• I made Dolly Parton's easy corn bread for breakfast. 
• The recipe only has three main ingredients and is ready in almost 30 minutes.  
• Parton's recipe may be simple, but her corn bread is delicious and goes well with everything.

I sat down with Dolly Parton and realized she's an expert when it comes to all things Southern food.

On top of being a legendary musician and a fashion icon, Parton is also a great chef. 

The country-music star shared plenty of her cooking secrets with me, including her hack for making the fluffiest scrambled eggs and the unique ingredient she uses to elevate her mac and cheese. 

Parton also revealed what she loves whipping up in the kitchen for Carl Dean, her husband of 56 years, or her goddaughter Miley Cyrus. 

"Miley and I both love Southern food like mashed potatoes, coleslaw, and a big ol' hunk of corn bread — making corn-bread muffins or a big pan of it with the squares," Parton told me.

I loved trying Parton's usual Taco Bell order. So when I stumbled on her corn-bread recipe, I knew I had to give it a go.

Parton's corn-bread recipe began circulating online after it was featured in her cookbook.

Parton's cookbook, "Dolly's Dixie Fixin's: Love, Laughter, and Lots of Good Food," was released in 2016. It features 125 recipes, including dishes that Parton always loves whipping up on tour or at home. As true Dolly Parton fans know, the cookbook is no longer readily available. If you want a copy on Amazon, you'll have to fork over more than $200. 

But Parton's corn-bread recipe has popped up on various websites, and the official Dollywood Facebook page also shared it in 2014. Parton wrote in her cookbook that when it comes to corn bread, she loves to keep things simple. 

"Coarse cornmeal, buttermilk, bacon drippings, and salt and pepper. Mixed together and baked in a slick black skillet. Served hot. Now that's my idea of real corn bread," she wrote. "There's nothin' you can't eat with a warm wedge of corn bread alongside it. That's why I always take two pieces and slather them with butter while they're still warm." 

I'm not much of a baker, but Parton's recipe sounded foolproof — even for me. There were still some challenges along the way, but the finished product was definitely worth it. 

The first time I tried to make Parton's corn bread was kind of a disaster.

When I first found Parton's recipe online, I didn't think I needed to double-check the ingredients. So when I saw that it called for two cups of cornmeal, I just bought the same box I had used to make Ina Garten's (very delicious) brown-butter skillet corn bread for Friendsgiving. 

When the corn bread came out of the oven, I knew I’d made a huge mistake.

When I first tasted the corn bread, I couldn't figure out what went wrong. But it tasted pretty terrible, and I just knew there was no way I had done Parton's recipe justice. 

Thankfully, after a little more research, I stumbled on the original page from Parton's cookbook and found her actual ingredient list. Parton had specified that her recipe requires self-rising cornmeal, and she recommended using Martha White cornmeal "because I like the texture." In retrospect, it seems obvious that the recipe would require self-rising cornmeal since Parton doesn't add any baking powder or eggs to her batter. But alas, this baking novice just didn't catch it. 

The great thing about cooking, though, is you can always try again. So I found some Martha White cornmeal and went back to the kitchen.

Parton's skillet corn bread has just a few main ingredients.

To make Parton's corn bread (which has eight servings), you'll need: 

• 2 cups self-rising cornmeal (she recommends Martha White or White Lily) 
• 1-1 ½ cups buttermilk 
• 2 teaspoons bacon drippings, plus extra for the skillet 
• 1 teaspoon salt

I began by making the bacon drippings.

Before I got started, I read this helpful article from CookingLight on the best technique for making bacon drippings. Instead of cooking full bacon strips, I cut the meat into small pieces and spread them out on my 9-inch skillet so the bacon would render evenly. 

I cooked my bacon over medium-low heat until it turned crispy and I could see plenty of drippings at the bottom of the pan. Then I removed the pieces, letting them rest on a plate lined with a paper towel. Parton said the skillet should be covered with extra bacon drippings, so I didn't wipe it clean after I finished cooking. 

You could easily whip up Parton's recipe after you've made breakfast or save the bacon to eat alongside her corn bread. Either way, it's a win-win.

It was time to whip up the batter!

First I added two cups of the self-rising cornmeal to a large bowl. 

Then I added some salt and the bacon drippings.

The first recipe I found online actually called for two tablespoons of bacon drippings instead of two teaspoons. I didn't realize that Parton's recipe was different before I made the corn bread again, so I accidentally added extra. 

But the flavor still came out great, so feel free to add more bacon drippings if you wish.

Last but not least was the buttermilk.

