10 Stocks Feeling the Trump Heat (or Love!) - Part 1 (Tesla, Chevron, Paul Weiss, Accenture, Boeing)

Okay. What do Tesla, Chevron, Nike, Accenture, and a private prison company all have in common? Well, there's only one thing. There's only one man, and that's Donald Trump. So in this two-part series, we're gonna count down 10 companies whose fortunes have either gone one of two directions, soared or slumped under Trump's latest term. We've got everything from stealth fighter contracts to sanctions, tariffs to political appointments. It's been a pretty crazy start to the year. It feels appropriate. We're at the end of Q1, so I think a time for a review of the state of play. But before I begin, you might have also seen, if you're a regular listener, we have rebranded slightly the show. We're still the same. It's still the Amplify Me Market Maker podcast, but it's got a new skin. So yeah, hope you like it. Let us know in the comments what you think.

Yeah, I'm very excited by this. The new skin, that means that my face is finally on. Does that mean my face is finally on this podcast? I've been lobbying for this internally for a very long time. It's been ant, ant, ant. It's unbelievable.

Yeah, it was tough. So I did have a marketing meeting. There were some of these noises coming around and then there was kind of me and then there was the two of you. And it looked a little bit like the Backstreet Boys reunion. So that got vetoed, unfortunately.

Yeah, the Backstreet Boys reunion. And you know how these old bands, there's like one or two that have really, really gone to seed. They've been eating the pork pies and then a couple that have kept their good looks. So I'll let you, I'll let the audience be the judge.

All right, well, look, we're going to cover, because we're going to do two parts of this. So we're going to do five companies in particular. So how do you want to kick things off?

Yeah, let's, well, let's start with Tesla. So yeah, the way that we put this list together, the 10 companies that have been affected by the new president, the way we put this list together is we thought about some of the big themes that were going on in the world of investing, in the world of America, tariffs, Doge, executive orders, and some of these concepts are relatively complex. So we, we are picking these 10 companies to not only kind of give the audience a bit of an understanding of companies that are affected by Donald Trump, but also to go a little bit deeper into some of these, some of these things like tariffs and how they actually affect companies on the ground. But let's start with a high-level one. Let's start with Tesla, and we know if you know anything about stock markets, you know that Tesla has fallen. I mean, its share price has pretty much halved since November. And it is really, really weird because in the buildup to Donald Trump getting elected, and then in the couple of weeks after, what happened to Tesla shares? They absolutely popped. And since then they have cratered, and it is this remarkably interesting and very, very skillful game to get close to politics to boost the, to boost your business prospects. And obviously what Elon Musk has done from a business perspective is done exactly the opposite, has got too close to the center of power. And obviously in an election, yes, Donald Trump might win 52% of the votes, But there's still 48% out there, right? And if you are associated, and if you are actually one of the main protagonists of saying things and implementing things that negatively affect your core user base, whether that is, uh, Tesla drivers here in the UK and Europe, whether that is probably Democrat-leaning EV drivers in the US, you're basically pissing off your client base. And this is probably the biggest story just in terms of the velocity and magnitude of this downward slump. Everyone knew that Tesla was massively overvalued in the run-up to the end of 2024. We do a lot of episodes trying to explain just how overvalued Tesla is. And by the way, even with this stock slump, it's still massively overvalued. But this is a real, real kind of coming off the kind of boom train. And Elon Musk is worried, right? So that's why Donald Trump goes out and buys a Model S or whatever it was.

Okay. Can I ask two questions then? One strategy first, which is, do you think that this perhaps gives Elon an opportunity to repivot or double down on, it's not about cars and put the emphasis back onto the data component, the analytics, the fact that Groq is coming out on his other side hustle with some amazing advancements in the latest Groq features. Could he like infer other ways to manage this by talking about that kind of unified X again and start talking up the other components of Tesla as a means to kind of use this in a positive way?

