Trump is soliciting support from Silicon Valley donors to cut into Biden's cash edge.
Trump is discussing a fundraiser with two high-profile venture capitalists, Bloomberg reported.
The ex-president finds himself trailing the incumbent president in the fundraising race.
Former President Donald Trump is turning to Silicon Valley and ex-donors of onetime rival Ron DeSantis to boost his campaign coffers and cut into President Joe Biden's hefty fundraising edge.
Bloomberg recently reported that venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya were in talks with the Trump campaign to hold a June fundraiser at Sacks' residence in San Francisco. Trump would also participate in a taping of the pair's podcast, All In.
Sacks, a cofounder of Craft Ventures, previously backed the Florida governor's now-defunct presidential campaign.
Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR, will also host a June fundraiser for Trump in Newport Beach, a coastal city in Southern California, Bloomberg reported.
Before he entered the presidential contest last May, DeSantis was the top conservative alternative to Trump, attracting support from wealthy Republican donors leery of backing the former president's campaign. But Trump never ceded his popularity among the GOP base and the former president subsequently won over key oil and gas executives, who began to open up their checkbooks.
The former president's push to appeal to high-profile Silicon Valley donors follows a similar path.
Biden has long had considerable support among Silicon Valley tech luminaries. Just last week, the president traveled to the area for events hosted by onetime Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, part of his fundraising swing through California.
While Biden and Trump both emerged from their respective party primaries as the presumptive nominees early in the nominating process, the incumbent president is far ahead in the money race as the critical summer stretch of the campaign begins.
The Biden campaign closed out March with $85.5 million cash on hand. The campaign took in $43.8 million in that one month alone, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Biden's numbers have so far dwarfed the Trump campaign, which raised $15.3 million in March and had $44.6 million cash on hand at the end of that month.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee announced earlier this month that they raised over $76 million for the former president in April.
Biden's campaign, which has already beaten Trump to the punch in opening numerous campaign offices in critical battleground states, has not yet released its April figures.
The NFL Draft at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Getty Images
Netflix secured a three-season deal with the NFL to air two games on Christmas.
The deal boosts the streamer's ad business, appealing to advertisers seeking live sports audiences.
NFL games will now be spread across seven platforms, potentially raising costs for fans.
Score one for Netflix, which just announced a three-season deal with the NFL and will show two of the league's games on Christmas this year.
For those who care about Netflix's ability to grow its nascent advertising business, it's a big deal. Advertisers will pay a lot for audiences that are tuning in for live sports, and unlike with TV shows and movies, they expect to see ads during breaks in the action on the field.
For sports fans, it's another story. The news will bring to seven the number of places where the NFL's 272 regular season games will be spread: Four TV networks (CBS, Fox, Disney, and NBC), with a handful airing on Amazon, NFL Network, and now, Netflix.
Streaming was meant to make our lives better, while saving us money. It’s now achieving the opposite of both of those aims.
All in, it could cost fans $1,600 to watch all the games without cable, The Guardian reported, citing MarketWatch estimates.
That assumes you're subscribing to Netflix's cheapest tier, among other things, and that you don't forget to cancel your subscription after watching the games. But the bet Netflix and other streamers are making is that you keep subscribing to watch all the other stuff they have, from movies to TV shows to live specials. An Antenna report found that 71% of Peacock subscribers who signed up to watch an exclusive playoff game earlier this year remained subscribers.
And it's not just the NFL that's seeing distribution creep. For the past 21 years, the NBA has had just two TV partners: Disney's ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery's TNT. Media analysts widely expect the NBA to select more distributors for its next media rights deal after the current setup expires in 2025. Experts expect the NBA will opt for three to avoid spreading its games too thin, though.
The leagues would say they're just following the viewers, who themselves are splitting their time across multiple streaming services as well as TV.
Some viewers also may not remember or realize that when they subscribed to cable, they were paying for sports via their cable package — whether they watched sports or not.
But with the costs unbundled and viewers having to hunt around to find them, it's no surprise that some NFL fans are crying foul.
Stanley Rosenbaum House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Buyenlarge/Getty Images
Lindal Cedar Homes sells house kits inspired by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
The kits are based on Wright's famous homes but are updated for the modern homeowner.
The company told The Wall Street Journal they have sold 10 kits so far.
Frank Lloyd Wright revolutionized America's home design industry almost a century ago. Now, you, too, can build a Wright-inspired home.
Lindal Cedar Homes is now selling "kits" inspired by Wright's designs. The company first announced it partnered with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to create the Lindal Imagine Series in June 2018, according to a press release.