Dolly recommends gradually adding the buttermilk while stirring everything with a wooden spoon. You'll know the batter is ready when the consistency is thick but smooth. 

I poured my batter into the hot skillet and popped it in the oven.

Barely 10 minutes of prep had passed and my corn bread was ready to bake.

I threw my skillet into the oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit and let it cook for 25 minutes. Parton says you'll know the corn bread is ready if it springs back when you tap it. 

My second attempt at Parton's corn bread came out beautiful.

I sighed with relief when I opened the oven. The corn bread had a pretty golden hue and looked promisingly fluffy — a far cry from the weird, acid-yellow bread I had made in my first attempt. 

And Parton's corn bread tasted super fluffy and moist.

Parton said her corn bread should be served "HOT!" so we dug right in after I took it out of the oven. 

And the difference between my two attempts was like night and day. Parton's corn bread was absolutely delicious. The texture was perfectly pillowy and the bacon drippings added an extra touch of savory richness. I paired some of Parton's corn bread with a peach jam we had on hand, and the sweet and savory combination blew me away. I made the corn bread for breakfast while spending a week with my parents, and they were both huge fans as well. 

Just make sure you enjoy the corn bread fresh from the skillet. I tried some leftovers the next day and found it dried up very quickly. 

I would definitely make Parton's corn bread for an easy breakfast or side dish.

The best part about Parton's corn bread is that it's ridiculously easy and quick. You can prep and bake it in almost 30 minutes, and this corn bread would go well with everything. I'd love to pair it with a hearty dinner or experiment with some hot honey and different jams for breakfast. 

Either way, I know Parton's corn bread definitely won't disappoint. 

• NASA approved the $19.5 million Landolt Space Mission to send an artifical star into Earth's orbit. 
• It will be the first astronomical tool of its kind that could revolutionize the way we study space.
• The mission could help many areas of astronomy from studying exoplanets to the universe's expansion.

Astronomers typically deal with the very, very large — big telescopes, giant galaxies, and massive exploding stars.

But one of the more revolutionary astronomy tools of the decade is a mini satellite about the size of a breadbox. The satellite will act like an artificial star for astronomers to observe from the ground, allowing them to more accurately measure a space object's brightness and better understand some of the biggest mysteries in our universe, like dark energy.

NASA recently approved the $19.5 million Landolt Space Mission to launch the mini satellite into Earth's orbit.

"This is some really awesome science that NASA is supporting," Tyler Richey-Yowell, a postdoctoral researcher at Lowell Observatory who studies stellar astronomy and exoplanets, told Business Insider. "It's something that's going to help out all astronomers."

A revolutionary new tool for astronomers

The mini-satellite, called CubeSat, is designed to orbit Earth from 22,236 miles away. At that distance, its speed will match Earth's spin so the satellite will appear fixed in the night sky and will be an easy target for telescopes to track.

You won't be able to see it with the naked eye. But to telescopes, it'll look like a star. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2029. It will be the first tool of its kind.

"This is really new for us to have some sort of artificial star quote unquote up there that we can go and rely on and use," Richey-Yowell told BI.

What makes this "artificial star" better than a real one is that astronomers will know exactly how much light it's emitting.

The CubeSat, named Landolt for the late astronomer Arlo Landolt, will fire lasers with a specific number of light particles, or photons, which astronomers can use to calibrate their telescopes for measuring light.

This can help eliminate a lot of the guesswork that astronomers do now when using real stars to calibrate their instruments.

The problem is that there's no way of knowing exactly how much light real stars emit because we can't send a probe to one to accurately measure its brightness, Richey-Yowell said. Moreover, Earth's atmosphere absorbs a lot of light from space, which can also affect astronomers' calibrations.

"That's why this Landolt mission is so important," Richey-Yowell said. "If we send up a mission like this one where we know exactly how many photons, how much light per second, is coming from this CubeSat," then we can use it to compare and more precisely measure the light from other objects, like real stars, she said.

The mission is expected to help astronomers measure the light emitted from stars with 10 times more accuracy than current estimates, LiveScience reported.

It's like if you were given a 1,000-piece puzzle that only had half the amount of pieces, and then someone gifted you a few hundred more pieces. Landolt will help astronomers catch minute details they've otherwise been missing in the data.

How Landolt could revolutionize astronomy

"All of our astronomy is based on light, and so we really need to know how much light we are actually receiving," Richey-Yowell said.

You can learn a lot from a ray of light: a star's temperature, its mass, the types of exoplanets orbiting it, and whether they could potentially harbor life.

