Author: openjargon

• Virginia tech services firm Arthur Grand posted a job ad seeking only white, US-born candidates.
• The Justice Department found the ad violated the Immigration and Nationality Act.
• The company must now pay a $7,500 fine and implement training to comply with federal laws.

The US Department of Justice has fined a Virginia-based tech company $7,500 after it posted a discriminatory job listing in March 2023 seeking only white candidates.

The DOJ secured the agreements with Arthur Grand Technologies Inc., an information technology services firm, earlier this month. The company is also required to give its employees comprehensive training on the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The job ad said it was after "only US-born citizens [white] who are local within 60 miles from Dallas, TX."

The ad quickly spread on social media, drawing widespread criticism.

The Justice Department said that the advertisement deterred qualified individuals, including US citizens born outside the US and non-US citizens, from applying.

Investigations by the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, or OFCCP, found that a recruiter from the company's Indian subsidiary posted the job ad on Indeed.

Arthur Grand apologized and said that an employee added discriminatory language to the listing and published it without authorization.

"At Arthur Grand, we do not condone or engage in any type of discrimination based on race, color, or religion," the company said on LinkedIn.

It added: "We conducted an investigation and discovered that a new junior recruiter at our firm was responsible for the offending job posting. We have taken immediate action and terminated their employment for violating our policy."

The Justice Department determined that the ad violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by excluding eligible candidates based on citizenship status and national origin. 

The Department of Labor also found that the job posting breached Executive Order 11246, which prohibits federal contractors from discriminating in employment decisions based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division called the incident "shameful."

As part of its settlement with the Justice Department, Arthur Grand will pay the US Treasury a civil penalty of $7,500 and implement comprehensive training for its staff on INA compliance.

The settlement also requires the company to revise its employment policies, which will be subject to ongoing monitoring.

The agreement with the Labor Department requires that Arthur Grand compensate individuals who filed complaints with the OFCCP.

"We are committed to holding federal contractors accountable for outrageous discriminatory practices like this advertisement," said Acting Director Michele Hodge of the OFCCP, per the DOJ.

Racial bias still plays a part in job hiring in the US.

Last month, Business Insider reported on a study that showed CVs with Black-sounding names are less likely to get callbacks.

AI tools are increasingly being integrated into hiring processes and were initially touted as a means to reduce bias. But AI is not exempt from echoing human racial bias.

OpenAI's ChatGPT over-selected Asian women candidates and under-selected Black men in a recent experiment, Bloomberg reported.

OpenAI told Bloomberg that recruiters can add their own safeguards against bias, such as stripping names from the screening process.

Arthur Grand didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• The FBI is helping investigate stolen items from the British Museum, per the BBC.
• It's investigating if items from the museum were sold to US buyers, the report said.
• This includes items bought off eBay that may have come from the museum's collection.

The FBI is investigating the potential sale of hundreds of items stolen from the British Museum to American buyers, including some sold on eBay, the BBC reported.

The London museum is one of the biggest in the world. But since last year it has been the subject of unwanted worldwide attention after it said that over a thousand items from its collection, including jewelry, gems, and Greek pottery, had been stolen, were missing, or had been damaged.

The BBC reported that the FBI is now investigating whether items from the museum were sold to buyers in the US.

The FBI's efforts include contacting individuals who bought items on eBay, including a man in New Orleans who bought two gems on the platform, according to the BBC.

The man told the BBC that the FBI had reached out to him for more information. He said he no longer had the items and told the BBC he didn't think the authorities had located them yet.

The Telegraph reported last year that some items stolen from the museum were listed on eBay at low prices. Items worth around $63,000 were listed for as little as $50, it said.

In its report, the BBC said that the FBI had also likely assisted in recovering 268 items that were sold to a Washington DC collector on eBay, which the museum says belong to it.

Items may also have been sold to people in other countries, the BBC reported.

The British Museum didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

The museum has accused one of its curators, Peter Higgs, of stealing and damaging artifacts.

Higgs was fired last year after an internal investigation, but has not been arrested or charged. He denies any involvement.

Three buyers said that an eBay seller with the username "sultan1966" used the names "Paul Higgins" or "Paul" when they communicated via email.

The buyer in New Orleans said he bought his items from sultan1966, which the BBC appeared to confirm by looking at records and receipts.

An antiquities expert reported suspicion that a museum staff member was stealing from secure vaults back in 2013, according to The Telegraph, with missing items beginning to turn up on eBay three years later.

Sources told the outlet that the museum had not properly cataloged all eight million items in its collection, which made it easier for the thefts to go undetected.

• Humans have long imagined life on Mars, though our understanding of the planet has changed a lot.
• Some of the US's earliest plans assumed humans could reach the Red Planet by the 1980s.
• Over the decades, technology and funding challenges have hampered the nation's hopes of crewed flights.

Earlier this month, NASA announced it was funding a revolutionary high-thrust rocket — called a Pulsed Plasma Rocket — that could make crewed missions to Mars in just two months.

