billion.
    Together, Musk’s stake in xAI and SpaceX are now worth nearly twice as much as his Tesla shares. Added to his stakes in Neuralink — valued at around $9 billion — and his other companies, his private company wealth eclipses his Tesla wealth.
    Of course, that may not be for long. If he is awarded the 423.7 million shares of restricted stock in the new 2025 compensation plan, and if Tesla hits its target valuation of $8.5 trillion, Musk’s Tesla shares would be worth over $2 trillion. More

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    Financial CEOs are weighing in on the state of the economy

    Amid economic uncertainty and a Bureau of Labor Statistics preliminary report revising down job numbers, CEOs weighed in this week on CNBC.
    Ranging from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to PNC Financial Services CEO Bill Demchak, executives are starting to issue varying degrees of warning about slowdown.
    “I think the economy is weakening,” Dimon told CNBC earlier this week.

    Some of America’s top financial services executives are starting to issue warnings about the economy.
    Saying they’re seeing signs of “softening” or “weakening,” a slew of CEOs have been weighing in ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve decision and with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics revising job numbers lower this week.

    In a Wednesday CNBC interview, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said while the economy is “still chugging along,” the signals may be pointing in a different direction.
    “There are number of CEOs that are talking about a softening in the economy – there’s no question,” he said. “We’ve seen some job data that indicates that there has been some softening.”
    The BLS, in a preliminary report released Tuesday, revised its nonfarm payrolls data for the year prior to March 2025, showing a significant drop of 911,000 from the initial estimates. The revisions were more than 50% higher than last year’s and the biggest shift in more than 20 years, adding to growing concern over the economy.
    The BLS has also come under fire from President Donald Trump, who fired the head of the bureau in early August and has criticized its data collection methods.

    Solomon said he believes there’s “still more work to do” with today’s inflation and that tariffs are having an impact on growth, but that it’s difficult to quantify at this stage. As the economy heads into fall, Solomon said he expects a slight change in the policy rate, including a 25-basis point cut by the Fed next week.

    Trump has also been critical of the central bank, calling for lower interest rates and bashing Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The Federal Open Market Committee last cut its benchmark interest rate in December 2024 and has held it steady since then in a target range of 4.25% to 4.5%. 
    JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told CNBC on Tuesday that he believes the Fed will “probably” lower interest rates at its meeting next week, but that it may “not be consequential to the economy.
    Dimon said he also believes the BLS report confirms that the U.S. economy is slowing down.
    “I think the economy is weakening,” Dimon told CNBC’s Leslie Picker in an interview. “Whether it’s on the way to recession or just weakening, I don’t know.”
    But ultimately, Dimon said the country will simply have to “wait and see” how the economy will progress given the weakening consumer.
    Similarly, Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf told CNBC Wednesday that his bank is seeing lower-income Americans struggling to stay afloat, despite larger companies seemingly doing well.
    “There is this big dichotomy between higher-income and lower-income consumers which continues and is a real issue,” Scharf said.
    Commenting on the BLS numbers, Scharf said it’s “undeniable” that the discrepancy between American taxpayers exists and that he sees “more downside” to the U.S. economy.
    Job creation in August also showed signs of weakness, as the BLS reported last week that nonfarm payrolls increased by just 22,000 for the month.
    Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick told CNBC that he believes the American CEO or CFO has had to become resilient throughout the country’s recent ups and downs, including Covid and two Trump administrations.
    “We’re in a place where I think some of the policy uncertainty is actually starting to get quantified,” he said.
    Still, Pick said he’s seen the headwinds coming through and believes the policy uncertainty may be narrowing slightly.
    “So, yes, there may be a little bit of a slowdown,” Pick said, adding that he’ll wait to see how it all plays out.
    Barclays CEO C. S. Venkatakrishnan said on CNBC on Tuesday that he believes the Fed will cut on the margin, partly due to the softness in the labor market.
    Traders are also expecting to see the Fed lower rates. They currently see a near certainty that the Fed will cut by at least a quarter point, according to the CME Fedwatch tool based on Fed futures trading, and some are betting that there will be an even deeper cut of 50 basis points, or a half percentage point.
    Even if inflation problems haven’t tangibly presented themselves yet, Venkatakrishnan said the current economy is signaling that CEOs should have their eyes on the longer term.
    “We haven’t seen them yet, but we’ve got to be worried about them,” he said.
    PNC Financial Services CEO Bill Demchak also joined the wave, telling CNBC on Tuesday there’s “underlying pressures in our economy” between hiring workers, labor shortages, wage pressure and more.
    Demchak said he’s seeing evidence to support the BLS’ revised report, and he believes that evidence is likely the reason that the Fed will cut rates going forward, even as consumer spending is “driving the economy.”
    “There’s pressures inside of our economy that I don’t know disappear just because tariffs might get behind us at some point,” Demchak said. More