For example, knowing how hot a host star is can tell you how far an exoplanet must be in order to sustain liquid water on its surface, Richey-Yowell said. Water is one of the main ingredients for life as we know it, and one of the key features astrobiologists search for when scoping out potential planets that could harbor life.

Finding more Earth-like planets is just the beginning. Astronomers can also use Landolt to measure light from distant exploding stars, called supernovae, that help calculate the expansion rate of the universe.

Right now, cosmologists studying the universe's expansion face a huge challenge: they can't settle on a single value for the expansion rate. Some methods lead to one value while others lead to a slightly different one. This conundrum could be key to figuring out some of the biggest mysteries of the universe, like understanding the invisible force ripping our universe apart that we call dark energy.

"So really anything from small, tiny planets to the whole scale of the universe relies on our understanding of stars and how bright they are and what kind of light they're emitting," Richey-Yowell said. "I really do think it will be revolutionary for astronomy."

• Elon Musk himself had said in 2023 that X's revenue was down.
• Now we have numbers to back it up.
• X revenues plunged 40% in the months after Elon Musk took over, Bloomberg reported.

Elon Musk was right: X did lose lots of revenue when he took over.

X revenues plunged in the wake of Elon Musk's fraught acquisition of the social media giant, new documents obtained by Bloomberg reportedly show.

According to regulatory filings seen by Bloomberg, X generated $1.48 billion in revenue in the first half of 2023 — down roughly 40% from the first six months of 2022 before Musk's takeover.

Musk completed his $44 billion Twitter purchase in October 2022.

The docs obtained by Bloomberg also show X lost $456 million in the first quarter of 2023.

X responded to a request for comment from Business Insider with an auto-reply stating, "Busy now, please check back later."

Musk's relationship with the advertising community — where X makes most of its money — has been strained.

At an event in 2023, he infamously told advertisers to go "fuck" themselves after several — including Disney, IBM, Apple, and Lionsgate — abandoned the platform following a post by Musk that was criticized as antisemitic.

Advertisers also fled last year as reports revealed that certain ads were appearing against white supremacist and antisemitic content.

The documents obtained by Bloomberg were filed by X to state regulators in its quest to build a Venmo-esque, peer-to-peer payment platform.

Also of note in the filings, according to Bloomberg: despite Musk's longstanding interest in cryptocurrency, X Payments told Maine regulators that it has no plans to facilitate transactions with virtual currencies.

Musk, a cofounder of PayPal, has outlined a grander vision for X as an "everything" app, where users could base their "entire financial world."

He's previously floated a high-yield savings feature to incentivize users to keep money on X.

• Elon Musk shared some of his favorite podcasts and audiobooks on a recent livestream.
• He said he's "a big history guy" and named several including "The Explorers" and "Hardcore History."
• Here's the full list of recommendations he shared.

Elon Musk recently shared some of his favorite podcasts, and —spoiler alert — they're mostly on the subject of history.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO was asked for podcast recommendations on a stream on his platform X, formerly Twitter, last week.

"I like history podcasts in general," he said, according to one Tesla fan's recap of the 5-hour livestream. "I just generally love history. Any kind of narrative is just a story really, it's a story about reality or at least someone's perception of reality."

Musk named the "Explorers Podcast," which focuses on "the lives, explorations and discoveries of history's greatest explorers," according to its website. He's also a fan of "The Age of Napoleon Podcast," which is described as centering on "the life and career of Napoleon Bonaparte as well as the general context of Europe between the early eighteenth and early nineteenth century."

Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" podcast — known for its "unique blend of high drama, masterful narration and Twilight Zone-style twists," according to its Apple Podcasts page — is "probably my top recommendation," Musk said.

Musk also shared some of his favorites in another medium: audiobooks. He likes "The Story of Civilization" by Will and Ariel Durant as well as the Penguin edition of "The Iliad."

Musk has recommended several other books over the years, including sci-fi novels and books on artificial intelligence.

• Henrik Fisker's second automotive startup filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday.
• Fisker was pitched as a Tesla rival, but workers say mismanagement led to compounding problems.
• Business Insider spoke with 27 former and current Fisker staff that charted the startup's downfall.

Fisker's staff was in chaos as they prepared to deliver the company's first batch of electric cars to US customers.

It had been four years since famed automotive designer Henrik Fisker unveiled his Tesla rival, an SUV called the Ocean, and the vehicle still wasn't ready.

