Also: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's STEM goals, new China sanctions, Softbank loves AI. 
Good morning.
The UAW seems to have forgotten that it played a major role in almost destroying the American auto industry in the 1960s and ‘70s. Now it may be doing the same again. But history rhymes, it doesn’t repeat. This time, the real threat is not Japan, or even cheap labor in China, but a devilishly complex transition to electric vehicles. And despite recent profits, the Big Three’s ability to successfully make that transition remains far from assured. An overpriced labor contract will only add to the difficulty. The Wall Street Journal produced the must-read story of the weekend, with the headline: “Whatever the UAW Strike Outcome, Elon Musk Has Already Won.” It shows how UAW demands would give Musk a massive cost advantage.
Which of course puts Musk right where he always wants to be—at the center of attention. I spent the weekend reading Walter Isaacson’s new book on the enigmatic mogul and thoroughly enjoyed it. There’s not much of the story that’s new, and what is new has already been ladled out in multiple pre-publication “exclusives.” But Isaacson had unparalleled access to Musk, his family, and his closest associates. He tells the story in spare and muscular prose—free of polemics. Some critics have chided him for not taking sides and declaring Musk either hero or villain. Isaacson concludes he is both. The book has no final summation, but the last chapter includes this paragraph:
“Do the audaciousness and hubris that drive him to attempt epic feats excuse his bad behavior, his callousness, his recklessness? The times he’s an asshole? The answer is no, of course not. One can admire a person’s good traits and decry the bad ones. But it’s also important to understand how the strands are woven together, sometimes tightly. It can be hard to remove the dark ones without unraveling the whole cloth. As Shakespeare teaches us, all heroes have flaws, some tragic, some conquered, and those we cast as villains can be complex. Even the best people, he wrote, are ‘molded out of faults.'”
By the way, I’d ignore the politicians trying to argue the UAW’s fight is about rebuilding the American middle class. The UAW is fighting for its members. A true strategy to rebuild the middle class needs to ignore the populists of both right and left and adopt a more nuanced agenda of interlocking tax, trade, technology and training initiatives.
More coverage of the strike here and here. More on the Musk book here. Other news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
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Diversity in STEM
Priscilla Chan, one of the founders of the philanthropic Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, fostering diversity in health research will be good for the industry. Much of the industry’s biomedical data are based on European adults, leaving out “a huge subset of people,” Chan said at Fortune’s Impact Initiative last week. Last September, CZI announced a five-year, $46 million partnership with four Historically Black Medical Colleges to support advanced genomics research. Fortune
New sanctions from China
Beijing slapped sanctions on U.S. defense firms Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin due to their arms sales to Taiwan. The decision, while largely symbolic, follows a move from U.S. President Joe Biden to transfer $80 million to the self-governed island of Taiwan under an arms financing program. Beijing is taking an increasingly assertive stance towards the self-governed island of Taiwan, imposing diplomatic sanctions on its government and conducting military exercises in the vicinity. Reuters
Softbank goes all-in on AI
Softbank, fresh off its successful listing of chip designer Arm, is now considering investing tens of billions of dollars into AI, either into ChatGPT developer OpenAI or one of its competitors. Arm’s IPO—the largest since Rivian’s debut in 2021—may have expanded Softbank’s war chest to as much as $65 billion, analysts say. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son is bullish on AI, calling himself a “heavy user” of ChatGPT and saying he talks with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman almost every day. Financial Times
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Deloitte Holiday Retail Forecast Holiday retail sales are likely to increase between 3.5% and 4.6% in 2023, according to Deloitte’s annual holiday retail forecast. So, how much can retail companies expect consumers to spend this holiday season? Read here.
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