The Chaos Window: Chainsaws, Crypto & Carry-Ons

Back in February, Elon Musk grinned like a kid at Christmas as Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, handed him a bejewelled chainsaw onstage at CPAC.

The moment was pure political theater: Milei’s chainsaw has become a symbol of his crusade against public sector bloat. He’d already used it in his home country to win an election.

But the CPAC chainsaw was bejeweled with diamonds. The irony in today’s roundup of news nuggets is too striking not to point out.

Musk, leading Trump’s freshly minted Department of Government Efficiency — DOGE — raised the chrome blade and promised to slash through American bureaucracy.

It was red meat for the base. Then came the blowback from the tortured left.

Tesla dealerships were vandalized coast to coast. Chargers destroyed, showrooms torched, Teslas keyed like middle school lockers.

The market took notice: Q1 profits down 71%, and European sales plunged 49% in April.

Turns out it’s easier to brand yourself as a budget hacker than it is to keep your customers when they think you’re hacking their livelihoods.

Starship Explodes — Again

SpaceX launched its ninth Starship rocket last night. It got farther than its predecessors — but not far enough. A leak and uncontrolled tumble sent the craft spiraling back to Earth, where it disintegrated during reentry. It’s the third fiery end this year.

Still, Musk presses on. He says a Mars cargo launch is coming next year, humans by 2029.

Closer to home, he’s taking shots at Congress for passing the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which he says undoes all the work his DOGE team put into rooting out federal waste.

It “didn’t have to be big to be beautiful,” Musk told CBS. Translation: bureaucracy is back — and it brought friends.

 

---

DOGE Meets the Swamp

DOGE’s original target — cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget — is now a historical footnote. The House bill awaiting Senate reconciliation is bloated with subsidies, duplicative programs, and line items DOGE previously flagged as wasteful.

In a quick peek at what’s going to come out of the Senate debate, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul called the cuts in the House bill he’s now reviewing “wimpy and anemic” over the Memorial Day weekend.

Musk came to Washington to fight the system. Now the system’s steamrolling his mission under the weight of legacy programs and political IOUs. In this “chaos window,” ideas are grand, execution is another story.

Trump’s Billion-Dollar Bitcoin Dive

Trump Media announced it raised $2.5 billion — not for operations or expansion, but to buy bitcoin.

It’s the largest one-time crypto purchase ever by a public company. The stock dropped 10% on the news, but Trump isn’t concerned.

He’s making crypto part of the MAGA brand.

Last week, he hosted a black-tie gala for memecoin whales at his Virginia golf club.

It’s no longer just a joke or a side hustle. Trump’s positioning crypto as a serious alternative to fiat — while still sitting atop the federal apparatus that prints it.

Salesforce Buys Its Way into AI

Salesforce just made its most significant move since Slack, acquiring Informatica for $8 billion. Why? Data.

AI eats data, and Informatica catalogs it. The acquisition is designed to make Salesforce’s AI tools actually work — something customers have been wondering about since the ChatGPT hype wave started.

Meanwhile, all eyes are on Nvidia’s earnings tonight. Analysts want to know whether the AI boom still has legs — or if Trump’s pressure on China’s chip sector has started to slow things down.

Southwest’s Free Luggage Rides Off Into the Sunset

Boo!

Sacrificing its comparative advantage in marketing and practice, the airline that made a living boasting “bags fly free” is now charging its low-fare passengers for bags.

As of this morning, Southwest now charges $35 for your first checked bag, $45 for the second. And flight credits that once never expired? Now they’re only good for six months.

Blame activist investors. Blame rising costs. But the populist airline finally joined the nickel-and-dime gang it swore it would never imitate.

Want to get away? You’ll need an upcharge for that.

At least, they haven’t started weighing their passengers yet.

4% of Americans Are on Weight-Loss Drugs

Roughly 4% of U.S. adults are now on GLP-1s like Ozempic and Mounjaro.

Half do so for Type 2 diabetes. The other half to fit into their jeans. That’s a 600% increase since 2019, and climbing.

Pharma giants Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are raking in billions. And with studies showing the drugs help with everything from blood pressure to inflammation, usage is only going to grow. Health is now a subscription service.

AI Is Rewriting the Forecast

A new report out releases some uplifting news near and dear to the Swan.

Since 2022, AI-driven weather models have made huge strides. Instead of crunching terabytes in real time, these systems learn from decades of past data to make faster, often more accurate predictions.

They’re spotting patterns old models miss — and they’re doing it on a laptop.

It’s not just meteorology. This is the playbook for every industry now: replace brute force with pattern recognition. Efficiency becomes insight. And insight becomes power.

Asia Starts Pulling Back from U.S. Debt

For decades, Asia exported goods to the U.S. and reinvested the proceeds — over $7.5 trillion — into American assets, especially Treasuries. It kept bond yields low and the dollar strong.

Now, Trump’s protectionism and fiscal unpredictability are shaking that foundation. Countries like China and Japan are slowly unwinding their exposure. If that accelerates, we could see a fundamental shift in global capital flows — one that makes U.S. debt harder to sell and costlier to maintain.

The Chaos Window Is Here

So what ties it all together? What do Tesla firebombings, Senate pork, AI-powered forecasts, memecoin galas, and checked-bag fees all have in common?

Let’s call it the “chaos window.”

In our latest research, just released, we analyze the massive undertaking the Trump administration has undergone to try to position the U.S. economy on a solid footing to compete in a new global economy dominated by AI.

Forecasting events is not as easy as looking at trends. We’ve now entered a period in time when institutions are no longer stable, and the players inside them are improvising. Musk is swapping roles mid-script. Trump’s turning crypto into a currency policy. All while attacking Harvard.

Airlines are rewriting contracts on the fly. Asian actors are questioning the dollar. AI is being bolted onto every system, whether it fits or not.

If you’re managing your own money, this is not the time to rely on past assumptions. Stay liquid. Diversify across systems, not just sectors. Favor hard assets.

Keep a foot outside the mainstream — because the mainstream is shifting underfoot.

~ Addison

P.S. Grey Swan Live! is tomorrow—Thursday, May 29 at 11 am EST. Our man Packer is on the ground at the 2025 Bitcoin Conference in Vegas. We’ll unpack The Bitcoin Effect — why companies like MicroStrategy just added another $425 million in BTC, and why this isn’t just tech hype anymore. It’s treasury strategy. Join us.

Your thoughts? Please send them here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com