FRIDAY WRAP: Musk's new glass cliff SheEO, billionaire driveway feuds are expensive, BNP's oil financing, and Man Group's man groups

LIVE from your ESG underbelly, it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here at May 12th Lane Studios, featuring all your favorites: Ari the data queen, Jessie the money whisperer, BS-man Matt Moscardi. On today’s weekly wrap up: Musk sneaks into the Story of the week, the Man Group doesn’t understand its name, AI-powered biggie bags,and the exhaustion of tipping fatigue

Story of the Week (DR):

1. Liz Holmes Wants You to Forget About Elizabeth

1. The black turtlenecks are gone. So is the voice. As the convicted Theranos founder awaits prison, she has adopted a new persona: devoted mother.

2. White Men Still Winning?

1. Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $215 million to settle with former and current female employees who alleged the bank systematically discriminated against women. For three years, the bank will have an independent expert analyze how it evaluates and elevates its employees, as well as perform pay-equity studies.

1. BS: 43%/40%

2. 5 of last 7 directors appointed F

2. ‘Shameful’ And A ‘Disaster’: CNN Blasted After Lie-Filled Trump Town Hall

1. “What we saw tonight was a series of extremely irresponsible decisions," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said.

2. BS: Warner Bros. Discovery:  21%13% (Only 3/14 female directors!)

1. WM board chair; WM CEO; WM Nom Comm Chair (John C. Malone! 82)

2. Corporate leadership only 3 of 15 W: Chief People and Culture Officer; Chief Accounting Officer; General Counsel: so NOBODY who decides anything!

3. Top 5 NEOs: WM

3. Bob Huggins—West Virginia Coach Who Used Anti-Gay Slur—Reportedly Will Keep Job

1. Longtime West Virginia University basketball coach Bob Huggins will keep his job and take a pay cut, the university announced Wednesday, after the coach used an anti-gay slur in a radio interview earlier this week, prompting fierce backlash and an apology from Huggins, who acknowledged, “There are consequences for our words and actions, and I will fully accept any coming my way.”

2. Huggins will return as head coach for the next season after agreeing to a three-game suspension and a $1 million salary cut, the university said in a statement.

1. $4.15 million

3. The money from Huggins salary cut will go to WVU’s LGBTQ+ Center, the university’s counseling and psychological services center and other state and national organizations that “support marginalized communities,” WVU said.

3. Elon Musk says he's found a new Twitter CEO: 'She will be starting in ~6 weeks!' AB JS

1. My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software and sysops"

2. Elon Musk is handing a truckload of mess to Twitter's new CEO

3. NBCUniversal ad chief Linda Yaccarino resigns as sources say she’s in talks to be Twitter CEO

1. Who is the mystery C.E.O.? Linda Yaccarino, NBCUniversal’s head of advertising, is Musk’s choice, The Wall Street Journal first reported. The two have been in discussions for weeks, according to The Times. An added twist: Yaccarino interviewed Musk onstage at an industry event in Miami last month.

2. Who is Yaccarino? She played a big part in the launch of Peacock, NBCUniversal’s rapidly growing streaming service, and is a specialist in data-targeted advertising — long seen as a deficiency at Twitter.

3. Wooing back advertisers is job one for any Twitter chief. Big brands have abandoned the platform since Musk took Twitter private in a $44 billion deal, and the digital advertising market is slumping amid a slowing economy. (When Twitter was a publicly traded company, roughly 90 percent of its revenue came from ad sales.)

4. On Tuesday, Aspira Women’s Health became the first public company to have an all-women board of directors

1. a milestone in a corporate environment where just over a quarter of Russell 3000 board seats are filled by women, according to Equilar’s most recent Gender Diversity Index.

Goodliest of the Week (AB):

1. Top French Bank BNP To Stop Funding New Gas Projects DR AB

1. “France's largest lender, will no longer provide any financing dedicated to the development of new oil and gas fields, the bank said on Thursday, as it reiterated its target of an 80% cut of its oil exploration financing by 2030”

2. Closing loops: Indirect funding of gas projects via loans to involved companies, as well as the bank's handling of corporate bonds

2. Man Group picks all-female top team as CEO Ellis retires

1. “Man Group, the world's largest publicly-listed hedge fund, has appointed a woman as CEO for the first time in its 240-year history. Robyn Grew has been at the firm since 2009 and held Man Group's COO and president roles. Her appointment comes months after Anne Wade became the firm's first female chairperson”

3. New Defamation Suit Against Fox Signals Continued Legal Threat JS

1. “The former head of a now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security is suing Fox News for defamation after allegedly demeaning her 300 times over eight months. Nina Jankowicz, a prominent specialist in Russian misinformation, left her job trying to defend against foreign misinformation campaigns because of the onslaught of criticism.”