In the weeks leading up to the big June 2023 event, Fisker staff raced to fix faulty parts on at least four of the 22 EVs that were set to be delivered — even stripping parts off the CEO and CFO's personal cars to repair the vehicles, including door handles and seat sensors, according to 11 sources familiar with the incident.

Two days later, Fisker board member Wendy Gruel's Ocean SUV, one of the cars that had been delivered at the event, shut off on a public road while going full speed, five sources said. Later, the same thing happened to Geeta Gupta-Fisker, Henrik's wife and the company's CFO and COO, workers said.

A Fisker spokesperson denied that workers used parts from pre-production vehicles for customer cars and said Gruel's car didn't stop on a public road. The company said Gupta-Fisker's vehicle had malfunctioned, but the issue was resolved.

When TechCrunch previously reported the incident with Gruel's car, the publication said the company had confirmed the incident and said the issue was fixed.

The issue was unrelated to Fisker's part swapping, but one thing was clear: the electric cars had barely hit the road and already the problems were piling up.

Henrik Fisker's EV startup seemed to be an easy sell at first. The 60-year-old automotive veteran boasts a long history in the industry, known for being the designer behind the Aston Martin V8, the BMW Z8 roadster that famously appeared in a 1999 James Bond film, and helping design Tesla's Model S.

Even though it was Henrik's second automotive startup after his first company went out of business in 2013, some workers told Business Insider that it was easy to dismiss worries early on that his second company could meet the same fate.

For his part, Henrik said he planned to do things differently this time. He would follow Apple's model by outsourcing production through Magna International and he also aimed to target the middle of the market with a more affordable EV option that could compete with Tesla's best-selling Model Y. Fisker Inc emerged in 2016 and went public in 2020 via a SPAC backed by Apollo Global Management. At one point, the company's market value soared as high as $8 billion.

At the time, Fisker was one of several EV startups to burst onto the scene — Rivian, Lucid, and Lordstown all wanted the chance to compete with Tesla. Since then, production and market headwinds have pushed some EV startups to shutter and major players like Ford and GM to scale back their electric-vehicle operations. Even Tesla has struggled, seeing revenue decline and layoffs.

"I was hopeful at first," one former VP, who worked at both Fisker startups, said. "Initially, at least, it seemed like he'd learned from his mistakes. It became obvious later on that they hadn't."

A Fisker spokesperson said it would be "unfair" to compare the two companies.

On Monday, the company announced it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after months of struggling to stay afloat. The company cited "various market and macroeconomic headwinds."

Business Insider spoke with over two dozen current and former Fisker employees who worked at the startup during various periods from its launch in 2016 to the present. The workers, whose identities are known to BI, requested anonymity as they were not authorized to comment on Fisker's behalf and feared professional reprisal.

A husband and wife duo who workers say mismanaged their way into a mess

Many of Fisker's woes can be traced back to the husband-wife duo that launched the brand, multiple former and current workers told BI.

They described a disorganized environment in which unqualified people were brought in to lead major programs and basic automotive standards were ignored.

While Henrik often served as a figurehead, Gupta-Fisker was heavily involved in everyday decisions, including on the engineering side, 11 workers said. Prior to taking on the role of CFO and COO at Fisker, Gupta-Fisker had served as an investment manager for the Fisker family office and as an advisor at a nonprofit. She had no prior experience in the automotive industry. But at Fisker, the workers said she managed deals with Magna and outside parts suppliers, frequently popped into engineering meetings, and weighed in on everything from parts purchases to software decisions.

A spokesperson for Magna declined to comment on Fisker. A Fisker spokesperson denied comments that Henrik took on a more passive role and said he was "deeply involved."

49-year-old Gupta-Fisker quickly became known in the company for her shrewd cost-cutting abilities. But, her strategy meant that at times Fisker ended up using components that didn't match the correct specifications for the Ocean, five former and current workers said. Gupta-Fisker made several decisions to use cheaper parts against Fisker executive and Magana executives' advice, two workers said. The mismatches led to issues with over-the-air updates, the five workers said.

The company said Magna oversaw the majority of parts sourcing and a "significant" amount of the parts came from Magna and its suppliers.

In conversations with BI, staff blamed many of the Ocean's faults on the cost-cutting efforts.

Several workers said that in the months leading up to the vehicle's launch, they filed internal reports recommending that the product undergo further testing and development before its release. They said they were told the company planned to proceed anyway.

"The focus was on getting the car to market as soon as possible," one former worker said. "The overarching belief was we could fix things with updates later on."

A Fisker spokesperson said Magna was responsible for testing and releasing the Ocean and it had been fully certified by regulators in the US and Europe. The company has been sending out over-the-air updates since 2023, the company said.

