Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory

Mamdani Balances the Budget, Trump Lands in Beijing With 17 CEOs, a Chinese Spy Mayor, and the AI Job Apocalypse Hits Women First | Tom Bilyeu Show Live

May 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Trump Lands in Beijing With 17 CEOs, a Mayor Admits to Spying for China, and Mamdani Balances the Budget

The two biggest economies on the planet are sitting down face to face this week, and the room is packed. President Trump landed in Beijing with 17 of America's most powerful CEOs — Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, the heads of Boeing, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Meta, and more — in what Tom Bilyeu calls "classic Trumpian dollar diplomacy." The trip comes alongside a California mayor admitting she acted as an unregistered agent of China, New York City Mayor Mamdani actually balancing the budget, and new data showing women now significantly outnumber men in U.S. college-educated jobs — which Bilyeu argues may actually be setting them up for failure as AI reshapes the workforce.

Trump's Beijing Playbook: Strength or Desperation?

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (01:00) **Episode Open & Trump Lands in Beijing with 17 CEOs** - Tom introduces the day’s biggest stories: Trump’s CEO-filled trip to China, a mayor admitting to being a Chinese agent, and women’s jobs being most vulnerable to AI.
  • 2 (05:01) **The Stakes: AI, Global Instability, and the Thucydides Trap** - Tom argues the US-China relationship will define the next 50 years, especially regarding AI and global stability.
  • 3 (08:32) **Is Trump’s Trip a Sign of Strength or Desperation?** - Tom explores the political split in how the trip is being framed: MSNBC sees desperation, the White House sees dollar diplomacy.
  • 4 (11:50) **Trump’s Stance on Iran & Oil Leverage** - Trump says the US will win against Iran regardless of China’s help, but Tom points out the unsaid leverage: the US oil squeeze on Iran and Venezuela disrupts China’s supply.
  • 5 (16:36) **Live Chat Q&A: Does China Have the Upper Hand?** - Tom responds to a viewer question, arguing the US is not a paper tiger and has plenty of leverage.
  • 6 (21:37) **Tariffs, Taiwan, and the Nature of Trump’s Negotiations** - Tom addresses how tariffs and geopolitical topics like Iran and Taiwan will factor into the talks.
  • 7 (25:19) **Brett Ratner, the CEO List, and Trump’s Negotiation Style** - Tom digs into the surreal list of attendees, including Brett Ratner, and explains his own business philosophy on deal-making.

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Guests on this episode

Show Notes

Welcome back to the Tom Bilyeu Show Live, where Tom and Ryan break down the world's biggest stories, the policy fights nobody wants to have honestly, and the technological shifts quietly rewriting the next decade. With Drew out sick, Ryan steps in to dig into Trump's high-stakes Beijing summit — 17 of America's most powerful CEOs in tow, rare earth metals on the table, Boeing chasing a 500-jet deal, and Xi Jinping playing the long game from a position of patient strength.


The conversation expands into the Cold War 2.0 reality unfolding on US soil, as the mayor of Arcadia, California admits to acting as a foreign agent of China — and Tom unpacks why this is likely the tip of a much deeper iceberg involving farmland purchases, property near military bases, and influence operations the US has been slow to confront. From there, Tom delivers a brutal real-talk audit of Mamdani's balanced New York City budget, the Pieta Terror tax, and why the Nordic model everyone keeps invoking hasn't actually existed in Sweden for decades — using a deep economic breakdown of how Sweden quietly became one of the most capitalist countries in Europe, with more billionaires per capita than America.


Then things get spicy: AI is coming for female-dominated white-collar jobs first, men are quietly migrating into the trades and data center construction, and Tom argues the unexpected force creating a new wave of "trad wives" won't be religion — it'll be ChatGPT. Plus: real-life Gundam mechs in Japan, why social safety nets don't scale past 100 million people, the Thucydides Trap looming over US-China relations, post-WWII tax rates and the myth of the 90% bracket, and a sharp closing exchange between Tom and Ryan on ambition, hormones, and whether women "wearing the pants" and women being highly capable are actually the same conversation.


If you want geopolitics without the cable news spin, economics without the bumper sticker slogans, and a host willing to praise his political opposite when they get something right — this episode delivers honesty, history, and the kind of clarity that's getting harder to find.


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Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory

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