"There's been a surge of interest in midcentury modern homes for the middle class that are affordable and aesthetically pleasing," Josefin Kannin, marketing director for Lindal Cedar Homes, said. "These homes will meet that demand; they are unique, are integrated with nature, and have the feel of a much larger home."
The house kits are inspired by Wright's 60 Usonian homes, which became a cultural and architectural phenomenon starting in the 1930s, according to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.
The Maynard Buehler House, a design by Frank Lloyd Wright.
San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images
The homes were built with the average American in mind, who at that time would have been navigating the Great Depression. The homes — typically made of natural materials and notable roof overhangs — were intended to be affordable and charming.
Lindal Cedar Homes now brings those revered design sensibilities to the modern homeowner.
The Maynard Buehler House's living room.
San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images
The Wright-inspired dwellings range in size from small homes measuring less than 900 square feet to larger 3,000-square-foot homes, the press release said. The company's website offers nine options that embrace six of Wright's design principles, like open-floor plans and integration with nature.
One home, dubbed The Madison, is a two-bedroom, two-bathroom house spanning 1,603 square feet. It drew inspiration from Jacobs 1, Wright's first Usonian home.
The company told The Wall Street Journal that it has sold 10 Wright-inspired house kits so far, four of which have already been completed. The outlet reported that one house kit cost nearly $300,000 in 2019, but Lindal Cedar Homes said prices have risen by at least 40% in 2024.
One Usonian home in Wisconsin hit the market in September 2022 and sold for $1.025 million one month later. The homebuyers paid $300,000 above the initial asking price.
Representatives for Lindal Cedar Homes did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Google's cofounder said Project Astra is the "killer app" for AI-powered glasses.
Getty/Lionel Hahn
Sergey Brin said at Google I/O that Project Astra is "the perfect hardware" for smart glasses.
Google's cofounder said the tech giant was a decade too early with Google Glass, which famously flopped.
Google revealed Project Astra on Tuesday, an AI agent that was also working on prototype glasses.
Google introduced a collection of AI updates and new releases at its I/O event Tuesday, including Project Astra, an AI agent that can understand and recall objects in the real world through your phone camera.
At one point in the demo, the user puts on some prototype smart glasses and continues the conversation with the AI agent — which immediately caused some to speculate that Google Glass could make a return.
Google cofounder Sergey Brin didn't discourage the idea when he was interviewed by reporters following the event.
Brin, who stepped down as president of the company in 2019, told reporters at the conference that Project Astra is the "perfect hardware" for AI-powered glasses, according to a CNET report.
"It's funny, because it's like the perfect hardware," Brin said. "It's like the killer app now, 10 years later," referring to the idea of an AI agent running on smart glasses like the ones the company released a decade ago.
Brin showed off Google Glass onstage at Google I/O 2012, showcasing their video capture ability.
Google first released the smart glasses to a select number of testers in 2013 before rolling sales out more widely in 2014. Controlled by voice command or the touchpad along its side, the $1500 Google Glass Explorer Edition could do things like send texts or capture photos and video.
Google Glass existed for nearly 10 years, with the company launching two Enterprise editions before the company stopped selling the glasses altogether.
But they famously flopped, failing to gain traction mainly because the product lacked a so-called killer app that would make the glasses a must-have. Reviews weren't kind, either. Users complained about short battery life, slow uploading, poor camera quality, and spotty voice recognition. Others didn't like the idea of being recorded out in public.
10 years later, Brin said he still thinks the form factor of Google Glass was "pretty cool."
"Unfortunately, we sort of messed up on the timing," he said, according to a Bloomberg report. "I sort of wish I timed it a bit better."
Brin said "hands-free is the idea," and pointed to other companies' AI efforts in making wearable clips and similar devices that allow consumers to interact with AI more inconspicuously, according to the report.
"A lot of things you want commentary on: You're cooking or doing some sport, or you want this thing to help you," Brin said, according to Bloomberg. "It's awkward to do it with your hands also holding your phone."
Sergey isn't the only one hinting about the return of Google Glass. In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai teased the possible return of the device — or at least smart glasses of some sort — integrated with a Project Astra AI agent.
"Project Astra shines when you have a form factor like glasses," Pichai told CNBC. "We are working on prototypes."
Google's rival Meta is the leader in wearable AI devices at the moment, thanks to its unexpected hit with the Meta Ray-Bans, which start at $299. The glasses don't have any screens, but they do have cameras and speakers, allowing you to interact with Meta's AI assistant and capture photos and video, along with identifying objects or locations in front of the user.