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. Elon Musk’s new glass cliff CEO

1. Musk is obvious - he was always going to choose someone who would just do his bidding

2. But Linda Yaccarino, who has been cited as the Musk CEO replacement, has been cited for:

1. Top 100 Female Executive Heros (championing women in business and driving gender diversity in the workplace) - Musk fired all the women

2. New York Women’s Impact Report (NY-based women making an impact)

3. Inclusive Leader Award

4. Mac Dane Award for Humanitarian Excellence

3. LINDA - YOU JUST BECAME ELON’S “NORMALCY BEARD”

2. Going to the store??? AB

1. Amazon is offering shoppers $10 to pick up purchases in-store as delivery costs soar

1. AI can’t deliver my package yet, just get my order wrong?

3. Billionaire feuds mattering more than lying about elections DR JS

1. Peter Nygard ordered to pay billionaire neighbor $203 million in damages after driveway feud escalated to accusations of arson and Ku Klux Klan links

1. In 2005, Nygård attempted to solve a parking overflow problem at Nygård Cay by installing a large concrete slab on Louis Bacon's property. Bacon sought and obtained a court injunction to remove it. In 2007, Bacon, annoyed by noise at Nygård's house, installed industrial-grade speakers at the edge of his property and pointed them at Nygård's house.[65]

2. In the summer of 2010, Bacon's house was raided by Bahamian police, leading to the confiscation of the speakers. Bacon claimed it was the work of Nygård, a claim he denied. Vanity Fair reported that Nygård also used fake news sites to smear Bacon as running a drug-smuggling operation, as a member of the KKK, having been charged with insider trading, and being involved in murdering the Point House caretaker. In January 2015, Bacon filed a defamation lawsuit against Nygård over these claims.[65] In January 2021, Savvy Media Holdings acquired the rights to a couple of books relating to Nygård's feud with Louis Bacon, to make a feature film. Justin Lader was chosen to write the film.[66]

3. The settlement is a massive figure for an individual defamation case. By comparison, Fox News recently settled its mammoth defamation case brought by Dominion for a comparable $787.5 million.

2. Defaming your billionaire neighbor = 25% of defrauding the entirety of America… a guy who’s firm was accused of market manipulation and insider trading who is a billionaire was in a war over use of a shared driveway for their houses in the Bahamas won $200m for defamation over a guy who has been charged multiple times of sex trafficking, rape, and racketeering who made millions selling clothes to 16 year olds made by actual sweatshops

Exhausting-est of the Week (JS):

1. Golden Goodbyes: CEOs Who Scored Massive Payouts Despite Being Fired AB

1. Bob Chapek, Disney- Walked away with a $24.1 million pay package. He’s also set to receive severance payments totaling more than $20 million

2. Robert Nardelli, Home Depot- Nardelli had been CEO for six years, during which time Home Depot stock fell by 6%, while Lowe’s stock increased by 188%. Nardelli’s severance payment was $210 million, and it included a $20 million cash payment.

3. Leo Apotheker, Hewlett-Packard- Apotheker only served as Hewlett-Packard’s CEO for 11 months before he was fired, but he walked away with $7.2 million in a cash severance payment, as well as $18 million in stock.

4. Hank McKinnell, Pfizer- The company’s market value also sharply declined during his leadership. When he left in 2007, McKinnell received approximately $199 million in compensation, which included a $12 million severance payment and an $82 million lump sum pension payment.

5. And to end with potentially the most exhausting of all…Mark Hurd, Hewlett-Packard AGAIN- Hurd was forced to resign amid a sexual harassment inquiry. He received a $12.2 million severance payment, as well as stock worth approximately $16 million

1. BS Data on HP

2. Could a frozen ancient virus thawed by climate change cause the next pandemic?

1. A warming climate could release ancient pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses, that have been frozen in permafrost in the polar regions for millennia

2. In 2021, it was reported that more than 100 ancient strains of bacteria found in Siberia's permafrost were resistant to antibiotics

3. We literally justtttt turned the corner from a pandemic emergency and we’re already panicked about ancient pathogens!!!!

3. The world's largest listed hedge fund is getting its first female CEO in 240 years DR JS

1. Robyn Grew, the current president, will be Man Group’s new CEO. Grew will be the first woman to lead the UK-based asset manager since it was founded in 1783. 

2. Earlier this year, Man Group also announced that Anne Wade will take over as chair of the board of directors in late 2023.

3. Seriously, it took 240 years to realize they need a females running the place

4. Grew will take over from Luke Ellis, the current CEO, when he retires in September

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: The Glass Cliff

2. AB: Billionaire in Bahamas

3. MM: The name Liz

4. JS: Ringworm: apparently there are cases of drug-resistant ringworm

Predictions

1. DR: Nobody refers to Linda Yaccarino when discussing Twitter decisionmaking

2. AB: hologram ads

3. MM: Twitter’s new CEO has less than 5% influence