That's seven months faster than it'd take with current technology and would drastically reduce the risk and cost of a crewed Mars mission, according to Howe Industries, which is developing the concept. It "holds the potential to revolutionize space exploration," NASA said in a statement.

The PPR is just one of the latest developments in the US's decades-long discussion to send humans to Mars. In the early '60s, for example, nuclear-bomb-powered spaceships were proposed for the trip.

Since well before NASA landed the first humans on the moon, the US has poured money and time into proposals for a crewed Mars mission, only to see its attempts never leave the ground. But technology isn't the only thing standing in the way. Politics also plays a big role.

"That's kind of like a joke within the space community or the Mars community," Matthew Shindell, a curator with the National Air and Space Museum, told Business Insider. "Putting humans on Mars is always 20 years away."

It's short enough to seem tangible, he said, but long enough that the political situation will change before it can be realized.

To fully understand why the US hasn't sent humans to Mars, despite sending more robots there than any other country, it just takes a trip down memory lane. Here's a history of the US's most promising crewed Martian missions that never were.

1950s: The Mars Project

In the '40s and '50s, no one really knew what they might find on Mars, but they knew getting there would be tricky. One of the first to seriously tackle the problem was Wernher von Braun.

During WWII, von Braun was a member of the Nazi party and created V-2 missiles. After the war, he continued his work on missiles with the US Army as part of Operation Paperclip while also working on a novel called "The Mars Project." In it, he laid out the first detailed plan to send humans to the Red Planet.

He envisioned a 260-day mission that would launch in 1985 with 10 spaceships and 70 crew members. "He sat down and did the math and created a whole story around it," Shindell said.

In the late '50s, von Braun consulted on NASA's very first 10-year plan, which included sending the first probes to Mars. (Sending humans to Mars would come later.) What started as fiction got closer to reality when von Braun started working at NASA a couple of years later.

1960s: Mars by 1965

In the late 1950s, Theodore Taylor, who worked on nuclear weapons at Los Alamos, and theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson embarked on an ambitious plan to build a nuclear-explosion-powered spaceship.

Called Project Orion, the resulting ship would take 12 years to develop, cost $100 million per year, and comfortably hold 150 people. Their motto was "Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970."

However, NASA was concerned about what would happen if any of the hundreds of bombs required to fuel the rocket exploded.

By 1963, the team was having trouble getting increased funding. That same year, the nuclear test-ban treaty was signed, hampering the team's ability to test its vehicle.

The project was canceled a year later.

1965: Mars's first close-up

Though NASA was feverishly working toward the moon in the '60s, it didn't fully abandon its plans for Mars.

In 1962, German rocket scientist Ernst Stuhlinger was working at NASA on a project to get five crewed ships to the Red Planet by the early 1980s.

Stuhlinger's planned ships were huge, almost 500 feet long. For comparison, NASA's Space Shuttles are under 200 feet. But as NASA raced to land the first humans on the moon, it shifted focus to smaller, lighter spacecraft. This helped speed things along toward the moon, but it was a step back for Mars.

This pivot "reduced Apollo's utility as a technological stepping stone to Mars," David S. F. Portree wrote in "Humans to Mars: Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950–2000."

In the meantime, NASA knew it needed more information about Mars before it landed humans there. So in 1964, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory launched the very first probe to fly by Mars: Mariner 4.

The images the probe transmitted to Earth were fuzzy and showed a desolate, barren planet. But they were the first close-up images of Mars's surface that anyone on Earth had seen.

1970s: The post-Apollo plans

NASA had just landed the first people on the moon in 1969 as part of its Apollo Program and was ready for the next big step. That same year, a Richard Nixon-appointed Space Task Group issued a report that supported human flights to Mars in 1982.

However, President Nixon ignored most of the 1969 report's suggestions in favor of what would become the Space Shuttle program, which didn't involve going to Mars. It was a turning point for NASA.

During the height of the Apollo era, NASA didn't have to compete for funding, Shindell said. Now, Nixon's administration started cutting its budget.

This was in the midst of the Vietnam War, and many Americans wanted the government to focus on poverty, the environment, and other domestic issues.

"If you're a proponent of human Mars exploration, this is the problem you've faced ever since the 1970s," Shindell said. Sending humans to the moon was already incredibly expensive, and it's a lot closer than Mars.

1980s: Sally Ride's report

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed the National Commission on Space to envision the next 50 years of space travel, which involved the possibility of piloted vehicles to Mars.

But then NASA's Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. The disaster affected how the agency thought about human space travel as a whole.

"In general, there was a great deal of soul-searching within NASA about the use of expensive and risky human-rated launch vehicles like the shuttle," William Sheehan and Jim Bell wrote in "Discovering Mars: A History of Observation and Exploration of the Red Planet."

Just a year later, though, NASA's administrator tasked astronaut Sally Ride with laying out the agency's future space explorations. In her report, she explained what it would take for the US to land an astronaut on Mars by 2005.

To meet that timeline, NASA would need to triple its current budget in the next decade. That didn't happen.

