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How the Olympics could reshape Paris

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. Elon Musk is looking to inject $5bn into an AI start-up, and Venezuela's election on Sunday will decide whether Nicolás Maduro will stay in office for more than a decade. Plus, the FT's Simon Kuper explains how big infrastructure updates in Paris might shake up the cultural and political boundaries of the city. Mentioned in this podcast: Elon Musk to seek Tesla board approval for $5bn injection into xAI start-up Venezuela's opposition bets Maduro has miscalculated this time Paris, the Olympics and the reinvention of a city The FT News Briefing is produced by Fiona Symon, Sonja Hutson, Kasia Broussalian and Marc Filippino. Additional help from Mischa Frankl-Duval, Breen Turner, Sam Giovinco, Peter Barber, Michael Lello, David da Silva and Gavin Kallmann. Our engineer is Monica Lopez. Our intern is Prakriti Panwar. Topher Forhecz is the FT's executive producer. The FT's global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. The show's theme song is by Metaphor Music.

Transcript: How the Olympics could reshape Paris

Marc Filippino Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Friday, July 26th and this is your FT News Briefing. Elon Musk wants more money from Tesla's board in the name of artificial intelligence, and Venezuela's opposition is way ahead in the polls but will the sitting government intervene? Plus the FT's Simon Kuper explains how the Olympics are a symbol of a changing Paris. Simon Kuper The Olympics express the idea that the energy of the city is moving outwards into the suburbs, because these Olympics are really the suburban games. Marc Filippino I'm Marc Filippino and here's the news you need to start your day. [MUSIC PLAYING] Tesla CEO Elon Musk is going to ask the electric car maker's board to approve an investment in his artificial intelligence start-up. OK, stay with me here. Musk published a poll on X about whether he should sink $5bn of Tesla's money into his company. The company is called xAI. The yes votes won out on this poll and Musk said he would discuss the investment with the board of Tesla. If the board gives the green light, it will bring up questions about Musk and his conflicts of interest. He already admitted to diverting thousands of Nvidia chips from Tesla to X and xAI this year. And the timing of this potential investment is, let's call it, interesting. Tesla's share price tanked earlier this week. It reported a hit to quarterly profits and that it was suspending the launch of its robotaxi. Tesla stock did bounce back a little yesterday. It jumped 2 per cent. [MUSIC PLAYING] Now, I know we've been saying this a lot this year, but there is yet another crucial election coming up. Venezuela will go to the polls on Sunday. The election will decide whether President Nicolás Maduro will stay in office after more than a decade in power. The thing is, Venezuela's opposition is, for the first time in a long time, looking very strong. Opinion polls show the opposition leading by a huge margin, but there are concerns that Maduro won't concede power if he loses. The FT's Latin America editor, Michael Stott, spoke with the person leading the opposition's charge. Hi, Michael. Michael Stott Hello, Marc. Marc Filippino So, Michael, just, before we get into the opposition, give me a little bit of background here. Maduro has been in power since 2013. What has Venezuela been like under his rule? Michael Stott It's been a very rough ride for the Venezuelan people. Marc. So since Maduro took over, the economy collapsed. GDP shrank by three quarters, unprecedented for any country outside war. The oil industry collapsed, US sanctions were imposed, and, around 8mn Venezuelans left the country to try and seek a better life abroad. That's about 1 in 4 of the entire population have left. So it's been extremely rough. Marc Filippino So tell me a little bit about what the opposition looks like. Michael Stott Well, the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, she was chosen as the opposition candidate in a primary last year but was banned. The regime upheld a ban previously imposed on her for running for public office, and so she picked instead Edmundo González. Very little-known, low-profile, 74-year-old retired career diplomat as the surrogate to run for the main opposition platform. But she's been campaigning alongside him and has managed to energise the country with a very effective campaign on social media and with rallies and public appearances. Marc Filippino Yeah. And you actually spoke to Machado recently. Where were you and what was it like? Michael Stott It was a very extraordinary day. Market began at about four in the morning in a suburb of Caracas, leaving in a convoy of 12 cars because she's not allowed to travel by plane. No airline will sell her a ticket for what became a pretty gruelling 12-hour ride across the country to Maracaibo, the second city where she held a rally in the evening. That rally had no speech because her sound system had been impounded, and the people who had rented it to for the rally were arrested. So she drove through the streets. Tens of thousands of people turned out. And then after that, she spoke to me for a time. Marc Filippino Yeah. What did she tell you? Michael Stott So she's excited about the prospects of victory. She believes the opposition can win this time and will win. [MARÍA CORINA MACHADO SPEAKING IN SPANISH] Michael Stott She questions whether the government will recognise the result or whether they're going to resort to cheating. [MARÍA CORINA MACHADO SPEAKING IN SPANISH] Michael Stott And so she says she's going to be ready for that with a small army of election monitors, which she will deploy to polling stations around the country to keep an eye on the count. Marc Filippino Yeah, well, Michael, what happens if the opposition does win? Would the Maduro government even recognise an opposition victory? Michael Stott So there's a very tense mood at the moment in Caracas, Marc. We've offered interviews to President Maduro and some of his key (inaudible). There's