Elon Musk’s Interview with The Economist & Lina Khan’s NYC Role 7/24/26

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:29)
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**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (0:44)
Bring in show music, please.

**Katie Kramer** (0:48)
Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, when Elon Musk went on the record, the world's richest man spoke to the economist on tech, on politics, even his personal brand. We'll talk to the editor who did that interview, Zanny Minton Beddoes.

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (1:03)
You guys had a lot of debate. I want to know how it ended.

**Zanny Minton Beddoes** (1:06)
We ended perfectly amateur-grab. I hope you'll talk to me again. We'll see. It was really interesting, but I think it was important to push back on these areas where I think it deserves being pushed back on because I just think it's not right what he's saying.

**Katie Kramer** (1:19)
Lina Khan made waves as head of the Anti-Trust Federal Trade Commission during the Biden administration. Now she's got a new gig running Economic Development for Zoran Mamdani's NYC, CEO Whisperer Steven Fulop of the Business Group Partnership for New York.

**Steven Fulop** (1:33)
When you put people in prominent positions that aren't necessarily pro-business, it sends a message to the business community that is mixed at best. And that's kind of where we are.

**Katie Kramer** (1:43)
Plus, trading on truth, Wall Street firms are paying thousands a month to get a fast track to the president's posts on truth social. Wall Street Journal reporter Gunjan Banerji.

**Gunjan Banerji** (1:53)
Nanoseconds matter. Well, talking billionths of a second can make a difference in terms of their profits or losses.

**Katie Kramer** (2:00)
It is Friday, finally, July 24th. Squawk Pod begins right now.

**Eamon Javers** (2:05)
Stand under by in three, two, one, cue Andrew.

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (2:09)
Good morning and welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We're live at the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Andrew Ross Sorkin along with Melissa Lee hanging out. Joe and Becky are off on summer Friday. Is that what we'll call it? Thank you for coming in and hanging out with us at this early hour, very early hour. President Trump is hitting dozens of countries with new tariffs. It's all happening this morning and Eamon Javers joins us from Washington DC with the latest. What's happening here?

**Eamon Javers** (2:37)
Yeah. Good morning, Andrew. Just a few hours before those 10 percent global tariffs expired overnight, the White House announced a new round of tariffs that will effectively replace those worldwide duties with a new set of tariffs. Now, these new tariffs are being imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 This is one of several trade authorities that the president has used. These tariffs took effect at 12:01 AM this morning, so they're just a couple of hours old and they impose duties of 10 to 12.5 percent on 60 economies over what the US describes as forced labor practices. Now, bear that in mind because that's going to be part of the controversy here. A senior administration official tells CNBC these Section 301 tariffs will not stack on top of existing 232 tariffs. Now, the announcement marks the administration's latest tariff action after suffering a major legal setback earlier this year when the Supreme Court largely struck down President Trump's so-called reciprocal tariffs.
Andrew, this is all about this question of how can the president find tariffs around the world that he can use to replace those reciprocal tariffs. He had the temporary tariffs in place. Now he's leaning on this issue of forced labor. The critics are saying, look, this isn't really about forced labor. The president is not really particularly concerned about that issue. What he wants to do is have this blanket tariff regime. And so you can expect that this will be challenged in court under those grounds.

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (4:07)
Okay, so who has standing to bring a case? How would this work? How long does this take?
Sort of walk us through the next sort of set of dominoes.

**Eamon Javers** (4:18)
It takes a long time. And what we saw with the tariffs last time and the legal challenges, people who are impacted have standing to sue. So in this case, somebody who is an importer, who relied on some goods that are now being tariffed, and this impacts their business, those are the types of people you can see filing a suit. And so you can see lawyers going around, gathering up some plaintiffs like that, looking for particularly sympathetic ones in order to make the case.