1989: 20 years to Mars

By 1989, a crewed mission to Mars seemed back on the table, according to a speech by the newly elected President George H.W. Bush.

"Why Mars?" he asked. "Because it is humanity's destiny to strive, to seek, to find. And because it is America's destiny to lead."

NASA's response was the Space Exploration Initiative, an analysis of Bush's space exploration goals, which would cost an estimated $400-$500 billion.

At that point, Mars was still a long way off. The missions weren't expected to begin until after 2010.

However, according to Sheehan and Bell, a lack of Congressional funding and political support led to the demise of Bush's Martian mission a few years later in 1993.

1990s: "Better, faster, cheaper"

By the 1990s, Mars enthusiasts were dreaming of getting humans there by the end of the millennium. Aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin formed the Mars Society, an advocacy group pushing for the planet's exploration and eventually establishing a human settlement there.

Meanwhile, NASA was trying to figure out how to study Mars after losing contact with the robotic probe Mars Observer in 1993. With so much still unknown about the planet, uncrewed missions continued to be the focus.

The agency's new administrator Daniel Goldin was pursuing a new mantra for the robotic missions: "better, faster, cheaper."

This decade saw success with the uncrewed Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor missions. Pathfinder delivered Sojourner, the first operational Mars rover, while MGS sent back incredible images and data from the planet.

Just a couple of years later, though, NASA lost two more uncrewed spacecraft, the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO).

2000s: But first, the moon

Despite the setbacks of the Polar Lander and MCO, NASA again had success in 2004 with rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

Though NASA had recently suffered another tragedy with the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia and its crew in 2003, the agency's rovers seemed to reignite some of the desire for human missions to Mars.

In 2004, 15 years after his father's space speech, President George W. Bush announced what would become the Constellation Program. The ultimate goal was to put people on Mars, though there was no exact date given for this part of the plan.

A large part of Bush's vision involved returning to the moon before heading to the Red Planet. In 2010, President Barack Obama canceled Constellation but set a timeline of getting astronauts to Mars by the 2030s.

2010s: Mars goes commercial

In the 2010s, private space companies — like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic — started planning projects to get crews to Mars.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in 2016 that he would get people there in less than a decade. He later revised the date to 2029 with robust colonization by 2050.

Equally ambitious was Richard Branson's space company Virgin Galactic. In 2019, the company announced it planned to send an uncrewed spacecraft to Mars by 2022. But so far, neither SpaceX nor Virgin Galactic has sent anything to Mars.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump reversed the Obama administration's space exploration plans. NASA was again planning for a moon-first agenda.

Established in 2017 under the Trump Administration, NASA's Artemis Program is its latest and current mission for crewed deep space exploration. It aims to return humans to the moon and create a lunar space station where astronauts can live for weeks or months, at a time.

However, this moon-first agenda doesn't completely rule Mars out. Dayna Ise, who leads NASA's Mars Campaign Office, said it will actually help us get to the Red Planet.

"You learn a lot by going to the moon, but you learn even more by staying at the moon," she said. "And so whatever we learn there will help with Mars."

She also thinks private space companies have a role to play. "It's all hands on deck," she said. "It is such a difficult engineering problem that we cannot exclude anybody from helping."

2020s: Simulating life on Mars

The private space companies have been busy this decade. In 2024, SpaceX had its first mostly successful Starship launch after several fiery attempts. The mega-rocket will play a huge role in Musk's plans to colonize Mars.

Meanwhile, the Biden Administration has continued to support the Artemis lunar missions. There have been a few setbacks, though.

Citing safety and technical challenges, NASA recently pushed back its first crewed Artemis mission to the moon, which is now slated for 2025.

Artemis IV, NASA's mission to deliver part of a lunar space station to the moon, is still scheduled for 2028.

Having a long-term presence on the moon will help experts learn more about how crews can survive on a different world for longer than a few days, Ise said.

Meanwhile, the agency is also studying how people will fare in isolation. NASA's CHAPEA missions put volunteers in a simulated Mars habitat for a year. The "analog astronauts" follow strict schedules, have limited contact with loved ones, and are closely monitored. The first crew will emerge from the habitat this year on July 6.

2030s and beyond: Getting humans to Mars

Despite its moon-first agenda, NASA knows Mars has its own challenges that the lunar surface can't prepare them for. In addition to taking a lot of time and fuel to get there, the trip will mean communication delays of at least 20 minutes between the crew and Earth.

The travelers will need to be able to take care of their own health emergencies and fix hardware issues, Ise said. But NASA is also working on making some systems more autonomous. "If there is an issue, they don't have time to troubleshoot with someone on the ground to fix their life support system," she said. "So we need those life support systems to be smarter."

Other problems include keeping the crew safe from radiation, dealing with the planet's skin-irritating dust, and developing a food source. "We have to build an ecology inside a transit vehicle to keep everyone alive and healthy," Ise said.

All that will take time. NASA administrator Bill Nelson has said there's potential for the agency to send humans to Mars by 2040. Ise compared it to eating an entire elephant. "We're doing it one bite at a time and building on everything that we learn," she said.