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    Inside Wealth: Family offices double down on stocks and dial back on private equity

    Goldman Sachs polled 245 global family offices to find out where the ultra-rich are placing their bets.
    Investment firms of uber-rich families are making opportunistic bets in stocks and secondaries when other investors retreat.
    Family offices trimmed their private equity bets, but more than a third plan to deploy more capital in the next 12 months.

    07 July 2025, USA, New York: A street sign reading “Wall Street” hangs on a post in front of the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan’s financial district. Photo: Sven Hoppe/dpa (Photo by Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images)
    Picture Alliance | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

    A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
    Family offices have ramped up their bets on stocks while dialing back their private equity bets, according to a new survey by Goldman Sachs.

    Investment firms of ultra-wealthy families reported an average allocation of 31% to public equities, up 3 percentage points from the bank’s last poll in 2023. Over the same two-year period, their allocation to private equity dropped from 26% to 21%, the largest change for all surveyed asset classes. 
    The shift to stocks was marked for family offices in the U.S. and the Americas, which raised their average allocation from 27% to 31%. As for private equity, their allocation dropped by 2 percentage points to 25% but still exceeds that of their international peers. The bank polled 245 worldwide family offices, two-thirds of which reported managing at least $1 billion in assets, from May 20 to June 18. 
    Tony Pasquariello, global head of hedge fund coverage at Goldman Sachs, described the portfolio as a “pro-risk asset mix,” as family offices have maintained a relatively high allocation to private equity.

    This is despite growing concerns about geopolitical risks and inflation. In the next 12 months, more than three-quarters of respondents said they expected tariffs to be the same or higher and expected valuations to stay the same or decrease.
    Family offices, especially those in the U.S., can face hefty tax bills if they make significant divestments, according to Sara Naison-Tarajano, leader of Goldman Sach’s Apex family office business. Moreover, she said, family offices tend to invest opportunistically when other market players retreat, as they did in April when tariff announcements roiled the markets. 

    “There are concerns in the market, geopolitical issues, trade war issues,” said Naison-Tarajano, who is also the global head of capital markets for the private wealth division. “If they’re concerned about these things, they’re going to be ready to put money to work when these dislocations happen.”
    Investing in public equities and ETFs is also the preferred way for family offices to invest in artificial intelligence, according to the survey. The vast majority (86%) of respondents said they were invested in AI in some capacity, with other popular options including investments in secondary beneficiaries of the AI boom like data centers or AI-focused VC funds.
    Goldman Sachs’ Meena Flynn added that family offices are still making opportunistic plays in private equity, with 72% investing in secondaries, up from 60% in 2023. Endowments and foundations have been divesting as they are pressed for liquidity, but family offices can scoop attractive assets at a discount and weather the exit slowdown.
    “They have the ability to invest in assets that they can hold over multiple generations and not be worried about an exit,” said Flynn, co-head of global private wealth management.
    And while family offices appear to be drawing down in private equity, 39% reported plans to invest more in the asset class in the next 12 months, the highest of any category. Nearly the same proportion (38%) intend to invest more in stocks.
    Most family offices did not expect to change their portfolios in the upcoming year. However, across every asset class, more family offices planned to increase their allocations rather than decrease. A third of respondents intend to deploy more capital while only 16% intended to increase their cash and cash equivalents allocation.
    “I think what this forward-looking picture tells us is that family offices realize the importance of staying invested, and they realize the importance of vintaging, especially with private equity,” Naison-Tarajano said.  

