🥊 Axios AM: Trump's new fork

Plus: Great sports stat | Thursday, January 26, 2023

Open in app View in browser   Presented By Enbridge   Axios AM By Mike Allen · Jan 26, 2023 👋 Hello, Thursday! Smart Brevity™ count: 1,198 words ... 4½ mins. Edited by Kate Nocera. 🇺🇦 Situational awareness: The decision by the U.S. and Germany to send tanks to Ukraine was hailed across the West. Russia today launched a wave of missile and self-exploding drone attacks across Ukraine. Get the latest.     1 big thing: Trump's new fork Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios   By reinstating former President Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts, Meta is pushing him to a moment of truth about his financially troubled social-media app, Truth Social, Axios' Sara Fischer writes. Why it matters: Trump raised hundreds of millions of dollars to create Truth Social after he was barred from many platforms after 1/6. Now he has to decide between sticking to his new company — or reaping the benefits of diving onto Facebook and Instagram. What's happening: Trump was invited back to Twitter in November but hasn't tweeted, out of solidarity with Truth Social. Nick Clegg, Meta's president, global affairs, told Sara and me that he doesn't know if Trump will accept the invitation. 👂 What I'm hearing: Trump doesn't view Facebook as a direct competitor to Truth Social. So he might dive in there faster than he has on Twitter. And his campaign has long viewed Facebook as one of his super powers. 🖼️ The big picture: In the past two years, Meta has instituted a slew of new rules that address everything from speech denouncing elections to newsworthy, yet controversial, speech from people in power. After yesterday's announcement, Meta staffers met with Trump associates to explain the new guardrails that are being implemented as his accounts are reactivated, sources told Axios. Between the lines: During Trump's campaigns and presidency, Twitter was his megaphone. Facebook was his cash register. Re-engaging on Facebook and Instagram would give Trump the ability to advertise to his more than 57 million followers across them as he pursues his 2024 presidential campaign. 🥊 Reality check: It could signal to investors in the company that is looking to take Truth Social public that he's not confident Truth Social can deliver on its promise of reaching 56 million users by 2024. "If Trump elects to start using Facebook and [Instagram] again it will be a sign of weakness and an admission that his efforts to reach audiences more directly have failed," a former senior Trump official told Axios. Those platforms "smacked him in the face, and if he comes back crawling, it's pathetic," the former official added. "It highlights how useless Truth is. It's a test of who needs who more." Behind the scenes: Trump has had internal conversations about rejoining Twitter, NBC's Marc Caputo and Jonathan Allen report. Share this story.     2. 🚗 Tesla acts more like a car company Data: FactSet. Chart: Axios Visuals As Tesla gets bigger and more mature, it's doing things by the book — rather than rewriting it, Axios Closer co-author Nathan Bomey reports. Why it matters: Tesla has long dominated the electric-vehicle industry — directing the current. Now, Tesla is increasingly flowing with the current — looking more like a traditional car company. In Q4 earnings yesterday, Tesla reported record profit and revenue, and signaled it's stepping back from some high-flying ways: Tesla is juicing demand by lowering prices — like a regular car company. It's emphasizing cost prudence — like mature automakers. It announced plans to move away from its tradition of bunching vehicle sales toward the end of each quarter — a strategy it often deployed to meet or exceed sales targets, but with punishing effects on workers who had to scramble to deliver vehicles. The bottom line: Tesla's price cuts — averaging $10,000 per vehicle in the U.S., according to Evercore ISI — have stoked demand, CEO Elon Musk said on the earnings call. "We currently are seeing orders at almost twice the rate of production," he said. "Price really matters." Share this story.     3. 🤖 Chatbot passes law-school exams Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios   ChatGPT averaged C+ when University of Minnesota law professors used it to generate answers for exams in four courses last semester, then graded them blindly alongside actual students' tests, Reuters reports. The humans averaged B+. But if applied across the curriculum, the chatbot's scores were enough to earn a law degree. Lead study author Jonathan Choi called ChatGPT a "pretty mediocre law student": "The bigger potential for the profession here is that a lawyer could use ChatGPT to produce a rough first draft and just make their practice that much more effective." Read the paper, "ChatGPT Goes to Law School."     