Ahead of the release, Fisker engineers were aware of multiple issues with the vehicle, according to five current and former workers, as well as internal documents viewed by Business Insider. Engineers had identified issues with the effectiveness of the car's door handles, key fobs, and seat sensors.

Over the past year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has launched four investigations into Fisker's SUV, including issues with inadvertent braking and flaws in the vehicle's door latch system. The company said it is cooperating with NHTSA.

Fisker has also faced dozens of lemon law lawsuits. Last week, Fisker issued a recall for a software-related issue that it said caused some of its vehicles to suddenly lose power.

Cutting corners led to compounding issues

In its haste to bring the car to market, Fisker failed to set up an effective system for processing repair orders and warranty claims, seven current and former workers said. Technicians were tasked with filling out the work orders and many of them said they hadn't been trained on the process.

In lieu of a working warranty system, some workers began processing the repairs without the proper California Bureau of Automotive Repair codes and EPA license numbers, using "123456" as a placeholder on a number of repairs, according to an internal document viewed by BI. In March, a VP at Fisker warned the issue made the company non-compliant with NHTSA protocols and unable to properly track and report safety concerns.

A Fisker spokesperson said the issue was "an internal error with only draft work orders early in the service process that was immediately corrected."

Without a proper system to process warranties or repair orders, the majority of repairs went unaccounted for, seven current and former workers said. That meant there wasn't an adequate way for Fisker to keep track of which parts were being used for repairs for its own financial records. It also meant many customers did not get a record of their repairs, workers said.

Meanwhile, Fisker also struggled to find the necessary parts for all of the fixes. The company hadn't set up much inventory for aftersales parts, so some of the parts used for customer fixes either came directly off the factory line, meaning they were meant for production vehicles, or the parts were stripped off pre-production and production vehicles, 11 workers with knowledge of the issue said.

In one instance, Fisker stripped parts off an engineering test vehicle that had been shipped from Magna's facility in Graz, Austria under an import bond, according to three former workers and emails viewed by BI. The vehicle was supposed to be destroyed in its entirety shortly after it was delivered to comply with the terms of the import. This is typically within a year, according to NHTSA, but the period can be extended in one-year increments up to 3 years. The vehicle's parts were not intended to be used for customers' cars.

The company denied any test vehicles had been used for parts and said all vehicles that had been imported for testing were destroyed under NHTSA's supervision within the allotted time period.

The spokesperson also denied that Fisker had a shortage of after-sales parts: "The Service department made its own forecast for parts, based on their sector knowledge. The Purchasing department supported those requests."

Fisker staff also looked for clever ways to address the parts shortage. In some instances, workers who visited Graz were told by managers to bring parts back in their suitcases to avoid paying import fees, seven workers said. One worker recalled having to leave personal belongings behind to fit air vents and key fobs into their luggage; another said they packed a larger bag to fit trim panels.

Fisker declined to comment on the claims.

A sales scramble amid negative reviews and vanishing demand

Fisker was initially successful in generating interest in the Ocean, with over 65,000 reservations initially placed.

But in the year since the Ocean's release, the company has delivered around 7,000 vehicles, a Fisker spokesperson said. Negative reviews — including YouTuber MKBHD calling it the "worst care I've ever reviewed" — took a toll on the brand, driving thousands of would-be customers to cancel their reservations.

In November, Fisker moved to bring in hiring recruiters to help sell the vehicle, as well as orchestrate the delivery of the car after the sale had been processed, six former workers said. In many cases, the recruiters, who had initially been brought onto the human resources team, had zero experience in automotive sales.

A Fisker spokesperson said that recruiting staff did join the sales efforts, though the company said they were asked to stay because they were successful in the new role.

Selling the car wasn't easy either. The recruiters found themselves directly competing with the company's established sales team and there weren't enough leads to go around. Four former workers said Fisker's reservation numbers included many duplicate names in its count and it was difficult to track which customers had connected with a sales worker. As a result, some people on the reservation list would find themselves getting multiple calls per day from different Fisker representatives.

At one point, sales workers were instructed to target customers who had canceled their orders and pepper them with calls in an attempt to get them to reverse their decision, three former workers said.

Fisker also began hosting pop-up events to boost sales, including events in partnership with fan blog Fiskerati, two former employees told BI. The events varied from meetups at Panera parking lots to larger-scale test drive events. In at least one instance, the event was shut down after Fisker failed to get permission from the owner of the location, the two sources said. Queues of Fisker owners that needed repairs also showed up at the events, three former workers said. Fisker told BI that the event hosted at Panera was not a company event.

