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Seeking Alpha’s daily roundup of statements and remarks by newsmakers that might impact markets, sectors or individual stocks.
-Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO and Trump supporter Elon Musk continued to criticize the GOP-backed budget bill currently making its way through Congress.
“A new spending bill should be drafted that doesn’t massively grow the deficit and increase the debt ceiling by 5 TRILLION DOLLARS,” Musk posted on X on Wednesday afternoon.
Musk later posted, “Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.”
-The European Central Bank said it was lowering three key interest rates by 25 basis points, bringing the deposit facility rate down to 2%. It added that inflation was now at around its 2% medium-term target.
“The decision to lower the deposit facility rate – the rate through which the Governing Council steers the monetary policy stance – is based on its updated assessment of the inflation outlook, the dynamics of underlying inflation and the strength of monetary policy transmission,” the ECB said in a statement on Thursday.
-Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a NATO meeting on Thursday that the U.S. is expecting member states to raise their individual contributions to 5% of their respective GDPs. Currently, members are only required to contribute 2%, with several falling short of that goal in recent years.
“We’re here to continue the work that President Trump started, which is a commitment to 5% defense spending across this alliance, which, we think, will happen,” Hegseth told reporters, according to CNBC.