If you're a foreign leader or a CEO about to meet with President Trump — or if you want to avoid his vengeance — come bearing gifts, Axios' Alex Thompson writes.

• Why it matters: Government officials and business leaders around the world have gotten the message. They're strategizing about how to give Trump real or perceived wins — to try to smooth out any relationship bumps with the new administration, and avoid economic or legal penalties.

🔎 Zoom in: Many foreign and domestic corporations alike fear tariffs and potential changes to the tax code this year, and have tried to assuage Trump with offerings.

• Apple, Hyundai, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Nvidia, Softbank and more have announced big investments in the U.S. since Trump was elected in November.
• Some of those investments were already in the works. But splashy public announcements gave Trump the chance to boast that he was bringing business back to America.

After Hyundai announced a $21 billion investment in the U.S. this week, Trump praised the company and made clear what the company would get in return: "Hyundai won't have to pay any tariffs."

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum pledged to send 10,000 troops to the U.S. border and has helped Trump bring down illegal border crossings — a key campaign promise of his.

• As a result, Mexico has had a much better relationship with Trump than Canada.

🥊 The other side: Trump and his team contend they're just using the levers of power in ways that other presidents didn't, but should have.

• Trump has long said other countries were ripping off the U.S. in trade. He believes he was elected to change the status quo through tariffs and other measures.

Between the lines: Some of the gifts are more personal than policy-oriented.

• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer came to the Oval Office in February with an embossed letter from King Charles III, personally inviting Trump for a state visit.
• Trump, who has a long fascination with the monarchy, beamed and called the king a "beautiful man, a wonderful man."

In February, Jeff Bezos announced the overhaul of the liberal opinion section of The Washington Post to go in a more conservative direction.

• Bezos dined with Trump later that day. Trump later praised Bezos' changes.

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About a dozen political groups, using unlimited and undisclosed donations, are running ads with twin goals: Boosting — and flattering — President Trump, Axios' Alex Isenstadt writes.

• Why it matters: The groups — separate from Trump's official political operation — have combined to spend more than $20 million since his election. Their spending is expected to escalate dramatically.

The TV and digital ads are being run in D.C., where lawmakers can see them.

• Some are being aired in the Palm Beach, Fla., area, so they can catch Trump himself when he's at Mar-a-Lago.
• One such ad campaign is by a group called the Vapor Technology Association, which is running commercials in South Florida. Self-described vaping enthusiasts talk about how they turned out for Trump in November.

🔬 Zoom in: These "dark money" advocacy groups — so named because they aren't required to disclose their sources of income — are nominally independent of Trump's mammoth $500 million political operation.

• But many provide air cover for Trump and everything MAGA — either to support him or bash his enemies.

That's why some of the pro-Trump groups are still running ads blasting former President Biden.

• Others have focused on running ads in the districts of House Republicans, prodding them to stick with Trump.

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OpenAI's new image generator is more powerful and has fewer guardrails than its predecessors, Axios' Ina Fried writes.

• Why it matters: Worries about deepfakes, job replacement and intellectual property theft have been voiced for years. Now, the risks are here.

🎨 OpenAI released its new tool on Tuesday to paid users. The social media world discovered the tool in earnest on Wednesday and began turning historical photos and their own library into images styled like cartoons from Studio Ghibli, the famous Japanese anime house.

• Ghibli-style portraits have flooded the internet, including MAGA media, in the past few days.

By Wednesday evening, Sam Altman said OpenAI was delaying the launch for free users due to heavy demand.

• The company then imposed rate limits even on paid users because "our GPUs are melting."

🖼️ Ina's review: Over the past few days, I turned myself and my friends and family into Muppets and Lego figures, and experimented with artists including Keith Haring and Vincent van Gogh.

• ChatGPT's tool is good enough for tasks that in the past would have required professional artists or graphic designers.
• It can render text clearly within images, which was long a stumbling block for AI image generators.

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The return of the Big Boss Era has brought back corporate tough talk as leaders adopt a more candid tone internally, Axios Communicators author Eleanor Hawkins writes.

• Why it matters: How CEOs are communicating with employees has evolved from "bring your best self to work" to "step it up."

The big picture: The slowing labor market and economic uncertainty have given management an upper hand it didn't have during the COVID era.

