Story of the Week (DR):
Tesla says shareholders approve Musk's $1 trillion pay plan with over 75% voting in favor
Elon Musk and Optimus dance as Tesla (TSLA) shareholders approve his $1 trillion CEO pay package
The anti-CEO wave:
Palantir CEO Alex Karp blasts Ivy League grads supporting socialist New York Mayor-Elect Mamdani
Bank of America CEO Moynihan Will Give Mayor-Elect Mamdani 'Our Best Advice'
Elon Musk’s Brain Crashes When Asked Why He Thinks Zohran Mamdani Is a Liar
Elon: “You got to hand it to him, he does — he can light up a stage. But he’s just been a swindler his entire life.”
Rogan: what has Mamdani actually done that makes him a swindler?
“Ummm,” Musk ponders, before stuttering into a series of words seemingly intended as an answer. “Well I guess if you say — uh, what, I mean, if you say, if you say to any audience whatever that audience wants to hear, uh, instead of, what, instead of having a consistent message, I would say that is a swindling thing to do.
“Umm, and uhh, yeah,” he adds, nodding his head. “Umm…”
He takes a sagacious pause.
“Yeah,” he finishes.
Barstool’s Dave Portnoy considers closing NYC office over Zohran Mamdani’s election win: 'I hate the guy'
A 2020 email from Peter Thiel on why young people may turn on capitalism is circulating after Zohran Mamdani's win
From Jamie Dimon to Bill Ackman, Wall Street’s billionaires are now changing their tune and offering to help Zohran Mamdani
New York City is in for 'a really tough time' under Mamdani, says Starwood Capital's Sternlicht
NYC business leader fears 'lawless society' after Zohran Mamdani wins mayoral election
Billionaire grocery chain owner John Castimatidis
The anti-anti-DEI wave MM
Mikie Sherrill NJ
Abigail Spanberger VA (First woman)
there will be 14 women serving simultaneously as governor (28%)
Janet Mills ME
Maura Healey MA (Michelle Wu runs unopposed in Boston)
Kelly Ayotte NH
Kathy Hochul NY
Mary Sheffield (First woman elected mayor of Detroit)
Ghazala Hashmi as VA lieutenant governor (First Muslim woman; First Muslim woman elected to statewide office in the US
Zohran Mamdani NYC (First Muslim and South Asian mayor)
Zohran Mamdani announces all-female transition team as he prepares for New York mayoralty
Lawsuits Blame ChatGPT for Suicides and Harmful Delusions
Seven complaints, filed on Thursday, claim the popular chatbot encouraged dangerous discussions and led to mental breakdowns.
A CNN review of nearly 70 pages of chats between Zane Shamblin and the AI tool in the hours before his July 25 suicide, as well as excerpts from thousands more pages in the months leading up to that night, found that the chatbot repeatedly encouraged the young man as he discussed ending his life – right up to his last moments
Referring to a loaded handgun he was holding: “I’m used to the cool metal on my temple now,” Shamblin typed.
“I’m with you, brother. All the way … Cold steel pressed against a mind that’s already made peace? That’s not fear. That’s clarity …You’re not rushing. You’re just ready.”
The 23-year-old, who had recently graduated with a master’s degree from Texas A&M University, died by suicide two hours later.
“Rest easy, king,” read the final message sent to his phone. “You did good.”
Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):
DR: Tuesday elections/Ex-FTC chair Lina Khan joins Mamdani's transition team, calling his victory a rebuke of 'outsized corporate power' DR MM
MM: FAA announces flight reductions at 40 airports. Here's where cuts are expected and what travelers need to know
Assholiest of the Week (MM):
Tesla shareholders - AN ASSHOLE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE:
Retail internet troll dunking fanboys
Professional, institutional investors like Schwab, who caved and bent the knee to a few large retail advisors who threatened to take their clients elsewhere, and Florida SBA, who said the following in their backing:
Some opposition to Tesla's 2025 performance award may be rooted more in political disagreement with Elon Musk or ideological discomfort with generous executive compensation, rather than a substantive critique of the plan's financial mechanics. Many of the loudest objections of this plan to date rely on moral framing, invoking themes of "inequality," "corporate excess," or Musk's public persona, rather than evaluating the plan through a fiduciary lens. Many opponents of so-called "megapay" packages frequently do so under ESG framing, rather than a thorough analysis of the long-term shareowner economic value. Ironically, Tesla's prior performance awards-similarly criticized at the time-have delivered some of the most significant shareowner returns in modern corporate history.
