Author: openjargon

• Argentina's President Javier Milei is in the US to meet with leaders of the world's biggest tech companies.
• Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Elon Musk have all agreed to meet with him, his spokesman said.
• Argentina's large lithium deposits are enticing for tech execs. 

Argentina's President Javier Milei has landed in the US.

But rather than an official meeting with President Joe Biden, he's headed to the West Coast to meet with the leaders of Silicon Valley.

Milei's schedule includes private meetings with three of tech's biggest names: Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple boss Tim Cook, and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg.

He is also reportedly meeting with representatives from OpenAI, as well as SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk — his second catchup with the billionaire in a month.

Alongside top tech names, the South American leader and former TV pundit is scheduled to speak at Stanford University and meet entrepreneurs from several AI startups.

The embrace of Argentina's right-wing, libertarian leader in tech circles is thought to be related to the country's bountiful and largely untapped lithium resources. Musk was "extremely interested" in Argentine lithium during their previous meeting, Milei said.

Argentina is home to some of the largest known deposits of the metal, which is used to power batteries in cellphones, laptops, and electric vehicles. Such is lithium's value in the modern world that it is known in some circles as "white gold."

With a number of development projects in the pipeline, Argentina's lithium production could triple this year, according to S&P Global.

For Milei, networking with Silicon Valley leaders could help draw investment into Argentina's tech and space sectors, which are advancing despite the country's devastating economic crisis.

Since Milei's inauguration in December 2023, monthly inflation rates have declined, however, annual price growth still remains at almost 300%, the AP recently reported.

However, the self-proclaimed "anarcho-capitalist" is facing widespread national protests against his austerity measures, which include slashing public spending and removing fuel and transport subsidies.

On his way home from the US, he will stop off at the second-term inauguration of Salvadorian leader Nayib Bukele.

Representatives for Apple, Meta, and Alphabet did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Amancio Ortega, the 88-year-old Spanish founder of Zara, is worth around $108 billion. 
• He owns 59% of Inditex, the world's largest clothing retailer, which also sells brands like Bershka.
• Here's how Ortega built a fast-fashion empire and became one of the world's wealthiest moguls.

Amancio Ortega, the man behind fashion brand Zara, is Spain's richest person.

His retail empire Inditex helped Ortega build his $108 billion fortune, and he also invests his earnings into an expansive commercial real estate portfolio that includes office and residential buildings around the world. 

Ortega rarely grants interviews. He stepped back from company operations in 2011, but his family is still heavily involved with Inditex. His daughter, Marta Ortega Perez, is the non-executive chair; his son-in-law, Carlos Torretta, has held the role of head of communications at Zara; and his brothers-in-law have worked as managing directors at Inditex-owned brands, according to the Financial Times.

Here's a look at the life and career of the cofounder of Zara.

The 88-year-old Ortega was born in northwestern Spain in 1936, the son of a railroad worker and a stay-at-home mother.

He started making clothes with his siblings and future wife, Rosalia Mera, in their home in the early 1960s. In 1975, Ortega and Mera opened the first Zara store in downtown La Coruna, Spain, according to Bloomberg.

 

"Zara" wasn't his first choice for the store's name.

He was planning to name it Zorba after the film "Zorba the Greek," but there was already a local bar with the same name. Because he'd already bought molds of the letters Z-O-R-B-A, he made do with what he had and ended up with the name Zara, Vogue India reported.

Ten years later, in 1985, Ortega incorporated Zara into a holding company called Inditex.

He and Mera separated around that time, but she remained the company's second-largest shareholder until her death in 2013.

Ortega owns 59% of Inditex, which is now the world's largest clothing retailer, according to Bloomberg. Inditex owns a portfolio of fast-fashion brands, including Zara, one of the best-known and most successful fashion brands in the world with nearly 3,000 stores in 96 countries, according to Forbes.

 

Pull&Bear, a teen-focused retailer, is also owned by Inditex.

Pull&Bear was started in 1991, according to the official company website. Other Inditex brands include Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Oysho, and Zara Home. Bershka was its second-biggest brand by revenue in fiscal 2023.

Mera and Ortega's daughter, Sandra Ortega Mera, inherited the title of Spain's richest woman after her mother's death in 2013.

In August 2013, Ortega's ex-wife, who had become Spain's richest woman, died at age 69. Their daughter has an estimated $9.7 billion net worth and  controls 4.5% of Inditex, though she's not involved in the company. She's the second-richest person in Spain behind her father, according to Forbes.

