Bari Weiss is a DEIdeology hire, conservative foot shooting, Musk is rich, and CEO exits

Story of the Week (DR):

1. CEO Succession:

1. Disney CEO to Step Down, Replacement Race Narrows Between Two Major Contenders

1. Josh D’Amaro, Chairman of Disney Experiences

2. Dana Walden, Co-Chair of Disney Entertainment

1. Jimmy Kimmel Endorses Dana Walden as Next Disney CEO: “She’s Done a Great Job”

2. Tim Cook may step down as Apple CEO, John Ternus likely to be his successor

3. Verizon Names Lead Director Daniel Schulman as Chief Executive

2. Forget “DEI”—Bari Weiss Is Proof That Merit Doesn’t Matter MM

1. Is Paramount's Bari Weiss deal a Trump deal? We can't tell. And that's the problem.

3. Cracker Barrel’s logo controversy was driven by bots: What operators should learn from this

1. Research from PeakMetrics found that 44.5% of X posts about the Cracker Barrel rebranding controversy were posted by bots

4. AI “Friend” Startup Overwhelmed With Hatred

1. Cocky AI CEO Does Photoshoot in Front of His Subway Ads That Got Relentlessly Vandalized

2. CEO Who Plastered AI Ads All Over Subway System Afraid to Talk to Real New Yorkers Face-to-Face

3. Last month, AI startup Friend launched an eyebrow-raising advertising campaign in the New York City subway, which drew a striking amount of hatred.

1. “Befriend something alive,” one pen-wielding tagger wrote.

2. “AI wouldn’t care if you lived or died,” another vandal raged.

3. “AI will promote suicide when prompted, it is NOT YOUR ‘FRIEND.'”

4. The company recently launched its controversial AI gadget, which is designed to constantly listen to you via a microphone and send snarky AI texts to your smartphone.

5. Now, Friend’s 22-year-old CEO Avi Schiffmann isn’t just doing a photoshoot in front of the defaced ads for photos featured in The Atlantic — he’s relishing the attention his company has been getting as of late. Schiffmann told the magazine that the backlash was part of Friend’s plan. The ads were allegedly meant to provoke a conversation.

6. Avi Schiffmann, a Harvard University dropout

5. Shareholder Proposal No-Action Requests in the 2025 Proxy Season

1. For the 2025 proxy season, companies submitted approximately 35% more no-action requests than in the year before, and, excluding withdrawals, almost 70% of requests were granted — about the same rate as in 2024.

2. The most common bases on which proposals were successfully excluded were:

1. procedural and eligibility defects, or

2. that the proposal related to the company’s ordinary business or would micromanage the company

3. Importantly, companies also had greater success than in recent years excluding proposals on the basis of:

1. substantial implementation,

2. economic relevance or

3. being false and misleading.

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

1. DR: Cuomo warns dem socialist rival’s tax plan would trigger mass exodus of NYC’s wealthy

2. DR: Buildings are turning to ‘ice batteries’ for sustainable air conditioning DR MM

1. PepsiCo’s Plan to Boost Lay’s Sales: ‘Real Potatoes’

3. DR: WestJet now charges passengers to recline seats on new Boeing 737 flights

4. MM: Shareholders?

1. Shareholder group calls on UnitedHealth to decouple CEO from board chair

2. Battle over Elon Musk’s trillionaire pay package builds as pension funds face off against Tesla

3. ESG Investment Practices See Backlash, But No Abandonment In Sight: Survey

4. Bloodthirsty activist investors are set to take down a record number of CEOs this year, Barclays says. The record is only a year old

5. Wells Fargo Faces Activist Call for Independent Board Chair

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. Self Inflicted Wounds DR

1. Trumps wind energy assault stings red states

2. As Trump champions fossil fuels, the world is betting on renewable energy

1. The climate economy is delivering': CEO climate leaders publish open letter ahead of COP30

3. Mark carneys shift from climate change warrior to fossil fuel cheerleader

4. Trump Labor Department Says His Immigration Raids Are Causing a Food Crisis

5. America’s Soybean Farmers Are Panicking Over the Loss of Chinese Buyers

6. Judge restricts ESG use in American Airlines 401(k) plan

1. The judge has also ruled that employers should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of gender, gays shouldn’t marry, blocked COVID vaccine mandates, and is Elon Musk’s judge of choice (he judge shopped for a judge not in his district that owned Tesla stock)

2. Now employers can’t use as much data!  You win!

2. Idiot Robots

1. Cracker Barrel’s logo controversy was driven by bots: What operators should learn from this

2. MIT researchers studied 16 million election-related AI responses. They found chatbots are ‘sensitive to steering,’ raising questions about LLMs’ neutrality

3. Japanese Farmers Send Out Automated Laser Drones to Defend Chickens

4. Tesla investigated over self-driving cars driving on wrong side of road

1. Tesla faces U.S. auto safety probe after reports FSD ran red lights, caused collisions

5. Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt warns AI models can be hacked: 'They learn how to kill someone'

3. Investors don’t even vote

1. Executives: 93% of executives say at least one director should be replaced, 78% say 2 or more

2. Directors: 55% think AT LEAST ONE should be replaced, and 7% of directors - nearly 1 in 10 - think MORE THAN TWO directors

3. Investors: 35% said they voted - IN EITHER DIRECTION - at all

1. To put that in perspective, investor voter turnout is roughly equivalent to voter turnout in Syria (37%)

Headliniest of the Week

1. DR: Elon Musk's Wealth Now Dwarfs The GDP Of 83% Of Countries

2. DR: Markets look unstoppable, but JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon sees a 30% chance of a correction: ‘I’m far more worried than others’

3. MM: Outer Space edition:

1. Astronomer Estimates 30-40 Percent Chance Mysterious Interstellar Object Is Alien Craft Disguised as a Comet

2. Elon Musk’s Satellites Now Constantly Falling Out of the Sky

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: non-AI AI-hating sharpies: Sharpie Found a Way to Make Pens More Cheaply—By Manufacturing Them in the U.S.

2. MM: Patagonia CEO who said of climate crisis denialists: ‘If you step out of a window from the third floor talking about how gravity doesn’t exist, you’re still going to hit the ground’

Predictions

1. DR: Dana Walden, despite her experience, will immediately be called a DEI hire.

2. MM: THIS IS THE YEAR SHAREHOLDERS VOTE OUT DIRECTORS!