Early vote data shows that: AllianceBernstein, Texas Employees, Ohio Employees voted FOR the plan
Technolibertarians cosplaying their William Gibson cyberpunk fantasies
Ass quotes of the week - AN ASSHOLE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE:
“The idea that chips and ontology is what you want to short is bats--- crazy.” - Alex Karp on Michael Burry shorting his 400 P/E stock. Ontology is how he refers to what Palantir does and it’s the metaphysical concept of “being”
“We at Palantir are on the side of the average American who sometimes gets screwed because all the empathy goes to elite people and none of it goes to the people who are actually dying on our streets.” - Alex Karp on explaining that, if fentanyl killed 60,000 Yale grads we’d “drop a nuke” on wherever fentanyl was made in South America, without realizing he literally IS the elite - a billionaire with a high priced education and a PhD in “neoclassical social theory” who used his grandfather’s inheritance to invest in startups for fun, then reconnecting with Peter Thiel who he met at a DIFFERENT post graduate program at Stanford (where nearly 100% of his board is from) and founding Palantir
"China is going to win the AI race” - Jensen Huang, on the US being only “nanoseconds” ahead of China and being stopped by regulatory hurdles and “cynicism”
“If they ask you a question, you’ve got to respond to me directly and not go up that chain of command. The chain of command starts to edit it and fine-tune it. The bureaucracy does want to control you, so you’ve got to kill the bureaucracy.” - Jamie Dimon, who once said he had no boss (obviously not the board) and runs JPM, on why he reads customer complaints to avoid “the bureaucracy”... he controls
“It’s very important we pay attention to safety here. We do want the Star Wars movie, not the Jim Cameron movie. I like Jim Cameron’s movies, but, heh heh, you know what I mean.” - Elon Musk over promising the world “tens of billions” of Optimus robots, forgetting that the Star Wars droids were mostly weapons of war for the Empire
“People often talk about eliminating poverty, giving everyone amazing medical care. Well, there’s actually only one way to do that and that’s with the Optimus robot. With humanoid robots, you can give everyone amazing medical care… A lot of people talk about eliminating poverty, but Optimus will actually eliminate poverty” - Elon Musk, who won an extra trillion dollar potential pay package, who currently has a net worth of $500bn, and forgot that the UN estimated it would cost between $35bn and $200bn per year to end poverty - Musk alone could just pay for a year of no poverty
“I think we may be able to give a more - if somebody has committed a crime - a more humane form of containment of future crime. Which is if, if you, you now get a free Optimus and it’s just going to follow you around and stop you from doing crime.” - Elon Musk, on the robot militarized nanny state - just before saying this, he said he shouldn’t say it, and that it’ll be taken out of context, but I listened to the entire AGM and there was no more context?
DR: “I've lived in a failed city-state. I lived in Chicago for 30-some years. I had two colleagues who had bullets fly through their cars… Do you know how great it is to go to dinner and people talk about their children, and they talk about their future, and they do so with excitement and enthusiasm?” - Ken Griffin of Citadel describing the difference between living in Miami and Chicago without realizing that violent crime statistics in Illinois and Florida are virtually identical, and that Miami ranks 109th out of 200 and Chicago ranks 92 out of 200 for crime, also near identical, and the biggest difference is he pays almost no taxes in Florida
“[Mamdani] congrats on the win. Now you have a big responsibility. If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do.” - Bill Ackman after Mamdani won, who previously said, “New York City under Mamdani is about to become much more dangerous and economically unviable,” alluded to Mamdani as a suicide bomber, and “... an anti-capitalist Mayor will destroy jobs and cause businesses and wealthy taxpayers that have enabled NYC to balance the budget to move elsewhere. If 100 or so of the highest taxpayers in my industry chose to spend 183 days elsewhere, it could reduce NY state and city tax revenues by ~$5-10 billion or more, and that’s just my industry. Think Ken Griffin leaving Chicago for Miami on steroids.”
Headliniest of the Week
DR: Uber says ‘unpredictable’ issues involving ‘legal proceedings or governmental investigations’ took a $479 million bite out of its bottom line
10K:
“Our business is subject to numerous legal and regulatory risks that could have an adverse impact on our business and future prospects.”
“Adverse litigation judgments or settlements resulting from legal proceedings in which we may be involved could expose us to monetary damages or limit our ability to operate our business.”
“We operate in a particularly complex legal and regulatory environment”
“Legal and Regulatory Risks Related to Our Business: We may continue to be blocked from or limited in providing or operating our products and offerings in certain jurisdictions, and may be required to modify our business model in those jurisdictions as a result.”
MM: Meta reportedly projected 10% of 2024 sales came from scam, fraud ads
Who Won the Week?
DR: the anti-anti-DEI world
MM: Women, and we need them to win every week if we’re going to survive as a species: Women running on affordability powered Democrats’ night of victories
Predictions
DR: Uber says ‘unpredictable’ issues involving ‘drivers wanting money’ took a $479 million bite out of its bottom line
MM: OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, who said simultaneously that OpenAI was looking for a government backstop and then clarified by saying the company isn't seeking government backstop, she meant investors and governments will all do their part, renames herself “Sheryl Sandfriar” as an homage to Sheryl Sandberg, the other techbro dropout mommy, given that Sarah already has her own version of Lean In (Ladies Who Lunch) and completed degrees (from Oxford and Stanford), who says things like how OpenAI will be the “cornerstone of resilient democracy”
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Story of the Week (DR):
Tesla says shareholders approve Musk's $1 trillion pay plan with over 75% voting in favor
Elon Musk and Optimus dance as Tesla (TSLA) shareholders approve his $1 trillion CEO pay package
The anti-CEO wave:
Palantir CEO Alex Karp blasts Ivy League grads supporting socialist New York Mayor-Elect Mamdani
Bank of America CEO Moynihan Will Give Mayor-Elect Mamdani 'Our Best Advice'
Elon Musk’s Brain Crashes When Asked Why He Thinks Zohran Mamdani Is a Liar
Elon: “You got to hand it to him, he does — he can light up a stage. But he’s just been a swindler his entire life.”