"Sometimes it was hard to sell the cars when you'd take someone on a test drive and any number of error messages would pop up," one former worker from sales said. "As time went on and it became clear the writing was on the wall, we became even more honest with the customers on the risk," they added.

Fisker said it was aware of the ADAS issues but it was fixed with an update.

Meanwhile, some customers who'd canceled their orders and never paid for the car ended up mistakenly receiving delivery of the vehicle anyway, four former workers said. Former Fisker Ocean owner Kurt Mechling told BI he received delivery of the vehicle before he'd signed off on the order or had his payment successfully processed.

In March, TechCrunch reported that Fisker temporarily "lost track of millions of dollars in customer payments" for multiple months. Four workers with knowledge of the issue confirmed to BI the incident involving misplaced payments occurred.

When the carmaker conducted an internal audit in December over the issue, workers began scrambling to find the missing payments and bring some of the vehicles that had been mistakenly delivered back, the workers said. Some workers were encouraged by upper management to threaten the customers by saying they'd put them on a repossession list which could impact their credit score, the former workers said.

A Fisker spokesperson said the company had an "organized process" to address issues with vehicles that had not been paid for that was in line with industry standards.

Filing for bankruptcy — again

Fisker had been facing the possibility of bankruptcy for months.

Fisker warned in March that it might go out of business within the year. The stock was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in April after it fell to 9 cents per share.

Fisker warned staff in an April filing that they could be laid off if the company couldn't find a buyer or additional investor. The company brought in a chief restructuring officer who was given "sole authority" over some financial matters, including a potential sale, as part of an agreement with one of its investors.

Fisker also dropped prices by as much as $24,000 for some versions of the vehicle and conducted a series of layoffs that whittled the company down to the bone.

Ahead of the bankruptcy filing, Fisker's workforce consisted of less than 100 people, according to two sources with knowledge of the issue. The remaining workers were involved in last-ditch efforts to offload the company's remaining inventory, the people said.

A week before the bankruptcy filing, Fisker denied it had less than 100 workers left and told BI it continues to sell vehicles in the US and in Europe. It declined to specify how many workers remained.

In its Chapter 11 filing, Fisker said that its manufacturing pause would remain in place but that it plans to file "customary motions" with the bankruptcy court to ensure it can continue to pay employee wages and its vendors.

Over the past few months, workers have expressed dissatisfaction with what they view as Henrik and Gupta-Fisker's inability to take accountability for their actions. A Fisker spokesperson pushed back on the comments questioning Henrik's business prowess.

For Henrik, whose earlier company, Fisker Automotive, filed for bankruptcy in 2013, his present predicament echoes the past.

"I think it's a story of ego. He wanted to make a car and stamp his name on it. Henrik is a great designer, but he doesn't have the business acumen beyond that," an individual who worked with Henrik at several companies, including his first automotive startup. "The lessons he should have learned from the first startup were never implemented and he rushed a car to market once again."

June 18, 2024: Updated to reflect that Fisker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

June 12, 2024: Added clarification that NHTSA requires temporarily imported vehicles to be destroyed within 3 years and that Fisker said it had done so within the allotted time period.

Do you work for an EV company like Fisker or Tesla? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work email and device at gkay@businessinsider.com or 248-894-6012.

• Ecolab manages water-purification and water-treatment systems.
• The company, which has been around for a century, uses AI to inform new projects.
• This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.

For "CXO AI Playbook," Business Insider takes a look at mini case studies about AI adoption across industries, company sizes, and technology DNA. We've asked each of the featured companies to tell us about the problems they're trying to solve with AI, who's making these decisions internally, and their vision for using AI in the future.

Ecolab, a company headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, focusing on water management, hygiene, and infection prevention, works across 40 industries. Tens of thousands of its associates help optimize water use and maintain safe water environments for millions of customers in more than 170 countries.

Situation analysis: What problem was the company trying to solve?

Kevin Doyle, Ecolab's chief digital officer, told Business Insider that while Ecolab has deep institutional knowledge, digging into it to help clients can sometimes be tricky. "We've got water expertise that we've had for 100 years and have been out working with clients and customers assessing those operations and making recommendations" based on that history, he said.

Ecolab's business involves assessing a client's operations to understand their needs and challenges. Those findings are then used to develop plans to drive water and energy savings through tailored programs that include science-based chemistry, digital insights, and extensive expertise.

Ecolab's associates — generally chemical engineers — carry out these assessments and make recommendations to customers. Doyle said decades-old recommendations could be valuable for clients' current decision-making, but only if the company has access to them.