A message from Enbridge See how working together is building tomorrow     Enbridge created the largest energy-related Indigenous economic partnership in North America. The deets: 23 First Nation and Métis communities have acquired a stake in 7 Enbridge-operated pipelines in Canada for $1.12 billion. Learn more.     4. 🍽️ Hot diet: Climatarian Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios   Move over, locavores: A slew of new labels — from "climavore" to "reducetarian" — reflect the trend of people eating with sustainability in mind to reduce their climate "foodprint," Jennifer A. Kingson writes in Axios What's Next. Why it matters: Food manufacturers, restaurants, and supermarkets are racing to cater to the zeal for lower-carbon eating choices. What's happening: People are eschewing plastic packaging, ingredients flown in from afar, and foods that are environmentally damaging to produce. The "eat local" mantra is being replaced by the notion that what you eat is more important — since transportation is sometimes just a small part of your meal's carbon footprint. Restaurant chains — including Chipotle and Panera — are putting "carbon labels" on their foods. 📖 There's a dizzying nomenclature affiliated with climate-conscious eating, with meaningful yet hard-to-parse differences. "Sustainatarians" eat some meat but filter their diet through an environmental lens. "Regenivore" — food from companies actively healing the planet — is a hot labeling trend, the N.Y. Times reported. Share this story.     5. 🔋 Global green-energy spending tops $1T Data: BloombergNEF. (Electrolyzers had no investment until 2021.) Chart: Alice Feng/Axios Spending on the global transition to carbon-free forms of energy totaled at least $1.1 trillion in 2022, Andrew Freedman writes in Axios Generate from data out this morning. Why it matters: This is the first time that such funding — including tech for renewables, and electric vehicles and charging stations— topped the trillion-dollar mark for one year. 🇨🇳 China is significantly outspending every other country, at about $546 billion — about half the global total The U.S. ranks a distant second. Go deeper: Read the release ... Read the report.     6. 🏀 Sports stat du jour Thompson-Boling Arena, home of the Volunteers. Photo: Donald Page/NCAA Photos via Getty Images ESPN's "College GameDay" is in Knoxville tonight for the first of three women's basketball stops this season — matching the previous total for the show's 18-year existence, Jeff Tracy writes for Axios Sports. The clash of women's hoops powerhouses — UConn vs. Tennessee — is part of the annual "We Back Pat," honoring the late Pat Summitt, who led Tennessee to 1,098 wins in her 38 years as head coach. Why it matters: Investment in — and coverage of — women's sports is on the rise. 📺 The backstory: "College GameDay," synonymous with football, aired its first on-campus pre-game show in 1993. The show's popularity spawned a basketball spinoff in 2005, which has been almost exclusively dedicated to men's games (142 since 2005). Between the lines: "GameDay" is a way to create excitement around a marquee matchup — something that has been the norm in men's sports for decades, and is slowly becoming a reality in women's sports, too. Summitt retired in 2012 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and died in 2016 at age 64. "We Back Pat" brings awareness to the Pat Summitt Foundation, which is dedicated to finding a cure for Alzheimer's. More on the game.     A message from Enbridge Taking action to advance renewable energy     Enbridge's renewables portfolio has grown from a single wind farm in 2002 to 47 facilities in operation and construction. An example: Enbridge accelerated its renewable growth strategy with the acquisition of America's third largest onshore wind developer. Learn more.   🕶️ Thanks for starting your day with us. Please invite your friends to sign up. Are you a fan of this email format? Your essential communications — to staff, clients and other stakeholders — can have the same style. Axios HQ, a powerful platform, will help you do it.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. To stop receiving this newsletter, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox. And make sure you subscribe to Mike's afternoon wrap up, Axios PM.   Follow Axios on social media: