John Christopher Spatafore received a ticket for jaywalking in Fresno, California.
Kittinit Yassara/Getty Images
A man waged a revenge campaign against a cop for a $196 jaywalking ticket, according to a lawsuit.
The officer and his family are suing for $16.5 million, citing distress and privacy invasion.
The man told police that he was behind the harassment, which included filing false police reports.
A Fresno police officer issued a California man with a ticket for jaywalking in 2019.
But instead of taking the fine on the chin, John Christopher Spatafore launched a campaign of revenge against the cop, which included filing false police reports about him, according to a civil lawsuit.
The cop, identified only as John Doe, is seeking $16.5 million in damages for himself and his family.
The Fresno Bee was the first to report on the lawsuit, which is expected to go to trial later this year.
According to the local outlet, the officer's lawyer, Brian Whelan, described the lawsuit as addressing a "cyber campaign of hate and revenge" waged against the policeman and his family.
A complaint filed by the officer, his wife, and his daughter in 2021, said the officer witnessed Spatafore jaywalking near Fresno City Hall and along railroad tracks on October 25, 2019.
The officer issued Spatafore with a ticket for violating a section of California's vehicle code. Under the code, jaywalking carries a fine of up to $196, plus court administrative fees and assessments.
Spatafore was "visibly upset" while being detained, according to the lawsuit, and asked "strange personal and vaguely threatening questions" about the officer's address and whether he had kids.
Four days later, according to the lawsuit, the officer started receiving password reset codes, which suggested attempts were being made to hack into his personal email account.
The lawsuit said that this was followed by a tirade of texts, calls, and emails from car dealerships "responding" to information requests about purchasing cars that the officer had never made.
It said that on November 6, 2019, the officer had more than 100 texts to his personal phone concerning inquiries he had never initiated.
According to the lawsuit, Spatafore then filed two false police reports against the officer.
In the first, he accused him of being involved in a hit-and-run incident. An investigation by Fresno police found that this wasn't true, according to the Fresno Bee.
In the second, Spatafore alleged that the officer's wife was a victim of domestic violence, according to the lawsuit. The police also found this report to be false, the Fresno Bee reported.
According to the lawsuit, the officer and his wife also received a message claiming that their computer camera had been hacked and compromising videos of them would be released unless they met certain demands.
Spatafore also tried to get the officer's water and trash services turned off on Thanksgiving Day, the Fresno Bee reported.
Spatafore was arrested on November 21, 2019, nearly a month after the harassment campaign began.
He was pulled over within a mile of the officer's home with a loaded .38 caliber revolver that was not registered, and for which he did not have a license to carry, according to the Fresno Bee.
The local outlet said the hospital he worked at fired him that same day after finding that he had used his work laptop to carry out the revenge campaign.
The officer is now seeking $5.5 million each for himself, his wife, and his daughter, accusing Spatafore and the hospital of invasion of privacy, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other claims.
Spatafore admitted to harassing the officer online during an interview with police, adding that he used Facebook, not hospital records, to find information on him, according to the Fresno Bee.
He was charged with two counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information and one count of having a concealed firearm, alongside misdemeanor charges, but the criminal case was suspended after his lawyer got him into a mental health diversion program.
Spatafore's lawyer, the lawyer for the officer, and the hospital did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
The evolution of tech and media is creating opportunities for innovation in sports.
Sports betting has also added new facets to the industry in the US.
Here are pitch decks that 17 sports startups used to raise millions in Series A and seed rounds.
The sports industry has exploded in recent years as technology and consumer habits change.
The expansion of legal sports betting in the US ushered in one of the biggest transformations. It's opened up a new market not only for sportsbooks like DraftKings, but for the ancillary businesses that support betting — be it platform providers, data companies, media partners, geolocation and compliance suppliers, or others.
Venture capital poured about $330 million into early-stage US sports betting and online gambling companies last year, despite the current macroeconomic struggles, according to PitchBook. That was down from the previous year but more than the year before.
Technology has also changed the way leagues and teams operate and how fans consume sports. Uplift Labs has partnered with leagues like the NBA for its technology that analyzes player movement through smartphone cameras.
