• "TikTok Star Murders" tells the story of content creator Ali Abulaban killing his wife and her friend. 
• Ali Abulaban recorded the killing, and the audio was used in the documentary.
• Ali Abulaban was convicted of murdering Ana Abulaban and Rayburn Barron.

Peacock's "TikTok Star Murders" tells the story of content creator Ali Abulaban murdering his wife, Ana Abulaban, and her friend Rayburn Barron, one month after she accused her husband of domestic abuse.

The documentary, which was released on Tuesday, details how the couple met in 2014, and by 2019 Ali Abulaban had started going viral after he shared comedy sketches on his account, @JinnKidd. He had nearly one million followers when he murdered his wife on October 21, 2021, at their home in San Diego.

Ana Abulaban's close friends told the documentary that the couple's marriage started to break down as a result of Ali Abulaban's controlling behavior. They said he controlled how she spent her time and berated her for not having sex with him.

Ana Abulaban, who was 28 at the time, went to the authorities in September 2021 and accused her husband of domestic abuse, The Los Angeles Times reported.

She asked him to move out of their apartment in San Diego's East Village and into a hotel on October 18, 2021.

During his trial at the San Diego Superior Court in May 2024, Ali Abulaban testified that he believed his wife was cheating on him, so he installed the Discord app on his daughter's iPad to spy on her, per CourtTV.

He said that he heard her talking to a man he didn't know, and then drove at "90 miles an hour" from his hotel to their apartment under the influence of cocaine.

When he got to the building, he started recording on his iPhone. He entered the apartment and saw his wife "cuddling" Barron.

"And before I could stop myself, I just fucking snapped and my gun was in my hand and next thing I'm shooting and, and I can't stop, I'm just shooting," he told the court.

"I'm like, I'm in the passenger seat of my own body. I can't stop it. And I hear Ana screaming and crying. I don't even remember shooting Ana, I just remember running back to the front door."

"TikTok Star Murders" features the audio Ali Abulaban captured as he murdered his wife. Several gunshots can be heard as well as Barron and Ana Abulaban shouting.

Executive producer Elizabeth Fischer explained to Variety in an interview published on Tuesday why the "brutal" audio was used in the documentary.

She said: "It was so important for the larger conversations about domestic violence, but also for the argument over whether or not this was a premeditated double murder.

"It was really important to stress the amount of time that took place between when he pressed record and rode up 35 floors."

The true crime documentary is the latest production by 50 Cent's G-Unit Films and Television. Since 2014, the company has produced the crime drama "Power" and several spin-offs. In April 2024, the rapper revealed that the company had expanded and unveiled its first studio facility in Shreveport, Louisana.

Abulaban was convicted of murder

At the end of the trial in May 2024, Ali Abulaban was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder for killing his wife and Barron. The jury decided that it was a premeditated murder.

Abubalan is due to be sentenced on June 28 in San Diego.

Fischer told Variety that Ali Abulaban was offered the chance to appear in the documentary but, "respectfully declined based on his impending trial."

• Forbes just declared OpenAI CEO Sam Altman a billionaire. 
• Before OpenAI, he was well-known in Silicon Valley as president of startup accelerator Y-Combinator.
• Here's how the serial entrepreneur got his start — and ended up helming the most-watched AI company.

2024 is shaping up to be a big year for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

While the 39-year-old entrepreneur has been a household name in Silicon Valley for years now, the rest of the world has got to know him through the success of OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, launched in 2022.

Then, this year, OpenAI launched GPT-4o — its new large language model. A few weeks later, Tim Cook announced at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in June that the tech giant would partner with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to iPhones. And in April, Altman was added to Forbes' billionaires list, marking yet another milestone.

Although his Microsoft-backed company has grown wildly popular over the last two years, Forbes attributes Altman's billionaire status primarily to his other investments.

Before the AI boom, Altman spent years as president of startup accelerator Y Combinator, and he owns stakes in Reddit, a nuclear fusion startup known as Helion, and more.

Here's a look at Altman's life and career so far.

Altman grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and he was a computer whiz from a young age.

He learned how to program and take apart a Macintosh computer when he was 8 years old, according to The New Yorker. He attended John Burroughs School, a private, non-sectarian college-preparatory school in St. Louis.

 

 

He told The New Yorker that having a Mac helped him with his sexuality. Altman came out to his parents when he was 16.

"Growing up gay in the Midwest in the two-thousands was not the most awesome thing," he told The New Yorker. "And finding AOL chat rooms was transformative. Secrets are bad when you're eleven or twelve."

Altman came out as gay to the whole community after a Christian group boycotted an assembly at his school that was about sexuality.

"What Sam did changed the school," his college counselor, Madelyn Gray, told The New Yorker. "It felt like someone had opened up a great big box full of all kinds of kids and let them out into the world."

Altman studied computer science at Stanford University for two years before he and two of his classmates dropped out to work full time on their mobile app.

The app shared a user's location with their friends. Loopt was part of the first group of eight companies at startup accelerator Y Combinator. Each startup got $6,000 per founder, and Loopt was in the same batch as Reddit, according to The Business of Business.

Loopt eventually reached a $175 million valuation, but it didn't garner enough interest, so the founders sold it for $43 million in 2012.

The $43 million sale price was close to how much it had raised from investors, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company was acquired by Green Dot, a banking company known for prepaid cards.

One of Loopt's cofounders, Nick Sivo, and Altman dated for nine years, but they broke up after they sold the company.

