Global business leaders convene at 'Choose France' summit

Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman details how Elon Musk and other business leaders are gathering in Versailles, France, for President Macron's "Choose France" summit vying for international investment pledges.

Video Transcript

- Now, Choose France. President Emmanuel Macron will extol the virtues of investing in the Fifth Republic today. He welcomes around 200 global leaders, including one Elon Musk, to Versailles. Now, no one quite encapsulates understated Gallic glower like Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman or Julie Hyman. Now, she's also no stranger to the luster of one of Europe's most enchanting nations. But is it just business friendly, Julie?

JULIE HYMAN: Well, I mean, that's what Emmanuel Macron would like to convince the various leaders who are gathering at Versailles, quite the backdrop for a business meeting. This is the fifth year that he's been holding these Choose France meetings to try to get various business leaders around the globe to invest in France. This one seems to be relatively successful for him. Thus far reportedly the leaders who are there have committed to invest about 14 billion dollars, about 13 billion euros. And that's the highest amount that he has gotten pledged thus far.

As far as Elon Musk goes and Tesla specifically, Macron tweeted out a photo of the two of them where Musk is wearing a suit, interestingly enough. Macron has his jacket off, however, which I thought was a fun little detail. Already France kind of lost out because Tesla decided to build one of its gigafactories in Germany versus France, which had also been lobbying to house that factory. But it seems like Macron is still keeping those lines of communication open and talking about future investment of some kind by the likes of a Tesla.

It's unclear what that would look like. But there's a lot at stake here for Macron. His popularity is not very high right now. He had been pushing for that increase to the retirement age in France to 64. That had been a very controversial move that had been marked by protests in the streets. So now he's trying to sort of bring the economic picture back, if you will, through this meeting. And of course, Elon Musk a very high profile person to attend it.

- And an interesting one especially right ahead of the G7 as well. A big thank you to our very own Julie Hyman. Thanks so much.