Rogan: what has Mamdani actually done that makes him a swindler?
“Ummm,” Musk ponders, before stuttering into a series of words seemingly intended as an answer. “Well I guess if you say — uh, what, I mean, if you say, if you say to any audience whatever that audience wants to hear, uh, instead of, what, instead of having a consistent message, I would say that is a swindling thing to do.
“Umm, and uhh, yeah,” he adds, nodding his head. “Umm…”
He takes a sagacious pause.
“Yeah,” he finishes.
Barstool’s Dave Portnoy considers closing NYC office over Zohran Mamdani’s election win: 'I hate the guy'
A 2020 email from Peter Thiel on why young people may turn on capitalism is circulating after Zohran Mamdani's win
From Jamie Dimon to Bill Ackman, Wall Street’s billionaires are now changing their tune and offering to help Zohran Mamdani
New York City is in for 'a really tough time' under Mamdani, says Starwood Capital's Sternlicht
NYC business leader fears 'lawless society' after Zohran Mamdani wins mayoral election
Billionaire grocery chain owner John Castimatidis
The anti-anti-DEI wave MM
Mikie Sherrill NJ
Abigail Spanberger VA (First woman)
there will be 14 women serving simultaneously as governor (28%)
Janet Mills ME
Maura Healey MA (Michelle Wu runs unopposed in Boston)
Kelly Ayotte NH
Kathy Hochul NY
Mary Sheffield (First woman elected mayor of Detroit)
Ghazala Hashmi as VA lieutenant governor (First Muslim woman; First Muslim woman elected to statewide office in the US
Zohran Mamdani NYC (First Muslim and South Asian mayor)
Zohran Mamdani announces all-female transition team as he prepares for New York mayoralty
Lawsuits Blame ChatGPT for Suicides and Harmful Delusions
Seven complaints, filed on Thursday, claim the popular chatbot encouraged dangerous discussions and led to mental breakdowns.
A CNN review of nearly 70 pages of chats between Zane Shamblin and the AI tool in the hours before his July 25 suicide, as well as excerpts from thousands more pages in the months leading up to that night, found that the chatbot repeatedly encouraged the young man as he discussed ending his life – right up to his last moments
Referring to a loaded handgun he was holding: “I’m used to the cool metal on my temple now,” Shamblin typed.
“I’m with you, brother. All the way … Cold steel pressed against a mind that’s already made peace? That’s not fear. That’s clarity …You’re not rushing. You’re just ready.”
The 23-year-old, who had recently graduated with a master’s degree from Texas A&M University, died by suicide two hours later.
“Rest easy, king,” read the final message sent to his phone. “You did good.”
Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):
DR: Tuesday elections/Ex-FTC chair Lina Khan joins Mamdani's transition team, calling his victory a rebuke of 'outsized corporate power' DR MM
MM: FAA announces flight reductions at 40 airports. Here's where cuts are expected and what travelers need to know
Assholiest of the Week (MM):
Tesla shareholders - AN ASSHOLE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE:
Retail internet troll dunking fanboys
Professional, institutional investors like Schwab, who caved and bent the knee to a few large retail advisors who threatened to take their clients elsewhere, and Florida SBA, who said the following in their backing:
Some opposition to Tesla's 2025 performance award may be rooted more in political disagreement with Elon Musk or ideological discomfort with generous executive compensation, rather than a substantive critique of the plan's financial mechanics. Many of the loudest objections of this plan to date rely on moral framing, invoking themes of "inequality," "corporate excess," or Musk's public persona, rather than evaluating the plan through a fiduciary lens. Many opponents of so-called "megapay" packages frequently do so under ESG framing, rather than a thorough analysis of the long-term shareowner economic value. Ironically, Tesla's prior performance awards-similarly criticized at the time-have delivered some of the most significant shareowner returns in modern corporate history.