Mark Zuckerberg holding a pair of Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses in 2023.
JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images
Zuckerberg has said sales of the glasses have exceeded expectations, and the company has expanded the lineup. During Meta's first-quarter earnings call, the CEO said he thought the glasses had "the ability to be a pretty meaningful and growing platform" sooner than he expected.
Amazon also launched its own version of smart glasses in 2019. The Alexa-enabled Echo Frames sell for about $250 and offer similar perks as AirPods, allowing users to listen to music, hear incoming notifications, and ask questions to its Alexa virtual assistant.
Other wearable AI gadgets haven't fared as well. The $699 Humane AI Pin, which also requires an additional $24 monthly subscription, has been criticized for its limited capabilities. The company, and other AI-dedicated devices — face the challenge of convincing people that the device offers features consumers couldn't find in a smartphone.
But I noticed he had a slight outfit change in his photos. I was determined to find out why.
Yes, I am aware there are better things I could do with my life.
The Instagram photos from Mark Zuckerberg's 40th birthday party left me with many questions. Questions that I am prepared to investigate using my skills not just as a journalist, but as someone who has attended a lot of parties.
Let's start with the basic facts. The family-friendly party was thrown by Zuck's wife, Priscilla Chan, and featured a bunch of miniature replicas of meaningful places in his life (his childhood bedroom, his dorm room, early Facebook offices, his first apartment, and his favorite pizza shop in Harvard Square). Cute!
When the Meta CEO posted photos of the party on his Instagram, people immediately noticed his outfit and how he was going all-in on his new swag style with his gold chain and shirt. Now, typically, I don't like to spend too many of my precious few brain cells thinking about Mark Zuckerberg's personal appearance; it feels a little too circus and no bread. But this was different.
Something in these Instagram photos was amiss.
In two of the photos, he's wearing a slightly different outfit: the gold chain is missing, and his T-shirt is plain black.
Zuck is missing the chain and the lettered shirt in two of the photos.
Zuckerberg is known to be a Roman history fan (his daughters are named after Roman emperors). But is he such a fan of Roman history that he goes around wearing T-shirts with his favorite Latin slogans?
He's been really into fashion lately, so perhaps the shirt is some fancy designer shirt that's low-key $200?
Or, another option, which is my theory:He didn't choose the shirt; the shirt was gifted to him during the party.
Looking for clues in Zuck's party outfit
Let's examine the evidence.
The first notable thing is that one of the miniature room sets is of the Facebook office during the 2016 "lockdown" when they were working hard to compete with Google+ (lol). During that time, Zuckerberg tried to inspire his troops by using that phrase from the Roman senator Cato — "Carthage must be destroyed." According to a book by a former employee, there were posters with that phrase around the office during that time. So we know that this phrase is very connected to one of these miniature rooms, specifically.
Perhaps the shirt was given to him inside the miniature room that was a replica of Facebook's "lockdown" phase, as a nod specifically to that phase of his life.
This would explain why the shirt seems ill-fitting. Note here it seems billowy and wide. Zuckerberg typically wears a more fitted t-shirt.
Note the billowy shape on Zuckerberg's shirt.
https://ift.tt/wU1Fb5V
And here, you can see that the sleeve of the shirt seems very crisp — as if it were a shirt worn for the first time with the fold lines on it.
We've all had the experience of showing up at some event — a fun run or company picnic or whatever — and being given a shirt with some screen-printed logo on it to wear over your regular shirt. This has all the trappings of that.
The crisp fold on the sleeve edge suggests it hasn't been worn before.
https://ift.tt/RAmEj14
So one theory is that Zuck wore a plain black tee to his party — the one you can see in two of the photos — and then, at some point, was gifted the Carthage tee as a surprise and changed into it for the rest of the party.
Now a quick note about the chain necklace: I believe that the explanation for the necklace is that it was also gifted to him during the party along with the Carthage shirt. The chain necklace is something of a meme after digitally altered photos of Zuck in a chain with a beard went viral.
We get some more details about this party from Priscilla Chan's Instagram. Chan's caption says, "Mark doesn't usually let me go big for his birthday but for his 40th I was allowed to throw a bash as long as our friends and family also roasted him."
AHA! So we know that this was also a ROAST — more fodder for the theory that the shirt and chain were gifted during the party as a form of light roasting.
Prisicilla's outfit also gives us a clue. She's usually very stylish, but for this party, she's wearing jeans, white sneakers, a boxy white T-shirt, and two gold chains. My theory is that this wasn't just her regular casual party attire — she was dressing up in a typical Mark outfit as a joke, chain and all.