Stadium Live, which has raised $13 million in funding since 2020, created a fan-engagement app for Gen-Z audiences, who founder Kevin Kim said are paying less attention to TV screens during live sports. Kim said investors even chased him down on platforms like Twitter and Discord, gaining interest in Stadium Live's unique position in sports media.
"Every time an investor or potential people would look at [Stadium Live], they were like, 'Oh, this has a unique vibe that we have not seen before in any other apps,'" Kim told Business Insider.
Whether in sports tech, betting, or consumer products, the sports space has become a world of opportunity for startups to create the next big company.
BI spoke with 17 sports companies that have pitched investors about their process. They broke down the pitch decks they used to secure millions of dollars in funding.
Read the pitch decks that helped 17 sports-focused startups raise millions of dollars (in alphabetical order):
Donald Trump at his New York hush-money trial, where his lawyer, Todd Blanche, delivered closing arguments Tuesday.
Christine Cornell via AP, Pool
In closings Tuesday, defense lawyer Todd Blanche tried the classic "but if he did do it" defense.
If Trump did falsify documents, he didn't do it with the required criminal intent, Blanche argued.
He then showed jurors 3 prosecution exhibits where Trump admits to the hush-money reimbursement.
It's the classic defense closing argument: My client didn't do it, ladies and gentlemen — but if he did do it, it wasn't intentional.
This is the argument that Donald Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, tried out on the hush-money jury in Manhattan on Tuesday.
Yes, Blanche spent the bulk of his arguments denying that Trump committed the charges he's on trial for.
Prosecutors say Trump falsified 34 business records to hide a year's worth of reimbursement payments to his then-attorney, Michael Cohen, who had fronted a $130,000 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump was not involved with any such conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, Blanche told jurors in great detail on Tuesday — during a three-hour summation where he walked them through a more than 180-part slideshow presentation before they begin deliberating Wednesday.
But if he was involved, there was no intent to commit fraud, Blanche argued. How could there be, he asked, when Trump freely and repeatedly admitted to reimbursing Cohen?
Blanche then showed the jury three exhibits from the prosecution's own case.
Each exhibit — showing a tax form, a tweet, and a government ethics form — was shown on the courtroom's display screens.
Each bolsters the prosecution's case: that Trump knew full well that the $130,000 he paid Cohen in installments throughout 2017 was for reimbursement, not legal fees as his business-record entries falsely claimed.
"The government has to prove to you that President Trump caused these entries — even if they were false — with an intent to defraud," Blanche told jurors.
"Where is the intent to defraud on the part of President Trump?" the lawyer asked the jury.
Prosecutors must demonstrate Trump had an intent to defraud in order to prove first-degree falsifying business records, the state charge that Trump allegedly violated 34 times throughout 2017, including when he personally signed nine of Cohen's reimbursement checks.
From the New York standard jury charge for falsifying business records.
New York Courts/BI
In his own closing argument, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said Trump had to have approved the reimbursement scheme.
Cohen would never have fronted the $130,000 in Daniels hush-money without his micromanaging boss's pre-approval and guarantee of repayment, Steinglass argued.
"Michael Cohen had 130,000 reasons to get Mr. Trump's sign-off," th prosecutor told jurors.
During his closing argument, Blanche angered the judge by telling jurors that "you cannot send somebody to prison based on what Michael Cohen is saying."
Jurors are supposed to weigh only the facts in their deliberations — not the potential punishment.
"Someone who's been a prosecutor as long as you have, and a defense lawyer as long as you have, knows it's highly inappropriate," the judge said.
"It's simply not allowed. Period," the judge added. He gave a curative instruction to the jury, explaining that Blanche's comment was "improper" and that if Trump is convicted, "a prison sentence is not required." Falsifying business records carries a sentence of anywhere from zero jail to four years prison.
Here are the three exhibits that Blanche displayed in court for jurors as "proof" that Trump had nothing to hide and, therefore, could not have intended to defraud anyone.
But each is highly incriminating of Trump, prosecutors have argued.
1. A 1099 tax form from 2017
The Trump Organization — and Trump as an individual — reported that they'd paid Michael Cohen a total of $420,000 in income in 2017.
Prosecutors say this is the sum Trump's then CFO, Allen Weisselberg, calculated would be reimbursed for Cohen's hush-money outlay, plus taxes and other money Trump owed him.
