Surf star Kelly Slater eyes personal financial crisis as Trump’s tariffs take hold

“I said to Kelly, you will not only be the best surfer in the world but the best surfboard-designer.”

What appeared as an international game of financial chicken has, in the last week, morphed into an economic head on collision. United States President Donald J. Trump, frustrated with a wonky global trade balance, enacted his campaign promise to penalize offending countries through steep, deep and not cheap tariffs. China and America going back and forth, slapping 30% then 80% then 110% levies on each other. The European Union throwing an additional 25% tax on incoming American goods. Vietnam trying desperately to cut a deal and Thailand bashed with a 36% spike on its exports.

Enter our hero Kelly Slater.

It can be easy to forget that the multi-hyphenate surf champion-doting-father-golfer-geologist is also majority owner of pop-out surfboard giant Firewire.

You will certainly recall the impressive piece Derek Rielly wrote on the evolution of Nev Hyman’s dream:

In the surfboard game, historically, you make x-amount for your part of the process. Glasser gets whatever, ghost shaper, whatever, all the way down the line. It works when there’s a dozen or so boards a week. When the process is streamlined, when the production line is jamming hundreds of boards a week it’s unsustainable.

Hence the company’s move to Thailand, where it owns two factories. Nev ain’t one to shirk the Asian origin of Firewire’s boards. The factories are spotless, he says, there’s no dangerous chemicals like acetone, catalysts etc, 60 per cent of the workers are gals (hello ladies!) and they’re all paid higher than average wages. Nev figures, what’s the difference between jobs created in Thailand and those created in Australia or the US? We’re global, yeah?

Oops.

Rielly continued:

But back to Kelly. Firewire approached Kelly midway through last year. Kelly happened to be on the market, too, looking for something to pour his formidable intellect (and wealth) into. He bit, he bought.

“I said to Kelly, you will not only be the best surfer in the world but the best surfboard-designer,” says Nev. “Combine that level of intelligence (Kelly has a law degree) with the tools we’re providing him and can you imagine where he’ll take it?”

Take it he did, a whopping 70% stake and life was grand as Slater was able to harness Thailand’s cheap labor market etc., bring his boards here and undercut domestic competition.

Masterful.

But what now? Firewires going to be much more expensive? Prohibitively so? Slater’s net worth going to tank right after become a father for the first second time?

David Lee Scales, you may or may not know, is something of an expert when it comes to surfboard blanks and we discuss in depth here.

If you just want more Filipe Toledo bashing, though, listen below.