Author: openjargon

• Investor and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has laid out his plans for BuzzFeed.
• He envisions turning the company into a Twitter/X-style user-generated content company.
• But BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti controls the company, and doesn't take Ramaswamy seriously. So what's the endgame here?

Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy announced last week he had been buying up shares in BuzzFeed. Which led to the obvious question: Why is Vivek Ramaswamy buying up shares in BuzzFeed?

Now we know. Sort of.

Ramaswamy says he has been buying up shares in BuzzFeed — he says he now owns 8.37% of the company's "A" shares — because he has a plan to turn the struggling publisher around.

He's laid it out in a letter to BuzzFeed's board, but if you're in a hurry I can summarize it for you: Ramaswamy wants BuzzFeed to pull an Elon Musk.

That is: He wants the company to cut costs to the bone, sell off some of its remaining assets, and transform itself into an X-style (that is, the company formerly known as Twitter since Musk bought it) video and audio platform — one that's particularly appealing to commentators from "Tucker Carlson to Bill Maher," according to his letter. He says the first step would be to elect three Ramaswamy-endorsed board members in July.

There's more in the letter if you want to get into it. For instance, Ramaswamy spends a lot of time lambasting BuzzFeed for things the company has published in the past, like the Trump "dossier." And he wants BuzzFeed to apologize, because "by both omission and commission, [it] repeatedly lied on issues of national importance, and so did the rest of the media," he writes.

And if you wanted to take this stuff at face value, you might also note that some things Ramaswamy is pushing for sound like things BuzzFeed CEO and founder Jonah Peretti has said he wants to do — notably the idea of using the company as a creator-friendly platform.

But I don't think that's a particularly useful way to spend your time. Debating the merits of Ramaswamy's plan seems like a cart-horse problem since Peretti has control of the company via a dual-class share structure, which gives him 64% of the company's voting rights. That's a structure specifically set up to give Peretti the ability to fend off takeovers or activist investors like Ramaswamy.

And Peretti does not seem like he's treating Ramaswamy seriously. Here's the relevant part of his response to Ramaswamy's letter:

Based on your letter, you have some fundamental misunderstandings about the drivers of our business, the values of our audience, and the mission of the company. I'm very skeptical it makes business sense to turn BuzzFeed into a creator platform for inflammatory political pundits. And we're definitely not going to issue an apology for our Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism.

So unless Ramaswamy has another card to play, I still don't understand what his end goal is here. (I have asked him for comment.)

I had previously speculated that this was a relatively cheap way for Ramaswamy to keep his name in the news, and to court an audience receptive to Donald Trump's grievance politics. So maybe that's still the main driver here. Though it's hard to believe there's deep interest from MAGA-land about the state of BuzzFeed.

Another option would be for Ramaswamy to play this out a while longer and watch BuzzFeed shares shoot up based on his saber-rattling. BuzzFeed shares closed at $3 today, up 20% from May 22, when Ramaswamy first disclosed his stake. If it keeps heading up, it might be tempting for Ramaswamy to sell off his shares, and then simply declare that he's decided it's cheaper to build his own platform.

• An ex-OpenAI board member revealed new details about Sam Altman's brief ousting as CEO.
• Helen Toner said Altman lied to the board "multiple" times and was "withholding information." 
• Toner claimed he didn't tell the board about ChatGPT's release; they found out on Twitter, she said. 

Former OpenAI board member Helen Toner revealed explosive new details about what led to CEO Sam Altman's brief ousting in November.

In an interview with Bilawal Sidhu on "The Ted AI Show," which aired Tuesday, Toner said Altman had lied to the board multiple times.

As one example, Toner said OpenAI's board learned about the release of ChatGPT on Twitter.

She said that Altman was "withholding information" and "misrepresenting things that were happening in the company" for years.

Toner — one of the board members who voted to kick Altman out — alleged Altman also lied to the board by keeping them in the dark about the company's ownership structure.

"Sam didn't inform the board that he owned the OpenAI startup fund, even though he constantly was claiming to be an independent board member with no financial interest in the company," she said.

Altman keeping that from the board "really damaged our ability to trust him" and that the board was "already talking pretty seriously about whether we needed to fire him" in October, she said.

OpenAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Toner — currently a director of strategy at the Centre for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown — alleges the OpenAI chief also gave board members "inaccurate information about the small number of formal safety processes" OpenAI had in place.

She said that made it "basically impossible" for the board to understand if the safety measures were sufficient or if any changes were needed.

She said there were other individual examples, but ultimately, the board concluded that "we just couldn't believe things that Sam was telling us, and that's a completely unworkable place to be in as a board."