Other attendees also seemed to wear some version of a Zuck costume. For example, Bill Gates is wearing basketball shorts and a hoodie sweatshirt.
Joel Kaplan, Meta's head of public policy, appears in one of Chan's photos holding a mic to potentially roast Zuck. Kaplan appears to be wearing some heinous form of athletic wear, presumably a tribute to his boss's interest in MMA.
Meta's head of public policy is wearing an MMA trainer outfit.
https://ift.tt/IU85okW
All of this goes along with a clear theory:
Mark showed up to his party in a plain black shirt and no chain. During the course of the party, he was gifted a chain and a "Carthage must be destroyed" shirt as joking references to his past and present.
There are still some things this theory doesn't explain, like the fact that the T-shirt seems to have some sort of reversible blue-and-white striped lining.
Zuck's sleeve seems to show a blue-and-white striped lining.
https://ift.tt/grkJWhR
The lining suggests the garment is a higher quality than a simple Gildan or Hanes tee — perhaps it is an expensive designer shirt after all. (A rep for Mark Zuckerberg did not respond to questions about the outfit.)
Between the lined shirt and Bill Gates' unholy basketball shorts (I'm pretty sure they're these Nike ones, by the way), there are some mysteries that I just can't solve. But I feel confident in my assessment that Zuckberg's outfit was gifted to him as a joke during his party.
I also am confident in my self-asseessment that I need to find much better things to fill the void in my life than thinking too hard about what Mark Zuckerberg is wearing.
Soldiers and sailors assemble the floating pier off the shore of Gaza in the Mediterranean Sea.
US Army via AP
The Pentagon deployed two Navy warships to help safeguard a US-built pier to bring aid into Gaza.
The safety of US forces positioned off the Gaza coast remains a concern amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Route closures and screenings by Israeli officials hindered aid delivery to Gaza via land crossings.
Navy warships will help protect the US military's soon-to-be-completed pier to deliver aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters at a briefing Tuesday that Navy ships will be part of the security plan for the operation. A Navy official told Military.com that the sea service is assigning two destroyers to the mission.
The two ships will join the thousands of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers — plus Israeli navy ships and Israeli air force planes — that are dedicated to protecting the effort to move food and supplies into Gaza via the sea as Israel's crushing offensive against Hamas grinds on.
News of the Navy security mission comes as officials in the Pentagon say that the operation to move aid is nearly ready to swing into action in the coming days. The safety of US forces positioned off the coast remains a concern amid the war in Gaza, which has killed large numbers of civilians, sparked regional violence, and led to international controversy.
An aerial view of USNS Roy P. Benavidez carrying the floating dock sections off the Gaza coast.
Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters
Last Thursday, Ryder told reporters that the construction of the two portions of the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, system — the floating pier and the causeway being constructed by the Army — "have been completed."
"They are currently positioned offshore at the port of Ashdod, awaiting final movement," Ryder said.
Officials have said that sea conditions in the Mediterranean have prevented them from taking the nearly 550-yard causeway and driving it into the beach in Gaza.
Ryder has said that the soldiers and sailors running the operation have used the delay "to get ahead" and stage aid on the cargo ship USNS Roy P. Benavidez so that it's ready to go as soon as the floating causeway is in place.
A senior defense official said that the first shipload of aid aboard the Benavidez will be made up of 475 pallets, or 170 tons, of food — enough to feed 11,000 adults and children for one month.
An aerial view of Gaza shoreline, jetty, and construction on storage area where supplies will likely be offloaded.
Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters
A senior military official who spoke with reporters in late April said that they expect the initial throughput of the effort to begin at "about 90 trucks a day … and then quickly scale up to 150 trucks a day."
However, both military and civilian officials have repeatedly made clear that the JLOTS mission is meant only to be a supplement to the more traditional aid routes through land border crossings in Gaza. But aid has been slow to come in through those routes either due to closures or heavy screenings by Israeli officials.
At the beginning of April, Israeli forces conducted repeated airstrikes on a World Central Kitchen convoy of aid workers, killing seven.
After the outrage over the attack drew renewed attention to the situation in Gaza, the land crossing reopened, and the senior military official said that, in the last weeks of April, the average aid flowing in via land has been "about 220 trucks a day."
The superannuation system is a key asset for helping people fund their retirement. But with all of this inflation, investors may wonder if their nest egg is still on track.
For many people, the retirement phase of their lives can be many years, perhaps decades. Therefore, we need to ensure the superannuation balance lasts as long as possible. Â
Inflation reduces the buying power of a dollar. We need to ensure that this cost-of-living crisis doesn’t detrimentally affect our purchasing power in retirement by harming our superannuation-building efforts.
