Bezos spouts, CEOs hate employees, SpaceX IPO gaslights
ESG Stuff
BP removes chairman Albert Manifold over governance issues 9
The board said the decision was unanimous. In a statement, Amanda Blanc, BP's senior independent director, described the board as having been caught off guard by what it found: "The board has been surprised and disappointed to learn of governance oversight and conduct issues it deems unacceptable and has taken decisive action."
The company did not elaborate on the specific nature of the concerns.
Ian Tyler has been named interim chair, BP said, with the board set to begin a formal process to identify a permanent successor: "The Board and leadership team have deep conviction in the strategic direction we have laid out, and the company is moving at pace to deliver it."
Manifold took up the chairmanship just last October. At last month's annual general meeting, just 81.8% of shareholders backed his election
Among the most consequential decisions of Manifold's short tenure: pushing out former CEO Murray Auchincloss and overseeing the selection of Meg O'Neill to succeed him — a hire that marked the first time BP had recruited an external CEO and the first time a woman had led one of the oil industry's largest players.
Tulsi Gabbard Exit Marks Fourth Woman to Leave Trump Cabinet 0
Apology Tour
Bank boss sorry after describing workers as 'lower value human capital' 7
Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters triggered a massive PR firestorm by describing the bank’s plan to replace back-office staff with automation as replacing "lower-value human capital" with financial investment
Standard Chartered is cutting roughly 7,800 jobs—representing about 15% of its global back-office corporate support roles—over the next four years to make room for AI
After internal anger and blistering public criticism, Winters posted a formal apology for his "choice of words." However, he initially fueled the fire by attaching the full interview transcript to justify his broader context, drawing further criticism for being defensive
In his first attempt to quiet the storm, Winters leaned heavily into the corporate strategy rather than apologizing for the specific phrasing: "I said that lower-value roles are more vulnerable to automation, and that we have a responsibility to help colleagues move into higher-value roles. That is what a responsible employer should do. We will continue to speak honestly about the impact of technological change, and we will continue to act responsibly in helping our people to adapt and succeed."
After a barrage of negative comments on his first post, Winters returned to LinkedIn later that day to offer an explicit apology for his phrasing: "I have received a lot of support for the messages in my previous post but still get questions about my choice of words, which I know has caused upset to some colleagues. For that I am sorry."
"I think the transcript makes it clear that I value our colleagues – all of them – most highly and that we are totally committed to helping them to cope with the accelerating pace of change in our industry."
JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon says bank chief's viral AI comment was 'inartful'
Dimon downplayed the viral backlash against Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters—who drew fire for saying his bank would replace "lower-value human capital" with technology—calling it an "inartful" slip-of-the-tongue from a friend.
Neopbabies and Dropout babies
James Murdoch to acquire New York Magazine and Vox Media Podcast Network -1
Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow justified firing his entire Human Resources department by claiming they actively manufactured internal friction
The aggressive purge follows a brutal 97% collapse in Bolt’s valuation—crashing from an $11 billion peak in 2022 down to $300 million
Traditional HR has been entirely swapped for a skeletal "people operations" team, shifting the focus away from employee complaints and internal processes toward basic compliance training and empowering managers to make split-second decisions
Alongside gutting HR, Breslow rolled back employee-friendly benefits like four-day workweeks and unlimited PTO, claiming a culture of complacency had taken over and that 99% of his legacy workforce was simply unwilling to work hard
Ryan dropped out of Stanford in 2014 to launch Bolt
The Middle School Boy Man Babies Rule the World
Man Drives Cybertruck Into Lake to Test Elon Musk’s “Boat” Claims, and It Went About as Well as You’d Guess -10
"The passengers abandoned the vehicle and the driver was arrested."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk:
randomly tweeted that the vehicle would function as a rudimentary flotation device.
“It will even float for a while.”
“[The vehicle would be able to] traverse at least 100m [330 feet] of water as a boat.”
“Cybertruck will be waterproof enough to serve briefly as a boat, so it can cross rivers, lakes and even seas that aren’t too choppy.”
Jeff Bezos urges US government to stop taxing 50% of America — and claims doubling his taxes won’t help ‘that teacher in Queens' 400
Jeff Bezos backs Mamdani's tax on luxury second homes, but says Ken Griffin isn't the villain
Jeff Bezos on Zohran Mamdani’s big mistake: ‘When you don’t know how to solve a problem, create a villain, blame them’
Jeff Bezos says there is ‘no truth’ to the ‘buy borrow die’ tax strategy
Billionaires Openly Use It: Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison has historically pledged over $30 billion worth of his Oracle stock as collateral for personal bank loans. Elon Musk has similarly pledged tens of billions of dollars in Tesla shares to secure lines of credit over the years
He said he was "skeptical that that's a true loophole," but added, "If it is, and we can fix it, then we should. I don't think such a loophole should exist."
