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”
Musk’s robot army, East Wing payoffs vs. NBA scandals, and Benioff the Protector
Business Pants
1 hour 3 minutes 11 seconds
2 weeks ago
Musk’s robot army, East Wing payoffs vs. NBA scandals, and Benioff the Protector
Story of the Week (DR):
Citi’s Jane Fraser consolidates power with board chair vote — and a $25 million-plus bonus to boot
a one-time equity award (the Award), consisting of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) with a grant date value of $25 million and 1.055 million Citigroup stock options
the Compensation, Performance Management and Culture Committee
Duncan P. Hennes (Chair)*
Peter B. Henry*
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)
Renée J. James
Other directorships: Oracle Corporation, Sabre Corporation, Vodafone Group Plc, President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (Member and Prior Chair), and University of Oregon (Trustee)
Gary M. Reiner*
Diana L. Taylor*
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)
Casper W. von Koskull
Committee Meetings in 2024: 15
Citi elected CEO Jane Fraser as Chair
John Dugan, who served as Chair of Citi’s Board since 2019, will become Lead Independent Director
CEO armies MM
Elon Musk Wants ‘Strong Influence’ Over the ‘Robot Army’ He’s Building
In a Tesla earnings call Wednesday, the world’s richest man pondered the future of his company’s Optimus robots—and his control over them.
“If we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over this robot army?” he told investors. “Not control, but a strong influence… I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army unless I have a strong influence.”
His repeated use of the word “army” certainly stands out, suggesting the robot could eventually be used as a weapon. Is Musk considering having his robots be deployed as soldiers?
Elon Musk Threatens to Leave Tesla if Shareholders Don’t Approve His Trillion-Dollar Pay Package – Warns, “Which Other Automotive CEO Would You Like to Run Tesla Because It Won’t Be Me”
Secret Plans Reveal Amazon Plot to Replace 600,000 Workers With Robot Army
The ongoing CEO/Trump Oligarchical Bromance
Trump pardons convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao
Zhao, who is widely known as CZ, had pleaded guilty in 2023 to enabling money laundering while CEO of the huge cryptocurrency exchange.
Zhao’s plea was part of a $4.3 billion settlement Binance reached with the DOJ in 2023.
The pardon of Zhao, widely known as CZ, came two months after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump family’s own crypto venture, which has generated about $4.5 billion since the 2024 election, has been helped by “a partnership with an under-the-radar trading platform quietly administered by Binance.”
NBC News, citing a public disclosure filing from Monday, reported that Binance in September had retained the services of the lobbyist Charles McDowell, who is a friend of the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
Trump calls off planned 'surge' of federal forces in San Francisco after talking to Jensen Huang and Marc Benioff
Here are the donors contributing to Trump’s White House ballroom
In summary: techbros, oil, tobacco, crypto
Corporations
Altria Group, tobacco (donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund)
Amazon (donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund)
Apple (donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund)
Booz Allen Hamilton
Caterpillar
Coinbase (donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund)
In February, the SEC dropped a pending case against the firm.
Comcast Corporation (donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund)
Google (donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund)
$22 million toward the ballroom came from a settlement Trump reached with the Google-owned video site YouTube, ending a lawsuit he brought over the company’s 2021 decision to suspend his account in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Hard Rock International
HP Inc.
Lockheed Martin
In an emailed statement, the company said it was “grateful for the opportunity to help bring the President’s vision to reality and make this addition to the People’s House, a powerful symbol of the American ideals we work to defend every day.”
Meta Platforms (donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund)
In January, Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit brought by Trump that alleged the company’s suspension of his social media accounts after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol amounted to an act of censorship.
Micron Technology (donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund)
Microsoft
NextEra Energy (donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund)
Palantir Technologies
Has won hundreds of millions of dollars in new and expanded business since Trump’s second term began, including contracts at the FAA, CDC, and further contracts with the U.S. military.
Ripple (donated $4.9 million to Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund)
In March, the company’s CEO announced that the SEC would drop its long-running litigation over whether its cryptocurrency is a security.
Reynolds American, tobacco company.
T-Mobile
Tether America
The company, which has ties to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, is the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency designed to hold a steady value.
Union Pacific Railroad
Individuals
Stefan E. Brodie: an American businessman, convicted felon, and political donor known for co-founding The Bro-Tech Corporation (Purolite Company), a chemical manufacturing firm
Harold Hamm: the billionaire oil executive played a key role in helping Trump raise funds from oil industry donors during the 2024 election
Benjamin Leon Jr., the health-care company founder was nominated as U.S. Ambassador to Spain in March.