Why would Trump announce to the IRS "if there was some deep-rooted intent to defraud on the part of President Trump," Blanche asked jurors.
Manhattan district attorney's office/BI
Manhattan district attorney's office/BI
But the 1099s are "false," Steinglass, the prosecutor, told jurors in his own closing arguments, which went on for five hours, ending at 8 p.m.
The 1099s demonstrate that Trump "filled out phony forms," reporting income for Cohen that did not exist, Steinglass said — "because it wasn't income. It was reimbursement."
2. A 2018 tweet
On May 3, 2018, Trump posted a somewhat garbled tweet that conceded the payments he'd made to Cohen throughout 2017 were, in his word, "reimbursement."
An incriminating tweet
Manhattan district attorney's office/BI
This tweet was made just five months after signing the last of nine $35,000 checks to Cohen. Each check was labeled "RETAINER."
3. A government ethics form
Finally, during closing arguments, Blanche showed jurors what's called an "Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report" for the year 2017. This was the then-president's mandatory disclosure of his assets and liabilities.
Under "Liablities" — which is the section where Trump must list the money he's borrowed — Trump certified that in 2017, he "fully reimbursed" Cohen an interest-free sum of between $100,000 and $250,000.
"President Trump tweeted what happened when it came out," and then signed a government ethics form that also admitted to the reimbursement, Blanche told jurors Tuesday.
"That's not evidence of any intent to defraud," Blanche said.
But prosecutors have argued this form shows Trump knew the money he paid Cohen was reimbursement for money lent — the Daniels hush money.
Cohen is "literally like an MVP of liars," the defense lawyer told jurors. Two jurors — a woman in the front row and a man in the back row, smiled when Blanche went on to call Cohen "The 'GLOAT'" — for Greatest Liar of All Time."
The DA's reliance on Cohen's testimony demonstrates the weakness in the prosecution's case, Blanche said. He said that Cohen committed "per-ju-ry" — stressing every syllable — on the witness stand and was "the human embodiment of reasonable doubt."
"You should want and expect more than the testimony of Michael Cohen," he said.
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to the media with his attorney Todd Blanche during his criminal trial.
ANDREW KELLY/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Blanche sidestepped the most pivotal documents in the case, handwritten notes from Weisselberg and company comptroller Jeffrey McConney that appear to explain how Cohen would be repaid for hush money in $35,000 payments, including a "gross up" to cover taxes.
Blanche claimed that if the document was truly proof of an illegal conspiracy, the Trump Organization would have destroyed it instead of keeping it in a filing cabinet — where they were ultimately turned over to prosecutors.
Steinglass countered that it must have been hard for Blanche to make that argument "with a straight face," saying the illegal conspiracy was laid out "in the document itself."
"These documents are so damning that you almost have to laugh," he said.
At the beginning of the prosecution's closing argument on Tuesday afternoon, Steinglass said that while Cohen may have a track record of dishonesty, he has come clean and has "been consistently explaining the facts of this case for six years."
"We didn't choose Michael Cohen. We didn't pick him up at the witness store," Steinglass said. "The defendant chose Michael Cohen because of his willingness to lie."
Blanche had also also criticized prosecutors for spending time teasing out testimony from Daniels, which he said wasn't critical to the criminal charges, related to falsified documents. Prosecutors, the defense lawyer said, just wanted to "embarrass" Trump.
Daniels's vivid and "cringeworthy" details "ring true" and were "uncomfortable," which is why they were so important, Steinglass said. Trump wanted to cover up her story to influence the election, he said.
"That's kind of the point," Steinglass said. "That's the display the defendant didn't want the American people to see."
Trump didn't pay $130,000 to cover up a photo of him and Daniels on a golf course — but to cover up a scandal, Steinglass said.
Nvidia cofounder Jensen Huang is now worth $100 billion, according to Bloomberg.
His fortune ballooned $6.6 billion on Tuesday as the AI darling stock racked up more gains.
Huang is now richer than Rob, Jim or Alice Walton, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Nvidia has emerged as one of the main winners of the AI investing craze — and the good times keep rolling for the semiconductor giant.
Shares in the "Magnificent Seven" tech company jumped 7% on Tuesday as its earnings rally continued, lifting its valuation to $2.8 trillion.
