Return to Transcripts main page
Quest Means Business
SpaceX Shares Plunge After First Earnings Report; Progressive El- Sayed Wins Michigan State Primary; Oil Companies Concerned Supply Disruption Could Widen, A.I. Models Impersonate, Deceive in Security Tests; Showcasing Africa's World-Class Infrastructure Exports; FIFA President Holds Crisis Talks in Morocco; Gerontocracy in the U.S.; Trump Administration Refunds $100 Billion from Overturned Tariffs. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired August 05, 2026 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:18]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": And there it is, closing bell ringing on Wall Street.
We have a mixed market one way or another, but the gains continue for the Dow, where we are at a record at half a percent. The other two, the S&P and
the NASDAQ, they are not so fortunate, they are down just a tad.
Bring trading to an end, sir. And a one and a two and a one, two, three. The day is over. Those are the markets and these are the main events we
will talk about over the next hour.
SpaceX, the shares are now at an all-time low or near as its A.I. spending plans are rattling investors.
The chief executive of the energy giant, Crescent Petroleum will tell us the Gulf crisis rewired the global economy. He will be with me in just a
moment.
And booking.com is fending off competition from A.I. We will have the Booking, CEO, Glenn Fogel in a moment or three, because we are live from
New York on Wednesday. It is August the 5th. I am Richard Quest and yes, I mean business.
Good evening.
Tonight, we start with SpaceX, which has crashed a rocket into the moon whilst on Wall Street, arguably, I could make puns about its shares
crashing or plunging, it doesn't really matter, look at the price.
Today's 13 percent drop, it comes after the company released its first earnings report since going public. Its investors are rattled. Why? They
invested in A.I. It has ballooned to about $16 billion.
At the same time, the SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket booster has officially crashed into the moon after traveling through space for 18 months. The
company says it followed all the rules and that the crash was just the result of simple physics.
The shares of SpaceX helped drag down the NASDAQ into the red, that's why you see a bifurcated market. And with the Dow at a record, the NASDAQ is --
well, it is largely NVIDIA that has pulled it all up.
David Goldman is in New York. David is with me.
David, the market that we are seeing for SpaceX, this IPO was weird to begin with and now, we are seeing, really arguably more realistic pricing
for this stock.
DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, weird to begin with is right. There is a very strange thing that's going on in the market right
now, Richard, which is that folks are not paying attention to the things that you would think they are paying attention to with SpaceX, like profit
and sales. They are paying attention to something entirely different.
So what are they paying attention to?
Well, one of the things and I apologize, speaking of weird, there is a picture of Michigan behind me. We are supposed to have the SpaceX stock,
but you know what? We are going to wing it. We are having technical difficulties, too.
The thing that they're paying attention to is how much they're spending on A.I., because they spent -- SpaceX spent more than $18 billion in three
months alone on A.I. That was up from $10 billion in the quarter before. And so yes, they narrowed their loss to $500 million from $4.3 billion in
the previous quarter, but the thing is, they are --
Yes, go ahead.
QUEST: Let's -- I want to pull this apart. I want to pull this apart. The IPO was based largely on -- I mean, the price that it got and the bump was
largely on the back of, if you will, faith and hope in Elon Musk and the future because it had no rationality, it was all about hope of what might
come next.
The people who have lost are those investors who jumped in right at the beginning. There are some who suggest this stock is really about 40 bucks
on a valuation basis. So, what do you make of all that?
GOLDMAN: Well, $40.00 sounds like a lot less than $108.00 to me. I think that, you know, that's a -- that might be a stretch.
What we know is that when you look at their actual sales, you think that a company that's worth $110.00 per share now, when the stock is growing 92
percent, that's going to be a $40.00 stock? I mean, come on, this is a real company with making real money. Well, it is not making a ton of money, it
is actually losing $541 million in the quarter.
But look at how much it lost in the quarter before, $4.3 billion.
[16:10:10]
This Starlink, that's the consumer business, that grew 66 percent over the course of the past year. That's significant. That's a real business. And
its A.I. sales grew 250 percent.
The question is, Richard, it just has to do with --
QUEST: When you say -- just a second, when you say its A.I. sales, what is it doing? What is this A.I. sales?
GOLDMAN: So it is making money on a few things. Remember it bought xAI, right? So now xAI and SpaceX are the same company and they are licensing
the Grok product and other things, two enterprises that are using it.
Now, it is not OpenAI, it is not Anthropic, it is not Google. It is definitely at the moment, and also it ran, but in a massive, massive
industry like A.I., you can still on a much smaller product, make quite a bit of money.