It remains to be seen whether private US companies will reach Mars first.

• Saudi Arabia is reportedly planning a multi-billion-dollar sale of shares in its state oil company.
• The sale could take place as soon as next month, Reuters reported.
• The rumored share sale could provide extra funds for the Neom project.

Saudi Arabia looks set for a multibillion-dollar share sale in its state oil company, Saudi Aramco.

The sale, which could raise about $10 billion, may take place as soon as June and would mark one of the region's largest stock deals, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.

The unnamed sources said planning was ongoing and details could change, the report added.

"Decisions about share sales are matters for our shareholders and are not something we are able to comment on," an Aramco spokesperson told Reuters.

The government of Saudi Arabia remains the largest shareholder in Aramco, which is the world's largest oil company by market cap.

Saudi Aramco did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The news comes amid Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 plan to diversify the kingdom's economy and pivot away from oil.

The plan has involved big spending on sports, entertainment, and infrastructure — largely financed by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).

The kingdom has embarked on a number of "gigaprojects" as part of the 2030 plan, including its Neom megacity.

The project, which is expected to cost at least $500 billion — with some estimates putting the figure at $1.5 trillion — includes the much-talked-about "The Line," a futuristic city in the northwest of the country.

But recent reports suggest Saudi Arabia has been seeking to borrow funds for the project, while also scaling back population estimates for The Line.

The Saudi government had previously said it wanted to move 1.5 million residents into The Line by 2030, but that number is now likely to be fewer than 300,000, Bloomberg reported in April, citing an unnamed person familiar with the matter.

And while the city was set to stretch over 170 kilometers (roughly 105 miles) to the Red Sea, the Bloomberg report said that officials expected just 2.4 km (around 1.5 miles) of the project to be completed by 2030.

The PIF has also been hit with falling cash levels. In January, it said that its cash as of September had dropped to around $15 billion — the lowest level since December 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Saudi Arabia's finance minister said in April that while the kingdom was "very pleased" with the state of its Vision 2030 progress, "challenges" meant adjustments would be made to some aspects of the project.

• After 20 years of teaching in Texas schools, I am retiring early at 59.
• My pension will be less than half of my current salary, so I'm going to freelance to make ends meet.
• I'm also nervous about the free time I will have and the total lack of structure.

For the last 20 years, I've had the same two alarms set ever weekday — one at 5:15 a.m. and one at 9:17 a.m.

As a Texas high school teacher, the 5:15 alarm is really just a formality. After 20 years of early rising, I'm up before the sun with no prompting required. The 9:17 a.m. alarm is also deeply ingrained; it's the official attendance time when I'm required to pause my instruction and take attendance. It's Texas' official "time of record" by which schools are funded on daily attendance.

It's the schedule I've followed for two decades. But after this week, neither time will matter. I will walk away from teaching and into early retirement at 59, which makes me more than a little nervous.

My income will now be cut in half

I'm unnerved by several things. I'll be "living smaller" on less income. With my pension, my income will be less than half what it has been. My expenses will be lower but won't be cut by 50%.

I've been a remote adjunct instructor at a local community college for the past year, concurrent with my high school job, but the rules of my pension require me to sit out this Fall semester. It took me years of applying to secure that adjunct position. I worry that being forced to sit out the busiest semester of the academic calendar will push me to the back of the adjunct line once again. The pay isn't great, at about $50 per hour, but a few classes certainly can help close the gap in my income.

Since I won't be making nearly enough, I decided to accept a remote writing job, but it doesn't have benefits and won't have any structure or routine. While I'll be doing something I care deeply about, I will still be below the salary I earned this year.

I'm struggling to understand how I will fill my time

For 20 years, the more than 200 teachers in the building have been my daily interaction with adults. We lunch together, and I've shared the rollercoasters of their lives. They've been there to discuss and weigh in on my classroom dilemmas and personal predicaments. Where will the new voices of reason come from?

Wary of only my spouse for interaction, I have big plans. I've applied to join a committee for my community — one that meets monthly to review permits for home improvements, paint colors, and landscape design.

Two Mahjong sets have been growing dusty in my closet for decades. I've found a beginner's group that meets twice monthly that I have every intention of joining. I'm hopeful that Mahjong will keep the cobwebs from settling into the corners of my brain and give me a new group of peers.

Additionally, it's been easy to push off any amount of formal exercise with the "I don't have time" excuse. Now that I'll have the time in retirement, what will my new exercise regime look like? For 20 years, it's been steps in the school building that have been my only exercise. I've always known I need to stave off osteoporosis with weight resistance training, but now will be the time to pick up a dumbbell.

I'm not sure who I am without my job

Finally, for the last 20 years, I have proudly proclaimed that "I teach high school" to anyone who asks about my employment. What will the next answer be? I haven't found one that I'm comfortable with.

I'm not quite ready to say, "I'm retired." That phrase carries too many negative connotations for me. More than 30 years later, I finally understand why my former mother-in-law didn't embrace her new status as "grandmother" with any enthusiasm. Titles carry weight, and I'm not ready to shoulder "retiree."