Yeah, it's a really interesting one. And again, so Tesla's this remarkable stock where, you know, it is basically a meme stock and the kind of Robinhood day trader, individual pump and dump kind of crew all over Tesla. But any serious investor You know, it doesn't, Tesla, it doesn't believe any of the story, any of the valuation story that Elon Musk is trying to push. So we know the story. Remember Truss previously saying that the pivot to autonomous driving is going to take the valuation as high as $5 trillion, but he was saying this in 2017. He said that there would be fully autonomous rides from LA to New York by the end of 2017. Right. A lot of listeners would probably still be in primary school back then. You know, this is, this is a really tiring, worn out story. And when you actually think about the sober money, I was just looking at Danish pension fund, I can't pronounce the name, said last week that it was considering placing Tesla on the exclusion list, blaming Musk's involvement in the US and European politics. So like the smart money is turning right away from Tesla for a number of reasons, both business model and kind of the boy that cried wolf with regards to autonomous driving and also his really, really ham-fisted involvement in US and unfortunately European politics as well.

So someone like Cathie Wood then is on her own. I mean, I was just having a look, you know, what's Tesla trading at the moment? It closed yesterday and recording this at $273, and she was calling for $2,400 share price.

It's just a headline, isn't it? It's, you know, any, I really hope that we can, through these episodes, try to create a pretty vast chasm between, you know, what people squawk and talk about. And what actual investors do and actual investment bankers do every day. I'm just, I'm, and I haven't even started talking about the Tesla Cybertruck recall. 46,000 trucks because stuff started falling off it, right? This is not a great endorsement of this high technology company that should be valued over $2,000 a share.

I guess the slightly concerning thing, or not concerning, but the uniqueness of Elon is that I was listening to a podcast the other day and it was talking about how Starlink is going like gangbusters at the moment. Obviously hard to tell the actual flow of activity that goes into that company, but just for, just I guess given the geopolitical state of affairs in Q1 of this year, you can imagine that demand on that type of service is through the roof. And it's kind of like, well, does Elon I mean, it's only unique to him. Does he even care about what's happening at Tesla when he's got these other business units that are actually firing on all cylinders at this point in time? So he can use then his political influence in other ways. I mean, he might not be getting paid here, he's getting paid over there at the same time.

Yeah, absolutely. He's, you are absolutely right that there are other areas of his business empire that are going gangbusters and have the ability to produce significant political influence. I think it's, it would be a tarnishing of brand Musk if Tesla really does fall off the wagon. It's just, all right, this guy's not quite so much of a genius as we thought he was, and he's made a couple of significant missteps. I don't know, I own a Tesla by the way. I don't know whether I'm gonna get the, I bought this before Elon went crazy sticker. I haven't quite decided yet. My wife wants me to do it. Yeah.

Alright, well look, we've probably spent too much time even on story number 1, so we'll move the show on. So what have we got next? Number 2.

Okay, well this is Chevron and this is another negative in terms of the share price and the business consequences of Trump for Chevron, Chevron, the oil major. And this is all about Liberation Day in America. You must have heard of this, right? April 2nd is Tariff Day. April 2nd is gonna be liberation day for America. We've been ripped off by every country in the world, friend and foe, Trump said in the Oval Office. It's gonna bring in tens of billions, maybe even trillions of dollars over a decade. His favorite word is tariff. And we're gonna talk a lot about tariffs because they are very important tools that Trump is wielding in this kind of geo-economic and geopolitical game that he is either playing very well or very poorly depending on what side of the fence you sit. But the story about Chevron, this is all about Venezuela. So Venezuela has got the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world with 303 billion barrels. But unfortunately, Venezuela is currently governed by a very anti- US anti-Trump dictator, Maduro. And Joe Biden's previously been somewhat lax on sanctions towards Venezuela, but what Trump has done since coming into power, he signed an executive order that basically says, look, any company that is doing any business or taking any crude oil out of Venezuela, there's a big market for Chevron, is going to be subject to a significant tariff. It's called a kind of secondary tariff where you tax the company that's extracting or the company that is buying oil, not the country itself. So it's almost like a double tariff. And this is, again, this is significant for Chevron because some of its, you know, it's a significant revenue base. And not to get too technical, but the type of crude oil that Venezuela produces is perfect for a lot of US refineries. So again, we don't spend a lot of time talking about these types of negative impacts from Trump, but it's hitting everything. And it's not necessarily just, all right, you know, Liberation Day, April 2nd. This is Trump not liking Venezuela and Venezuela's dictator, Nicolás Maduro, and wanting to get his own back by slapping these massive sanctions.