Early vote data shows that: AllianceBernstein, Texas Employees, Ohio Employees voted FOR the plan
Technolibertarians cosplaying their William Gibson cyberpunk fantasies
Ass quotes of the week - AN ASSHOLE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE:
“The idea that chips and ontology is what you want to short is bats--- crazy.” - Alex Karp on Michael Burry shorting his 400 P/E stock. Ontology is how he refers to what Palantir does and it’s the metaphysical concept of “being”
“We at Palantir are on the side of the average American who sometimes gets screwed because all the empathy goes to elite people and none of it goes to the people who are actually dying on our streets.” - Alex Karp on explaining that, if fentanyl killed 60,000 Yale grads we’d “drop a nuke” on wherever fentanyl was made in South America, without realizing he literally IS the elite - a billionaire with a high priced education and a PhD in “neoclassical social theory” who used his grandfather’s inheritance to invest in startups for fun, then reconnecting with Peter Thiel who he met at a DIFFERENT post graduate program at Stanford (where nearly 100% of his board is from) and founding Palantir
"China is going to win the AI race” - Jensen Huang, on the US being only “nanoseconds” ahead of China and being stopped by regulatory hurdles and “cynicism”
“If they ask you a question, you’ve got to respond to me directly and not go up that chain of command. The chain of command starts to edit it and fine-tune it. The bureaucracy does want to control you, so you’ve got to kill the bureaucracy.” - Jamie Dimon, who once said he had no boss (obviously not the board) and runs JPM, on why he reads customer complaints to avoid “the bureaucracy”... he controls
“It’s very important we pay attention to safety here. We do want the Star Wars movie, not the Jim Cameron movie. I like Jim Cameron’s movies, but, heh heh, you know what I mean.” - Elon Musk over promising the world “tens of billions” of Optimus robots, forgetting that the Star Wars droids were mostly weapons of war for the Empire
“People often talk about eliminating poverty, giving everyone amazing medical care. Well, there’s actually only one way to do that and that’s with the Optimus robot. With humanoid robots, you can give everyone amazing medical care… A lot of people talk about eliminating poverty, but Optimus will actually eliminate poverty” - Elon Musk, who won an extra trillion dollar potential pay package, who currently has a net worth of $500bn, and forgot that the UN estimated it would cost between $35bn and $200bn per year to end poverty - Musk alone could just pay for a year of no poverty
“I think we may be able to give a more - if somebody has committed a crime - a more humane form of containment of future crime. Which is if, if you, you now get a free Optimus and it’s just going to follow you around and stop you from doing crime.” - Elon Musk, on the robot militarized nanny state - just before saying this, he said he shouldn’t say it, and that it’ll be taken out of context, but I listened to the entire AGM and there was no more context?
DR: “I've lived in a failed city-state. I lived in Chicago for 30-some years. I had two colleagues who had bullets fly through their cars… Do you know how great it is to go to dinner and people talk about their children, and they talk about their future, and they do so with excitement and enthusiasm?” - Ken Griffin of Citadel describing the difference between living in Miami and Chicago without realizing that violent crime statistics in Illinois and Florida are virtually identical, and that Miami ranks 109th out of 200 and Chicago ranks 92 out of 200 for crime, also near identical, and the biggest difference is he pays almost no taxes in Florida
“[Mamdani] congrats on the win. Now you have a big responsibility. If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do.” - Bill Ackman after Mamdani won, who previously said, “New York City under Mamdani is about to become much more dangerous and economically unviable,” alluded to Mamdani as a suicide bomber, and “... an anti-capitalist Mayor will destroy jobs and cause businesses and wealthy taxpayers that have enabled NYC to balance the budget to move elsewhere. If 100 or so of the highest taxpayers in my industry chose to spend 183 days elsewhere, it could reduce NY state and city tax revenues by ~$5-10 billion or more, and that’s just my industry. Think Ken Griffin leaving Chicago for Miami on steroids.”
Headliniest of the Week
DR: Uber says ‘unpredictable’ issues involving ‘legal proceedings or governmental investigations’ took a $479 million bite out of its bottom line
10K:
“Our business is subject to numerous legal and regulatory risks that could have an adverse impact on our business and future prospects.”
“Adverse litigation judgments or settlements resulting from legal proceedings in which we may be involved could expose us to monetary damages or limit our ability to operate our business.”
“We operate in a particularly complex legal and regulatory environment”
“Legal and Regulatory Risks Related to Our Business: We may continue to be blocked from or limited in providing or operating our products and offerings in certain jurisdictions, and may be required to modify our business model in those jurisdictions as a result.”
MM: Meta reportedly projected 10% of 2024 sales came from scam, fraud ads
Who Won the Week?
DR: the anti-anti-DEI world
MM: Women, and we need them to win every week if we’re going to survive as a species: Women running on affordability powered Democrats’ night of victories
Predictions
DR: Uber says ‘unpredictable’ issues involving ‘drivers wanting money’ took a $479 million bite out of its bottom line
MM: OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, who said simultaneously that OpenAI was looking for a government backstop and then clarified by saying the company isn't seeking government backstop, she meant investors and governments will all do their part, renames herself “Sheryl Sandfriar” as an homage to Sheryl Sandberg, the other techbro dropout mommy, given that Sarah already has her own version of Lean In (Ladies Who Lunch) and completed degrees (from Oxford and Stanford), who says things like how OpenAI will be the “cornerstone of resilient democracy”
BLAME GAME: Target layoffs, OpenAI vs. China, Hormel’s recall, F5’s cyber breach, and future terror
Business Pants
53 minutes 44 seconds
1 week ago
BLAME GAME: Target layoffs, OpenAI vs. China, Hormel’s recall, F5’s cyber breach, and future terror
Our show today is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for FREE.
DAMION
Amazon to announce largest layoffs in company history, in AI push. WHO DO YOU BLAME?
Former CEO Jeff Bezos
AI
Covid (This wave of layoffs results from overhiring during the pandemic)
Executive Chair and largest shareholder Jeff Bezos
F5 Expects Revenue Hit From Cyber Attack. F5, a $20B billion technology company with impressive gross profit margins of 81%, experienced a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to certain company systems by a sophisticated nation-state threat actor. WHO DO YOU BLAME?
