# Musk Merger, Palantir Growth, and Tariff Shifts

**Podcast:** Bloomberg Daybreak: US Edition
**Published:** 2026-02-03

## Transcript

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Bloomberg Audio Studios.
Good morning.
I'm Nathan Hager.
And I'm Cameron Moscow.
Here are the stories we're following today.
Karen, we begin with efforts to reopen the government four days into a partial shutdown.
President Trump is urging House Republicans to pass the measure that would fund the Homeland Security Department for two weeks.
That's to allow for more time to negotiate on limits to immigration enforcement.
The President says even Democrats want to see a shutdown now.
President Trump spoke from the Oval Office.
A couple of Republican holdouts, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, and Tennessee's Tim Burchett dropped their opposition to the bill after speaking with the White House.
That clears the way for a vote today.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffrey says Democrats are pushing for dramatic changes.
Body cameras turned on.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Now Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome says ICE agents will start wearing body cameras in Minneapolis after the outcry over two American deaths there last month.
Nathan President Trump says he's seeking one billion dollars in damages from Harvard University after the New York Times reported that his administration had backed off demands for $200 million to satisfy accusations of wrongdoing by the Ivy League institution.
Republican Virginia Fox spoke at a committee hearing on the contempt vote.
In another development, Nathan, the NFL says it will review emails that have surfaced between Jeffrey Epstein and New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch.
Dozens of them were released in the Justice Department's latest batch of millions of Epstein files.
Commissioner Roger Goodell says it's too soon to say whether Tish will face punishment.
And we'll look at how that falls under the policy.
But I think we take one step at a time.
Let's get the facts first.
Right now we're talking to them.
Nathan, President Trump and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi have agreed to a surprise deal to slash American tariffs.
U.S.
levies on Indian goods are being cut from 25 to 18 percent, while an additional 25 percent punitive duty tied to purchases of Russian oil is being scrapped.
Writing on social media, the president said India had agreed to buy 500 billion dollars of U.S.
goods and halt crude purchases from Russia as part of the deal.
That precious metal plunged more than 30 percent since last week.
James Steele is chief precious metals analyst at HSBC.
Any commodity that has this parabolic rally that gold and silver had, and the new entrance into the market, which we they they were flooding in uh and have been for for for many, many months now.
It really does invite a uh volatility and the profit-taking stroke liquidation um on any news or developments that that run counter to gold.
HSBC Chief Precious Metals analyst James Steele thinks gold may reach fifty five hundred dollars an ounce this year.
Right now, it's trading at 4919.
In company news, Nathan, shares of Palantir, they're up more than 10 percent this morning.
The analytics company forecasts revenue for the year that significantly exceeded Wall Street estimates.
Gil Luria covers Palantir for D.A.
Davidson.
They exceeded very high expectations.
Their growth accelerated from more than 60 percent to more than 70 percent.
There's no other software company even close.
If you look at software companies two through ten, they're happy to grow somewhere between 20 and thirty percent, and they're usually decelerated.
And DA Davidson's Gilluria, it's been a tough go for Palantir as of late.
The stock has dropped 29% from its November peak and was down 17% to start 2026.
Karen, the world's richest man is looking to fuel his increasingly costly ambitions in artificial intelligence and space exploration.
Bloomberg's John Tucker is here with more.
John, what is um Elon Musk up to?
Well, Nate uh Musk combining SpaceX and XAI.
This is a deal that values the enlarged entity at one and a quarter trillion dollars.
The deal brings together two of the largest closely held companies in the world.
Uh it all sounds a little Buck Rogers.
SpaceX said it acquired XAI to form the most ambitious vertically integrated innovation engine on and off Earth with AI, rockets, space based, internet, direct to mobile device communications, and the world's foremost real-time information and free speech platform.
That's free speech, as defined by Elon Musk, in explaining the rationale for the deal, Must says in the statement that the least expensive way to do AI computations within two to three years will be in space.
SpaceX also requesting permission to launch as many as a million satellites into Earth orbit for this plan.
The company's still expected to hold an initial public offering later this year, according to our sources.
In New York, I'm John Tucker, Bloomberg Radio.
Time now for a look at some of the other stories making news in New York and around the world.
And for that, we're joined by Bloomberg's Michael Barr.
Michael, good morning.
Good morning, Karen.
President Donald Trump called on Republicans to seize control of election processes from individual states and nationalize it, signaling that he may push for drastic measures to change the dynamics of the midterm elections.
President Trump's powers to change election policies are limited.
The U.S.
Constitution endows state legislatures with the power to set the time, place, and manner of holding elections.
New York City Mayor Zeran Mamdani said Monday that the bitter cold claimed two more lives in the city.
Sixteen of our fellow New Yorkers have passed away outside during this brutal stretch of cold.
In 13 of these cases, preliminary findings indicate that hypothermia played a role.
And three of these deaths appear to be overdose deaths.
More autopsy results are still coming in from the medical examiner's office.
Mamdani says they are continuing to do everything in our power to get every New Yorker into a shelter where they will be warned.