• Young Gen Z adults are skipping college in favor of trade schools and tech training.
• In doing so, they avoid student loan debt and enter a fast track to steady employment.
• Skilled trades like electricians and plumbers are unlikely to be taken over by AI any time soon.

Despite a bad reputation for devaluing education and sneering at work, Gen Z might just be thinking outside the box.

Turns out, some young workers have no problem with getting their hands dirty — even really dirty — they just have no interest in a desk job or a 4-year degree to get there.

Trade school and technical training are where it's at these days. The National Student Clearinghouse reported that enrollment in vocational-focused community colleges rose about 16% last year — its highest level since the educational nonprofit began tracking the data in 2018.

From spring 2021 to 2022, mechanic and repair programs saw an increase in enrollment of 11.5%, the number of students in construction trade courses rose by 19.3%, and culinary programs saw a boost of 12.7%, according to the Clearinghouse. Two-year and four-year colleges saw enrollment declines of 7.8% and 3.4%, respectively, over the same time period.

Gen Z just doesn't see college as the only road to a well-paying, stable job anymore, according to a survey by New America, which found more than half of 12- to 27-year-old respondents saying they believe it's possible to find a steady career with just a high school diploma.

"These kids are looking for relevance. They want to be able to connect what they're learning with what happens next," Jean Eddy, president of American Student Assistance, a nonprofit dedicated to helping students navigate the educational system and workforce, told the nonprofit education outlet, The Hechinger Report. "I think many, many families and certainly the majority of young people today are questioning the return on investment for higher education."

Business Insider previously reported on a pre-med Gen Z student who found being an electrician is more satisfying than working in medicine and an 18-year-old in New Hampshire looking to work in the solar industry rather than attend a traditional four-year college.

"Unlike in an office job where you go to the same building daily, I work somewhere different every day. I experience different things and see different people every day," 27-year-old Lexis Czumak-Abreu told BI. "When a job is finished, I feel a sense of accomplishment and closure. I finish it and move on to another. It doesn't feel like one long job forever."

Elaina Farnsworth, cofounder of Skillfusion, an electric vehicle diagnostic technician credentialing program, told BI she has seen a significant increase in Gen Z and other young workers applying for her program and other trade credentialing programs over college.

And she thinks that's a good thing, both for the industry and for the young professionals themselves.

"I think there is more opportunity for — and upcoming workers have more of an appetite for — stackable credentials, or what we like to call microlearning tracks," Farnsworth said. "That includes things like Khan Academy, technical schools, and smaller, shorter bits of information that will equip them to do the work they love. That is the trend that we're seeing and it's much more fulfilling to them."

• A terse 2016 email from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has gone viral.
• He told his employees to just "figure out how to do" something, offering little help.
• Here are other infamous times workers might have felt the heat from a tech CEO's tense email.

Face it. We've all had a boss (or two) who scared us. It's a canon event, but it can still be an alarming one for those who have never dealt with it before.

Employees at Meta, for instance, may be feeling the scary boss angst as newly released emails from a terse Mark Zuckerberg went viral this week.

"You should figure out how to do this," the CEO wrote to a subordinate in 2016, according to documents released by a California court this week.

Yikes. Here are some other times executives in the tech sector probably gave their employees the chills over email.

Mark Zuckerberg

Let's start with another one from Zuckerberg. He's had a few.

In 2010, he sent employees an email with the subject line "please resign" after inaccurate information about Facebook's products was leaked to the press.

"I'm asking whoever leaked this to resign immediately," The New York Post reported. "If you believe that it's ever appropriate to leak internal information, you should leave. If you don't resign, we will almost certainly find out who you are anyway."

Elon Musk

Elon Musk is a little more straightforward.

As many execs tried to herd their employees back to the office after the COVID-19 pandemic, Musk gave his Tesla workers more direct return-to-office instructions.

"Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean minimum) of 40 hours a week or depart Tesla. This is less than we ask of factory workers," Musk wrote in an email in 2022, according to CNN. "If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned."

Jeff Bezos

When Amazon founder and executive chair Jeff Bezos was unhappy with his team, he let a single question mark express his emotions.

He employed the tactic when he got emails from upset customers, he said in 2018.

"I see most of those emails. I see them and I forward them to the executives in charge of the area with a question mark. It's shorthand [for], 'Can you look into this?' 'Why is this happening?'" Bezos said.

Tim Cook

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, has also taken a sharp tone with employees, leaked emails revealed in 2021.

Cook scolded his employees over email after the contents of an internal meeting leaked to the press, The Verge reported.

"As you know, we do not tolerate disclosures of confidential information," Cook wrote after the incident. "We know that the leakers constitute a small number of people. We also know that people who leak confidential information do not belong here."

Bob Iger

While perhaps not as scathing as others, Disney CEO Bob Iger has delivered brutal news to employees via email.

In early 2023, Iger announced to his staff via email that the company was eliminating 7,000 jobs, telling employees that they would be notified if they were being shown the door "over the next four days."