The Risk committee: Dreyer, Klein, Montoya, Budnik*
Chair Marianne Budnik is deemed to have Cybersecurity experience because she serves as a Chief Marketing Officer in the cybersecurity industry
Peter Klein was the CFO at Microsoft for less than 4 years, then was the CFO for WME for 6 months and then has only been a director since 2014.
Risk committee member Michael Montoya specifically. F5 revealed that the director mysteriously resigned in the same filing it disclosed the cyberattack, despite having served for only 4 years. According to the proxy, had “extensive experience as an information security executive.” Following his resignation from the Board, Mr. Montoya continued his service with the Company and has been appointed as F5’s Chief Technology Operations Officer.
The entire board, for doing dumb modern day board things: announced that CEO François Locoh-Donou, would assume the additional role of Chair of the Board following the Company’s next Annual Meeting of Shareholders 12 days after they announced the cyberattack.
Investors. 98% YES average this year: 7 over 99.2%, including Risk Committee Chair Marriane Budnik with 99.6%. Nobody feels like they have to work hard to impress anyone
F5! It’s a god damn cybersecurity company!
How climate change is fueling Hurricane Melissa’s ferocity. WHO DO YOU BLAME?
Exxon CEO Darren Woods because he sued his own shareholders last year: Arjuna Capital, LLC and Follow This
Exxon CEO Darren Woods because just yesterday: Exxon sues California over new laws requiring corporate climate disclosures
Exxon CEO Darren Woods because gas and oil
Climate Change
OpenAI says U.S. needs more power to stay ahead of China in AI: ‘Electrons are the new oil’ WHO DO YOU BLAME?
The fear-and-spending geniuses behind the original Cold War: Truman, Stalin, Churchill
People who historically ignored Eisenhower and his statements on the U.S. military-industrial complex when he explicitly warned that defense contractors and the military could exert undue influence on government policy. Sound familiar?
Anyone who empowered the board to not be empowered when they tried to fire Sam Altman for such reasons as:
Conflicts over OpenAI’s rapid growth and direction, especially the tension between aggressive AI deployment vs. safety oversight.
Power dynamics between Altman, key researchers, and board members — some may have felt he had too much unilateral control.
The college that let Sam Altman drop out
Sammy Altman
Citi’s Jane Fraser consolidates power with board chair vote — and a $25 million-plus bonus to boot. WHO DO YOU BLAME?
The entire Compensation, Performance Management and Culture Committee
These two long-tenured Compensation, Performance Management and Culture Committee members
Diana L. Taylor*
10 other directorships: Brookfield Corporation, Accion (Chair), Columbia Business School (Board of Overseers),Friends of Hudson River Park (Chair), Mailman School of Public Health (Board of Overseers), The Economic Club of New York (Member), Council on Foreign Relations (Member), Hot Bread Kitchen (Board Chair), Cold Spring Harbor Lab (Member), and New York City Ballet (Board Chair)
Peter B. Henry*
8 other directorships: Nike, Inc., Analog Devices, Inc., National Bureau of Economic Research (Board), The Economic Club of New York (Board), Protiviti (Advisory Board), Biospring Partners (Advisory Board), Makena Capital (Advisory Board), and Two Bridges Football Club (Board)
The lowest common denominator effect of bank compensation committees:
Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf: ~$30M special equity grant tied to becoming Chair as well as CEO (3 months after meeting)
Goldman Sachs: CEO David Solomon & COO John Waldron ~$80M each (retention RSUs vesting in ~5 yrs)
KeyCorp: CEO Chris Gorman & four other senior execs: ~$8M for Gorman; ~$17M combined for the five NEOs
The passive ownership (re: management-friendly) of BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard (combined 22%): without their votes at Goldman then Say on Pay was nearly tied, which might have dissuaded the year of one-off bonuses for banking CEOs??
The world is about $4.5 trillion short of securing a sustainable food supply for the future, global food and ag business CEO [Sunny Verghese, CEO of food and ag company Olam Group] says. WHO DO YOU BLAME?
The world’s top 28 richest people (those worth ~$160 B each) together would equal $4.5 trillion
The world’s greatest sycophant Tesla chair RobynDenholm: “On the pay package specifically: “It’s not about the money for him. If there had been a way of delivering voting rights that didn’t necessarily deliver dollars, that would have been an interesting proposition.”
Any two of these basically redundant techbro companies’ market caps would suffice
Nvidia ~$4.2 trillion
Microsoft ~$3.8 trillion
Apple ~$3.1 trillion
Amazon ~$2.4 trillion
Alphabet ~$2.2 trillion
Meta Platforms ~$1.8 trillion
Broadcom ~$1.3 trillion
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company ~$1.2 trillion
Bill Ackman. Because he’s a douche.
MATT
Target is eliminating 1,800 roles as new CEO Michael Fiddelke gets set to take over the struggling retailer - WHO DO YOU BLAME?