"That could have been lost on that person's hard drive or in that person's mind only," he said. "What's now happening is it's documented in a repository of data that we're then able to serve up" to associates using generative AI.

Key staff and partners

Ecolab's AI acceleration lab initiated the project, which is now used by thousands of employees working directly with customers and uploading data to the system. Doyle said those field associates also use generative AI to analyze information stored in the company's existing filing systems.

AI in action

The system started with a mobile application and a recommendation screen, and a chatbot was added later, Doyle said. "We could see either a recommendation based on best practices or what was contained in a knowledge repository, or somebody could ask a question, like, 'I'm trying to install water meters on this size pipe, what type of meter should I order?'" he said.

Adopting generative AI means Ecolab's representatives can harness information and insights from clients around the world.

"Maybe it's another person in southeast Iowa who goes into a similar-type plant, they have a similar customer with similar characteristics," he said. "It will make a recommendation based on the AI that will say, 'You could implement these programs and projects,' or 'Your peers have done this to create value: Is it something that's interesting to you?'"

Did it work, and how did leaders know?

Doyle said Ecolab had seen benefits from integrating generative AI in customer outreach, advisory, and briefing processes.

"It has enabled those out in the field to make decisions and ensures their on-the-ground insights are not lost within the organization," he said.

"We've seen increases already in the early stages of that program in the hundreds of millions of dollars of value creation and value potential," he added.

Doyle said AI will help the company make quicker decisions, which means "our existing team will be able to serve more customers and deliver greater value."

What's next?

Doyle said Ecolab's AI acceleration lab was testing further ways to use generative AI. "We're trying to apply that to even broader knowledge sets and certainly across all of our businesses," he said, referring to firms within the 40 industries Ecolab serves. Those broader knowledge sets include the nuanced processes in each industry, such as an associate's experience with supporting cooling water systems or identifying product quality issues.

By applying AI to new data, Doyle said they're able to take in more information to "get our people to the most impactful locations, whether that's to create value through a project or to fix something that's not operating as it should and causing other problems."

We want to hear from you. If you are interested in sharing your company's AI journey, email jhood@businessinsider.com.

• The House Ethics Committee issued a rare statement on its probe into Matt Gaetz on Tuesday.
• The panel's looking into whether he sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.
• That's in addition to the existing sexual misconduct claims.

The House Ethics Committee made clear on Tuesday that it's still investigating Rep. Matt Gaetz.

In addition to the long-standing sexual misconduct allegations, the panel said it's now looking into whether the controversial Florida congressman has "sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct."

The rare public statement came after Gaetz, who led the charge to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, denounced the committee and blamed the former speaker for the ongoing probe in a Monday post on X.

"This is Soviet," wrote Gaetz.

While noting "difficulty in obtaining relevant information" from Gaetz, the committee said it had "spoken with more than a dozen witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas, and reviewed thousands of pages of documents" as part of the probe.

The committee has been investigating Gaetz since April 2021, but on Tuesday, the committee said the scope of the probe had shifted.

While the committee is still investigating Gaetz's alleged "sexual misconduct and illicit drug use," the panel said it was no longer investigating claims that he shown explicit images on the House floor, used campaigns funds for personal reasons, or accepted bribes.

Altogether the committee now says it's investigating whether Gaetz:

• engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use;
• accepted improper gifts;
• dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship;
• sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

• Justin Timberlake is facing DWI charges, Business Insider has confirmed.
• Timberlake was arrested in the Hamptons on Monday night and will reportedly appear in court Tuesday.
• The 10-time Grammy winner has upcoming concerts scheduled in Chicago and New York as part of his tour.

Justin Timberlake was arrested Monday night in the Hamptons on charges of driving while intoxicated, Business Insider has confirmed.

Timberlake, 43, was arrested in Sag Harbor, New York. He will appear in court on Tuesday, according to several outlets.

The 10-time Grammy winner has two concerts scheduled in Chicago this weekend and two shows in New York City next week as part of "The Forget Tomorrow World Tour." The tour is in support of his sixth studio album, "Everything I Thought It Was."

Business Insider contacted Timberlake's reps for comment but did not get a response.

This story is developing. Please check back for additional details.

• Only 1 in 20 Gen Z workers have "green" skills, according to a LinkedIn analysis.
• Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z workers said the main barrier is a lack of job opportunities.
• The skills gap could make it harder for governments and companies to meet their climate goals.