The thing is, you got to spend to get there and this is the big thing for investors right now.
QUEST: And not spend just to find -- just to put it in perspective, that spend is on what?
GOLDMAN: Well, they're spending on a few things. One is all the infrastructure, and remember this isn't normal infrastructure. Part of what
they want to do is launch these data centers into space. You get the free cooling, you get the free electricity. And with Starlink, you can beam that
signal down.
So there is an added expense to what SpaceX is trying to do. But in addition to that, it is all the chips that you need to buy and we all know
that they are really, really difficult to get. There is basically one provider. They are trying to get the same chips that everyone else is
getting, and as a smaller company, it is harder.
QUEST: Good to see you, David. Thank you. I like Michigan, nothing wrong with having Michigan behind you.
GOLDMAN: It is great.
QUEST: There we go.
GOLDMAN: We should go and take a road trip sometime.
QUEST: And a good reason why, progressive Democrats in the U.S. have scored a major win. Abdul El-Sayed defeated his moderate opponent and the
Democratic Party establishment to win the -- and this is why he had it behind him -- Michigan Democratic Senate primary.
President trump is wasting no time cheering El-Sayed's victory, calling it great news for the Republican Party. El-Sayed will face President Trump's
pick, the former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers in the midterm vote in November.
Arlette Saenz is in Detroit in Michigan. Great place, wonderful place. But look, if I am watching this program, which I hope I am somewhere else in
the world -- Middle East, Africa or over in the caucus and somebody says to me, why do I care about this race in Michigan? What is the interest in the
bigger picture? What would you tell them?
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Richard, this race here in Michigan is really shining a light on the direction that voters here in the U.S.
wants the Democratic Party to take.
This victory by Abdul El-Sayed is a huge boost to the progressive movement as they face a lot of questions about whether they could succeed in places
that weren't just solidly blue Democratic areas like New York City. The fact that he was able to win the Democratic primary here does show some
advancement for those progressive and left causes, but this has been an incredibly narrow margin of victory, much more narrow than what El-Sayed
had been hoping for.
There is only about a one percent difference between himself and the more moderate candidate, Congresswoman Haley Stevens here in the contest. So now
the big question is whether he will be able to unite the Democratic Party and stitch together a coalition that would be successful here in November.
The general electorate that's going to be voting in November is very different from this Democratic primary. It is going to include many more
Independent swing type voters, as this is a state that has swung between presidents' parties for many years now.
President Donald Trump won here back in 2024, but El-Sayed is hoping he can win this Senate seat for Democrats and Michigan is just a key part of any
party's math and road to the majority if they want to win control of the Senate next year.
QUEST: You see, here is the problem. Has it been tested yet that these progressives, or more left or more socialist or whatever phrase you want to
use -- has it been tested when we actually get into a general election, not just the primary?
Now, Mamdani did it in New York, but now we are going to see whether or not in those middle ground states, that same philosophy works.
SAENZ: Yes, this really will be the biggest test of the progressive movement in this November fight and you have to think not just about a
state like Michigan. There is also Wisconsin, where there is a Democratic socialist who could potentially become the Democratic nominee for governor
in that state. That is another battleground, very moderate swing state.
[16:10:19]
So those would be two that we will really be watching in November to see whether these progressive arguments can really be successful beyond just
the talk amongst Democrats and whether they might have a broader appeal to that general election audience.
Progressives have long argued that they think that they need to have this economic populist pitch, something that President Trump himself had
embraced in his past campaigns, and so they are hoping that that might be something that will resonate here with voters in places like Michigan,
places like Wisconsin and you also have to remember the fact that President Donald Trump's approval ratings in these states with voters are very low.
There is a lot of frustration about his handling of the economy, in addition to issues stemming from the war with Iran.
So there is an environment that really favors Democrats right now. The question is whether these progressive policies and candidates will be able
to be successful with a broader swath of voters in November.
QUEST: And that's the big question. Thank you. Good to see you in Michigan. I like Michigan.
Anyway, U.S. President Donald Trump says an announcement about reopening of the Straits of Hormuz could be made as soon as today. Iran is denying that
they are talking with the U.S., instead, Iran appears to be closing in on a deal with Oman for commercial shipping to pass through the waterway. This
was, of course, not the first time we've heard of this one.
Tehran, though, says any deal would not automatically reopen the Straits for the oil companies. They are warning of dwindling energy supplies.