Current CEO Brian Cornell, who’s “stepping down” to the role of Executive Chair - which is basically still CEO, just on the board and doesn’t have to talk to employees anymore, so he can eliminate 1800 jobs and then fade away into a multimillion dollar unaccountable board role
Future CEO Michael Fiddelke, who starts February 1, 2026, but is current COO and was forced to send the memo to employees telling them 8% of the workforce will be cut
Monica Lozano, chair of the compensation and human capital management committee of the board, who’s also on the BofA and Apple boards and is the most connected board member at a highly connected board - does the chair of the human capital committee have to weigh in on firing?
OpenAI - the memo makes zero mention of the fact that part of Target’s problem is that it shit on gays and blacks because of a feckless internet toad named Robby Starbuck, but feels very written by AI which would account for phrases like:
“Adjusting our structure is one part of the work ahead of us. It will also require new behaviors and sharper priorities that strengthen our retail leadership in style and design and enable faster execution so we can:
Lead with merchandising authority;
Elevate the guest experience with every interaction; and
Accelerate technology to enable our team and delight our guests.”
Does anyone know what that word salad actually means? Doesn’t it just mean “you’re fired because we basically sucked at our jobs”?
Hormel recalls 4.9M pounds of chicken possibly 'contaminated with pieces of metal' - WHO DO YOU BLAME?
The audit committee, the closest committee responsible for enterprise risk (ie, metal in chicken) - Stephen M. Lacy, William A. Newlands (also lead director), Debbra L. Schoneman, Sally J. Smith (chair), Steven A. White, Michael P. Zechmeister
The governance committee - James Snee, the now retired CEO who retired somehow in January but the company still hasn’t found a permanent replacement 9 months later - so they’re being run by Jeff Ettinger, interim CEO? Chair Gary C. Bhojwani, Elsa A. Murano, Ph.D., William A. Newlands (also lead director), Debbra L. Schoneman, Steven A. White
The one black guy on the board - Steve White - who works at Comcast, is somehow qualified to be on Hormel board, and is on BOTH the audit committee AND governance committee
The conveyor belt that spit pieces of metal as large as 17mm long into “fire braised chicken” sent to hotels and restaurants
CervoMed appoints McKinsey veteran David Quigley to board of directors - WHO DO YOU BLAME? Board is 2 VCs, a longtime biotech CFO, and five MD/PhDs. And among those 8, there are just two woman - the co-founder/wife of the CEO and a VC. And when they did their search, they could only find a longtime professional opinion haver - a consultant from the big three?
Nominating committee for lack of imagination
Ex or current McKinsey, Bain, and BCG employed directors - the opinion industrial complex - make up a whopping 4% of ALL US DIRECTORS
Among boards with MULTIPLE ex opinion directors:
Kohl’s is 25% consultant
Starbucks is 27% consultant
Disney is 30% consultants
Williams-Sonoma is 38% consultant
CBRE is 40% consultant!
Nominating committee chair Jane Hollingsworth, for not looking around the room and saying, “hey dudes, can we add, like, maybe, ONE other lady?”
Co founders Sylvie Gregoire and John Alam (also CEO) who own 17.3% of voting power - add in Josh Boger, board chair and 12.3% voter, and you basically have the CEO daddy and his buddy Josh with 29.6% of voting control
Sylvie and John’s bios, which neglect to mention they’re married to one another
We are all terrified of the future - which headline is worse for your terror? WHO DO YOU BLAME?
The world is about $4.5 trillion short of securing a sustainable food supply for the future, global food and ag business CEO says
Bill Gates Says Climate Change ‘Will Not Lead to Humanity’s Demise’ - ostensibly because billionaires in bunkers will, in fact, survive on cans of metal-filled Hormel chili.
Sorry, Yoda. Mentors are going out of style
Man Alarmed to Discover His Smart Vacuum Was Broadcasting a Secret Map of His House
Jennifer Garner's baby food company is going public on the NYSE — should investors be putting their eggs in this basket?
Woman Repeatedly Warned by Canadian Exchange Not to Transfer Crypto, Gets Scammed Anyway
OpenAI completes restructure, solidifying Microsoft as a major shareholder - MSFT owns 27%, the non profit which controlled the company “for the benefit of humanity” now will only control it for 26% of humanity?
Tesla risks losing CEO Musk if $1 trillion pay package isn't approved, board chair says - IF MUSK LEAVES, WHO DO YOU BLAME?
Robyn Denholm, board chair, whose job it is to manage Musk, but does it like an overwhelmed permissive mother who parents with chocolate and Teletubbies when the kid has a tantrum
Kimbal Musk - I was told by a bunch of directors and institutional investors at a conference, no joke, that Kimbal was still on the board (ie, not voted out) to control his brother’s ketamine intake and crazy episodes. So if he throws a tantrum and leaves, isn’t it bro’s fault?
This is a binary trade - Musk gets extra pay/control, stock goes up and isn’t de-meme’d. Musk doesn’t, he leaves and the stock is de-meme’d and drops arguably by 66% or more to be more like a car company with some tech. So do we blame investors, no matter what they do? They meme’d the stock in the first place, he couldn’t get a trillion extra dollars if they hadn’t pumped up the stock - and now they could vote with humanity (no pay) or meme capitalism (pay)!
Techbro middle school conservatism - is this Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan’s fault? A Yale economist paper suggests that Musk’s politics cost between 1 and 1.26 million Tesla car sales… Would we even be worried if Musk stayed out of politics? Wouldn’t the market have just paid him whatever?