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    That said, family offices in the Americas are more bullish than their peers. More than a third reported not positioning for tail risk compared with 14% and 12% of firms in EMEA and APAC. The most popular method of preparing for a black-swan event was geographic diversification at 53%, with gold ranking second at 24%. While gold made up less than 1% of the average family office portfolio, Flynn said she has seen allocations in some portfolios as high at 15%.
    “Especially in regions where our clients are very worried about political instability, they’re actually holding gold in physical form,” Flynn said. “Many of our clients literally want to see the serial number and know where it is in the vault.”
    Asian family offices have also taken to using cryptocurrency as a hedge, according to Flynn. Only a quarter (26%) of APAC family offices said they were not interested in crypto, compared with 47% and 58% of their peers in the Americas and EMEA, respectively.
    Overall, a third of family offices are invested in crypto, up from 26% in 2023 and doubled from 2021. Of those who haven’t, Asian family offices reported the most interest (39%) in doing so, versus 17% of their peers. Flynn attributed much of their interest to concerns about geopolitics.  More

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    Can you make it to the end of this column? 

    They call it brainrot. Inane short-form videos just stimulating enough to keep you watching and scrolling, in a zombie-like manner, through whatever the algorithm presents next; not quite dull enough for you to tear your monetisable eyeballs away from the screen. Viewers are ambivalent. Such content offers a way to switch off. It also offers a way to waste hours of your life. More

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    How grain has gone from famine to feast

    THREE YEARS ago, calamity loomed. Russia’s war in Ukraine pitted two big grain exporters against each other. Breadbaskets elsewhere faced brutal droughts. Wheat prices hit records; maize and soyabeans also surged. Then, within weeks, they fell, and have carried on sliding since. They are now close to five-year lows. More

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    Meet Donald Trump’s aid agency

    Eight months after taking office, Donald Trump has blocked an astonishing amount of the cash America once sent abroad. In April officials had barely shut down USAID, America’s biggest foreign-aid agency, when they froze the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which was set up by George W. Bush to build infrastructure in poor countries. From the Global Engagement Centre (established by Barack Obama to support pro-democracy activists) to the Agency for Global Media (by Bill Clinton to fund foreign reporters), the institutions founded by presidents to do good abroad mostly no longer exist. More

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    Klarna’s stock jumps 15% in NYSE debut after pricing IPO above range

    Klarna opened at $52 after pricing its IPO above the company’s expected range.
    The IPO marks the latest in a growing list of high-profile tech listings this year, including Circle and Figma.
    Klarna competes in the buy now, pay later market with Affirm and Block’s Afterpay business.

    Sebastian Siemiatkowski, chief executive officer and co-founder of Klarna Holding AB, center, and Michael Moritz, chairman of Klarna Bank AB, center right, during the company’s initial public offering (IPO) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025.
    Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Shares of Klarna rose 15% in their New York Stock Exchange debut Wednesday, closing at $45.82 after the Swedish fintech priced its IPO above its expected range.
    Klarna, known for its popular buy now, pay later products, priced shares at $40 on Tuesday, raising $1.37 billion for the company and existing shareholders.

    The IPO marks the latest in a growing list of high-profile tech listings this year, suggesting increased demand from Wall Street for new offerings. Companies like stablecoin issuer Circle and design software platform Figma soared in their respective debuts. Meanwhile, crypto exchange Gemini is expected to go public later this week.
    “To me, it really just is a milestone,” Klarna’s co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told CNBC in an interview on Wednesday. “It’s a little bit like a wedding. You prepare so much and you plan for it and it’s a big party. But in the end — marriage goes on.”
    The stock opened at $52 before dropping as the day progressed. At the close, the company was valued at about $17.3 billion.
    Klarna’s entry into the public markets will test Wall Street’s excitement about the direction of its business. The company has in recent months talked up its move into banking, rolling out a debit card and personal deposit accounts in the U.S.
    Klarna has signed 700,000 card customers in the U.S. so far and has 5 million people on a waiting list seeking access to the product, Siemiatkowski told CNBC. He added that Klarna Card represents a different proposition to rival fintech Affirm’s card offering, which has attracted 2 million users since its launch in 2021.

