Who's Gonna Pick Your Fruit?

By Peter S. Green

JD Vance is good at a couple of things, and one of them is making big pronouncements. Back in September he warned that when Donald Trump is elected, 11 million undocumented immigrants should get ready to go back home. “If you are in this country illegally in six months, pack your bags, because you’re going home,” Vance said. Well, now he’s got his chance.?

But the cost would be staggering. Simply removing the undocumented immigrants,and another 2.3 million so-called “removable immigrants” on short-term visas would cost $315 billion, according to the American Immigration Council, or about 20% of all Social Security payments made last year. Removing a vast army of low-paid laborers would, however, send wages shooting up for those willing to do farmwork, construction, landscaping and dishwashing across the U.S.—and that would send prices up, too.?

A post-pandemic bounceback in legal immigration and a wave of people illegally crossing the border helped keep wages down for low-paid jobs, even as unemployment plunged across the economy. The immigrant labor force also helped keep inflation down. If those workers go, it is unlikely to help the economy. One study earlier this year showed the knock-on effect of deporting migrants: There were fewer daycare workers, and American mothers with lower-wage jobs lost the ability to go to work.

Jim Bair, the president of the U.S. Apple Association, which represents apple farmers across the country, noted that it's only with immigrant labor that U.S. apple farmers can pick their crop. Most of the workers come from Mexico and Jamaica on H-2A visas, which are also in the sights of Trump’s crackdown. As Bair noted, to use the program, U.S. growers must hire any American who walks onto the farm even if they have no experience harvesting fruit, “but rarely does anyone show up.”

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Elon’s World

Donald Trump has been having a bromance with Elon Musk, with Musk reviewing resumes for Cabinet picks, sitting in on phone calls with foreign leaders from Ukraine to Turkey, and now being named a co-head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, another of Musk’s DOGE puns. But it may be a little one-sided: DOGE won’t actually be a government department—just an advisory board. Musk has said he wants to cut $2 trillion from the $6.7 trillion federal budget, because the national debt is too high, and the U.S. is spending $850 billion a year on defense. The big problem is that everything the federal government spends money on is something that somebody wants, including Space X’s $11.8 billion contract with NASA and its $3.6 billion contract with the Pentagon. That’s raised some significant conflict of interest questions to which even a GOP-controlled Congress may demand answers. ? All that time backing Trump has convinced at least one group of people that Musk is on to something: Tesla shareholders. Despite Trump’s overt hostility to the EV industry, many investors apparently believe the president-elect is just being a gasbag. Tesla shares are up 45% in the last month, most of that since Election Day, and the company’s market cap is now hovering around the trillion-dollar mark. ? All that time away from home (Texas? California? South Africa?) has Musk looking for help around the house. Now he’s hired Mahmoud Reza Banki, former CFO of Tubi, as the new CFO of X Corp., where he joins CEO Linda Yaccarino. Banki becomes the first publicly known CFO of X since Musk bought the company in 2022. It’s facing significant headwinds: Advertising and use have plummeted and one major investor, Fidelity, has written its stake down by 79%. ? France’s richest man, LVMH owner Bernard Arnault, and a group of French media companies are suing X, accusing the platform of running the content of their media properties without paying royalties they're entitled to under European and French law. Arnault owns business newspaper Les Echos, and he’s joined by daily newspapers Le Monde and le Figaro. They say X has refused to negotiate with them and are seeking an injunction blocking the platform from displaying their content. A legal dispute earlier this year in Brazil ended with Musk and X backing down and agreeing to abide by local content rules. ? Cybertruck owners are facing their sixth recall of the year. This time it’s pretty serious: The drive inverter can fail, leaving Cybertrucks cruising down the highway while drivers stomp on the accelerator with no effect, which as regulators noted, “may increase the risk of a collision.” ? Mar-a-Lago insiders tell multiple news outlets that while Trump and Musk have appeared nearly inseparable, the president-elect is getting tired of the so-called “first buddy.” “I can’t get rid of him,” Trump “joked” in Washington on Wednesday. One Mar-a-Lago insider told NBC: “He’s behaving as if he’s a co-president and making sure everyone knows it,” one source said, adding that Musk is “sure taking lots of credit for the president’s victory. Bragging about America PAC and X to anyone who will listen.” The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump has given Musk his own walk-on song when he enters the Mar-a-Lago dining room: David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” ? Back in 2023, Elon Musk promised to build a Tesla factory near Monterrey, Mexico. Now Trump is threatening to put 200% tariffs on cars made in Mexico. That country’s economy minister, Marcelo Ebrard, sounding a plaintive note, told a radio station south of the border that he’s “going to set up a meeting with [Musk] soon so that he tells me exactly what he’s thinking and see what we can do so this project moves forward.”?