Weather related deaths have also been reported in New Jersey, Long Island, and across the nation.
A dozen Palestinians returned to be allowed into Gaza, and a few medical evacuees exited to Egypt Monday after the long-awaited reopening of the Rafa border crossing was marred by delays.
Authorities say Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of today's show host, Savannah Guthrie, may have been kidnapped while she slept.
She's been missing since Saturday night when she was in her home.
They say if she does not receive her regular medication soon, her life could be at risk.
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon answered questions about his arrest over coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church.
Lemon spoke with ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.
I'm not a protester.
I went there to be a journalist.
I went there to chronicle and document and record.
Lemon also says he was arrested during the pre-grammy coverage in Los Angeles, although he had offered days earlier to surrender to federal agents.
Lemon is charged under the Face Act, making it illegal to obstruct or prevent people from exercising religious freedoms in places of worship.
Global News, 24 hours a day, and whenever you want it, with the Bloomberg News Now, I'm Michael Barr, and this is Bloomberg.
Karen.
We bring in John Stash Hour.
That's Darren College basketball double header.
The ACC North Carolina beats Syracuse 877 of the Big 12 Kansas, one 6461 at Texas Tech.
NBA trade deadline, Thursday, three o'clock.
Does Milwaukee trade Yannis under the Kumpo?
The team said to be most interested.
The Knicks, Miami, Golden State, and Minnesota.
At the Super Bowl, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says work to be needs to be done on improving diversity.
Ten coaches were just hired, none of them African American.
That's your Bloomberg Sports Update.
Stay with us.
More from Bloomberg Daybreak.
Coming up after this.
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Good morning.
I'm Nathan Hager.
Diplomacy may be taking a front seat between the U.S.
and Iran.
President Trump says he expects new talks on a new nuclear deal in the coming days, even as he continues to warn of a big armada in the Persian Gulf.
Defense Secretary Pete Heggseth says Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.
Uh or we have other options.
That's why the war department exists.
Defense Secretary Pete Heggseth spoke on a tarmac in Florida.
This morning we're joined by Bloomberg News National Security Reporter, Nick Wadham.
So uh Nick, the president says talks are coming while he's still warning of these big ships in the Gulf.
Where do things stand this morning?
That's a great question, Nathan.
Uh the administration is not saying, but what we do know is that there's the possibility at least of an off-ramp.
Um U.S.
officials are expected to meet face to face with uh Iranian officials uh in the coming days.
Um, though uh, you know, the terms of those discussions are not clear, given that Trump has said earlier the Iranian nuclear program had been completely obliterated by those airstrikes uh last June.
So what exactly they would negotiate over um is one big question.
And then of course the other is, you know, the president, as we saw from Venezuela, he deploys a big uh military force in the region.
It's gonna take something pretty big uh for him not to uh feel the compulsion to use it.
So um we've got a lot of a lot of questions swirling around what exactly these talks will look like.
Is there still the question about what the ultimate goals are here?
Because last month the president was talking about potentially attacking Iran over the the protest crackdown in that country.
Now it seems there's been a pivot to putting nuclear uh talks back in the discussion.
Right.
So this has been one of the issues that's been a little bit confusing to try to discern what the administration's strategy actually is, because as you mentioned, President Trump had indicated uh earlier that he was sending these military forces there essentially as a way to get Iran to stop cracking down on these protests that have rocked the country in recent weeks.
But then he he came out with this sort of surprise social media post last week where he said, you know, his big demand was no nuclear weapon.
We've since learned that uh it seems the U.S.
officials want to expand those discussions to put limits on Iran's uh ballistic missile program and also so that it doesn't fund proxy groups in the Middle East.
So that's a pretty expansive list of demands that Iran's gonna have a hard time agreeing to, especially on the ballistic missiles.
But again, we have not really gotten precise clarity on what on what President Trump actually wants the Iranians to do.
Of course, we heard over the weekend from uh Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah warning of a regional war if the country's attacked.
At the same time, Iran's been holding uh regional discussions.
Do we have a sense of where Iran's stance is right now?
Well, uh, you know, they they have a very tricky line to what walk because, you know, on the one hand, the U.S.
has uh launched airstrikes against them directly under President Trump last June, and that was pretty devastating.
There, and there was this 12-day war uh with Israel, where Israel also essentially gained total dominance over their over their skies.
So uh they they have to be careful there while also trying to retain their own legitimacy and and uh project a sense of control.
So they have said, listen, we are going we are willing to have these conversations with the U.S., but we are not gonna do so under threat.
Now, obviously, if you have an aircraft carrier off of Iran, it does appear they're not gonna have much choice but to do those conversations under threat.
But I think what you're seeing is they are looking for the U.S., at least for now, whether this is unrealistic or not, to try to tone down the rhetoric a little bit so they can do these talks and save some face uh heading into them.
What the outcome will be and what they're actually gonna be forced to agree to is another thing entirely.
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