been no response to those offers. They're not talking outside of very tightly scripted official occasions. There's been some very blood-curdling language from Maduro, almost literally. He said that if the opposition were to win what he calls the fascist opposition, he says there will be a bloodbath and civil war. The government doesn't appear at all ready to cede power. It's probably worth mentioning, Marc, that the government don't just control the presidency. They control the Congress. They control the courts. They control the military. They control the police. They control the media. Even if the opposition were to win the presidency, every other lever of state in the country, every other institution, is under the control of Maduro and his party. Marc Filippino Michael, say Maduro doesn't concede power, how do you think the international community will react? Michael Stott The international community is going to be in a very difficult position. They are uncomfortable about keeping sanctions on Venezuela because of the negative effects on the wider population, because they've not had the intended result of dislodging Maduro's government. But at the same time they're very concerned about recognising a result which may not go by the book and which may even be blatantly rigged. The view of the US is going to be crucial as the most important external actor here, the one that's been encouraging negotiations and dialogue between the government and the opposition and of course, the one imposing the tightest sanctions. So the US position will be crucial in the days to come. Marc Filippino Michael Stott is the FT's Latin America editor. He's in Venezuela right now covering the elections. Thanks, Michael. Marc Filippino The Paris Olympics officially start today, and I am personally looking forward to the competitive swimming events. But I actually want to focus today on the city of Paris as the games kick-off. The Olympics often are an excuse to build big infrastructure upgrades. In Paris, though, it's even more than that. Those changes have the potential to shake up the cultural and the political boundaries of the city. Simon Kuper is a columnist for the FT and the author of the book Impossible City, which is about the Paris of today. Hi, Simon. Simon Kuper Hi. Marc Filippino Tell me a little bit about the way Paris is laid out and the politics behind it. Simon Kuper Well, Paris is this kind of picture postcard city of 2mn people or so, but outside it are suburbs which contain maybe 6mn, maybe 10mn people, depending on where you draw the city, the metropolitan boundaries. And they've always been disconnected from the city. The transport links have never been particularly good. There was always this idea that Paris is for the privileged and the suburbs are for the undesirables. So what you've seen in recent years is that there's a lot of political energy against Paris. The yellow vest uprising of 2018 and the far right (inaudible) are really movements against Paris. And now what is really changing now is that for the first time in history, this little city and the millions of people in the suburbs are being knit together because they're building 68 new metro stations, all of them in the suburbs. I mean, this is a massive change and for the first time will make it feasible and easy for people in the suburbs to pop into Paris. So the idea is to create a huge, united metropolis and not this little city segregated from its suburbs. Marc Filippino And Simon, how much of this process had to do with the Olympics coming to town? Simon Kuper I mean, mostly the Olympics just speed it up. You have to get it done by the day the opening ceremony starts. So everyone building these metro lines years in advance knows that. But I think the Olympics express the idea that the energy of the city is moving outwards into the suburbs, because these Olympics are really the suburban games. The epicentre is sense underneath. And this is the poorest department in mainland France. And so I think the Olympics sort of teaches people both in France and outside, to think of Paris as a city with many suburbs, and that those suburbs are real and interesting and important places that you might want to visit anyway. And I think there's a hope of attracting business, investment and tourism much more to the suburbs than to this saturated, overpopulated, 2mn person picture postcard city. Marc Filippino Yeah, but, Simon, could this physical reconfiguration of Paris actually lead to a cultural shift? Simon Kuper I think it will, because right now, there's a kind of snobbery and distance. If you live in Paris, especially in one of the beautiful neighbourhoods along the river in the centre, you are by definition, high status. I think there always was this idea inside Paris, and it goes back to the 19th century to Baron Haussmann, who redesigned the city, gentrified it and kicked out the so-called undesirables. And I think it took the people who run the country a bit of time to kind of swallow and say, you know what? We are going to fully connect it. We're going to make it easy for people from the suburbs to come in. And that is a huge cultural shift. Marc Filippino Simon Kuper is a columnist for the FT. He's based in Paris. He's also the author of the book Impossible City, which is about the Paris of today. Thanks, Simon. Simon Kuper Thank you. Marc Filippino Before we go. A quick correction in yesterday's show, we said the Nasdaq Composite sank 2 per cent over the past month. It was actually the Nasdaq 100 we were talking about. [MUSIC PLATING] You could read more on all of these stories for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Check back next week for the latest business news. The FT News Briefing is produced by Kasia Broussalian, Fiona Symon, Sonja Hutson and me, Marc Filipino. Our engineer is Monica Lopez. Our intern is Prakriti Panwar. We had help this week from Mischa Frankl-Duval, Denise Guerra, Sam Giovinco, Breen Turner, David da Silva, Michael Lello, Peter Barber and Gavin Kallmann. Our executive producer is Topher Forhecz. Cheryl Brumley is the FT's global head of audio. And our theme song is by Metaphor Music.