The Best One Yet
🏆 “Perfect Credit Score” — How to get one. Tesla’s new MAGA brand. Chili’s ate TGI Fridays.
Thu, 30 Jan 2025
Does the perfect 850 credit score exist?... It does, one man just got it, and we’ll tell ya how.Tesla has become a $45K MAGA hat… so we’ll explain the biggest pivot in branding.Chili’s restaurant stock surged 300% in the last year… thanks to its Great White Shark strategy.Plus, it’s the Lunar New Year… so we found wild data on stocks during the Year of the Snake (spoiler: It’s bad).$TSLA $EAT $AMEXLA Tech Community Cares Fund: https://www.pledge.to/the-la-tech-community-cares-fund?tpcc=NL_MarketingWant more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of… Red Bull ⚡Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks to listen.“The Best Idea Yet”: The untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — From the McDonald’s Happy Meal to Birkenstock’s sandal to Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers to Sriracha. New 45-minute episodes drop weekly.—-----------------------------------------------------Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet.GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts FOR MORE NICK & JACK: Newsletter: https://tboypod.com/newsletter Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/ SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ Subscribe to our new (2nd) show… The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinksEpisodes drop weekly. It’s The Best Idea Yet.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: Does the perfect credit score exist?
But Jack and I got curious. How do stocks perform during the year of the snake? Because the Chinese snake is a symbol of calculation, strategy, and thought. thought. So Jack, let's enlighten the besties. How do markets do during snake years? Really, really freaky. Let's kick it back to 2013. It was one of the best years in Wall Street history, and it was the year of the snake.
The S&P 500 jumped over 30% that year. But the year 2001 was also a year of the snake, and it was one of the worst years on the stock market. The dot-com bubble burst, 9-11 happened, and stocks dropped 13%. 1977, the year Apple was founded.
Nice.
It's become the most valuable company in the world. But Jack, 1929, the Great Depression began. The stock market crashed. One of the worst years in history. So, Yadiz, we don't typically base our investments on the Zodiac calendar. Yeah, otherwise we'd be all in on Peloton stock during the year of the bull. But the year of the snake. Yeah. Which my third child's going to be born in, Nick. He is.
It'll either bite you or it'll kiss you. If you know, you know. This isn't investment advice. No, it's not. But we're bullish on the snake. We're going to go all in. Jack, let's hit our three stars.
We
I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. Something you possess is lost or stolen, and ultimately you triumph in finding it again. Listen to Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky wherever you get your podcasts.
For our first story, Elon Musk, the most political CEO ever, just announced a disappointing earnings over at Tesla. But the God honest reality is that Tesla isn't a car company anymore. Tesla sells $45,000 MAGA hats.
Yetis, Jack and I have been talking about this for a while, but we think one of the dumbest things that Joe Biden ever did was host an electric vehicle summit at the White House and not invite Elon Musk. Tesla was not there, even though Tesla was like the entire electric car industry at the time.
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Chapter 2: What is Tesla's new brand identity?
Reuters says that among EV buyers, half as many are now considering Teslas compared to a year before. Now, Tesla's car business is going to be fine. With tech in Silicon Valley shifting to the right politically, there's going to be plenty of people wanting to buy a Tesla. Also, Tesla has huge sales outside the United States, where Elon's politics won't dominate the headlines.
Plus, Tesla is a mature company at this point. They honestly don't need electric car incentives from the government anymore. And honestly, from our experience, Tesla is simply the best made and most reliable electric car. Tesla is kind of the iPhone of EVs. Volkswagen, Ford, and GM are still figuring it out. Tesla has figured it out.
So besties, electric vehicle buyers are disproportionately motivated by the environment. And right now, Tesla equals Elon, which equals MAGA. A Tesla car is now a $45,000 MAGA hat. For our second story, the top restaurant stock of the last year and a half, get this, it's Chili's. Chili's baby back ribs are actually shark ribs because we have a new investing strategy to share.
It's called shark investing. Shark vesting. Can we go all shark-festing? Sure. Yeah, let's do that. Oh, by the way, Jack, I got to share with you, the greatest marketing hack of all time, it's from Chili's. You know what it is? That commercial? No, no. No, Jack, it's when they stuck a steak knife in the hamburgers. Oh, yeah. It basically implied that it was a huge burger.
It's not actually that big a burger. Oh, it's like an optical illusion? Yeah, basically, they start serving burgers with chainsaws next. Yeti's Chili's just announced fourth quarter earnings, and Jack... I kind of want to lick them. Revenues rose by 31% compared to the year before. That's wild. The stock of Chili's is now up 15% to an all-time high. How's it in the last year and a half, man?
The stock has 6x'd. Hold the queso, yetis. We covered Chili's in September on this pod. Back then, the stock was up 150%. But now it's up another 150% since we last covered it. If you're a Yeti and you bought stock of Chili's because of our coverage in September, Nick and I want some kind of a fee. You're welcome. We're sending a Venmo request.