One obvious winner anytime the year's hottest stock surges is Nvidia CEO and cofounder Jensen Huang. His net worth jumped another $6.6 billion, according to data from Bloomberg, as investors seized on better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue numbers.
Huang's personal fortune of $100 billion now puts him 15th on the outlet's Billionaires Index. He's richer than every Walmart heir, including founder Sam Walton's three children Rob, Jim, and Alice.
Here's everything you need to know about Huang, who rocks a leather jacket everywhere he goes and reportedly got a tattoo of Nvidia's logo once the company's share price hit $100.
The jump in Nvidia stock follows another set of blockbuster quarterly earnings this week as the generative AI boom continues.
He moved to the US as a child
Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia Corp., gives a keynote presentation during the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. Huang later unveiled the Titan X CPU operating with a GeForce GTX Titan X graphics card during the presentation.
Kim Kulish/Corbis/Getty Images
Born as Jen-hsun Huang in Taipei in 1963, Huang spent part of his childhood in Taiwan and Thailand, per Bloomberg.
In 1973, Huang's parents sent their children to relatives in the US owing to the social unrest in the Southeast Asian country, before relocating there themselves.
Huang's aunt and uncle — who were recent migrants to Washington state at the time — accidentally sent Jensen and his brother to Oneida Baptist Institute in Kentucky, which was considered a reform school instead of a prep school, according to Huang's 2002 interview with Wired.
"And the kids were really tough," Huang told NPR in a 2012 interview. "They all had pocket knives — and when they get in fights, it's not pretty. Kids get hurt."
Students at the school also had to work, and Huang's duty was to clean the bathrooms.
"The ending of the story is I loved the time I was there," Huang told NPR. "We worked really hard — we studied really hard, and the kids were really tough."
In 2019, he and his wife Lori donated $2 million toward building a female dormitory and classroom building at the school, per the institute's website.
He loves computer games and studied electrical engineering
Nvidia CEO and president Jen-Hsun Huang plays with a game using Nvidia's Physx technology for gaming, at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009.
AP Photo / Paul Sakuma
Huang and his brother eventually moved to Oregon where they rejoined the family.
"I enjoyed computers growing up, but OSU opened up my eyes to the magic behind them," he told the university.
Huang graduated in 1984 — the "perfect year to graduate," he said at a keynote speech at National Taiwan University's commencement ceremony this year, per Fortune. That was the same year when the first Mac computers were released, bringing forth a new age in personal computing.
After graduating from OSU, Huang worked at chip companies LSI Logic and Advanced Micro Devices in a variety of roles, according to his bio on Nvidia's website.
He founded Nvidia in 1993 after leaving LSI Logic.
Huang founded Nvidia while dining at Denny's
Denny's.
Shutterstock
Nvidia was founded in 1993 at a Denny's restaurant where he was meeting with two friends, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, per The Wall Street Journal.
The trio "wondered whether starting a graphics company would be a good idea," Huang told Stanford University's engineering school in a 2010 interview.
"We brainstormed and fantasized about what kind of company it would be and the world we could help. It was fun," he told Stanford.
Denny's was also where Huang part-timed when he was a student, per a 2010 New York Times interview. There, he learned how to be more outgoing.
"I was a very good student and I was always focused and driven. But I was very introverted. I was incredibly shy," he told The Times. "The one experience that pulled me out of my shell was waiting tables at Denny's. I was horrified by the prospect of having to talk to people."
Huang is 61, making him years older than Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos when they left day-to-day operations at 52 and 57 years old, respectively.
There are few signs he plans to slow down.
"Nothing is more fun to me than to build a once-in-a-generation company with all of my friends here," Huang told Business Insider in 2021 . "I can't imagine wanting to do anything other than that."
May 24, 2024: This story has been updated to reflect movements in Nvdia's share price and Jensen Huang's net worth.
Huang is now one of the biggest winners of the AI boom.
Huang believes that generative AI has hit a "new tipping point."
Mohd Rasfan/AFP/Getty Images
Nvidia has made itself a key player in the AI boom by supplying hardware to major companies, including OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. Demand for the company's hardware has been driven by several factors, including a sophisticated software system that makes its chips simple to use as well as a shortage of AI chips.
Huang now believes we've hit a new threshold in the AI hype cycle. "Accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point. Demand is surging worldwide across companies, industries, and nations," Huang said in the company's fourth-quarter earnings press release.