So how has actually Chevron been performing then of late in terms of share price performance?

Do we know? Well, weirdly enough, so Chevron's share price is actually not doing too badly because you've got to think of the counterbalance. Most of its businesses in America. So you've got the pop from drill baby drill and some loosening regulations. So there's a little bit of a Trump positive there, but from a Venezuela perspective, that's smaller part of their business that is not insignificant. You know, a 25% tariff on every business purchasing and every country purchasing Venezuelan oil. You know, and again, it's the largest proven oil reserve. So yeah, we'll see what, We'll see how it shakes out in the medium to long term.

Yeah. And for any of those interested, if you go back and listen to the last episode Piers and I did on the trading floor, Liberation Day, not just important for Chevron, that is a global event. I mean, what happens there and whether it follows through and how far and wide reaching it is, is going to have significant consequences on everything, but not just stocks, but growth expectations, inflation expectations, and subsequently interest rate expectations. That's going to be a big event.

Yeah. Well, let's, yeah, let's see how that shakes out.

All right. And then the next one, I mean, look, I'm not familiar, full disclosure, with law firms at all. So Paul Weiss. So who are they first? And then why are we talking about them?

Yeah, this is why this episode's so fun. We've already gone from Tesla to Chevron to a major US law firm, Paul Weiss, that you probably have never heard of. But yeah, Paul Weiss is, uh, it's a large US law firm, corporate law firm, $2.6 billion of revenue, $7.5 million of profit per equity partner. Again, sometimes I put together these lists or, or do these episodes and just think, my gosh, we're in the wrong business. $7.5 million per equity partner.

Wow.

And its revenue jumped 32% last year. However, this is a negative story because Paul Weiss was targeted by a Trump executive order that revoked its federal security clearances and terminated government contracts. Why did it do it? Well, Chairman Brad Karp, chairman of Paul Weiss, openly supported Kamala Harris and his fundraise— and fundraised for Kamala Harris in the run-up to the— in the run-up to the election. However, so this executive order, which basically says, hey, look, Paul Weiss, you are, you are on the outside because I don't like you because you supported my political enemy. This has been overturned. This executive over, uh, this executive order has been overturned, uh, because Paul Weiss has pledged $40 million in pro bono legal, legal support for the Trump administration. I'm just gonna let that Is this a developed world we're talking about?

This is, this is the most developed world-leading country we're talking about, right?

It's absolutely remarkable, this kind of ponying up and favors for favors. And you're on, you know, I'm going to sign this executive order, which is going to negatively impact the revenue that you can generate in your business until you switch sides and pledge allegiance to the flag of Donald J. Trump. And give us $40 million. You know, if that's not a bribe, I, I, I just don't know what is.

I'm pretty speechless, to be fair. I don't know what, I don't know what to say. I mean, it doesn't surprise me, but that's incredible.

Well, look, I think we need to spend a little bit of time on the term executive order, and it might come across as a little bit dry, but it's been the thing that's really irked me over the last 2 or 3 months. I'm thinking in a, in a democratic country with checks and balances and the legislature, the judiciary, and the executive, the executive being the office of the president, there should be appropriate checks and balances and the president can't just do what they want. But this thing, the executive order, seems to have been the tool that the president is using basically to do what he wants. He's already signed over 100 executive orders. Now, by the way, Obama signed 276 in 8 years. Trump signed 100 in the first 100 days, right? It's absolutely bonkers. And these executive orders, they're supposed to be quite narrowly limited to the office of the executive. So things like emergency powers for riots in the country, or military interventions or whatever it might be. But obviously Trump said, hey, look, the executive, I've been elected with a very clear mandate. I can do what I want with these executive orders. And I'm just gonna do a couple of quotes from some very, very esteemed lawyers. So this is Laurence Tribe, one of the nation's leading constitutional scholars. Without any doubt, Donald Trump is the most lawless and scofflaw president we've ever seen in the history of the United Erwin Chemerinsky, the Dean of the University of California's Berkeley School of Law, he said a stunning number of his executive actions clearly violate the Constitution and federal law. I cannot think of any president who has ever so ignored the constitutional, uh, Constitution as extensively in the first 10 days of office as this. So like, I mean, you know. We like to be somewhat facetious on this podcast and relatively, you know, light touch, but this is deep stuff.