Ortega has been married to his second wife, Flora Perez, since 2001.

Ortega and Perez share two children, including a daughter, Marta, who began in the family business nearly 16 years ago, according to the Financial Times. She married top Spanish equestrian Sergio Álvarez Moya in February 2012, but the couple separated in 2015. In November 2018, Marta married Carlos Torretta — then a model agent and the son of designer Roberto Torretta — at her family's home in Galicia, Spain, W Magazine reported.

 

Marta Ortega was long considered a favorite to follow in her father's footsteps and lead Inditex.

Amancio Ortega stepped down as Inditex's chairman in 2011 and handed the reins to executive president Pablo Isla, but in 2022, Marta Ortega took over as Inditex's chairwoman.

These days, Amancio Ortega is the 13th-richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of about $108 billion, according to Forbes.

Since Inditex's initial public offering in 2001, Ortega has received more than 12 billion euros, or about $13 billion, in dividends. Most of that cash has been reinvested in real estate through his company's investment arm, Pontegadea, per Bloomberg.

In 2011, he bought the tallest skyscraper in Spain at the time, the 515-foot Torre Picasso in Madrid, for 400 million euros.

It was his first big real estate purchase, Reuters reported. The office building was the tallest in Spain at the time, but it's now the tenth-tallest building in the country.

And in 2016, he purchased another Madrid skyscraper, Cepsa Tower, for 490 million euros.

In 2015, he paid $370 million for an entire block of prime property in Miami Beach, Miami Herald reported.

Ortega has also invested in the Epic Residences and Hotel, a luxurious, 54-story skyscraper in Miami. He's also reportedly bought property in London, Chicago, Barcelona and more, according to Forbes.

 

In 2015, he bought the historic E.V. Haughwout Building in New York City's SoHo for $145 million.

Reuters reported that Ortega held around $6.6 billion in real estate assets by the end of 2015. Ortega picked up another New York property in 2016, this time a hotel at 70 Park Avenue in Murray Hill for $67.6 million, according to The Real Deal. 

In 2019, Ortega went on a further real estate spending spree.

He acquired a downtown Chicago hotel for $72.5 million, as well as a building in central Washington D.C. and two office buildings in Seattle that Amazon had leased, for a combined $1.1 billion, Bloomberg reported.

Ortega also owns some residential property.

He and his wife live in La Coruna, Spain, according to Forbes. At one point, Ortega owned the Pazo de Dodro farm and estate near La Coruna. The estate was the site of his daughter Marta's first wedding, Spanish news site El Mundo reported.

Ortega also owned an $84 million superyacht named Drizzle, but he reportedly put it up for sale in 2022.

Auto Evolution reported that Ortega was able to sell Drizzle for around 76 million euros, and he'll be trading it in for a larger vessel. But he rarely jets off on vacation anyway — in fact, Ortega didn't take his first vacation until 2001, after Inditex's initial public offering, per Bloomberg.

 

Ortega is known for being low-key, as executives go.

Bloomberg reported in 2012 that he eschewed an office to sit among the designers and fabric experts at Zara's headquarters, while another report said he typically ate lunch with his employees in the company cafeteria every day.

Ortega sticks to a simple uniform of a shirt and slacks and doesn't typically wear clothes from his own companies. In his free time, Ortega is often seen at equestrian events. He also built an equestrian center near La Coruna, as his daughter Marta competes in show jumping, according to Bloomberg.

In 2017, his foundation donated $344 million to Spanish public hospitals to provide the latest technology in breast cancer screening and treatment.

Ortega founded the Amancio Ortega Foundation in 2001, a charitable organization focused on education and social welfare.

In 2020, Ortega donated roughly $68 million to help combat the pandemic, including buying ventilators, face masks, and COVID tests for the Spanish Health System, Barron's reported.

Despite running a major fashion retailer for four decades, Ortega is intensely private.

There were no public photographs of him until 1999, and in 2012, Bloomberg noted that he had only ever granted interviews to three journalists.

One Zara employee who worked with him told The Economist in 2016 that "the true story of Amancio Ortega has not been told." 

 

In August, Ortega purchased a 45-story apartment tower in Chicago for $232 million.

The building has 492 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments along with a fitness center, yoga studio, dog park, and pet spa.

Inditex has grown into a fast-fashion behemoth.

Although it's facing tough competition, Inditex grew its revenue 1o.4% in 2023 to 39.5 billion euros.