Becoming No. 1 isn't easy, and he's the first to admit it. But, in a recent interview, he said he even enjoys pushing himself to the extreme.
He also said he's not about to take a break anytime soon.
Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, is the biggest YouTube creator in the world with 262 million subscribers. He is just four million subs behind the channel of T-Series, the Indian music label, and is on track to take over and snatch the top spot in a matter of weeks.
In an interview with journalist and YouTuber Jon Youshaei, posted on May 28, Donaldson spoke about loving pushing himself to the point of misery, his mental health, and how time off is simply not an option.
Youshaei asked Donaldson about his schedule, to which he said every day off "is kind of an L for the content."
"Every day I don't film is the day I could have filmed and made these videos better," he said.
Donaldson said he doesn't mind pushing himself, though, such as when he counted from 1 to 100,000 in one sitting, which took around 40 hours.
"Weirdly, I get enjoyment out of going to the point of misery and then pushing through it and finishing," he said.
It's a lot for someone to put themselves through, and Donaldson has been making content and performing increasingly intense challenges for over a decade. However, he said he doesn't see "any world where I'm stopping."
"I mean, what else would I do? I mean, maybe I'll take Sundays off consistently and play Call of Duty or something, but I'm not at that point yet," he said. "I probably have at least another 10 years before I need a break or anything like that."
Donaldson has spoken many times about how much work his videos require. In March, he said it was "painful" to see people quit their jobs or drop out of school to make content full-time before they were ready.
"For every person like me that makes it, thousands don't," he said. "Keep that in mind and be smart plz."
In his interview with Youshaei, Donaldson went through the pain-staking process of choosing thumbnails and sifting through all the footage from hundreds of cameras for some of his videos.
'"Most people can't do that because I think we had petabytes worth of footage," Donaldson said. "It would've taken a single human five lifetimes to watch all the footage we had."
Donaldson also told Youshaei he is "technically the product" of his videos, as well as effectively being the CEO, so "it all falls apart if I don't show up."
"I don't recommend most people do videos like me, it requires you to have a lot of team, a lot of money," he said. "It's a lot of stuff just resting on your shoulders."
Donaldson also spoke about his extreme experimental content, such as spending time in abandoned cities and burying himself alive. These things he has no issue with, he said.
But, he said, he cannot cope with heat, the sun, and bugs.
"If it's an extreme challenge and it doesn't have those three variables, I got it," he said.
But those three things together, such as his video posted in March where he spent seven days on a desert island, was a challenge.
"It was miserable," Donaldson said. "And I was like, I can't do five more days of that, which is good, that's something I've learned about myself."
Gmail is broken, but customizable tabs could fix it.
MirageC
Gmail's tabbed inbox hasn't adapted for the modern internet.
Newsletters get spread out among different tabs.
We need to be able to customize the tabs!
I don't think I know anyone who feels good about their email inbox. For a lot of people, it feels like an unmanageable mess of obligations and junk, a "shame closet" repository for a decade of mailing lists you didn't realize you had signed up for. For some people, their inbox is so excruciating that they've just given up — refusing to even check it or declaring email bankruptcy.
This is not a new problem. Gmail, one of the most popular email services in the world, celebrated its 20th birthday in April. When Google introduced the tabbed inbox in 2013, I was in heaven. It completely solved my digital shame closet problem with my email. The tabs separated important emails — finally! — from the crush of alerts about Old Navy sale or other email blasts that didn't require my immediate attention.
(I would note here that if you, personally, have developed a better strategy for dealing with your inbox, or you prefer to use a different mail client or app, I'm happy for you. Thrilled. But this conversation is not for you.)
Since then, the tabbed inbox has fallen behind, unable to keep up with the ways that email has changed since 2013. Google is trying to fix it (I'll get to that in a second), but it's not doing enough.
2013: The dawn of the tabbed inbox
When it launched, the tabbed inbox was designed to direct important emails to your "Primary" tab, and send others to Promotions or Social tabs. You could also choose to add Forums and Updates tabs.
In 2013, these tabs made sense. People still received "Social" emails — messages from Facebook about new birthdays, anniversaries, etc. But in 2024, who is still opening email alerts from Facebook?