On Tuesday, it was Saudi Aramco said that by its estimates, the world has lost around 2.5 billion barrels of oil since the war began, and that could
take 18 months to replenish. To make matters more difficult, energy infrastructure in the Middle East has been hurt badly by the fighting.
Crescent Petroleum's chief executive, Majid Jafar, said in June that direct damage had exceeded 60 billion, and he told U.S. leaders that all in all,
the industry was losing more than $1 billion a day.
Majid Jafar is the CEO of Crescent Petroleum. He is with me now.
Good to see you, Majid. Thank you very much.
Look, the situation we've got is very strong profits in a sense from some oil companies because they're booking the money at a much higher cost of
oil. But of course, for those on the other side of it, with infrastructure, with difficulties bearing the losses or the difficulties of the costs.
MAJID JAFAR, CEO, CRESCENT PETROLEUM: And there has also been a lot of money made from trading because of the volatility -- extreme volatility.
We've been on a roller coaster with oil price.
But in terms of the economic harm, it is really hitting Asia. There is an Asian economic crisis in many ways. I know the price of the pump matters in
the U.S., but whether it is Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia announcing work from home, cutting flights, the cost of food from the
impact on fertilizers, there are estimates of $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion of global GDP impact from this war.
And in our own region, we grew at five percent last year. It is more like one percent this year with many countries in the region having double
digits decline in GDP.
So the impact is significant and it could be even worse if this goes on.
QUEST: Right. But for Crescent, where are you actually seeing the problems at the moment?
JAFAR: So we had a very turbulent time during the peak of the war, earlier in the year. Five times we had to reduce or even cease production because
of risks.
Luckily we weren't -- thankfully, we weren't actually hit attacked in our facilities in places like Iraq, although we were before the war by drones
and even our group operations in Egypt very recently, there was an attack near Dumyat, which is not far away.
So the turbulence is very much still around and I think the move that we are seeing across our region and our industry is from efficiency towards
resilience and resilience, means diversifying your customers, your suppliers and the infrastructure of your entire supply chain. And I think
that a new normal is where we are heading.
QUEST: And at the end of the day, getting the product out. Now, the Strait, I mean, there are a few ships going through, but there is nothing like
there was before. The alternatives are few and far between.
So what are you doing?
[16:15:00]
JAFAR: Yes. So a lot of our gas supply in local power stations for the local economy in power places like Iraq, millions of people with affordable
gas for power. And then there are some exports that are taking place over road. The UAE has a pipeline that goes to the East Coast and of course, the
East-West Pipeline in Saudi, although even the Bab El-Mandeb is now being affected.
But other countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq have fewer options and those options are going to take a while. So the impact of the Strait, I think,
hasn't been fully felt. We've had buffers of Strategic Petroleum Reserves, which, as you reported now are at a 40-year low in the U.S. and U.S.
increasing its supply, while China suppressed its demand. Those have all gone now.
So if this continues, I expect that the optimism we are seeing in the market might be short lived again, as it has been four times before this
year, and we could have significantly higher prices and inflationary impacts for the rest of the year.
QUEST: Right. Now, you've just said something incredibly important because you've beautifully dissected the reasons why we have not seen, as you say,
increased U.S. supply, constrained Chinese demand, withdrawal downs or drawdowns on the Strategic Petroleum Reserves.
Is there a view that this can carry on, if not ad infinitum, at least for the foreseeable future, without serious repercussions? Because that's what
the market seems to be saying?
JAFAR: Yes. I mean, the market sees hope with the latest headline, but then soon after the physical reality kicks in, as we've seen repeatedly, and
also the U.S. administration has continually signaled that a deal is around the corner, as it has again today. As you've just reported.
But the reality is, we are now in the sixth month of this crisis with no end in sight. And if it continues, I fear it will really start to bite.
Some of these take a while to kick in. For example, food prices, you know, the fertilizer impact changed planting this season, which is going to
affect food prices next year and billions of people, the most -- some of the most vulnerable people on our planet are going to feel that as well as
GDP growth and the engines of the global economy, which are, of course, Asia and Africa is going to be feeling it as well.
So I totally agree with you, the outlook is concerning if this continues as it has done now for over five months.
QUEST: I am grateful for your time tonight. Thank you for joining us from London. Good to see you, sir.
Bookings Holdings reported strong earnings last quarter. The site, though, is facing a shift in how its customers book travel. There is the CEO and we
will talk about how people book.
Stay where you are, sir. Do not move an inch -- after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:20:42]
QUEST: Booking Holdings is the owner of online travel sites like Priceline, Kayak and Cheap Flights reported strong second quarter demand, even as A.I.
chatbots shift vacation planning. So, we tried it ourselves, with just a quick trip to New York to Rome.