Jeff Bezos Praises Trump’s Second Term as ‘More Mature’
Jeff Bezos Says AI Will 'Elevate' Workers — Despite Amazon's 30,000 Job Cuts Amid $100 Billion AI Push
Elon Musk compares his company’s work to that of Jesus 0
In an interview on Monday, the billionaire said his Neuralink brain-implant company is progressing in its development of ‘Jesus-like technologies’
Although brain-computer interface (BCI) as a concept has been around since at least the 1970s, the push to commercialize the technology is more recent. According to data from market-intelligence firm Tracxn, more than 130 BCI startups have been launched since 2016.
Why Is Mark Zuckerberg Taunting His Employees Before Firing Them? 20
Back in April, Meta announced it was laying off 10 percent of its workforce, or around some 7,800 workers. Unlike traditional layoffs, which are enacted relatively quickly, Meta gave its employees a nearly month-long warning period without announcing who exactly would be headed for the unemployment line.
In newly leaked audio from an all-hands meeting at Meta, released by More Perfect Union, the Meta CEO seems to actually be taunting the thousands of workers who were about to be let go by pointing to how the company was harvesting employee data to train its in-house AI models ahead of the massive layoffs.
“So we’re in a phase where basically the AI models learn from heaving real, from watching really smart people do things. And if you’re trying to get it to be able to be able to do certain capabilities, having [AI] be able to observe really smart people doing those things is, is very important.”
Going on, Zuckerberg explained that it was better to train AI on soon-to-be-former Meta employees, rather than “contract companies.”
“In general, the average intelligence of the people who are at this company is significantly higher than the average set of people that you can get to do tasks if you’re working through… contractors,” Zuckerberg stammered. “So if we’re trying to teach the models coding, for example, then having people internally, um, build tools that, or, or solve tasks that, um, that help teach the model how to code, we think is going to dramatically increase our models coding ability faster than what others in the industry have the capability to do.”
Intuit to Cut 17% of Staff, Invest in ‘Big Bets’ 3
The restructuring cost is estimated at about $300 million to $340 million
About 3,100 employees: and invest the savings in “big bets” as it makes artificial intelligence a centerpiece of its business.
Woke Wars
Texas AG Sues ISS Over ESG Considerations 0
Texas AG Ken Paxton (in a senate race) is suing ISS for allegedly “misleading” customers by pushing “radical political agendas” through its proxy advice
Notably, ISS has attempted to obstruct ExxonMobil's planned reincorporation from New Jersey to Texas
“ISS has enormous influence over how billions of dollars are invested and managed across this country, and they have abused that influence in order to push woke ideology”
Iowa AG Brenna Bird sues ISS, says advice risks retirement savings
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is suing the world's largest proxy-advice firm for abusing its influence and threatening Iowans' retirement savings by "lying" to investors.
Stakeholders Rule!
Wells Fargo must pay $100M to help homebuyers after discrimination lawsuit — 51 cities are eligible 7
The settlement, which was recently approved by a federal judge in California, comes after four years of legal disputes involving Wells Fargo shareholders, former employees and job applicants who accused the bank of systemic problems in both lending and hiring practices.
While Wells Fargo denied wrongdoing, the company agreed to the deal to avoid prolonged litigation and mounting legal costs.
The case centered on allegations that Wells Fargo’s board failed to maintain adequate oversight of the bank’s mortgage lending operations, exposing the company to regulatory scrutiny and accusations of discriminatory practices.
According to reporting from Realtor.com, plaintiffs accused the bank of “widespread and systematic discrimination in lending” and cited concerns over lending algorithms and refinancing approval patterns.
The lawsuit stated that Wells Fargo was allegedly the only major lender in 2020 to reject more refinancing applications from Black homeowners than it approved.
Airbus, Air France Hit With Manslaughter Charges Over Pilot Training Failures in Deadly 2009 Flight 447 Crash 1
A Paris appeals court delivered a dramatic verdict in one of the longest-running and most complex legal sagas in aviation history. The court overturned a 2023 acquittal and found both Airbus and Air France guilty of corporate manslaughter for the tragic 2009 crash of Flight AF447.
The ruling marks a massive victory for the victims' families after a 17-year legal battle. A lower court had previously cleared the European planemaker and the French airline in 2023, ruling that while errors were made, a direct causal link to the crash couldn't be proven. The appeals court completely rejected that logic, declaring the companies "solely and entirely responsible" for the disaster.
Ride-Share Drivers in Massachusetts Formally Unionize 100
The App Drivers Union said it was the first organization in the country to be formally certified to represent drivers for apps such as Uber and Lyft.
In a news release, the organization, the App Drivers Union, said it would represent nearly 70,000 workers in Massachusetts who now have the power to collectively bargain.