Óscar García Maceiras has served as the CEO of Inditex since 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Katie Warren, Ashley Lutz, Mallory Schlossberg, and Melissa Wiley contributed to an earlier version of this story.

Correction: March 27, 2023 – An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of money that Amancio Ortega donated to combat the pandemic. He donated roughly $68 million.

• Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.
• A California-based attorney, Shanahan founded a patent tech company, then focused on other ventures.
• She made $1 billion from divorcing Google cofounder Sergey Brin, NYT reports.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has named attorney Nicole Shanahan as his pick for VP.

Shanahan has donated thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates since 2018, including Pete Buttigieg, Marianne Williamson, Ro Khanna, and AOC's 2020 primary challenger. This year, however, she was the primary funder of a controversial Super Bowl ad promoting RFK Jr.

Shanahan is a California-based attorney and founder of patent technology company ClearAccessIP and the Bia-Echo Foundation. She and billionaire Google cofounder Sergey Brin divorced in 2023; the New York Times reported that Shanahan received over $1 billion from the split, citing sources familiar with her finances.

Shanahan also made headlines in 2022 after the Wall Street Journal reported that she had an affair with Tesla CEO Elon Musk while she was married to Brin, which she denied.

She launched the Bia-Echo Foundation in 2019, and gave $100 million to social programs focused on efforts like improving the criminal justice system and climate change. The funding also supports fertility later in life, a topic she has firsthand experience with after struggling to become pregnant in her 30s, the Chronicle of Philanthropy previously reported.

The Bia-Echo Foundation says its mission is to "invest in changemakers at the forefront of innovation" in the core areas of criminal justice reform, the health of the planet, and reproductive longevity and equality.

Shanahan, 38, is also an academic fellow of CodeX, the Stanford Center of Legal Informatics, where she works on a project that applies data science to the prosecutorial process, according to the Stanford Law directory.

She grew up in California and attended Santa Clara University School of Law.

Before Shanahan and Brin met at a yoga retreat in 2015, Shanahan was married to a finance executive, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Shanahan and Brin were first spotted together at a dating app CEO's island wedding, Business Insider previously reported.

Despite her reported initial struggles to become pregnant, the couple welcomed a daughter in 2018. Shanahan spoke about her fertility struggles at the launch of the Center for Female Reproductive Longevity and Equality in 2019, Page Six reported.

"Like many women who are not quite ready to start a family in their early 30s, I decided, or so I thought at the time, to take matters into my own hands and freeze embryos," she said. "However, after three failed attempts at embryo-making and three dozen visits to in vitro fertilization clinics around the Bay Area, I learned that I was not nearly as unshakable as I thought I was."

In January 2022, Brin filed for divorce after learning about the alleged affair between Shanahan and Musk, the Journal reported. Shanahan and Musk have both denied the Journal's reports of an affair. Shanahan and Brin's divorce was finalized in May 2023.

"I hope for Sergey and I to move forward with dignity, honesty and harmony for the sake of our child," Shanahan told Puck News in July 2022 with regards to the divorce. "And we are both working towards that."

Musk said in July 2022 that the Journal's article was "total bs" and that he and Brin remained friends.

"I've only seen Nicole twice in three years, both times with many other people around. Nothing romantic," Musk wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Shanahan has said the scandal was "utterly debilitating" and "humiliating."

"Did Elon and I have sex, like it was a moment of passion, and then it was over? No," she told People in 2023. "Did we have a romantic relationship? No. We didn't have an affair."

RFK Jr. says Shanahan 'will look out for young people' and 'understands social media'

Kennedy discussed his decision to pick Shanahan as his vice presidential running mate in an interview with Newsweek.

"I want somebody who will look out for young people and not treat them as if they're invisible," he told Newsweek. "She's just 38 years old; she comes from technology and understands social media."

Well before his pick, Shanahan said she initially dismissed Kennedy's presidential campaign.

After a friend encouraged her to listen to one of his interviews, she said she found there was "definitely a misalignment between what I thought and who he really is," she told the publication.

She also said previously she views Kennedy — who has repeatedly spread misinformation about vaccines, as Business Insider previously reported — as "not an anti-vaxxer; he's just someone who takes vaccine injuries seriously."

Shanahan told the New York Times in an interview earlier this year that she is "not an anti-vaxxer" but wonders "about vaccine injuries" and is for more screening for vaccination risks.

