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The White House is putting 24 CEOs to work tomorrow

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

Before they meet President Trump tomorrow, 24 of America's top manufacturing CEOs — representing companies that employ around 2 million workers — will team up with cabinet secretaries to come up with policy ideas that will be presented to the President later in the morning.

The goal: A set of workable ideas to meet Trump's campaign promise of creating new manufacturing jobs in America.

According to a planning document seen by Axios, the participants are:

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Cassidy's brutal Obamacare town hall in Louisiana

Caitlin Owens/Axios

METAIRIE, La. — Sen. Bill Cassidy's town hall meeting this afternoon began with protesters arriving hours beforehand, many with their questions about Obamacare repeal and replacement prepped and ready to go. Then, they turned their backs on him as he tried to explain his Obamacare replacement plan with a PowerPoint.

That's pretty much how the whole meeting went. Read on for the highlights.

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A list of what's wrong at Uber

5chw4r7z / Flickr cc

As Uber continues to reel from the explosive allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination a former employee published on Sunday, more details about the company's culture are emerging.

According to a report from the New York Times, citing anonymous sources, incidents at the company include:

  • An Uber manager groped female co-workers' breasts at a company retreat in Las Vegas where other employees did cocaine in bathrooms at private parties (the manager was eventually let go)
  • A director shouted a homophobic slur at a subordinate
  • A manager threatened to beat an employee's head in with a baseball bat
  • Uber faces at least three lawsuits in at least two countries from former employees alleging being sexually harassed or verbally abused by managers, according to documents obtained by the Times.
  • As a response to complaints against high-performing managers, Uber would shuffle them around different regions, rarely firing them.
Uber declined to comment on any specific incidents to the Times.

What's next: Kalanick has already put together a team to investigate the former employee's allegations and the company's overall work culture. He's also vowed to rectify the company's practices and culture.

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Trump officially ends Obama transgender bathroom protections

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

This was expected, and now it's official. The administration sent out the expected letter today, and they've notified the Supreme Court. This kicks protections on transgender bathrooms back to the states.

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New travel ban delayed

The Trump administration won't unveil updated travel ban until next week, according to multiple reports.

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Fitbit paid just $23 million to get its hands on Pebble

It turns out that Fitbit paid even less than some had suspected to acquire the assets of smartwatch startup Pebble late last year.

The price tag was just $23 million, according to figures disclosed Wednesday as part of Fitbit's quarterly earnings report. Fitbit also spent $15 million on the assets of Vector Watch, another smartwatch company.

While it absorbed some of Pebble's talent and agreed to offer limited software support for existing devices, Fitbit has not committed to future Pebble devices and canceled products that were already in the works.

Also of note: Fitbit sold 6.5 million devices in the fourth quarter of 2016, down from 8.2 million in the last quarter of 2015. The sales drop led to a $125 million loss (excluding items), compared with an 87 million profit in the year-ago quarter.

Fitbit's headcount had swelled to 1,753 employees by year's end, though the company is in the process of cutting about 100 jobs amid sluggish holiday sales.

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Tesla shares up on hopes of big mass-market model sales

Tesla announced a big earnings miss after the close on Wednesday, posting a loss of $0.78 per share vs. expectations of $0.56 per share. Nonetheless, investors bid the stock close to 2% higher in after hours trading, on promises of accelerating production of its newest car, the Model 3, which Tesla is aiming at the mass market with a starting price of $35,000.

Why it matters: Tesla is being valued at levels close to established automakers like Ford and GM. Investors are betting on the Model 3 to justify that price, and CEO Elon Musk gave them what they were looking for by pledging to meet its commitment to begin delivering the car to customers later this year.

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New poll: Trump’s strengths and weaknesses

Over the weekend we did a piece on what Trump gets right and what he gets wrong, according to aides and insiders. Today, Quinnipiac released a national poll asking American citizen what they think Trump's strengths and weaknesses are. Here's what they found.

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Trump deferring to Congress on health care

Matt Rourke / AP

CNBC reports that President Trump is taking a hands-off approach with Obamacare repeal and replacement, allowing Republicans on Capitol Hill to come up with a plan. Rep. Tom Cole says Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price told House Republicans that "the administration wouldn't be sending us a bill" after all, but instead would "cooperate and provide input into what we do."

Why it matters: Even though Trump talks as though his team is hard at work writing a health care proposal, this confirms that it's better to spend your energy studying the congressional plans.

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Breitbart feels the backlash from their far-right coverage

Lazaro Gamio / Axios

Many of the largest global ad agencies, like GroupM and Omnicom, are being asked by companies they represent to blacklist Breitbart from ad plans, according to reports in BuzzFeed and Digiday. That is likely to sting the site, which has seen an uptick in traffic and runs programmatic digital ads. Breitbart did not respond to a request for comment, but on Wednesday, Breitbart executives told Fox Business that the association with the far-right is hurting their business and they plan to pivot to a more mainstream audience.

Companies and ad vendors have been wary about working with Breitbart since the election, but according to agency executives, efforts to pull ads have recently ramped up. "Since the election, we have seen a more general awareness," says Ben Coffey Clark, a founding partner at Bully Pulpit Interactive, which represents an array of corporate and advocacy clients.

The watchdog: Most companies don't even realize that their ads are running on Breitbart.com because they buy ads through an automatic process that distributes their content on hundreds of sites. Many companies started to become aware of their ads on Breitbart when a crowdsourced Twitter handle called Sleeping Giants started calling them out. A Google Doc from Sleeping Giants shows over 1,000 companies that have pulled Breitbart from ad buys.

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Yes, a few people are waiting for the Bill Cassidy town hall

Caitlin Owens / Axios

METAIRIE, La. — Here's the crowd outside this afternoon's town hall meeting, where Sen. Bill Cassidy is about to take questions on Obamacare repeal and replacement. Stay tuned — we'll bring you full coverage.

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Pence: Sorry, liberal activists, we're still repealing Obamacare

Vice President Mike Pence is leaving no doubt that the Trump administration is dismissing the pro-Obamacare protests that have been taking place at congressional town halls. Here's what he said this afternoon in Fenton, Missouri, according to a pool report:

The nightmare of Obamacare is about to end. Despite the best efforts of liberal activists at town halls around the country, Obamacare has failed and it has got to go.

Pence added that the administration will "work with Congress" to give states more flexibility on health care and allow health insurance to be sold across state lines, "like car insurance and life insurance."

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