The problem I find though is when, I don't know, let's say these comments come out in the FT or someone like that. Like if I'm Team Trump, I'm just like, are you for real? Like University of Berkeley, California saying that I'd be like, this is part of the problem. This is what I'm here to sell you. It's almost like we're powering him up every day. It's almost like with Elon, the best tactic is almost silence.

Yeah. Yeah. Look, I mean, so yeah, it's, it's, it's the way that this administration is, is dealing with any form of criticism. I mean, you know, when you invite a journalist into your security, what military discussion WhatsApp group or Signal group, and then blame the journalist for being a sneak. You kind of know where, you know where the kind of angle of attack is in this frame of politics at the moment, but it is creeping and, you know, Liberation Day or April 2nd, whatever it's called, it's just another representation of these executive orders just being wielded with abandon.

Alright, so another significant pocket of interest for young aspiring students in financial services is consulting. And so yeah, we have a consulting group within your first 5 stories. Who are they?

Yeah, this is a really good one. So story number 4 is Accenture. So one of the world's largest management consultants, and this is again a big negative. I've got a chart in front of me looking at the share price drop of Accenture since Trump came into power. And this is all about, so we've discussed a little bit about tariffs. We've talked a little bit about executive orders. This is all about the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOJ. So Accenture, one of its biggest clients, much like with many management consultancy firms, the likes of BCG and McKinsey, one of its biggest clients is the US government or US government agencies. And what DOJ is doing is basically saying, look, you know, you need Every department that is using consultants like Accenture, you've got to give me a robust justification of why we need those consultants, or we're just going to get rid of them because we don't think that we need these incredibly expensive consultants acting within the infrastructure of the US system. And Again, this is one of those things that management consultants, a little, you know, we talked about $7.5 million per equity partner at the law firm that we just spoke about, but it's exactly the same with management consultants. These people get paid extremely, extremely well, and they charge a heck of a lot, often to government departments that just have to suck it up and pay. So Doge coming in and going, hey, look, this doesn't smell right. This doesn't seem right. This seems very inefficient. There are companies like Accenture getting rich off the back of inefficiencies within governments. We need to do a review of this. And Accenture share price has absolutely plummeted after— since January, the stock has dropped over 14% because one of its main spigots of revenue is being turned off, or at least being under scrutiny.

Yeah, I don't feel so bad about that one. I don't know why, but I'd imagine a lot of these big consulting firms have probably got a little bit complacent with the government contracts. So there probably is a lot of fat to be trimmed there, to be fair.

I don't disagree. One of my favorite ever stories about management consultants, and I've got a lot of friends that are consultants, but One of my favorite stories is Hermès, obviously that kind of storied company that, that makes things right and has very traditional specialist old school manufacturing techniques to get to the quality that they want. Back in the '80s, and it's a family-owned company, has been for hundreds of years. Back in the '80s, they got the consultants in because there was a few performance issues. Consultants did their, did their thing and said, hey, why don't you just automate a bunch of these processes? It's all about scale. You don't have economies of scale, like your production process is antiquated. And the, you know, the CEO, the family member that was CEO at the time, walked away and said, I am never using a consultant again in my life. They just don't understand. They don't get it. So maybe I'll leave you with that as we move on to the next story.

Alright, so yeah, the next one, the final one, we've kind of been, it's been negative after negative so far. There's got to be some positivity here. So have we got a positive one to finish the first part?