As for her previous donations to Democratic candidates, Shanahan told Newsweek she plans to "leave the party." She told the outlet she backed Kennedy when he was running for the Democratic nomination but withdrew her support after he became an independent, before throwing her support behind him again.

• Laura Ingraham says she was forced to miss her own Fox News show after a United Airlines diversion.
• Jeanine Pirro hosted in her absence on a night of key developments in Trump's New York trial.
• Ingraham then called into the show to rail against the trial's proceedings.

A top Fox News host says she was stranded on a much-delayed flight on Tuesday, causing her to call into her own show to explain why she couldn't make it.

Laura Ingraham, host of the primetime The Ingraham Angle, posted to X on Tuesday to say that her United Airlines flight from Washington DC to Houston had been diverted to Austin.

The trip — which ordinarily takes about three hours — had kept her in the air for seven and a half hours, she wrote.

She added: "Forced to miss the show on this huge news night."

On Tuesday, lawyers presented their closing arguments in former President Donald Trump's criminal hush-money trial in New York.

Fox News and its affiliates maintain studios all over the country — previously including a vastly expensive home setup built during the pandemic for its then-star Tucker Carlson — but even Robert Murdoch's empire can't broadcast a show from midair.

United Airlines' X account responded to Ingraham's post apologizing and promising to look into the issue.

The airline did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment, sent outside of working hours.

Fox News confirmed to Mediaite that Ingraham had been slated to host her show from Houston.

Instead, at short notice, Jeanine Pirro stepped in.

But midway through the show, Ingraham called in, with Pirro greeting her: "Hello, Laura. I hear you're at an airport or on a plane somewhere."

"Oh yeah — eight hours friendly skies of United Airlines. It wasn't so friendly today, but that's all right, everybody was nice and patient," she said.

Apologizing for her absence, she said there was "literally no way I could get to a studio in time given what happened on the airline with the weather and mechanical problems."

But, she said, "I followed everything that was happening today and continues to happen in Manhattan."

Ingraham then railed against what she called the "weaponization of the judicial system," adding: "I thought I was mad about the flight delays, but I'm really mad about this."

Fox News didn't immediately respond to BI's request for comment, sent outside of working hours.

• France's president said Ukraine should be allowed to use Western weapons to hit targets in Russia.
• But only positions Russia is using to launch attacks on Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron said.
• Other Western leaders have urged allies to lift the ban on Ukraine using their weapons in Russia.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Ukraine should be allowed to use weapons supplied by its Western allies to target positions inside Russia — but on one condition.

Macron said at a press conference on Tuesday that Ukraine should be able to target military bases in Russia that are directly used to launch attacks on Ukraine.

"We think that we should allow them to neutralize the military sites from which the missiles are fired and, basically, the military sites from which Ukraine is attacked," he told reporters.

Macron held a map showing military bases stationed inside Russia's borders, where Russian forces have been building up and launching offensive operations.

"As you can see, Ukrainian soil is being attacked from bases in Russia," he said, adding: "How do we explain to the Ukrainians that they're going to have to protect these towns and everything we see around Kharkiv if we tell them, 'you're not allowed to reach the position where the missiles are fired from?'"

Macron said the message NATO is sending to Ukraine right now is: "We're giving you weapons, but you can't defend yourself."

His statement comes as other world leaders are calling for a change in policy.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told The Economist last week that some restrictions should be lifted as they make it very difficult for Ukrainian soldiers to defend themselves along the border with Russia.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also joined Stoltenberg's call, adding that NATO countries have to balance the risk of escalation with the need for Ukrainians to be able to defend their country.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has had to contend with a series of Russian offensives, especially in Kharkiv, which borders Russia in the country's northeast.

Ukrainian soldiers in Kharkiv were forced to watch Russia amassing troops across the border without being able to hit them, and then suffered losses that it could have prevented, a Ukrainian commander told The Times of London last week.

Despite being one of the top providers of military aid to Ukraine, the US has repeatedly said it won't allow Ukraine to use the weapons it has supplied to strike targets on Russian soil.

But there are signs that it could be changing its mind. Last week, The New York Times reported that US officials were debating rolling back the rule, which Ukraine has argued severely hampers its ability to defend itself.

According to Macron, Ukraine's NATO allies should allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia, but it must not be allowed to hit civilian targets or other military targets.

• Israel's assault on Rafah won't prompt Biden to restrict military support, a US official said.
• The White House said it didn't violate Biden's warnings against targeting population centers.
• Biden's decision could weaken his image and harm his electoral chances.