He added that additional layoffs of "several thousand more staff" would happen in the following months.

Rough.

Andy Jassy

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy gave strict instructions to his employees about returning to the office, putting them on notice that their job security was at stake.

"It's past the time to disagree and commit," he said in 2023. "And if you can't disagree and commit, I also understand that, but it's probably not going to work out for you at Amazon because we are going back to the office at least three days a week, and it's not right for all of our teammates to be in three days a week and for people to refuse to do so."

• Claire Brooks has been an employment partner at a law firm for nearly 20 years. 
• Brooks advises employers in everything from contract issues to complex dismissals. 
• She said employees should emphasise how a sabbatical can  benefit the business and be reasonable.

This is an as-told-to essay based on a transcribed conversation with Claire Brooks, an employment specialist solicitor at Araon and Partners in England. It has been edited for length and clarity.

A sabbatical is a break from work, usually for a defined time period. People might take career breaks to pursue other business interests, participate in a charitable initiative, have an extended holiday, or explore the world. Alternatively, they might have caring responsibilities. Ultimately, it could be for any reason — sometimes people want time out.

There are two main ways of doing it. The first is effectively ending your employment with the option to return. This has more advantages for an employer, who won't have the ongoing liability of an employee accruing length of service and retaining their employment rights — or paying a salary, holiday, and pension — while the employee is away.

The more common option, and the more useful for an employee, is where employment continues. This might be paid or a mixture of paid and unpaid leave. Usually, these kinds of sabbaticals are shorter – between three and six months. For a longer period of a year or more, a mutually agreed termination arrangement is more likely.

A career break has advantages for both employees and employers. It can help hardworking, long-standing staff avoid burnout, particularly where their work is very intense. For employers, it can be hugely beneficial for staff well-being and retention.

How to request a sabbatical

There is no legal entitlement to a sabbatical, but it's still reasonable to discuss one with your employer.

There is no rule about how long you need to have worked for an organization before requesting a sabbatical, but they are generally provided to more senior, long-standing staff.

Check whether your company has a sabbatical policy

If your company already has a sabbatical policy, you should follow it. It should explain the eligibility requirements and criteria for applying, the key arrangements, and the application process.

If there isn't a policy in place, employees should have an initial conversation with their line manager or HR to determine whether they would consider it. You might ask: "If you were open to considering a sabbatical, what would you want to see from me? Is there anything you'd like to see me demonstrating as part of that application?"

Prepare a business case

Prepare a business case for the career break to present to your employer. Your line manager is generally the best person to have this conversation with. Do this with as much notice as possible to give them the opportunity to think about it and decide whether it's something they can support.

Explain what you're looking to do, how long you'd like to take off, and your proposal. Reassure your employer that you're asking for leave for a reason they can support and that it's not for a purpose that might cause concern, like a conflicting business interest.

Show that you have thought about how you'll keep up to date with the role, how you'd like to engage with the organization while you're away, how your responsibilities could be covered, and how you see the return to the role afterward.

Highlight the advantages for the organization

It's useful to demonstrate your value — and your future value. Explain to your boss how the sabbatical can benefit them upon your return, especially if it's being funded.

The key to success is to demonstrate the potential advantages for the organization. Find out what's important to your employer and how your request meets their aims and priorities. Organizations usually have a written set of values — use those to frame your request.

Aim high

You can request a paid sabbatical in the first instance unless your company has a contrary policy or practice. If that is unacceptable to your employer, consider whether an unpaid sabbatical would work for you. If so, follow up with your employer.

Clearly, a paid sabbatical is more attractive to the employee, but the employer may be more willing to support an unpaid sabbatical, given the cost to the company.

Be willing to compromise

My best advice is to be realistic about what you're asking for and willing to compromise. Always think: What would I think if this request were presented to me? Putting yourself in their shoes will help you put together a more reasonable request: one which sets out the reason for the sabbatical, how it will help you and your employer in the long term and puts forward a sensible business case It might include requesting an appropriate length of time away, accepting a combination of paid and unpaid leave, or not receiving a bonus while you are on sabbatical.

You can still negotiate with your employer once you've applied for a sabbatical, and vice versa. Showing reasonableness and a willingness to negotiate will help to reach terms that will work for both parties.

What happens if your employer says yes?

We would always recommend that a sabbatical is set out in a very clear agreement in writing, usually drawn up by a solicitor. A properly drafted agreement avoids ambiguity and confusion. It should state how pay will work — including pay rises, bonuses, holiday and benefits — just like any other form of leave agreement. It should detail arrangements for the return to work: whether the employee will be entitled to return to their role and the circumstances under which they would be offered an alternative.

It will also need a termination provision explaining what notice the employee would be required to give if they didn't return to work and any clawback provisions — which might require the employee to repay any money or the value of any benefits they receive — in place.

It's important to ensure that the employees maintain contact and update their contact information while they are away, too.

And if it's a no?

Consider alternatives like flexible or part-time work. Since 6 April this year, any employee has the right to make a flexible working application from day one, regardless of how long they have been employed at their organization. If you want to go part-time or have a regular volunteering day, for any reason, you can make the request.