One A.I. prompt gave me exactly what I thought they should book, including flights, hotels and an estimated price.
Booking.com, a little more complicated, flights and stays were separate and there were more options for different preferences. What you're seeing, of
course, is the way in which organizations or people like booking.com and Marriott, for example, are trying to counter.
So I recently spoke to the Chief Customer Officer of Marriott about how A.I. actually works to feel more natural.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PEGGY ROE, CHIEF CUSTOMER OFFICE, MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL INC.: We just launched last week, Ask Bonvoy, and it is a test for our members for
conversational search. I think the industry I've been personally waiting for this forever when we could open up the funnel and just allow you to ask
us anything you want in terms of where you'd like to go.
And now, we are there, and I think it will open up a world of opportunity. It will collapse the funnel. It will allow you to solve your planning needs
faster.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Glenn Fogel is with me, chief executive of Booking Holdings. This is an interesting one because the challenger, you know, everybody is trying to
incorporate A.I. into their product.
But the risk, of course, is that ChatGPT just bypass you.
GLENN FOGEL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, BOOKING HOLDINGS: Well, Richard, thanks for having me and that has been a question for some time. I think
one of the things that we've been able to talk about that's very interesting, we talked about last night on our earnings call, less than one
percent -- less than one percent of the referrals to our business are coming from the large language models, meaning like ChatGPT or Gemini, less
than one percent, even though we know hundreds of millions of people are probably using these large language models to do their discovery.
But people are using lots of different ways to learn about where they might want to travel. What would be exciting? But when they want to buy, they
want to go to a place they can trust.
QUEST: Well, hang on. But in our discussions in the office today, we were talking about, they go to the LLMs to do the planning and there is a risk
the LLMs are sending those people direct to the airlines or direct to the hotels with a click through, as opposed to because really, to a large
extent, what Bookings has been doing for so long has been aggregating into the whole experience.
If you now have Gemini in chat, sending people directly to the airline and the hotels, how do you counter that?
FOGEL: Well, it is not actually happening and we don't believe it is going to happen quite the way you just described. So a couple of facts to bring
out. One, in terms of showing up when somebody prompts for information about travel, a lot of third party sources are saying we, at Booking are
showing up more than anybody, or certainly at the very top. That's the first thing.
The second thing is, we are doing our own LLM type style of models to create very much the same experience you would have going to a ChatGPT or
Gemini, only it is better because we are more personalizing it and we have special arrangements with our suppliers to give better pricing.
Plus, our connected trip makes it all the aspects of your travel needs in one place and giving you that trust, that customer service.
QUEST: That's out now. That is what I want to focus on because the fighting ground to me seems to be in the future: Who is going to give the better
service and after sales service? There is always going to be people who want the cheapest price. That's a given.
But the real fighting ground is going to be reputational service.
[16:25:05]
FOGEL: I agree and I will start off with saying, the best value, which will be price and service together will be us, not a ChatGPT or a Gemini.
Imagine if you have a problem in the middle of your trip, who are you going to call? Are you going to call Claude? Are you going to call ChatGPT? What
telephone number are you going to call? And what will they know about your trip?
That's why we believe in the long run, be able to provide all the elements of the trip, the best prices, the best service, and being there when that
customer needs you, that's how we continue to lead in the industry.
QUEST: How do you continue to lead as against the other OTAs, I mean, I know obviously you have a version of a rewards program, but as the Marriott
chief customer officer was making clear, it is the ability to keep the person in your walled garden.
FOGEL: Yes. No, and there is no doubt. Look, Marriott is a great partner of ours, as are all the large international chains, as are the airlines. We
are all good partners. And if somebody is a high loyalty level at Marriott, look, I understand I shouldn't be booking that person's needs at the
Marriott, they should be going to Marriott.
The fact is, though, most people in the world are not high status people at these large loyalty programs. Don't forget last -- you know, last quarter
we did 325 million room nights. We did $51 billion of travel. Most of that is not at those large chains. In fact, we talk about the percentage of our
hotel business from the top ten international chains, that is a low double digit percentage of our total amount of business.
So, I get it. If you are a Hilton or a Marriott or a core -- one of those big international chains, and you are a loyal one to them and you're top
rated and you've got status there, please, please continue to do it with them.
QUEST: We need to come and talk to you more often. We need to come and visit to get to really understand this, because those numbers that you're
giving a fascinating. Thank you for joining us.