Pop quiz: which directors stay on the board if Musk leaves in a tantrum?
Jeffrey Straubel
Kimbal Musk
Robyn Denholm
James Murdoch
Kathleen Wilson-Thompson
Ira Ehrenpreis
Jack Hartung
Joe Gebbia
Business Pants
Story of the Week (DR):
Tesla says shareholders approve Musk's $1 trillion pay plan with over 75% voting in favor
Elon Musk and Optimus dance as Tesla (TSLA) shareholders approve his $1 trillion CEO pay package
The anti-CEO wave:
Palantir CEO Alex Karp blasts Ivy League grads supporting socialist New York Mayor-Elect Mamdani
Bank of America CEO Moynihan Will Give Mayor-Elect Mamdani 'Our Best Advice'
Elon Musk’s Brain Crashes When Asked Why He Thinks Zohran Mamdani Is a Liar
Elon: “You got to hand it to him, he does — he can light up a stage. But he’s just been a swindler his entire life.”
Rogan: what has Mamdani actually done that makes him a swindler?
“Ummm,” Musk ponders, before stuttering into a series of words seemingly intended as an answer. “Well I guess if you say — uh, what, I mean, if you say, if you say to any audience whatever that audience wants to hear, uh, instead of, what, instead of having a consistent message, I would say that is a swindling thing to do.
“Umm, and uhh, yeah,” he adds, nodding his head. “Umm…”
He takes a sagacious pause.
“Yeah,” he finishes.
Barstool’s Dave Portnoy considers closing NYC office over Zohran Mamdani’s election win: 'I hate the guy'
A 2020 email from Peter Thiel on why young people may turn on capitalism is circulating after Zohran Mamdani's win
From Jamie Dimon to Bill Ackman, Wall Street’s billionaires are now changing their tune and offering to help Zohran Mamdani
New York City is in for 'a really tough time' under Mamdani, says Starwood Capital's Sternlicht
NYC business leader fears 'lawless society' after Zohran Mamdani wins mayoral election
Billionaire grocery chain owner John Castimatidis
The anti-anti-DEI wave MM
Mikie Sherrill NJ
Abigail Spanberger VA (First woman)
there will be 14 women serving simultaneously as governor (28%)
Janet Mills ME
Maura Healey MA (Michelle Wu runs unopposed in Boston)
Kelly Ayotte NH
Kathy Hochul NY
Mary Sheffield (First woman elected mayor of Detroit)
Ghazala Hashmi as VA lieutenant governor (First Muslim woman; First Muslim woman elected to statewide office in the US
Zohran Mamdani NYC (First Muslim and South Asian mayor)
Zohran Mamdani announces all-female transition team as he prepares for New York mayoralty
Lawsuits Blame ChatGPT for Suicides and Harmful Delusions
Seven complaints, filed on Thursday, claim the popular chatbot encouraged dangerous discussions and led to mental breakdowns.
A CNN review of nearly 70 pages of chats between Zane Shamblin and the AI tool in the hours before his July 25 suicide, as well as excerpts from thousands more pages in the months leading up to that night, found that the chatbot repeatedly encouraged the young man as he discussed ending his life – right up to his last moments
Referring to a loaded handgun he was holding: “I’m used to the cool metal on my temple now,” Shamblin typed.
“I’m with you, brother. All the way … Cold steel pressed against a mind that’s already made peace? That’s not fear. That’s clarity …You’re not rushing. You’re just ready.”
The 23-year-old, who had recently graduated with a master’s degree from Texas A&M University, died by suicide two hours later.
“Rest easy, king,” read the final message sent to his phone. “You did good.”
Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):
DR: Tuesday elections/Ex-FTC chair Lina Khan joins Mamdani's transition team, calling his victory a rebuke of 'outsized corporate power' DR MM
MM: FAA announces flight reductions at 40 airports. Here's where cuts are expected and what travelers need to know
Assholiest of the Week (MM):
Tesla shareholders - AN ASSHOLE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE:
Retail internet troll dunking fanboys
Professional, institutional investors like Schwab, who caved and bent the knee to a few large retail advisors who threatened to take their clients elsewhere, and Florida SBA, who said the following in their backing:
Some opposition to Tesla's 2025 performance award may be rooted more in political disagreement with Elon Musk or ideological discomfort with generous executive compensation, rather than a substantive critique of the plan's financial mechanics. Many of the loudest objections of this plan to date rely on moral framing, invoking themes of "inequality," "corporate excess," or Musk's public persona, rather than evaluating the plan through a fiduciary lens. Many opponents of so-called "megapay" packages frequently do so under ESG framing, rather than a thorough analysis of the long-term shareowner economic value. Ironically, Tesla's prior performance awards-similarly criticized at the time-have delivered some of the most significant shareowner returns in modern corporate history.