Ahead of Israel's assault on Rafah, President Joe Biden issued several stark warnings to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Speaking to CNN earlier this month, Biden said he had made it clear if Israel invaded the city in southern Gaza, he would not be "supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem."

In a separate interview with MSNBC, he said that an invasion of Rafah would be a "red line" in his relationship with Netanyahu.

For many, Israel seemingly crossed that red line on 6 May when it began what it called "targeted" ground operations in the east of Rafah.

Since then, at least 45 Palestinians have been killed, and hundreds of others have been injured in airstrikes, which ignited a devastating fire in Tal al-Sultan in southern Gaza on Sunday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Rafah had been sheltering more than a million Palestinians who had fled Israeli assaults elsewhere in Gaza.

The IDF confirmed the airstrikes killed two Hamas militants and said it was investigating the civilian casualties, the Associated Press reported.

On Tuesday, the White House said that the assault hadn't violated Biden's previous warnings against launching a large-scale assault targeting population centers. US officials noted Netanyahu's comments on Monday that the civilian casualties were a "tragic mistake."

Matt Miller, the State Department spokesman, said the US was "deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life in Rafah" but that it "made no change to our policy."

"We have made clear that if there was a full-scale military operation, there would be some change. But as of yet, it's not a change. I mean, we do support – as we always have – their ability to go after legitimate Hamas terrorists."

The statement suggests Biden will continue to move forward with a $1 billion weapons package to Israel. Congress still needs to be officially notified of the sale and approve it.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the package could include $700 million in tank ammunition, $500 million in military vehicles, and $60 million in mortar rounds.

Speaking to The Washington Post, Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Biden should cease military assistance to Israel "until we know that all the president's requests, including with respect to Rafah and the urgent delivery of humanitarian assistance, will be respected."

"A partnership should be a two-way street, not a one-way blank check," he added.

As BI previously reported, the weapons deal could be seen as an attempt to heal Biden's relationship with Netanyahu and to halt accusations that the US is emboldening Iran.

But the Biden administration has only carried out minor sanctions on Netanyahu's government as the death toll in Gaza mounts. For instance, Biden previously withheld a shipment of bombs before announcing that the planned weapons deal would go ahead.

Andrew Payne, a US foreign policy expert and lecturer at City University of London, told Business Insider that Biden's handling of the Gaza war could harm his chances in the upcoming election.

"No one's going in and saying, 'I didn't like the arms deal back in May, so I guess I'll go for Trump.' Right? Instead, the way that the politics of foreign policy works is you tend to vote for candidates who project images that you like. And in the American context, people want their commanders in chief to be tough, to be competent, to be strong," Payne said.

Payne's comments echoed analysts who said Biden's handling of the war is one of the issues responsible for corroding his support among younger voters.

"I think Biden's problem is that for several months now, his policies have not managed to shift the dial of Israeli behavior, and that makes him appear relatively weak," Payne added.

Dave Harden, a former mission director at the US Agency for International Development in the West Bank and Gaza, told the BBC in March that Netanyahu "almost treats Biden as some kind of inconsequential second secretary of a low-ranked European power."

"The gap between Israel and the US," he said, "just deepens."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.
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Hello! If you're looking for something to watch, "MoviePass, MovieCrash" debuts on HBO and Max today. The documentary chronicles the rise and fall of the movie-ticket-subscription company MoviePass, and is based on award-winning reporting from Business Insider.

In today's big story, we're looking at how some millennials are falling behind with their retirement savings.

What's on deck:

• Markets: GPT-4 can already read and trade the market better than you.
• Tech: OpenAI's Sam Altman had a rough few weeks in the public eye. Now he's pledging to give away most of his money.
• Business: Denmark might have the solution to the interest-rate problem keeping US homeowners put.

But first, what's your (retirement) number?

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

The big story

Retirement math

For some millennials, the reality of their retirement plans is that they're a fantasy.

A new survey shows the significant gap between how much millennials expect they need to retire ($1.7 million) and what they've roughly saved so far ($63,000), write Business Insider's Jacob Zinkula and William Edwards.

It's not the first time we've gotten troubling data about millennials' retirement plans. A 2022 Census Bureau survey found only 62% of Americans between the ages of 35 and 44 had a retirement account.

But it's not just a lack of savings working against millennials' plans of riding off into the retirement sunset.