Where are you going? Actually, where are you going on your summer holiday this year?
FOGEL: Switzerland, Interlochen -- my family will be doing some biking, some hiking, maybe some whitewater rafting in that area.
QUEST: Not another person who is going hiking. What is it with everybody and hiking these days? I don't know.
FOGEL: It's still happening. Everybody wants to be healthy.
QUEST: Oh, my executive producers are always going off hiking. Thank you, sir, for joining us. Very kind of you to have us tonight. Thank you.
All right, British regulators have flagged new incidents of A.I. agents carrying out unauthorized activities during testing. The A.I. Security
Institute says models from Anthropic and OpenAI tried to trick real people to fulfill certain challenges.
The report was published the same day A.I. companies met at The White House to discuss government testing of A.I. models before they are widely
released.
Anthropic and OpenAI confirmed that the incidents happened.
Jacob Ward is our CNN contributor. He is with me.
Now, look, we've had these stories before in some shape or form. My concern is somebody, not just the guardrails are taken off, but what happens when
the A.I. is told to pretend the guardrails are still there? In other words, it is the whole traitor syndrome. Pretend you're following the rules, but
go behind and do whatever you can to win.
We cannot put guardrails for that sort of mendacious, traitorous activity.
JACOB WARD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I mean, this is the problem we are facing here, Richard, right? Is that we, in theory, what the A.I. industry is
offering is a tool that figures out the way to get things done on its own - - does it in surprising and creative ways. That's the whole promise, right? Is that it is going to wander off into your life and figure out how to
optimize it in ways that will be helpful to you, but that even the makers of it can't necessarily predict.
And so in this case, you know, we are dealing here -- we are talking here about a test by British institute that that, you know, had special access
that you and I could not have to the early versions of these very frontier models and the ability to disable sort of security features, but it is the
behavior of the models once they were given these very hard jobs in this test, basically said, you know, solve this problem.
The thing wasn't told to go off and impersonate someone, which is what it wound up doing. It not only impersonates somebody, it impersonated a second
person to vouch for the first imaginary person's work. That was pretty nuts.
And here is the part that bothers me, is that the whole thing was only figured out when a random volunteer, a guy on GitHub, where programmers
share their work, spotted this, thought something was weird about it, and then he got attacked by the A.I. in the midst of that.
And I guess I would say the only other thing here, Richard, is that all of this, you mentioned The White House meeting, all of this is happening
against a background of there being no regulations, no voluntary --
QUEST: All right, so --
WARD: Sorry, no mandatory regulations around this. Just a bunch of voluntary frameworks.
[16:30:16]
QUEST: Jacob -- all right. But what regulation would work? Because as you know, we always say that you're only as good as your weakest link. There's
always going to be a bad actor. What regulation can there be that would be effective?
WARD: Well, we're about to find out, in part because the E.U.'s A.I. act also just went into effect on August 2nd. And so that regulation doesn't
require these companies to show their work to these regulators in advance and get approval. But it does enable E.U. regulators to come in and find
the hell out of these companies if they are found to have violated certain parts of the law.
And right now in the United States and in the U.K., we don't really have anything like that. Right? There's no real penalties one way or another.
And so whether that is the solution, whether that's the regulatory regime, we don't know. But certainly all these other countries around the world
that are trying to figure out how they're going to regulate it have been watching the American model in which there's basically no regulation and
will be watching the E.U. model, which is by far the tightest regulation we've seen outside of China. And that, I think, will be the real test for
what's going to work here -- Richard.
QUEST: Are you optimistic?
WARD: I mean, I just got to say, like, we have to keep in mind these companies. I mean, you know, a few months ago there was this thing called
OpenClaw. It was this like garage made agent that would go out into your life and you could give it an e-mail address and telephone number, and it
would just like run wild in your life. You know, that guy got hired by OpenAI a few months later. And so the idea that this is somehow a surprise
to these companies I think is not credible.
QUEST: Right.
WARD: These are companies specifically making systems they do not know how to control.
QUEST: Got it.
WARD: Because by the nature of it, the thing has random outputs. And so we just don't know whether anybody can make a fully safe version of this, or
whether the money that's on offer from these companies is going to be enough for people to say, well, maybe some risk is worth it here.
QUEST: I'm grateful. Thank you, sir.
WARD: Appreciate it.
QUEST: The Bahamas power grid is getting a boost this year with a little help from Egypt. In our new series "Africa Inc.," Adefemi Akinsanya
explains how a Cairo based industrial giant is proving that world class infrastructure can be built and exported from Africa.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ADEFEMI AKINSANYA, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Bahamas electrical grid will soon get a major upgrade, thanks to this new
piece of African-made infrastructure.