Gen Z is considered the most climate-conscious generation, with nearly two-thirds saying they want a "green" job within the next five years.

That's according to a LinkedIn analysis, which found only 1 in 20 Gen Z workers have "green" skills like measuring carbon emissions, building solar, wind, and electric vehicle projects, reducing waste, or protecting water quality.

LinkedIn classified several hundred skills as "green" and analyzed data from more than one billion people and 65 million companies using the networking platform between January 2016 and March 2024. In May, LinkedIn also conducted an online survey of more than 7,000 global workers in the US, Europe, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates to capture a snapshot of Gen Z's perception of green jobs.

The green skills gap could make it harder for governments and companies to meet their climate goals, LinkedIn warned, especially with Gen Z on track to account for 30% of the global workforce by 2030. Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks, buildings, the power grid, and the food system could create hundreds of millions of jobs around the world. And while the skills shortage is most acute among Gen Z, it is part of a broader trend across the labor market.

Some 63% of Gen Z workers said the top barrier was a lack of available opportunities. That may be because employers are looking to hire people with prior experience or a certain technical skill, said Efrem Bycer, senior lead manager of public policy and economic graph at LinkedIn. But he also hears a lot of employers say they want workers who are hungry to learn and solve problems.

"The data tells us that Gen Z has that in spades," Bycer said, noting that two-thirds of Gen Z said they were interested in training programs.

Bycer added that employers need to align their climate goals with a hiring plan and identify green skills they can teach people on the job. There are also job titles that might not sound "green" but do help a company reduce its environmental impact. Employers could explain the connection in job descriptions.

"If you think the universe of climate jobs have sustainability in the title or are at a climate tech company, that's a limited view," Bycer said. " There's a lot more jobs that contribute to climate action. So the problem is partly skills, partly signaling."

President Joe Biden is trying to address the green skills gap with the American Climate Corps, which is modeled after a New Deal-era program that hired millions of men to conserve public lands, forests, and parks.

The administration said they expect thousands of young people to fill American Climate Corps jobs this summer that train them to reduce wildfire risks in national forests, respond to natural disasters, install solar panels, and provide environmental education.

Do you work a job that's helping solve the climate crisis? Reach out to this reporter at cboudreau@insider.com.

• OceanGate's Titan submersible imploded a year ago, killing all five on board.
• The investigation into the implosion is dragging on and will miss the 12-month deadline.
• There's currently no projected completion date for the investigation, the US Coast Guard told BI.

On June 18, 2023, OceanGate's Titan submersible imploded while heading to the wreckage of the Titanic. All five on board died.

A year later, investigators say that finding answers to what happened is "complex" and will take longer than anticipated.

In a statement on Friday, the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigations, or MBI, said it was continuing to actively investigate the factors that led to the implosion.

However, the statement acknowledged that the original 12-month timeline for the investigation had not been met.

In an email to BI, a Coast Guard spokesperson said the investigation is still in the fact-finding phase, where the agency is "gathering all relevant evidence and information."

The MBI said that the reasons for the delay included the need to contract two salvage missions to secure evidence and the extensive forensic testing being carried out.

"The investigation into the implosion of the Titan submersible is a complex and ongoing effort," said the MBI's chair, Jason Neubauer, in the statement.

Neubauer added: "We are working closely with our domestic and international partners to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the incident."

The US Coast Guard convened the MBI into the submersible's loss last year to determine the cause and whether any misconduct was involved.

It was also set up to investigate whether evidence indicated any criminal acts and to decide if new laws or regulations were needed.

"The MBI is committed to ensuring that we fully understand the factors that led to this tragedy in order to prevent similar occurrences in the future," Neubauer said.

On June 22, 2023, the Coast Guard concluded that the missing submersible had likely imploded, attributing it to a "catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber" on the seafloor.

Investigators found major pieces of debris, and months later, the Coast Guard said it recovered "presumed human remains."

Among the dead was Stockton Rush, CEO of the now-defunct OceanGate.

A June 2023 memorandum convening the MBI stipulated that if the 12-month deadline for the investigative report could not be met, a written explanation for the delay and a new expected completion date should be provided.

However, the Coast Guard spokesperson told BI that there is currently no projected completion date.

They added that the latter part of the fact-finding phase would include a public hearing, for which the MBI would provide at least 60 days' notice.

The Titan implosion raised concerns about deep-sea exploration in general.

Despite this, billionaire Larry Connor told The Wall Street Journal in May that he and Patrick Lahey, the CEO of Titan Submarines, plan to travel down to the Titanic wreck site to prove it can be done safely.