Toner added that it was "totally impossible" for the board to trust Altman's word. The board, she said, had a role to have independent oversight of OpenAI and "not just helping the CEO to raise more money."

But then, last October, the board had a number of conversations where two executives detailed their own experiences with Altman in which they used the phrase "psychological abuse," according to Toner.

She said the executives told the board they "didn't think he was the right person to lead the company to AGI, telling us they had no belief that he could or would change, no point in giving him feedback, no point in trying to work through these issues." 

By the time the board realized Altman needed replacing, Toner says it was clear that Altman would "pull out all the stops" to block the board from going against him if he found out. She claims he "started lying to other board members in order to try and push me off the board."

She said, "We were very careful, very deliberate about who we told, which was essentially almost no one in advance, other than obviously our legal team and so that's kind of what took us to to November 17."

But Altman's ouster didn't last long.

As staff threatened to quit and speculation swirled that Microsoft may poach Altman's team from OpenAI and hire him directly, the company's board brought back Altman as CEO less than a week later.

Toner resigned from her role as an OpenAI board member less than two weeks after Altman returned as CEO.

Do you work for OpenAI? Do you have insights to share? Contact the reporter at jmann@businessinsider.com or reach out via Signal at jyotimann.11

• Target has slashed its annual Pride collection after the retailer faced protests last summer.
• Now, rather than thousands of LGBTQ+ themed products, the assortment has around 75 items.
• Target said it's made changes "based on guest insights and sales trends."

Target's annual Pride collection is a shadow of its former self after the retailer faced protests from conservative groups last summer.

After a decade of offering a special collection of products sourced from the LGBTQ+ community to celebrate Pride month in June, the retailer said last year it was "rethinking" its cultural merchandising strategy.

Pride this year at Target is shaping up to be a lot smaller, shorter, and quieter than it once was — and there's a good chance you might not see it at all.

Whereas last May, Target's Pride collection featured more than 2,000 items online, this year's assortment consists of several dozen items — fewer than 75 in the regions Business Insider examined, including California, New York, and Wisconsin — as of May 28th.

Now instead of bold statements and functional garments, the selection has more toned-down rainbow-themed apparel and accessories, a few alcoholic drinks, pet gear, and a cutting board emblazoned with "It's Giving Charcuterie."

The company said earlier this month only select stores would carry Pride products, rather than all of its nearly 2,000 US locations.

Business Insider visited a store on Tuesday in Madison, Wisconsin, and found that Target had yet to set out any Pride merchandise, although the company's website and app said items could be purchased from that location. A guest services employee at the store confirmed to BI that online orders could be fulfilled from the store, and said the store display should be available starting June 1.

For now, what previously had been the location of a front-of-store Pride display was instead occupied by a summer "Swim and Sand Shop." Days earlier the spot had been set up for a pickleball promotion.

In an interview last year as the conservative firestorm was gaining momentum, CEO Brian Cornell argued against the idea that Target was too "woke."

"When we think about purpose at Target, it's really about helping all the families, and that 'all' word is really important," he said "We want to do the right thing to support families across the country."

"I think those are just good business decisions, and it's the right thing for society, and it's the great thing for our brand," he added.

A year after the remarks, we're getting a better sense of what exactly is changing as the company switches up its strategy, which Target has said was the result of sales trends and guest insights.

"Please know our intention is to bring our culture of care to life for our LGBTQIA+ team members — not just during June, but year-round," Target's VP of Brand Marketing Carlos Saavedra said in an email to the company's Pride+ Business Council earlier this month. "We remain committed to this wonderful community, and we are so excited to celebrate Pride with you all."

• EVs go a lot farther these days, but chargers are still hard to find.
• No one seems to agree whose job it is to build charging infrastructure.
• Building enough chargers is just one part of the problem.

Electric vehicles have come a long way — literally.

In the earliest days of the EV transition, a fully battery-powered car (like the first-generation Nissan Leaf that went on sale in 2010) could only drive for about 100 miles on a full charge in the best weather conditions.

That's fine for an enthusiastic early adopter or someone looking to replace just one of their multiple gas cars, but it didn't satisfy the average car shopper.

Today, a mass-market EV can deliver about 300 miles on a single charge. That's a huge improvement in just 14 years, but the great American road trip is still far from achievable in an EV, thanks to one persistent issue: range anxiety.

Car companies and battery suppliers have spent years working to quell this anxiety. But despite the vast improvements in battery technology, EV charging still can't hold a candle to the 5-minute stop to fill a gas tank.

Even as charging times come down (GM boasts its Ultium batteries can gain about 100 miles of range in 10 minutes on a DC fast charger), there simply aren't enough public chargers in the right spots.