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The Usual Suspects

• The ol’ inflation game: This week's Consumer Price Index had some good news and some bad news: Inflation is still way down from its pandemic-fueled 9.1% peak in 2022, but the Consumer Price Index, one of several gauges the Fed uses to check the temperature of the economy, was up a hair to 2.6% in October from a year earlier, that’s 0.2 percentage points higher than September’s year-on-year number. The Fed wants to keep inflation at about 2% for the year, and with seasonal variations, it’s on track to do that, particularly since another measure, known as core inflation, was stable at 3.3%.That means a December rate cut of another quarter-point is likely still in the cards, but Trump’s proposed plans for a sharp cut in taxes and across-the-board tariffs may slow or block future cuts. His plan for 10% to 20% tariffs on imports (and 50% or 60% on imports from China) could double inflation.
• Loser, loser, biggest loser? Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent of Donald Trump’s unpopular social media platform Truth Social, ain’t doing well. It’s been ricocheting all over the place since Nov. 5, but it opened Thursday morning down nearly 7 percent, with its market cap at just above $5.8 billion, but that’s a massive 11% drop since winning the election. One potential reason for the decline: Insiders, including CFO Phillip Juhan, who cashed out $12 million of the stock.?
• What is John Malone up to? The media mogul known as the Cable Cowboy is reorganizing his empire as longtime Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei prepares to step down at the end of the year. Most notably, Liberty Broadband will be sold to Charter Communications, where Malone is a large shareholder, and Liberty’s stake in entertainment giant Live Nation will be spun off. Liberty Media will keep its cable channels and systems.
• Spirit crushing: These may be the final days for Spirit Airlines. The company is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection, after rival Frontier said it’s no longer seeking to merge with or acquire Spirit. Spirit has $1.1 billion in bonds coming due within a year, it’s selling its planes in a leaseback arrangement, and its operating profit margin dropped 12% over the past year, as ridership plummets, flights are canceled and pilots are furloughed. Shares are down 50% in the past week. Still, some analysts say Frontier could be back with a diamond ring for Spirit if the price changes.?
• 23 & who? It looks like that’s it for the DNA-based ancestry-tracing firm. CEO Ann Wojcicki said she’s laying off 200 people, or 40% of the company’s remaining staff, and closing its drug development arm, its supposed money-spinner that would make use of all the genetic profiles it collected. Now Wojcicki said she hopes to sell the two drug prospects the firm had developed. She’s still hoping that big pharma might be salivating over all that DNA data she’s amassed.

Endless Shrimp Ends

Lobsters can learn, too. After seafood chain Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy protection in May, closing more than 100 restaurants. Initial reports blamed the closing on the chain’s famous $20 all-you-can-eat shrimp offer. Red Lobster’s new owner is famed asset manager Fortress investment Group. And it turns out the real culprit was a series of leaseback deals for the restaurants that saddled them with inflated real estate costs. Still, new CEO Damola Adamolekun said the endless shrimp offer won’t be back—“because I know how to do math.”

The Short Stack

• Crypto’s payback moment: After spending more than $130 million supporting Trump’s presidential campaign, crypto holders are hoping for some love from the new administration. Already, news reports say Coinbase, Ripple and Circle have been talking with Trump’s team. What’s on their Christmas list? An easing of regulations intended to keep consumers safe from the wild swings of the crypto market, and maybe even a crypto-friendly SEC chair. One name floating around is Dan Gallagher, chief legal officer at Robinhood.?
• Finger-lickin’ lawsuit: The Colonel is mad. KFC is suing rival chicken hut Church's for using the phrase “Original recipe” in its promotions. KFC claims it’s got the OG O.R. and has used the phrase “original recipe” for half a century to describe its blend of 11 herbs and spices. Church’s began a promo campaign in September saying “our original recipe is back.” A court will now have to decide if a phrase as common as “original recipe” is really a copyrightable original. KFC’s parent company, Yum Brands, reported an earnings miss on Nov. 5, noting that same-store sales at KFC were down 4% year over year globally and 5% in the U.S.?
• Verizon on the line: Shareholders at Frontier Communications have approved the sale of their company to Verizon for $9.6 billion, making the mobile phone player into a major fiber-optic-network competitor of AT&T and Comcast. Verizon also absorbs $10 billion of Frontier's debt. The move gives Verizon a strong presence in Texas and California without having to lay its own cable, an increasingly expensive proposition.?

Amazon Subprime!?

The digital sales giant has launched its own online discount stores as it faces growing competition from China’s bargain-basement online retailer Temu, not to mention other Chinese challengers, including TikTok’s Shop and fast-fashion retailer Shein. Amazon Haul is filled with color and emojis and is aimed at younger shoppers with a large selection of $20-and-under items. It’s now in beta, but available if you update your Amazon phone app. And no need for a $139 Amazon prime subscription.

Peter S. Green is a veteran reporter and editor who has spent more than two decades covering business and finance from Eastern Europe to New York City, and has worked for Bloomberg News, The New York Post, The New York Times and The Messenger. He lives in New York City and is always looking for the next big story.