ANTHONY CHRISTIE, COO, BAHAMAS POWER AND LIGHT: Well, this transformer in particular will ensure that we provide a stable, reliable grid in order for
us to maintain supply to our customers. On about a third of this island, we need this new transformer to be installed and be placed on the grid.
It's over a million dollars, and it required not only the purchase of the equipment but also the logistics and other components involved in order to
get it here.
AKINSANYA (voice-over): The 70-ton transformer was built nearly 10,000 kilometers away in Egypt by Elsewedy Electric.
MOHAMED ELSEWEDY, VICE PRESIDENT, ELSEWEDY ELECTRIC: Egypt has lots of benefits for business from exporting, being the center of the world, and
the same time a low-cost country producing with low cost. We start in the Gulf, and then we started going through -- going also to Europe and the
States as well.
AKINSANYA (voice-over): Founded in 1938, Elsewedy Electric has grown from an Egyptian trading business into a global infrastructure player. And
transformers are only part of what powers that growth. About an hour north east of Cairo, this factory is part of Elsewedy's cable division, a
business the company says sold nearly 140,000 tons of wire and cable in the first nine months of 2025 alone.
AMR EL SAWAF, MANAGING DIRECTOR, ELSEWEDY CABLES: What makes a good cable that you are using the best materials with the best quality, and even the
best assets as per the specifications needed by each project, each client in each country of the world.
AKINSANYA (voice-over): But Elsewedy's business doesn't end on the factory floor. The real test is getting products from factories like this to
critical infrastructure projects thousands of kilometers away.
ELSEWEDY: The Bahamas project for us was like a reference to prove that we are up to the standard and up to the quality to start opening more projects
on that side of the world.
AKINSANYA (voice-over): And every successful delivery helps strengthen partnerships.
[16:35:02]
CHRISTIE: We sent a team of five persons on a factory acceptance test, so they got to go to Egypt and they got to see it in place before it was
shipped. So our team worked well with the OEM to make sure that all the specs were there, all information was shared, so that when it got to the
port, we could actually move it. So there's a lot of bits and pieces involved. We need many more transformers, so again there may be need to
reach out to them and work with them in order to ensure we have the equipment we need.
AKINSANYA (voice-over): Elsewedy believes the need for power infrastructure will only continue to accelerate.
ELSEWEDY: Demand will increase a lot because of EV cars, in addition to all the data centers that being built all around the world. So there is always
a demand for the coming, say, 10 to 15 years that it's growing year after year. The next phase for Elsewedy Electric's growth it's not only for
Elsewedy Electric, it's for the whole market to grow as well.
AKINSANYA (voice-over): And perhaps growing demand will lead to growing opportunities for other African companies in the sector.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: We will have more in just a moment. QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Hello, I'm Richard Quest. A lot more QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. Going to talk about it's no secret that government leaders in the U.S. tend to be
quite old. What are the economics and what does it mean? And the U.S. has now refunded more than half of the tariffs that it owes to corporate
America. Nearly $70 billion still to be repaid.
We'll get to those stories after the headlines because this is CNN. And here, the news comes first.
The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is celebrating its biggest victory of this election year. Abdul El-Sayed has won the Democratic Senate
primary in Michigan by a narrow margin. President Trump has said El-Sayed is a communist and that his win is great news for the Republican Party.
Russia launched a devastating onslaught of ballistic missiles at the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, overnight.
[16:40:02]
Officials say at least 17 people were killed. None of the missiles were intercepted by Ukraine's defenses. Kyiv's missile defense stockpile is
dangerously low, and Ukraine is pleading with Western allies for help.
Iran and Oman are reportedly close to finalizing the framework of a deal on a safe route for ships in the Strait of Hormuz by Friday. An Iranian
official says the regimes senior leadership will have to sign off on any potential agreement. President Trump says he believes a deal to reopen the
strait could be announced as soon as today. That is a claim rejected by Tehran.
FIFA's president has been holding crisis talks amid growing calls for new leadership at the organization. Gianni Infantino's unsuccessful gambit to
sell private stakes in football's World Cup has left his job uncertain. National Football Federations have withdrawn support for his reelection,
and soccer legend Luis Figo has called for Infantino to step down.
Don Riddell is with me.
Don, obviously QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. So let's put this into a business context. I mean, the first rule of any business is to carry your
shareholders with you or your board of directors with you. So is it really true that none of them had any idea? None of the member nations or the big
organizations had any idea this was being cooked up?