Car companies hoped the public charging infrastructure would improve along with them as they built more range into their vehicles. This hasn't really happened, though, and a slew of EVs are hitting the market with nowhere to charge up on a road trip, exacerbating one of the biggest barriers to adoption.

Charging is a hot potato issue

One thing essentially everyone can agree on in the EV transition is that vast and reliable fast-charging infrastructure is essential. Studies have shown that areas with more access to public charging infrastructure have higher rates of EV adoption, even though a majority of charging happens at home.

What no one can seem to agree on is who is responsible for building out public charging infrastructure. And a closer look reveals that perhaps pinning the problem on one entity, public or private, will only slow efforts to grow.

Car companies have made some efforts to build out charging infrastructure, partnering with charging companies and other stakeholders to install public chargers and help new EV buyers install home charging systems.

Tesla, which has always led the way with its Supercharger network, is also opening its stations to other car manufacturers, aiding in patching the holes in the public charging network.

All these industry efforts have helped to feed an EV charging infrastructure boom in recent years. At the start of 2024, there were some 61,000 public charging stations in the US, more than doubling the amount of stations there were in 2020, according to Pew Research and the Department of Energy.

Still, that's way less than the roughly 120,000 gas stations nationwide, and public efforts to grow charging infrastructure appear to be slow-going so far.

The Biden Administration has set aside $7.5 billion for charging infrastructure with a vow to add 500,000 EV charging stations by 2030. Since Congress approved this funding two years ago, only a handful of stations have gone live, according to reports.

Building out charging infrastructure is just one piece of the puzzle

We're still far from the level of infrastructure required for mass adoption, even as the rate of EV sales hits a slowdown.

One slowdown appears to feed the other: a new crop of EV shoppers isn't interested in buying a car that might die on a road trip, and charging companies aren't willing to grow for customers that don't exist yet.

On top of the issue of infrastructure coverage, there is the question of where we will get the power to run all of these new charging stations.

A recent study from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute found that utilities are not fully equipped to handle the large swings in usage that can be caused by increased amounts of EV charging.

All this means that cross-industry efforts — between car companies, their suppliers, charging startups, and public utilities — will be crucial as we continue to grow the share of electric cars on the road.

• Herschel Walker still has millions left over from his unsuccessful Georgia Senate campaign.
• Republicans are unhappy that he hasn't sent over money to boost 2024 campaign efforts, per Politico.
• The Georgia GOP has been weighed down financially as it has paid the legal fees of the 2020 fake electors.

Two years ago, the University of Georgia football icon and then-Senate candidate Herschel Walker was seen by many Republicans as a future star in the party.

Walker, running against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in the Georgia Senate race, won over many establishment politicians. GOP voters overwhelmingly coalesced around his campaign. And many observers predicted that a "red wave" would sweep him into office.

But Walker — weighed down by numerous controversies and his inability to appeal to moderates in the competitive race — eventually lost to Warnock in a December 2022 runoff election.

Walker is not running for another elected position in 2024. However, he still has $4.3 million left in the bank from his Senate run, much to the frustration of Republicans in Georgia and Washington — who say that the money could go a long way in aiding their party this year — according to Politico.

"Those resources were solicited and given to support his candidacy as a Georgia Republican, and unless he intends to use them again for his own candidacy, I sure hope the favor would be returned," ex-Georgia Republican Party chairman John Watson told the outlet.

Walker previously contributed $100,000 to the National Republican Senate Committee for a recount fund, and he also gave roughly $400,000 to charities, according to Politico.

But Walker so far has not given any indication that he will be a major player in Georgia politics this year.

After his Senate loss, he returned to the University of Georgia to complete his undergraduate degree.

When contacted by Politico about the unspent funds, Walker said that there "wasn't money left in my account." He soon ended the call, telling the outlet that he needed to complete a paper.

Over the past year, the Georgia GOP has been strained financially as it has paid the legal fees of the alternate fake electors who have faced charges over their efforts to overturn Biden's 2020 win in the state.

Two-term Gov. Brian Kemp — a conservative who clashed with Trump-aligned figures over the 2020 election — has largely bypassed the state party by utilizing his own political committee to fundraise.

And Trump is playing catch-up financially as he continues to trail the Biden campaign in the money race.

With Georgia once again in focus as a key swing state in November, both Democrats and Republicans are gearing up for a widespread campaign to turn out their respective bases.

The stakes couldn't be higher: Trump won Georgia in 2016 but lost the state to Biden in 2020, largely because the president ran up the score in metropolitan Atlanta and among Black voters in rural Georgia. The former president very much wants to win the state again. But Biden is eager to hold Georgia, as his 2020 win in the state was one of the biggest electoral triumphs for Democrats that year.