Aussies are worried about the financial impacts
According to research from Findex, four in five Australians (81% of people) have changed their investment and saving goals in the past year, with the primary reason for the shift being to ‘make ends meet and or rising costs of living’ (44% of people).
Who is feeling it the most? The younger Australians. Around 90% of Gen Z and 87% of millennials have de-prioritised investing and saving because of cost of living pressures.
The trouble is that inflation is likely increasing how much we’ll need in retirement to pay for goods and services in our golden years.
Findex says more than four in five (83% of people) say the rising cost of living has had a “significant or some adverse impact on their confidence in achieving the amount they think they need for a comfortable retirement.”
On average, Australians believe they will need $1.13 million in superannuation for a comfortable retirement at age 67.
Currently, the AFSA Retirement Standard suggests a couple will need a superannuation balance of $690,000 and a single person will need $595,000 for a comfortable retirement. That amount is, in my opinion, likely to keep rising in the coming years.
What can people do to help their superannuation?
It’s a tough time for many households, so keeping food on the table and a roof over our heads is the most important thing.
Everyone who earns a wage is (hopefully) receiving mandatory (concessional) superannuation contributions, which is a percentage of the amount of wages earned. These contributions can keep building the balance, even if no extra money is invested inside or outside superannuation.
Over the ultra-long-term, ‘growth’ assets can typically outperform defensive assets like cash and bonds because of their capital growth and compounding potential. So it could be useful for Aussies in the accumulation phase to allocate their nest egg to the superannuation fund’s ‘growth’ option rather than the defensive option (or even balanced, depending on how much that option allocates to defensive assets).
If Aussies have plenty of excess cash flow in their personal budgets, increasing superannuation contributions could be advantageous because of the tax savings and compounding ability. Of course, this should be balanced against thoughts of home ownership and possibly paying down the mortgage.
Aussies don’t need to invest inside superannuation. The money is locked away for retirement for potentially decades, whereas investing in (ASX) shares outside of superannuation can mean being able to access the capital/dividends instantly.
I’m investing outside of super and also building up my superannuation balance through regular concessional contributions.
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Michael Burry published a first-quarter portfolio update on Wednesday.
The Scion Asset Management chief pared down his stock positions from 25 to 16 but boosted other bets.
Burry is known for his bet against the mid-2000s housing bubble, chronicled in "The Big Short."
Michael Burry ramped up his bets on a raft of stocks while slashing his holdings last quarter.
The investor of "The Big Short" fame pared down his portfolio from 25 positions to 16 in the three months ending in March, he revealed in a quarterly portfolio update on Wednesday. The total value of his holdings rose from about $95 million to about $103 million.
Eleven holdings survived the period, and the Scion Asset Management boss added to all of them. For example, he boosted his stake in Alibaba from 75,000 shares to 125,000, his JD.com bet from 200,000 to 360,000, and his Star Bulk Carriers wager from 250,000 to 400,000.
Burry also added five new holdings to his collection: Baidu, BP, First Solar, Sprott Physical Gold Trust, and Cigna. He also disposed of some stocks, including Amazon, Alphabet, MGM Resorts, Toast, and Warner Bros. Discovery.
The Scion chief is best known for his monster wager against the mid-2000s housing bubble, which was immortalized in the book and movie "The Big Short."
He also drew attention for investing in GameStop more than a year before it became a meme stock in early 2021. The frenzy around the video games retailer reignited this week after one of its biggest proponents, investor Keith "Roaring Kitty" Gill, returned to social media after a yearslong hiatus.
Burry's latest portfolio update didn't feature any put options. The investor has previously held the bearish options on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes, Apple stock, a microchip ETF containing Nvidia, Elon Musk's Tesla, and Cathie Wood's flagship Ark fund.
The value investor is well known for his grave warnings and grim predictions about market crashes and economic catastrophes. For instance, he sounded the alarm on the "greatest speculative bubble of all time in all things" in the summer of 2021, and cautioned that buyers of meme stocks and cryptocurrencies would be caught in the "mother of all crashes."
Tanks are the apex predator on Ukraine's battlefields, with modern Western tanks facing off against Soviet-designed relics. But which country has the power?
The role of chief marketing officer has never been more complex than it is today.
Digital transformation, economic upheaval, societal change, and a fragmented media landscape are just some of the intricacies marketing leaders are confronting.
CMO Insider presents profiles, case studies, research, and personal perspectives, to inspire and inform CMOs and their teams as they build and grow their brands.