I think employers are increasingly open to flexibility, and I would advise them to consider employee requests with an open mind. If requests are taken seriously, employers can maintain trust in a much better way and ensure that employees feel valued moving forwards.

As told to Emma Magnus. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

• As the 2024 race heats up, Trump is getting support from a variety of billionaires.
• Some are true believers, while others backed Trump's GOP rivals before coming around to him.
• Here are some of the billionaires who are contributing to Trump this year.

As former President Donald Trump seeks a second term in the White House, he's increasingly turning to billionaires to power his campaign.

Some of them are longtime associates and supporters — true believers who know the former president from his days in the business world.

Others may be relative newcomers, such as long-time GOP megadonors who backed his 2016 or 2024 rivals.

One of Trump's billionaire supporters is North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, the former software mogul who sought the GOP nomination in 2024 and is now in contention to be VP.

"If you're a billionaire and you care about your shareholders, you care about your family, you care about your grandkids, you should be voting for someone that's going to bring prosperity to America and peace to the world," Burgum said on Fox News in April.

Here's an extensive — though not exhaustive — list of some of the billionaires who are contributing to Trump's 2024 campaign, including to his "Trump 47" joint fundraising committee, which splits proceeds between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.

Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein

Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein — the founders of Uline, a packing and shipping company — have long been reliable donors to a variety of conservative causes and candidates.

That included bankrolling an effort to make it harder to amend the Ohio constitution in 2023.

The Uihleins started this cycle supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's presidential bid. Each gave $1.5 million to DeSantis's super PAC, Never Back Down.

Elizabeth told The Financial Times in March that she and her husband would donate a similar amount to Trump — while also bemoaning the fact that she and her husband had to spend money on the presidential race at all.

"These two guys are very well-defined. I don't understand why everybody has to give all this money," she told the outlet, referring to Trump and Biden. "Neither of them have to spend a penny. We all know who they are. It's ridiculous."

Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher

Former Sen. Kelly Loeffler and her husband, Jeff Sprecher, have each contributed $824,600 to the Trump 47 Committee.

Loeffler was appointed to the Senate at the end of 2019 by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp after the death of Sen. Johnny Isakson.

She later lost in a runoff election in January 2021 to Democrat Raphael Warnock, who went on to win a full term in 2022.

Sprecher, meanwhile, is the CEO of Intercontinental Exchange and previously served as the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange.

Joe Ricketts

Joe Ricketts, the founder and former CEO of TD Ameritrade, has given $824,600 to the Trump 47 Committee. His wife, Marleen, gave $814,600.

In 2019, Ricketts — whose family owns the Chicago Cubs — was found to have sent racist and Islamophobic emails during the 2012 election, for which he later apologized.

"Christians and Jews can have a mutual respect for each other to create a civil society. As you know, Islam cannot do that," Ricketts wrote in one 2012 email. "Therefore we cannot ever let Islam become a large part of our society. Muslims are naturally my (our) enemy due to their deep antagonism and bias against non-Muslims."

Last year, one of Ricketts' sons — former Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts — was appointed to the US Senate after former Sen. Ben Sasse opted to retire.

The younger Ricketts is likely to be elected to the remainder of Sasse's term in November.

Robert Bigelow

Robert Bigelow, the hotel chain mogul who launched a spaceflight company in 2018, was originally a major DeSantis donor this cycle.

"I will give him more money and go without food," Bigelow told TIME after pouring more than $20 million into the Florida governor's "Never Back Down" super PAC in March 2023.

He has since pivoted, donating more than $10 million to Trump-aligned PACs since February 2024.

Bigelow also told Reuters in January that he would be contributing $1 million to pay Trump's mounting legal fees as well.

"I was just sympathetic. They didn't solicit anything from me," Bigelow told the outlet.

Linda McMahon

Linda McMahon, who founded World Wrestling Entertainment with her husband Vince, has given $10 million to the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC, along with $814,600 to the Trump 47 Committee.

McMahon served as the head of the Small Business Administration from 2017-2019 under Trump.

She's also the chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank.

Phil Ruffin

Phil Ruffin, a casino magnate, has contributed $2 million to Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC and $814,600 to the Trump 47 Committee.

Ruffin is a long-time associate and business partner of Trump's — he co-owns the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas alongside the Trump Organization.

Ruffin also accompanied Trump to Moscow in 2013 for the Miss Universe Pageant.

That trip figured prominently in the largely unverified Steele Dossier, which alleged that the Russians may have blackmailed Trump by filming him being urinated on by Russian prostitutes.

Geoffrey Palmer

Geoffrey Palmer, a Los Angeles-based real estate developer, has also given $2 million to Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC and $814,600 to the Trump 47 Committee.

Palmer has hosted Trump for multiple fundraisers in Los Angeles, including one that took place in September 2023.

José "Pepe" Fanjul

Fanjul, a sugar magnate, has given $814,600 to the Trump 47 Committee.