    “We’re attracting a slightly different audience maybe than the Affirm card,” Siemiatkowski said. “I get the impression that is more a card where people use it simply to be able to have financing with interest on slightly higher tickets.”
    In addition to Affirm, Klarna also competes with Afterpay, which was acquired for $29 billion in 2021 by Square, now a unit of Block.
    Klarna faces some potential regulatory headwinds. In the U.K., the government has proposed new rules to bring BNPL loans under formal oversight to address affordability concerns regarding the market.

    A banner for Swedish fintech Klarna, hangs on the front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to celebrate the company’s IPO in New York City, U.S., September 10, 2025.
    Brendan McDermid | Reuters

    The IPO is poised to generate billions of dollars in returns for some of Klarna’s long-time investors. Existing shareholders are offering the bulk of Klarna shares — 28.8 million — on the public market. At its IPO price of $40, that translates to almost $1.2 billion. Meanwhile, Klarna raised $222 million from the IPO.
    Sequoia, which first backed Klarna in 2010, has invested $500 million in total. The venture firm sold 2 million of its 79 million shares in the IPO, meaning it’s generated an overall return of about $2.65 billion, based on the offer price.
    Andrew Reed, a partner at Sequoia, told CNBC that he was still in college when the firm made its first investment in an “alternative payments company in Stockholm.” The early work, he said, was around expanding in Europe.
    “Being here in New York 15 years later with over 100 million consumers and over $100 billion of GMV [gross merchandise value] and close to a million merchants, it is staggering what one year after another of execution and growth and Sebastian’s long-term vision can do,” Reed said.
    Another Klarna investor hasn’t been so lucky. Japan’s SoftBank led a 2021 funding round in Klarna at a $46 billion valuation and has since seen the value of its stake plunge significantly.
    WATCH: CNBC’s interview with Klarna CEO Sebastian Siematkowski More

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    Air India CEO says carrier embracing ‘new normal’ of safety focus after deadly crash

    Air India Flight 171 crashed seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad, in western India, in June, killing all but one of the 242 people onboard, plus 19 people on the ground.
    The preliminary report indicated confusion in the cockpit after the plane’s fuel switches were turned off.
    Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the carrier has embraced a “new normal” and a stepped-up safety focus.

    An Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.
    Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

    LONG BEACH, Calif. — Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the carrier has embraced a “new normal” and a stepped-up safety focus following the crash of one of its planes in June, the deadliest aviation disaster in a decade.
    All but one of the 242 people on board Air India Flight 171 on June 12 were killed when the Boeing Dreamliner, bound for London, crashed seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad in western India. Another 19 other people were killed on the ground.

    A preliminary report released in July showed confusion in the cockpit when fuel cutoff switches were flipped off. The cockpit voice recording captured one pilot asking the other why he cut off the fuel and the other responding that he did not.
    “The investigation is still ongoing, so I can’t comment too freely, but this has been an absolutely devastating event for the people involved, for families, for the company, for staff, and our focus over the last two months has been very much to support them in every way possible,” Wilson said at the Airline Passenger Experience Association’s conference and expo in Long Beach, California, on Tuesday.

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    “We continue to work with the regulator on the investigation and ensuring that whatever learnings come about from that investigation are put into play. For the moment, the preliminary report indicates nothing wrong with the aircraft, nothing wrong with the engines, nothing wrong with the airlines operation, but we’ve taken a significant safety pause to ensure all of our practices and procedures are fully embedded, and people are fully embracing a new normal of even extra focus on safety, and the focus continues to be on the people that were affected,” he said.
    Air India had been in the middle of a massive modernization effort to better compete with other carriers and gain new customers in India’s fast-growing aviation market at the time of the crash. The refresh began after Tata Group privatized the 93-year-old carrier from the government three years ago.
    That revamp is continuing with new cabins and better technology, said Wilson, an airline veteran who has previously served as CEO of Scoot, Singapore Airlines’ low-cost carrier. The carrier has placed orders for some 570 aircraft.
    “Once Air India was privatized [we] could adopt more normal private sector practices, could make long-term decisions, had the capital to invest,” he said.

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