DON RIDDELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: That's how it seems, Richard. And if you -- I mean, this story has moved so fast, hasn't it? But if you cast your mind
back a week or so ago when UEFA, which is the umbrella organization for the 55 European teams, where the real kind of financial power base of the game
is played, it was they who kind of fired the first torpedo into this plan by saying, well, if this goes ahead, we're just not going to be playing in
the World Cup at all. Essentially, you know, scuppering the entire project.
And so clearly they were not consulted. Clearly Gianni Infantino completely underestimated the reaction of many, many football organizations around the
world.
QUEST: Right.
RIDDELL: And now, you know, he's trying to clean up the mess.
QUEST: And from your assessment, Don, is the opposition to selling the stake valid? Is there strong reasons not to do it?
RIDDELL: Well, absolutely. I mean, basically the way Luis Figo and others would put it is that basically the people who run the game now are lining
their pockets and they're selling the future of the game to private investors who will want their own piece of the pie, and perhaps an
increasingly bigger piece of the pie as the game goes forward. And that's not what football is all about. So, yes, I mean, the concerns are valid.
Now we've kind of moved on from that point, though, Richard, because Infantino has said, OK, well, we won't do it. But such has been the damage
to his reputation and more and more hits are now coming on a daily basis, casting him in an ever, you know, an increasingly darker and darker light.
So, you know, the proposal has been and gone, but now it's his reputation - -
QUEST: All right, but --
RIDDELL: -- that he's trying to salvage.
QUEST: OK. But as we move towards next March and the vote, and Infantino does have -- I'm going to be diplomatic in the way one puts it -- the
ability to massage a vote through the various different ways that you can offer, you know, plans, programs, investment in different countries. You
know how this works. We've seen it at the IOC level. Weve seen it at various different international levels.
Is this so strong that it's going to be very difficult for him to do that?
RIDDELL: I think so. Look, this meeting in Morocco today is evidence of that. This is a crisis meeting that was called at very short notice. And it
is remarkable because remember that image from the World Cup Final, just, what, two and a half weeks ago in New Jersey, where it was Infantino who
was ushering the U.S. president, Donald Trump, off the stage as Spain were lifting the World Cup.
Just two and a half weeks later, we now find ourselves in a situation where Infantino himself could be sidelined, and that is a remarkable turn of
events because before this tournament kicked off, he was basically a shoo in for a fourth term as FIFA president in this election next March. Now,
the question is, can he even hang on that long? Will he even be there in seven months' time? That's why this meeting is happening today.
QUEST: I'm grateful, Don. Thank you, sir.
As QUEST MEANS BUSINESS continues, from Capitol Hill to the boardroom, many of the top companies power and wealth increasingly sit in the oldest of
hands.
[16:45:00]
A new book says it's hoarding of the American dream. The author next on QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Whether it's Joe Biden, Senator Mitch McConnell, or President Trump himself, the baby boomers have a firm grasp on power in Washington, and
they don't seem to want to let go. And three senators are over -- more than one in three senators are over the age of 70. In the House of
Representatives, the average age is closer to 60.
Where power goes, money follows. The Fed estimates that 73 percent of all wealth is currently held by Americans over the age of 55. Arguably, not
surprisingly, because that's when you've made your money.
Our next guest says the oldest and richest amongst us are hoarding power and wealth to the detriment of the wider society. Professor Samuel Moyn,
professor of law and history at Yale. He's also the author of "Gerontocracy in America: How the Old are Hoarding, and What to Do About It."
What's the big problem? Inevitably, sir, you get to the top jobs when you're later in life because you've worked your way up. So that's quite
normal. What's your difficulty with people staying there?
SAMUEL MOYN, KENT PROFESSOR OF LAW AND HISTORY, YALE UNIVERSITY: Well, people are reaching those top positions later and they're staying longer in
virtue of the extension of life. And that means they're blocking younger people from getting their share as they age or opportunities in the first
place. And that's why we've seen that younger people are locked out of housing. The age income gap has been increasing. The age wealth gap has
been increasing. And so all of these are injustices that I think counsel us to usher some older people to the exit sooner from their jobs, if that's
what we're talking about.
QUEST: But we have a good -- but we have a good example of Mitch McConnell, who however, whatever his actual medical condition is, he's stepping down
anyway at the next election. Some people say let him go gracefully. Others arguably would say he should have retired or he should have stepped down a
lot sooner. And when to go? You know, I heard a phrase once about prime ministers, somebody about Margaret Thatcher.