MATT
A very special “who do we blame for SpaceX IPO governance” game
First, some S-1 highlights:
“Starlink internet is what’s being used to pay for humanity getting to Mars.” - Musk
Translation: We don’t care much about Starlink, it’s just paying our AI bills
He’s not kidding:
$3.2bn revenue for Starlink, net income of $1.2m
$0.6bn revenue for rocket ship, net income of -$0.6bn
$0.8bn revenue for AI, net income of -$2.5bn
This isn’t a space company - it’s classic Musk - you buy the vision (“To build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”), but what you’re really buying is an internet company that spends all its money on AI and does some rockets on the side
Let someone else invent the car (Tesla) and make them sexy with “big visions” for “humanity”
Let someone else invent the rockets, build new ones using someone else’s money
Let someone else invent the satellites, put a whole bunch in space (and buy more satellites from someone else)
Musk initially took the role of “Chief Engineer”, but every engineering task seems to have been the other employees - he supplied the money
Shoehorned AI into space exploration because…?
Grok is designed as a truth-seeking AI model, built on our founder Elon Musk’s mission to enable humanity to understand the universe. We believe that accomplishing this mission requires a truth-seeking approach to AI. We define truth seeking as the active, relentless pursuit of what is objectively true about reality, and grounded in evidence, logic, empirical data, and first principles thinking.
AI’s ability to revolutionize human potential is directly dependent on meeting exponentially increasing resource demands.
We now must go to space to get more resources for AI so we can get to space
Now the governance who do you blame game
Musk will get:
85% voting power (dual class, he owns 94% of Class B 10 vote shares and 12% of Class A shares)
The ability to nominate and vote exclusively on >50% of the board
A board which currently includes..
TWO execs - Gwynne Shotwell (President) and Musk (three titles)
Tesla mafia:
Ira Ehreinpreis, Tesla board sycophant, director at the Boring Company and xAI, and longtime Musk hanger on, added Feb 2026
Antonio Gracias, ex Tesla director who was explicitly called out in the Tornetta decision as corrupted, cross party transactions with Musk, on boards of Neuralink and Boring Company, added Oct 2010
TWO VC bros from DFJ - Randy Glein (SpaceX board observer for 16 years, directors since Feb 2026) and Steve Jurvestson (former Tesla director, director since March 2009) who was ousted from the VC firm with his name on it for sexual harassment
Paypal mafia:
Luke Nosek, co founder of PayPal, one of the founders of Founders Fund with Thiel and Ken Howery, invested in DeepMind, director since July 2008
Donald Harrison - managed Google purchase of DeepMind, relationship with Nosek, director since Feb 2015
Director relationship tenures to Musk:
Shotwell: 24 years
Ehreinpreis: 21 years
Gracias: 21 years
Jurvetson: 17 years
Glein: 16 years
Nosek: 26 years
Harrison: 11 years (+1 if Nosek/Deepmind connection counts)
Texas jurisdiction exclusively (judge shopped) - 3% to sue them, mandatory arbitration, anti-takeover statutes, special meetings ONLY CALLED BY MUSK (no one less than 50% of stock can call a meeting or vote)
No written consent - no prior notice
Advance notice bylaws for the zero shareholder proposals allowed
Full omission of board liability - including a provision that automatically allows whatever the conflicts of interest they want with directors
WHO (WHEN) DO YOU BLAME?
Department of Energy - in 2010, the DoE gave Tesla a $465m loan, which basically paid for the Model S and helped it buy a factory 6 months before it went public - Musk has said Tesla would not have survived without the loan
Nevada - in 2014, Nevada gave Musk $1.3bn to build a factory, the most ever
NASA - spent more than $15bn over years on SpaceX and programs with them
The IRS/Congress - the EV tax credit for $7,500 single handedly pushed Tesla from losing money in 2020 to making money (they effectively got $1.6bn from the US government in 2020), and showing its first profit, which sparked the memefest during COVID and made Musk the richest man on earth - Musk then went on and called for an end to the tax credit since his “competitors” needed it more than Tesla. Tesla made ~$11bn from tax credits alone
The DoD - started paying SpaceX in 2003 for concept work - and even when the rockets didn’t work, the DoD and NASA awarded the company massive contracts anyway
Jeff Bezos said in 2016 that, “Elon’s real superpower is getting government money.”
FOMO
SpaceX LOSES MONEY - it does not make money
If it were a satellite internet company - and NOT THE FIRST - the first was HughesNet in 1996, and Viasat offered it in 2012 - it would make money ($1.2m in income!)
Instead, investors are valuing SpaceX as THE LARGEST IPO IN THE HISTORY OF EVER despite the fact that they are burning money on AI, and arguably the worst AI
Including spending the most on R&D, marketing, and acquisition of Cursor to make up for the fact that Grok sucked
In exchange for FOMO, investors have ENTIRELY GIVEN UP THEIR RIGHTS
It is 100% a private company
Tornetta
If Tornetta hadn’t sued for Musk’s pay, would SpaceX be structured this way?
The banks underwriting the deal
Who AGREED TO BUY GROK as a term of getting the underwriting, because everyone bends the knee to money
The board
I guess