This type of sorting no longer really makes sense. My Promotions tab has the daily newsletter from The Information and The Boston Globe, mixed in with an update about new profile views from TikTok, new listings on Redfin (how did I even start getting emails from that?), and an actual promotional email from the footwear brand Merrell.
The "Promotions" tab of Gmail is full of things that aren't promotions.
Screenshot / Business Insider
Google has apparently noticed that the tabbed inbox isn't meeting today's needs, and will soon roll out an update meant to alleviate the burden of the swollen Primary inbox.
Google will start adding the Updates tab
The change will add the Updates tab to all user inboxes by default, and direct more messages to that tab. Previously, the Updates tab was only an extra option in settings.
"Recently, we conducted an experiment that activates a refreshed version of the Updates inbox in Gmail," a spokesperson from Google told Business Insider. "We received positive feedback from participants and are now bringing the feature to additional users to help them focus on the emails that matter most to them."
This should be great for most people who have been frustrated with their Primary tab being overloaded. Great!
I demand a Newsletters tab
But this still isn't what I dream of getting out of a tabbed inbox.
What I dream of most is a new dedicated tab for "Newsletters" — over the last few years, I've subscribed to lots of email newsletters on Substack as well as regular newsy newsletters from publications like Business Insider, which send links to top stories (by the way, I highly recommend signing up for the BI newsletter.)
Right now, my newsletters go (mostly) to the Updates tab, where they get mixed in with a bunch of other random stuff. What I'd love is to have a single tab in my email where I can browse through my newsletters — almost like… dare I say it… an RRS feed (RIP Google Reader).
Gmail doesn't allow you to rename or create new custom tabs, so I can't create a Newsletters tab for myself.
Yes, you can make "labels" in Gmail to help sort your inbox. I heavily use labels and have a newsletter label, but their function is very different from a tab. I want the tab!
(Not perfect, but there is a Chrome extension that allows you to pin labels to mimic a tab.)
At some point, AI will probably completely change the way email works — and the possibilities are thrilling, like being able to ask your AI assistant to search your emails for all receipts and instantly make a spreadsheet of expenses.
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.
Ortega is among the top 20 richest people on Earth.
Europa Press/Getty Images
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.
Ortega started Zara with his first wife.
AP Photo/Iago Lopez
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.
Zara got its name by chance.
Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images.
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.
Inditex's headquarters in La Coruna, Spain, in 2012.
Jesus Sancho/AP
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.
Inditex brands operate outside of the US and pull in billions each year.
Manu Reino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
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.
Sandra Ortega Mera at her mother's funeral in 2013, in Oleiros, Spain.
Xurxo Lobato/Getty Images
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.
Flora Perez and Amancio Ortega at a party in La Coruna, Spain, in November 2018.
Photo by Europa Press – Pool /Getty Images
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.
Marta Ortega at Paris Fashion Week in January 2019.
Jacopo Raule/Getty Images
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.
Ortega is the richest person in Spain.
Miguel Vidal/ Reuters
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.
The Torre Picasso was once the tallest building in Spain.
DeAgostini/Getty Images
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.
His commercial real estate empire includes sites in Miami.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
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.
The EV Haughwout & Company building circa 1974.
Edmund Vincent Gillon/Museum of the City of New York/Getty Images
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.
The exterior of the Amazon office buildings in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood.
Ted S. Warren/AP
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.
His portfolio isn't only made up of commercial real estate.
Brais Seara/AP
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.
Ortega is reportedly trading in his yacht for a larger one.
MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP via Getty Images
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.
The cofounder isn't usually spotted in his brands' clothing.
Europa Press/Europa Press via Getty Images
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 has kept up his philanthropic efforts since his foundation was created
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.
Ortega has kept largely out of the public eye.
Europa Press/Europa Press via Getty Images
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.
Ortega is still expanding his commercial real estate empire.
Mike Kline/Getty
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.
Inditex broke records in 2023.
Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via Getty Images
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. 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.
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.
Nicole Shanahan and Sergey Brin.
Ian Tuttle/Getty Images
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."
Sergey Brin (left) and Elon Musk (right).
Mike Blake/Reuters; Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters; Ruben Sprich/Reuters
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'
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at the New York State Capitol, May 14, 2019, in Albany, New York.
Hans Pennink/AP Photo
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.
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 railedagainst 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.