Greetings from the Beverly Hills Hilton, home of the Milken Conference.
It’s 3:24am Pacific time here and the hotel is empty, not what it looked like when it was full at noon on a Monday. You’re probably wondering why I’m here at this time? Now, we’ll be recording an interview with Disney (DIS)’s Hugh Johnston right after earnings. I’ve known Hugh for 10 years, going back to when he was his CFO at PepsiCo (PEP) for many years.
Considering that, and my natural tendency to stay awake, I guess I should get things moving sooner rather than later. (Live coverage of Milken Day 2 will begin on the network at its regular time of 9 a.m. ET)
Some random thoughts that popped into my head during the Uber ride to the hotel with Inflation:
1. I spoke with a long-time source familiar with the relationship between Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Or should I say it’s unrelated? The two apparently haven’t spoken in years, as Steve is a “family-oriented person” and doesn’t agree with some of Gates’ life choices in recent years.
2. If, as the WSJ recently speculated, Kevin Hassett was selected as the next Fed chief in President Trump’s second round, he really made that clear in your interview with Akiko Fujita yesterday afternoon. There wasn’t. In fact, he downplayed it happening off-camera. Again, I think anyone in Trump’s inner circle who is trying to speak out against him in any way, please don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
3. The following good thoughts on college campus protests by Apollo Global Management (APO) CEO Mark Rowan. Rowan has been very vocal about this issue.
Note: Apollo is the parent company of Yahoo Finance.
4. Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Yasmin Hollam attended the highly anticipated Main Stage interview at Milken last night with Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk. Coram reported that people were leaving early during the meandering conversation.