Owning a home has proved elusive for the group, with some deeming themselves "forever renters." But forgoing homeownership could eventually pose serious problems, as millennials won't have home equity they could cash out to put toward their retirement.

Meanwhile, student loans are the gift that keeps on giving… pain. A new student-loan forgiveness plan could bring more relief, but it won't be without its detractors.

And if you're hoping for a Hail Mary in the form of a fat inheritance to jumpstart your retirement plans, that's not looking great either. The rising cost of end-of-life care, coupled with people living longer, means your parent's money will be long gone before you can get your hands on it.

Retirement concerns aren't bound to certain economic classes.

Obviously, people struggling to put food on the table or keep a roof over their heads don't have the luxury of saving for retirement.

But even those further up the economic totem pole aren't necessarily saving for the future. High income doesn't always equate to financial security.

The problem isn't just saving money. It's also not knowing when enough is enough.

Pop quiz: How long are you going to live for?

I don't mean to be so crass, but that's something to consider when saving for retirement. And with advancements in medicine, that timeline could get stretched longer than expected. So much for "live long and prosper."

If all this isn't terrifying enough — writing today's newsletter sent me nervously checking my retirement accounts a few times — millennials get a preview of how bad things can be. Many peak boomers are entering retirement woefully unprepared.

But there is a bright side! Maybe retirement kind of stinks?

People keen to get there quickly — financial independence, retire early — are finding themselves working again.

3 things in markets

1. OpenAI is coming for Wall Street. GPT-4 is already better than humans at analyzing financial statements, according to a new study. The model was also able to beat the market with its trading strategies.
2. Yes, interest-rate hikes are still on the table. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said another surprise from the economic data could have the central bank raising rates again. It shows how, despite the market's eager anticipation, the Fed isn't in a rush to lower rates.
3. The stock market rally isn't over just yet. That's according to UBS, which raised its price target for the S&P 500 from 5,400 to 5,600 points on Tuesday. Diminishing recession risk and strong earnings growth will power the benchmark index higher, the Swiss bank said.

3 things in tech

1. Sam Altman is pledging to give away most of his wealth after a tough few weeks. The OpenAI CEO and his partner, Oliver Mulherin, are the latest to sign the Giving Pledge, joining a high-profile list of tech billionaires. The announcement follows recent exits from OpenAI's safety team and a dispute with Scarlett Johansson that brought scrutiny against Altman.
2. Google is cleaning up its new AI search feature. Some of the odd answers AI Overviews has been known to spit out — like putting glue on pizza — are being disabled. A Google spokesperson previously told BI the answers were "generally very uncommon queries and aren't representative of most people's experiences."
3. The rich get richer. Seven US tech billionaires have enjoyed a $230 billion surge in wealth this year thanks to the AI-powered stock market rally. Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang has led the charge, with his personal fortune jumping by over $50 billion in 2024.

3 things in business

1. Denmark has a solution for America's broken housing market. Millions of Americans are stuck in their homes to avoid taking on a high mortgage rate. But America could solve the lock-in effect if it followed Denmark's lead incentivizing homeowners to trade in their low rates for a more expensive ones.
2. Adam Neumann has given up on WeWork. Neumann, who cofounded WeWork, told BI the company is "emerging from bankruptcy with a plan that appears unrealistic and unlikely to succeed." The bankruptcy deal, which cut Neumann out of the equation, includes $450 million in equity funding and plans to wipe away billions of debt.
3. It was a rough Memorial Day weekend for Hollywood. Moviegoing has been in decline since the early 2000s – because there's just no way around the internet and the competition it provides for everything, BI's Peter Kafka writes.

In other news

• China's latest weapon of war is a gun-toting robot dog.
• Chipotle customers are roasting the chain for its portion sizes — and filming their orders in hopes of getting more food.
• Lucid CEO says Tesla is 'losing its way'.
• Melinda French Gates explains why she's leaving the foundation she started with Bill Gates 3 years after their divorce.
• The IRS has failed to police the huge tax breaks offered by Puerto Rico, whistleblower claims.
• Vivek Ramaswamy has a plan for BuzzFeed. There's just one problem.
• Ex-OpenAI board member reveals what led to Sam Altman's brief ousting.

What's happening today

• Today's earnings: HP and other companies are reporting earnings.
• Sheryl Sandberg is stepping down from Meta's board of directors.

The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, editor, in London. George Glover, reporter, in London.