They said, you get used to the traffic lights always being green. It's an - - it's like a drug. They get used to the power and they stay.
[16:50:07]
MOYN: That's true across social life and not just of politicians. Power corrupts. And in the American system, where so many elections are
uncontested and the incumbency advantages are so great, we basically have people who have no reason to leave, no incentive and no pressure, and they
lose touch with their constituencies who can't get rid of them. And so, there and across American life, I think we are dealing with a problem that
I've called, that others are calling gerontocracy. And it's really a matter of a conversation to think about how we curtail it.
QUEST: All right. Well, let's take me, for example. Now I've been doing QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
MOYN: All right.
QUEST: I've been doing QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for 17 years. In fact we're showing on the screen a much younger version of me. And they'll be those
who say, time for you to move off, Quest. Out the door that way. Make way for some younger person that's standing in the wings.
MOYN: Well, that's I think between you and your audience. I think there is an important reason to diversify people by age. If we're feminists, we
might argue that, you know, women anchors and television hosts don't get to stay as long as they should compared to the distinguished old men who are
allowed to hang around. But, you know, I'm for age diversity. Every generation should be represented fairly.
And those younger who are coming into their creativity should get a chance, rather than, you know, hearing from the same old guys in a rut, although
they can bring experience and a certain amount of, you know, acumen to their positions.
QUEST: And that's where you get that wonderful phrase. The consultant. Shove him out the door and make him a consultant or emeritus. That's a good
word, isn't it? Put emeritus after the title. It's another good way of getting.
MOYN: I think, you know, there's a room for an avuncular counseling role. You know, you can tell those who -- to whom you've been, you know, whose
power has been, you know, has been taken from you and given to them. They can rely on your advice if it's worth following.
QUEST: You're right.
MOYN: I'm not sure it always is.
QUEST: Too many old people around.
MOYN: It's not -- we have more old people today, and they should have more power than in the past. And, you know, people who are older are living
longer, high functioning lives. That's a wonderful miracle. The question is when it becomes unfair. And in a situation where in Congress we have 17
percent of the members under 40, compared to so many older men and women, it's unfair. And the same is true across American life and many other
countries, too. More than half of humanity lives under political leaders over 70. It's not right.
QUEST: And I'm grateful to you, sir, for coming on the program tonight and talking about it. Thank you.
MOYN: Thank you.
QUEST: QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. Corporate America seems to be benefiting from tariff refunds. 60 percent has been given back, and there's billions more
to come.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Trump has now refunded more than half of the tariffs it owes to corporate America. Records are showing the Trump administration has paid
back $100 billion since the Supreme Court struck down liberation day. Apple says it received $2.2 billion in the last quarter. Amazon got $600 million
back and Nike recovered $300 million. About $66 billion is still on the way.
Elisabeth Buchwald has been tracking the story.
The problem is the companies got the money back. But what about the people who actually paid the increased costs, which is the consumers?
ELISABETH BUCHWALD, CNN ECONOMICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. What about us? So what happens here is the government doesn't actually have to refund us
directly. And that's because they only have to do it for what's known as the importer of record, the Costco, the Home Depots, the people who are
buying their stuff, who paid higher prices as a result, don't have a legal claim to that money.
QUEST: OK. But then, I mean, in a sense that's unfair. The people -- you know, it is a windfall for Amazon, Apple and others. And there's no
obligation to give the money back to the rest of us.
BUCHWALD: As my parents like to remind me, life is unfair. Well, what's happening, though, is that it's actually hard to trace back. There were a
lot of tariffs coming at once, as we've spoken about many a times. And so it's hard to trace back exactly which ones were contributing to the price
increases that companies did. And on top of which they didn't pass along the full tariff. So if we want to say how much did this price go up because
of the Supreme Court overturn tariffs? Really, really difficult to say.
QUEST: And where are we with tariffs at the moment? We're now on the third round of tariffs. And they seem to be sticking this lot the human rights
tariffs for want of a better phrase. But that's still to be tested fully.
BUCHWALD: Yes. There's a few cases going on right now. 25 states earlier this week are suing the administration trying to argue that -- they were
saying that it was forced labor. But in their view, they're saying, OK, this came right after those other ones expired. So if it were forced labor,
why didn't this happen sooner?
QUEST: Right. An argument that's still to be tested. Grateful, Elisabeth, thank you very much.
And that is QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for tonight. I'm Richard Quest in New York. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I hope it's profitable.
I'll see you tomorrow.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