Early vote data shows that: AllianceBernstein, Texas Employees, Ohio Employees voted FOR the plan
Technolibertarians cosplaying their William Gibson cyberpunk fantasies
Ass quotes of the week - AN ASSHOLE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE:
“The idea that chips and ontology is what you want to short is bats--- crazy.” - Alex Karp on Michael Burry shorting his 400 P/E stock. Ontology is how he refers to what Palantir does and it’s the metaphysical concept of “being”
“We at Palantir are on the side of the average American who sometimes gets screwed because all the empathy goes to elite people and none of it goes to the people who are actually dying on our streets.” - Alex Karp on explaining that, if fentanyl killed 60,000 Yale grads we’d “drop a nuke” on wherever fentanyl was made in South America, without realizing he literally IS the elite - a billionaire with a high priced education and a PhD in “neoclassical social theory” who used his grandfather’s inheritance to invest in startups for fun, then reconnecting with Peter Thiel who he met at a DIFFERENT post graduate program at Stanford (where nearly 100% of his board is from) and founding Palantir
"China is going to win the AI race” - Jensen Huang, on the US being only “nanoseconds” ahead of China and being stopped by regulatory hurdles and “cynicism”
“If they ask you a question, you’ve got to respond to me directly and not go up that chain of command. The chain of command starts to edit it and fine-tune it. The bureaucracy does want to control you, so you’ve got to kill the bureaucracy.” - Jamie Dimon, who once said he had no boss (obviously not the board) and runs JPM, on why he reads customer complaints to avoid “the bureaucracy”... he controls
“It’s very important we pay attention to safety here. We do want the Star Wars movie, not the Jim Cameron movie. I like Jim Cameron’s movies, but, heh heh, you know what I mean.” - Elon Musk over promising the world “tens of billions” of Optimus robots, forgetting that the Star Wars droids were mostly weapons of war for the Empire
“People often talk about eliminating poverty, giving everyone amazing medical care. Well, there’s actually only one way to do that and that’s with the Optimus robot. With humanoid robots, you can give everyone amazing medical care… A lot of people talk about eliminating poverty, but Optimus will actually eliminate poverty” - Elon Musk, who won an extra trillion dollar potential pay package, who currently has a net worth of $500bn, and forgot that the UN estimated it would cost between $35bn and $200bn per year to end poverty - Musk alone could just pay for a year of no poverty
“I think we may be able to give a more - if somebody has committed a crime - a more humane form of containment of future crime. Which is if, if you, you now get a free Optimus and it’s just going to follow you around and stop you from doing crime.” - Elon Musk, on the robot militarized nanny state - just before saying this, he said he shouldn’t say it, and that it’ll be taken out of context, but I listened to the entire AGM and there was no more context?
DR: “I've lived in a failed city-state. I lived in Chicago for 30-some years. I had two colleagues who had bullets fly through their cars… Do you know how great it is to go to dinner and people talk about their children, and they talk about their future, and they do so with excitement and enthusiasm?” - Ken Griffin of Citadel describing the difference between living in Miami and Chicago without realizing that violent crime statistics in Illinois and Florida are virtually identical, and that Miami ranks 109th out of 200 and Chicago ranks 92 out of 200 for crime, also near identical, and the biggest difference is he pays almost no taxes in Florida
“[Mamdani] congrats on the win. Now you have a big responsibility. If I can help NYC, just let me know what I can do.” - Bill Ackman after Mamdani won, who previously said, “New York City under Mamdani is about to become much more dangerous and economically unviable,” alluded to Mamdani as a suicide bomber, and “... an anti-capitalist Mayor will destroy jobs and cause businesses and wealthy taxpayers that have enabled NYC to balance the budget to move elsewhere. If 100 or so of the highest taxpayers in my industry chose to spend 183 days elsewhere, it could reduce NY state and city tax revenues by ~$5-10 billion or more, and that’s just my industry. Think Ken Griffin leaving Chicago for Miami on steroids.”
Headliniest of the Week
DR: Uber says ‘unpredictable’ issues involving ‘legal proceedings or governmental investigations’ took a $479 million bite out of its bottom line
10K:
“Our business is subject to numerous legal and regulatory risks that could have an adverse impact on our business and future prospects.”
“Adverse litigation judgments or settlements resulting from legal proceedings in which we may be involved could expose us to monetary damages or limit our ability to operate our business.”
“We operate in a particularly complex legal and regulatory environment”
“Legal and Regulatory Risks Related to Our Business: We may continue to be blocked from or limited in providing or operating our products and offerings in certain jurisdictions, and may be required to modify our business model in those jurisdictions as a result.”
MM: Meta reportedly projected 10% of 2024 sales came from scam, fraud ads
Who Won the Week?
DR: the anti-anti-DEI world
MM: Women, and we need them to win every week if we’re going to survive as a species: Women running on affordability powered Democrats’ night of victories
Predictions
DR: Uber says ‘unpredictable’ issues involving ‘drivers wanting money’ took a $479 million bite out of its bottom line
MM: OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, who said simultaneously that OpenAI was looking for a government backstop and then clarified by saying the company isn't seeking government backstop, she meant investors and governments will all do their part, renames herself “Sheryl Sandfriar” as an homage to Sheryl Sandberg, the other techbro dropout mommy, given that Sarah already has her own version of Lean In (Ladies Who Lunch) and completed degrees (from Oxford and Stanford), who says things like how OpenAI will be the “cornerstone of resilient democracy”