While José Fanjul has long been a GOP megadonor, his brother Alfonso has a history as a major Democratic megadonor.

Kelcy Warren

Kelcy Warren, the chairman and former CEO of the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners, has given $814,600 to the Trump 47 Committee.

Warren's company is the owner of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the construction of which spurred major protests by environmental activists and the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 2016.

Though he was a major Trump donor in 2020, he also donated $26,400 to a pro-DeSantis super PAC in June 2023.

Warren co-hosted a fundraiser for Trump in Houston in May.

Robert and Rebekah Mercer

Robert Mercer, a former hedge fund CEO, has given $814,399 to the Trump 47 Committee.

Both Robert and his daughter Rebekah have been major contributors to pro-Trump and more anti-establishment conservative causes, including helping to fund the right-wing Breitbart website and the conservative social media app Parler.

John Paulson

John Paulson, a billionaire hedge fund manager, has contributed $806,300 to the Trump 47 Committee.

He's long been an associate of the former president and has advised him an economic matters. Bloomberg recently reported that he could serve as Treasury Secretary under a second Trump administration.

In April, Paulson hosted Trump and his wife, Melania, for a fundraiser at his Palm Beach home.

That event, attended by several other billionaires on this list, raised more than $50 million, according to the campaign.

Woody Johnson

Woody Johnson, an heir to the Johnson and Johnson pharmaceutical fortune and a co-owner of the New York Jets with his brother, has been a major financial backer of Trump's.

He's given $1 million to the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC, and both Johnson and his wife Suzanne recently contributed $806,300 apiece to the Trump 47 Committee.

Johnson served as the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom during Trump's presidency.

Steve Wynn

Casino mogul and real estate developer Steve Wynn has given $806,300 to the Trump 47 Committee this year.

Wynn, a longtime GOP megadonor, served as the vice-chairman of Trump's inaugural committee in 2017.

He has been accused of both sexual misconduct and of acting as a foreign agent on behalf of China, though a judge tossed out the latter charge.

Harold Hamm

Harold Hamm, an oil and gas magnate, has contributed $614,000 to the Trump 47 Committee and $200,000 to the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC.

"Republican, Democrat… I'm an oilocrat," he told the Financial Times in 2022.

Despite his current supporter for Trump — and his attendance of numerous fundraisers on the former president's behalf — Hamm contributed thousands to both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Ambassador Nikki Haley last year.

He even reportedly told Trump in 2023 that he should end his presidential campaign, citing his "chaos."

"I know he wasn't happy," Hamm told the Financial Times of the call. "That's all I can do. How seriously he takes that recommendation, I don't know."

Ike Perlmutter

Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter, the former chairman of Marvel Entertainment, has long been an informal advisor to Trump, including on veterans' affairs.

He reportedly became friends with the former president through his membership at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.

In March, Perlmutter and his wife Laura each gave $5 million to Right for America, a pro-Trump super PAC.

• China is banning social media influencers for flaunting lavish lifestyles and promoting materialism.
• The Cyberspace Administration of China launched a crackdown to discourage wealth displays in April.
• An influencer dubbed "China's Kim Kardashian" was barred from Douyin, the Financial Times reported.

Flaunting a lavish lifestyle to promote materialism can get you thrown off social media in China.

Since April, China has been busy cracking down on influencers who promote ostentatious lifestyles as a means of gaining profit.

China's internet regulator, Cyberspace Administration of China, launched a campaign last month to discourage social media users from "deliberately showcasing a lavish lifestyle built on wealth," the Financial Times reported.

One influencer who's been a casualty of the crackdown is Wang Hongquanxing, who's been dubbed "China's Kim Kardashian" and had 4.3 million followers on the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, the report said.

Others, including "Sister Abalone," who had over 2 million followers and gave tours of her luxurious homes, and "Mr Bo," who posted about luxury goods, have also had their accounts restricted, per the FT.

Platforms like Weibo, Douyin, and Xiaohongshu announced a wave of measures to curb ostentatious behavior on May 15.

Weibo's list of conduct that could see influencers barred includes showing off luxury homes and cars to promote products, flaunting large amounts of cash, and posting minors using luxury goods to "attract traffic and hype."

In 2021, China launched similar measures to curb influencers posting "unethical" content.

The Cyberspace Administration of China announced at the time that celebrities could no longer "show off wealth" or "extravagant pleasure" on social media.

China has also clamped down on influencers posting fabricated stories online.

Influencer "Thurman Maoyibei" had her Doyin, Weibo, and BiliBili accounts seized in April after she shared a fake story of a boy whose homework books went missing, BBC News reported.

In the video, which went viral, she reportedly claimed that a coffee shop worker in Paris gave her two homework books that belonged to a Chinese student and said she'd return them to him.

This led to a viral hashtag and campaign to find the student.

China's Ministry of Public Security said the incident was a "typical example" of it taking action against misinformation, the BBC reported.

According to the report, the influencer apologized for "polluting the internet," and police said she and her company could receive a warning or detention as punishment.

Weibo, Douyin and Xiaohongshu didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.