• Apple may be catching a break in China.
• Data showed foreign smartphone sales, the majority of which are iPhones, rose by 52% in April.
• That will be a relief to Apple, which has cut iPhone prices to try and fend off local competition.

Apple's China woes may finally be easing.

Shipments of foreign smartphones in China, the majority of which are iPhones, rose by 52% in April, according to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) reported by Reuters.

The CAICT is a research firm affiliated with the Chinese government. Business Insider contacted the firm for further comment but didn't immediately hear back.

That's well above the 12% rise recorded by the CAICT in March, and it comes after Apple aggressively cut iPhone prices and rolled out new promotions to boost flagging sales.

Research firm Counterpoint research estimated the Silicon Valley heavyweight had sunk from first to third place in the Chinese smartphone market earlier this year, after sales dropped 19% year-over-year in Q1.

Apple CEO Tim Cook disputed third-party reports that iPhone sales in the country were struggling in Apple's most recent earnings call, telling investors that sales of Apple's smartphone grew in mainland China during the first quarter.

However, Apple's revenue from greater China, which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, declined 8% in the quarter year-over-year, and the tech giant is facing growing competition from local upstarts like Honor, Vivo, and Huawei.

Huawei's iPhone 15 rival, the Mate 60, proved a big success with customers when it launched last year. The company has now rolled out a new series of smartphones called the Pura 70, which are designed to compete with the iPhone Pro.

Apple has also faced pressure from the Chinese government, with government employees being told not to use iPhones at work and the security of Apple's flagship mobile device publicly questioned by state officials.

Despite these challenges, China remains a crucial market for Apple. The company reportedly plans to sell its Vision Pro VR headset in the country, and Cook told investors Apple's long-term position in the world's biggest smartphone market was still positive.

"Despite the ups and downs in the market, this new data underlines the fact that the iPhone is the product to beat, and Apple is in a remarkably strong position when it comes to not only its installed base of users, but future growth potential," Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, told BI.

"My view is that people who track Apple underestimate them at their peril to some extent because although we have seen a slowdown, we know that the iPhone remains an extremely desirable product," he said.

He added that although local manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomi have seen strong sales, they primarily compete against each other rather than Apple's high-end devices.

"We feel that the Chinese manufacturers are waged in extremely intense competition between themselves, but that won't necessarily move the needle against Apple," Wood said.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside normal working hours.

• An Idaho jury awarded a drag performer $1,176,000 for defamation.
• The performer was falsely accused by a right-wing blogger of exposing himself to minors.
• He said the false allegations led to death threats and harassment.

An Idaho jury awarded a drag performer $1,176,000 in damages after finding that a right-wing blogger defamed him by falsely claiming that he exposed himself to minors at an LGBTQ+ Pride event.

The Kootenai County District Court jury unanimously ruled on Friday that Summer Bushnell defamed Eric Posey, whose drag name is Mona Liza Million, by posting a doctored video from an event at Coeur d'Alene City Park in June 2022, according to the Coeur d'Alene Press.

The Pride event made headlines on June 11, 2022, when law enforcement arrested members of the white nationalist organization Patriot Front who were protesting nearby.

Bushnell posted a video on social media discussing the arrests.

According to the Coeur d'Alene Press, she said: "Why did no one arrest the man in a dress who flashed his genitalia to minors and people in the crowd?"

A day later, she posted a doctored video of Posey she had received from a local videographer, the local news outlet reported.

It showed Posey with a blurred patch over his crotch, which Bushnell claimed was covering his "fully exposed genitals," according to the Coeur d'Alene Press.

The video gained thousands of views and led to a police investigation. City prosecutors did not press charges.

Posey, who performed three times that day, was wearing a leotard, black shorts, tights, and a rainbow boa. According to the drag performer's lawsuit, he never removed any articles of clothing during the performances.

Nonetheless, Posey said during the five-day trial that the false allegations led to death threats and harassment, per the Coeur d'Alene Press.

In a September 2022 press statement, Posey said the video continued to be spread even after he had been cleared of wrongdoing, "not only defaming me but also inciting a backlash towards the LGBTQIA+ community statewide."

Although Idaho does not restrict drag performances, Republicans in other states have pushed for legislation to limit where drag artists can perform.

According to GLAAD, the legislative push has coincided with dozens of incidents of anti-LGBTQ protests and threats targeting drag events, including bomb threats, over the past couple of years.

Some of these incidents have involved violence, weapons, or extremist groups, as was the case in Couer d'Alene.