• Those macro factors, paired with the shift toward more corporate "masculine energy," have created a work environment that looks unrecognizable from the culture of a few years ago.

In recent weeks, there's been leaked audio of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon's expletive-laced town hall comments on remote work, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol's rallying cry for employees to step it up, and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's critique of managers with "fiefdoms" slowing down the company.

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In his first interview with DOGE workers, Elon Musk described the group's work as a "revolution" to Fox News' Bret Baier last night, Axios' Ben Berkowitz writes.

• Why it matters: Until now, DOGE has mostly been a shadowy operation.

Joe Gebbia, the Airbnb co-founder now working on streamlining the monthlong retirement process for government employees, told Baier: "This'll be an online digital process that will take just a few days at most."

• "We really believe that the government can have an Apple-Store-like experience — beautifully designed; great, easier experience; modern systems."

Musk said: "[T]his is a revolution, and I think it might be the biggest revolution in the government since the original Revolution. But at the end of the day, America's gonna be in much better shape; America will be solvent; the critical programs that people depend upon will work; and it's gonna be a fantastic future."

• "But are we gonna get a lot of complaints along the way? Absolutely. ... One of the things I learned at PayPal was: You know who complains the loudest — and with the most amount of fake, righteous indignation? The fraudsters. It's a tell."

Baier asked Musk the most astonishing thing he's found out in this process. "The sheer amount of waste and fraud in the government," Musk replied. "It is astonishing — it's mind-blowing. ... We routinely encounter wastes of a billion dollars or more, casually."

🗓️ Musk's status as a special government employee gives him 130 workdays (through May 29, counting weekends). Baier asked if he'll continue past that date. Musk said: "I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that timeframe."

• Asked about issuing a progress report, Musk said: "Not really a report. We are cutting the waste and fraud in real time. So, every day that passes, our goal is to reduce the waste and fraud by $4 billion a day — every day, seven days a week. And so far, we are succeeding."

🪚 "We actually want to be careful in the cuts," Musk continued. "So we want to measure twice, if not thrice, and cut once. And actually, that is our approach. [Democratic lawmakers] may characterize it as shooting from the hip, but it is anything but that."

• "Which is not to say we don't make mistakes. If we were to approach this with the standard of making no mistakes at all, that would be like saying someone in baseball has got to bat 1.000. ... So when we do make mistakes, we correct them quickly, and we move on."

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President Trump signed an executive order yesterday to set up a task force to crack down on crime and "maximize immigration enforcement" in Washington, Axios D.C.'s Cuneyt Dil and Anna Spiegel write.

• Why it matters: Trump followed through on campaign rhetoric to intervene in the city's management.

The order calls for "deploying a more robust federal law enforcement presence" in D.C.

• It includes "directing maximum enforcement of federal immigration law and redirecting available federal, state, or local law enforcement resources to apprehend and deport illegal aliens" in the D.C. area.
• It also creates a new program to "beautify" Washington. That includes clearing homeless encampments and removing graffiti on federal land.
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🖊️ Separately, Trump ordered Smithsonian museums to eliminate "ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives" and "exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race."

• Read the Executive Order, "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History."

Executives in the heart of the U.S. oil patch offered a brutal — if anonymous — verdict on Trump 2.0 trade policies and the uncertainty they create for producers, Axios' Ben Geman writes from a Dallas Fed survey.

• "'Drill, baby, drill' is ... a myth and populist rallying cry. Tariff policy is impossible for us to predict and doesn't have a clear goal," said one exec who was quoted anonymously.
• "Uncertainty around tariffs and trade policy continues to negatively impact our business, both for mid- to long-term planning and near-term costs," said another.

The other side: Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, noted that Trump met last week with a large group of industry execs "who are eager to unleash American energy after four years of Biden's radical climate agenda."

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Small businesses are popping up and expanding thanks to one highly addictive food craze: Dubai chocolate, Axios Salt Lake City's Erin Alberty writes.

• Why it matters: The pistachio-filled treats are in such overwhelming demand that tiny in-home confectioners have managed to seize on the trend without being eclipsed by bigger businesses.

Customers are swarming mom-and-pop stores that now make them like sharks in a blood frenzy.

• "If I post that I have 60 chocolate bars, they're gone in two to four hours," said Emilee Citte, who plans to expand her store to meet the demand.

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