This 50-year-old fajita chain is growing faster than an AI cloud SaaS startup. Now, we should point out, the hero dish at Chili's isn't baby back ribs anymore. No. It's the triple dipper. In fact, they mentioned the triple dipper 21 times on their last earnings call. Is that a CEO or is that a waiter? I don't know, back. The triple dipper is any three apps for just 17 bucks.
Now I sound like a waiter. Mozzarella sticks, a fried egg roll, chicken wings, all that for 17 bucks. And what's the strategy? That deal is a Big Mac killer. Yeah. If you compare that deal to fast food, it's the same price, but much better value. More calories and you get a waiter who's serving you. And the platter is sizzling. That's a good point.
But Jack, before you get on too much flair over there, what is the fascinating part about this story? While Chili's is living its best life, another throwback restaurant chain is choking. That's right. TGI Fridays is having a case of the Mondays. TGI Fridays is a very similar brand. It's basically Chili's, but with a floater of tequila in that margarita.
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Chapter 3: Why is Chili's stock surging?
Chapter 4: How do stocks perform during the Year of the Snake?
I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours. Something you possess is lost or stolen, and ultimately you triumph in finding it again. Listen to Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky wherever you get your podcasts.
For our first story, Elon Musk, the most political CEO ever, just announced a disappointing earnings over at Tesla. But the God honest reality is that Tesla isn't a car company anymore. Tesla sells $45,000 MAGA hats.
Yetis, Jack and I have been talking about this for a while, but we think one of the dumbest things that Joe Biden ever did was host an electric vehicle summit at the White House and not invite Elon Musk. Tesla was not there, even though Tesla was like the entire electric car industry at the time.
That Biden snub back in 2021, that was the moment we think when the world's best entrepreneur, the world's richest person changed from a Democrat to a MAGA supporter. In 2021, Elon moved Tesla's headquarters out of California to Texas. Then he bought Twitter and now he tweets literally over a hundred times a day. And last year he invested $250 million to get Donald Trump elected as president.
Add it all up and Elon has become the most political CEO ever, and it's not just in the United States. He's embraced Germany's far right and is now active on Twitter every day, getting involved in their election. Last week, he spoke at Trump's inauguration parade, and then he did what looked just like a Nazi salute.
Elon's passion for sustainable cars has been replaced by an obsession with right-wing politics. In the last 48 hours, he's even started tweeting jokes about Nazis. So as we're recording, Tesla just announced their fourth quarter earnings, and the analysts, they're definitely going to ask him about that salute he did. Yes, they are. But here's the strange business irony here.
The guy he got elected as president is doing the opposite of Tesla's mission statement. Jack, could you sprinkle on more context for us over there? Governments across the developed world have moved to support electric cars in order to combat climate change, including the United States and Tesla.
For the last 12 years, Tesla sales have benefited from a $7,500 off coupon that's a subsidy from the US government. Tesla also got direct government support in the form of a $450 million loan. At a critical time from Tesla, From the Department of Energy. And yet, and this is why it's ironic, in just Trump's very first week, he's cut all of that electric vehicle support for companies like Tesla.
We covered it last week on The Pot. Instead of leasing federal land and waters for wind and solar projects, he is diverting them to oil and gas projects. Now, besties, Jack and I have been covering Tesla earnings for over a decade now. Like, we've covered over 40 of these earnings, haven't we, man? Yeah. This is Jack. I applied to multiple jobs at Tesla.
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Chapter 5: What happened to TGI Fridays?
Chapter 6: What investment strategy should you consider?
After this, remember to check out our weekly show, The Best Idea Yet, because we just dropped a new episode on Red Bull. We got a link in the episode description. And Nick and I will see you tomorrow. Can't wait. And before we go, congratulations to Yeti Tina Lee, who's got a new baby boy on the Upper West Side, and you better be feeding him some Lenny's sandwiches.
Congratulations to Kelsey Black, who just got nominated for Best Small Business in Pflugerville, Texas. Congrats, Kelsey. And Ken Say in Lake Worth, Florida, is having the best time. birthday yet. Happy birthday to Bob Hastings in New Bern, North Carolina, and who's got a new baby due tomorrow. Very exciting.
And Nicholas Cicero, legendary Yeti of Queens, New York, is celebrating down in Philadelphia, we assume, with a Geno's cheesesteak. And to anyone else who's celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack. I own stock of Krispy Kreme and Victoria's Secret. And Nick and I both own stock of Apple, Peloton. And I think that's it, right?
Did you buy Krispy Kreme and Victoria's Secret on the same day? Something makes me feel like that was the same day purchase. Check the stock records. If you like the best one yet, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
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