According to the Couer d'Alene Press, the Idaho jury deliberated for about three-and-a-half hours before awarding $926,000 in compensatory damages for defamation.

The outlet reported that the jury awarded an additional $250,000 in punitive damages because Posey proved that Bushnell knew her allegations were false and were made with "reckless regard."

According to the lawsuit, Bushnell knew the video was false because she had seen the unedited version and sent a link to the City of Coeur d'Alene.

The legal teams representing Bushnell and Posey did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• Irina Stanescu landed a job as a software engineer at Google in 2011.
• She told Business Insider she was rejected for her first promotion but tried again a year later.
• Stanescu said she learned to solve problems independently and ask for more responsibility.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Irina Stanescu, a former Google software engineer based in California. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I never thought I'd end up working for Google. I was born and raised in Romania. I went to college there to study computer engineering.

When I graduated in 2010, some friends who'd done internships with Google suggested I apply. I applied for a job as a software engineer and started there in October 2011 when I was 23. I moved to Mountain View, where the Google headquarters is.

I didn't fit in

I had no idea what to expect. Being an immigrant in California wasn't easy. I tried to be open-minded, but English wasn't my first language, and I struggled to make friends.

I had a rocky start because I didn't have a team for two weeks. When I eventually did, my manager left two months into my role. I had several interim managers. I was unlucky — none of my friends who started at a similar time had an experience like that.

I found a team that felt right

After seven months, I started working on Google Fiber. I moved there because I wanted to work for a growing team. It was like a startup within Google.

I had a stable manager and felt like I finally belonged to a team.

After a year and a half, I started thinking about going for a promotion. This is roughly the timeframe for getting promoted at Google.

I was rejected for a promotion

I had to write a self-assessment and collect feedback from my peers. In my case, decisions were made by people from other organizations within Google, such as YouTube or the ads team. These "promotions committees" review your application.

In mine, I listed all the projects I was working on. My peers also gave positive feedback.

But my manager told me my promotion was rejected. They said it was because I hadn't been able to show enough impact for the next level. Google had "career rubrics" summarizing the abilities it expected from each level. Its philosophy was that you perform at the level of the role you're trying to get to for at least six months before you're up for promotion.

I didn't know that at the time, and it was disheartening. I already had imposter syndrome, and getting rejected for a promotion made it worse.

I switched teams

I didn't plan on quitting Google. I knew I needed to figure out how to get promoted, so I reverse-engineered the process. The biggest thing I realized was that managers didn't have time to guide my career. I needed to guide my career. Instead of them telling me what I needed to do to get promoted, I needed to figure it out and ask them for support in achieving those things.

I looked at the job description for the next level up. I thought about my team, and I wasn't sure, given that it worked on a smaller scale than some of the other teams at Google, that they would have enough context to judge my impact.

A new team was forming in my cubicle. I decided to pitch myself for the new team and moved there at the same level.

I asked for more responsibility

I decided to figure out as much as I could on my own and take on more responsibility. I pushed for a particular project I wanted to work on.

My manager might have said no if it had been a larger team because the work was higher than my current level, but because it was quite small, they let me take it on. My manager placed their trust in me to deliver.

I didn't rely on my manager to solve problems

When encountering problems, a junior person might rely on their manager to help. If I needed help figuring something out, I'd find other people across the company who might have experience instead.

Once, when I had a problem, I found someone from a different team to help me figure it out.

Then I could go back to my manager and say: "Here's the problem, and here's what I did to solve it."

I over-communicated

I knew I needed to show that I could be trusted with timelines, deliverables, and communication.

I became much more proactive in my communication. I escalated and flagged concerns early on and updated my manager much more frequently on my progress.

When managing my project, I kept different stakeholders updated. I created a launch timeline, mapping out the dates and process for the rollout, and told others what we were doing and when. I was working at a much higher level than my role.

I applied for another promotion a year after being turned down for the last one

I applied for another promotion. This time, I got it — two and a half years after I'd joined Google.

Getting rejected the first time was a blessing in disguise because I learned so much by getting rejected. After that, I got promoted to the next level — a senior engineer — the following Spring.

I was tasked with being the tech lead of a number of critical projects for the Google Fiber TV ads team. In early 2016, I became a tech lead manager. I left Google later that year to join Uber in January 2017 as a tech lead.

Learning that I had to take control of my own career was vital to all the promotions I've had in my career since.