The Lutnick Family: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is a billionaire and former Wall Street executive.
Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter: former Marvel NEO who donated over $25 million towards the 2024 Republican campaign.
Stephen A. Schwarzman: Blackstone CEO who donated $40 million to Republican organizations for last year’s election.
Konstantin Sokolov: private equity investor.
Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher: Loeffler is head of the Small Business Administration; Sprecher is CEO/CHair/founder of Intercontinental Exchange
Paolo Tiramani: founder of prefabricated homes company BOXABL
Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss: co-founders of crypto platform Gemini.
Activist investor group that includes Travis Kelce aims to revive struggling Six Flags
Travis Kelce is part of an activist investor group (with JANA Partners and others) that has acquired roughly a 9 % economic interest in Six Flags.
The group’s stated intention is to engage with Six Flags’ management and board to improve performance, guest experience, marketing, etc.
In the reporting by Reuters, it explicitly says that “Consumer executive Glenn Murphy and technology executive Dave Habiger … could, along with Kelce, serve as potential board nominees.”
Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):
DR: Hundreds of Power Players, From Steve Wozniak to Steve Bannon to Richard Branson, Just Signed a Letter Calling for Prohibition on Development of AI Superintelligence
"Nobody developing these AI systems has been asking humanity if this is OK."
The letter cites recent polling from FLI, which was cofounded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Max Tegmark, showing that only five percent of Americans are in favor of the rapid and unregulated development of advanced AI tools
MM: Linda McMahon mixed up AI and A.1. — so of course now the steak sauce is all over it
Assholiest of the Week (MM):
Robot armies DR
Secret Plans Reveal Amazon Plot to Replace 600,000 Workers With Robot Army
Elon Musk defends $1 trillion pay package: ‘I just don’t feel comfortable building a robot army here and then being ousted
Meta tells some employees their jobs are being replaced by tech: read the memo
AWS Outage That Took Down Internet Came After Amazon Fired Tons of Workers in Favor of AI
US firm’s Star Wars-style humanoid robot soldier brings sci-fi to battlefield
2024: What Is a ‘Clanker’? New Slur for Robots Catches On (it’s also from Star Wars)
Fake retirement
Jeff Bezos Says He's the 'Least Retired Person in the World'...And He'll 'Never Retire Because Work Is Too Much Fun'
In our data, there are 251 US board chairs that are executives at the company, WERE the CEO, but are NOT the CEO now - that’s 251 Jeff Bezos’ who get paid like a CEO to work how they want without any accountability
They don’t give press conferences or earnings calls
They don’t answer to the CEO, they answer to themselves
They control the board without having to answer to it
122 of them are NOT family or founder firms - meaning they were just the CEO and they’re sticking around
That includes Donald Umpleby at Caterpillar
At Schwab, Charles Schwab is a CO-chair with ex-CEO Walter Bettinger II, and the board has a THIRD CEO on it in Richard Wurster
The average TSR performance of these people is .477 - below average
In zero situations is it worth having any of these people on the board
Boys
Trump says Jensen Huang and Mark Benioff helped convince him not to send troops to San Francisco
Citi CEO’s $25 Million Bonus Is Excessive, Top Bank Analyst Mike Mayo Says
Elon Musk got feisty about his $1 trillion pay package in the final minutes of Tesla's earnings call
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's annual pay jumps to $96.5 million
Palmer Luckey says he told Anduril investors they can't complain if he takes time off to be on 'Survivor'
Elon Musk Accuses Head of NASA of Being “Gay”
Bill Ackman calls Trump the 'most pro-business president we've ever had'
Integrity for sports
While the Trump Administration inserts itself in every crypto venture with no oversight, openly insider trades, and Congress does the same, heaven forbid it happen in sports… Chauncey Billups, others arrested in FBI probe linking NBA to Mafia gambling ring
Headliniest of the Week
DR: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has one question he likes to ask every entrepreneur: ‘Why does your company deserve to exist?’
MM: SPEED ROUND
Tesla recalls over 63,000 Cybertrucks due to the front lights being too bright
Mosquitoes found in Iceland for first time
Cracker Barrel CEO Says Logo Update Wasn't 'Woke' — Just Easier to Read
Reading IS woke!
McDonald's CEO says he eats at the chain '3 or 4 times a week'
Who Won the Week?
DR: obviously Jane
MM: Mosquitos
Predictions
DR: In 2070, future MetaSoul (née Facebook/Meta Platforms) CEO August Zuckerberg has one question she likes to ask every non-AI human: ‘Why do you deserve to exist?’
MM: McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski goes from his reported weight of 158lbs to 220lbs inside a year
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”