Yeah, we've got a positive one, but it depends what you mean by positive. So, this is Boeing. We've spoken about Boeing quite a lot on the podcast, its travails with its product recalls, bits flying off its aeroplanes, unionisation, union strikes, pay packages, all this kind of stuff. Really, really shocking story in 2024, but 2025 is looking up. Because it just won a massive multi-billion, maybe even multi-hundred billion contract with the US military to develop its next generation stealth fighter jet, the F-47, which I think I put a, I put a picture in the, well, actually I put a picture in my notes with Donald Trump talking about it in the background. It's got a little kind of whiteboard with the F-47.

Oh, that looks cool. That does look cool.

And an American flag behind it. Look at that. Yeah, it's, well, maybe we'll post it on LinkedIn. But anyway, so F-47 next generation works in partnership with drone technology and it's just this remarkable piece of kit. And yeah, they won the deal. Couple of points about this, and the share price popped 6% afterwards, hence why this is positive. Couple of points about this. Firstly, it's part of a million, uh, sorry, a multi-billion dollar spending spree aimed at preparing for a possible conflict with China. So I say this is a positive, but it's only a positive for Boeing share price in the short term. May not be a positive for the world in the medium to long term. The second thing. That's, yeah, that's, that's worth saying about this is that it was part of a 2.5-year RFP tendering process. So as many people that have worked in businesses know, if you're trying to go in for a big contract at any level, we do this here at Amplify. You get your, you join part of a tendering process and you're competing against other companies to win that tender. Win that multi-year contract, whatever it might be. And Boeing has just been doing— Boeing has been part of this tender process for the last 2 and a half years. It just makes you realize just how complex and long and drawn out this is. And the fact that it won and Lockheed Martin lost, that's a lot of sunk cost for Lockheed Martin. They've just put in thousands, hundreds of thousands of person-hours to try and win this multibillion-dollar contract, and they're like, nope, we're giving it to Boeing. Off you go.

It must be hard for these military defensive-type companies where they have such a strong alignment with the government and the government's kind of, the broader, I guess, geopolitical scene that's going on at that time. And I say this because, yeah, as you said, from a manufacturing perspective, more on their commercial fleets, it's not been good for Boeing for quite some time. Multiple years now, and yet they land these monster contracts. And it almost feels like in the long run, because of the fact that you just have to use your US-centric defense names, that that's going to give some sort of innovative competitive edge to other players in the wider context. And I'm kind of thinking like, you know, what's just what's going on at the moment. Like BYD dropped the 5-minute charge the other day.

Yeah.

On the EV. And you're like, What? How, I mean, how real that is and when it will come, who knows? But the point being is that it feels like Boeing's, I mean, Boeing went through a significant change, right? You've seen the documentaries on Netflix or Amazon Prime through the period of the last decade or two in terms of quality. But it seems like you double down into something that's already, it seems a bit of an archaic company. And then you've got these you've got the Chinese who are at the cutting edge and don't have a lot of these restrictive restrictions where they can just really push the boundaries on the technology side. Seems like long term, it's almost like you're giving them an advantage by just plowing money into these old horses sort of thing.

Yeah, absolutely. And I don't know much about the structure of Boeing and I don't know whether their kind of military aerospace wing, as it were, to excuse the pun, is totally separate from its commercial arm. And maybe the commercial arm's been terrible and the military arm has been much more successful. And maybe the military arm is a much more innovative piece of work. And we know that in the annals of US history, a lot of their biggest innovations have come off the back of military, right? So military innovation, amazing technologies, quote unquote, amazing technologies. Trickling down, whether it's the internet or whether it's advanced kind of transportation technologies trickling down into the mainstream. And this needs to continue, as you say, this needs to continue if there's gonna be parity between the amazing advancements that we're seeing over in the East. And obviously Trump is setting up this kind of adversarial politics such that And I quote, the F-47 is gonna be the most advanced, most capable, and most lethal aircraft ever built. So watch out, watch out every other country in the world.

Alright, well cool. That, that wraps up part 1. So just as a bit of a teaser, part 2 does include some of the names, uh, like Nike, for example, a lot of the car manufacturers and much more. So make sure that you if you don't already, follow the channel, share the pod with a friend, it'd be much appreciated. And Stephen, I'll see you for round 2.

Yeah, looking forward to it, Ant.