After Loopt, Altman founded a venture fund called Hydrazine Capital, and raised $21 million.

 That included a large part of the $5 million he got from Loopt, and an investment from billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Altman invested 75% of that money into YC companies, and led Reddit's Series B fundraising round.

He told The New Yorker, "you want to invest in messy, somewhat broken companies. You can treat the warts on top, and because of the warts the company will be hugely underpriced."

In 2014, at the age of 28, Altman was chosen by Y Combinator founder Paul Graham to succeed him as president of the startup accelerator.

While he was YC president, Altman taught a lecture series at Stanford called "How to Start a Startup," in the fall of 2014. The next year, Altman was featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for venture capital at 29 years old.

After he became YC president, he wanted to let more science and engineering startups into each batch.

He chose a fission and a fusion startup for YC because he wanted to start a nuclear-energy company of his own. He invested his own money in both companies and served on their boards.

Mark Andreessen, cofounder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, said to The New Yorker, "Under Sam, the level of YC's ambition has gone up 10x."

 

He finds interesting ways to spend his free time.

Altman once told two YC founders that he likes racing cars and had five, including two McLarens and an old Tesla, according to The New Yorker. He's said he likes racing cars and renting planes to fly all over California.

He told the founders of the startup Shypmate that "I prep for survival," and warned of either a "lethal synthetic virus," AI attacking humans, or nuclear war.

"I try not to think about it too much," Altman told the founders in 2016. "But I have guns, gold, potassium iodide, antibiotics, batteries, water, gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force, and a big patch of land in Big Sur I can fly to."

Altman's mom is a dermatologist and told The New Yorker, "Sam does keep an awful lot tied up inside. He'll call and say he has a headache—and he'll have Googled it, so there's some cyber-chondria in there, too. I have to reassure him that he doesn't have meningitis or lymphoma, that it's just stress."

Altman has a brother, Jack, who is a cofounder and CEO at Lattice, an employee management platform.

Along with their brother Max, the Altmans launched a fund in 2020 called Apollo that is focused on funding "moonshot" companies. They're startups that are financially risky but could potentially pay off with a breakthrough development.

 

In 2015, Altman cofounded OpenAI with Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX at the time.

Their goal for the non-profit artificial intelligence company was to make sure AI doesn't wipe out humans.

"We discussed what is the best thing we can do to ensure the future is good?" Elon Musk told The New York Times in 2015. "We could sit on the sidelines or we can encourage regulatory oversight, or we could participate with the right structure with people who care deeply about developing A.I. in a way that is safe and is beneficial to humanity."

Some of Silicon Valley's most prominent names pledged $1 billion to OpenAI along with Altman and Musk, including Reid Hoffman, the cofounder of LinkedIn, and Thiel.

After the 2016 election, Altman, who tweeted that he voted against Donald Trump, said he decided to talk to 100 Trump supporters around the US to understand what they did and didn't like about the president.

 He also wanted to know "what would convince them not to vote for him in the future." In a thread on X, formerly Twitter, Altman said he was "voting against Trump because I believe the principles he stands for represent an unacceptable threat to America."

He also said Thiel, who was still working with YC at the time, "is a high profile supporter of Trump" and that "I disagree with this."

But, he said, "YC is not going to fire someone for supporting a major party nominee."

YC and Thiel stopped working together a year later in 2017 for unspecified reasons.

During his interviews, Altman said he "did not expect to talk to so many Muslims, Mexicans, Black people, and women in the course of this project."

He said almost everyone he approached was willing to talk to him, but they also didn't want to share their names in fear of being "targeted by those people in Silicon Valley if they knew I voted for him." Altman said one of the people he talked to in Silicon Valley made him sign a confidentiality agreement before talking because she was scared of losing her job for supporting Trump.

Altman stepped down as YC president in March 2019 to focus on OpenAI. He stayed in a chairman role at the accelerator.

At a StrictlyVC event in 2019, Altman was asked how OpenAI planned to make a profit, and he said the "honest answer is we have no idea."

Altman said OpenAI had "never made any revenue" and that it had "no current plans to make revenue." 

"We have no idea how we may one day generate revenue," he said at the time, according to TechCrunch.

Altman became CEO of OpenAI in May 2019 after it turned away from being a nonprofit company into a "capped profit" corporation.

"We want to increase our ability to raise capital while still serving our mission, and no pre-existing legal structure we know of strikes the right balance," OpenAI said on its blog. "Our solution is to create OpenAI LP as a hybrid of a for-profit and nonprofit — which we are calling a 'capped-profit' company."

OpenAI received a $1 billion investment from Microsoft in 2019.

Altman flew to Seattle to meet with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, where he demonstrated OpenAI's AI models for him, WSJ reported.  The pair announced their business partnership on LinkedIn.

Current and former insiders at OpenAI told Fortune that after Altman took over as CEO, and after the investment from Microsoft, the company started focusing more on developing natural language processing.

Altman and OpenAI's former chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, said the move to focus on large language models was the best way for the company to reach artificial general intelligence, or AGI, a system that has broad human-level cognitive abilities.

 

In 2021, Altman and cofounders Alex Blania and Max Novendstern launched a global cryptocurrency project called Worldcoin.

It wanted to give everyone in the world access to crypto by scanning their iris with an orb. The company was started in 2020, but stopped operating in a few countries in 2022 due to logistics issues, Bloomberg reported. In January, Worldcoin tweeted that it had reached 1 million people and has onboarded over 150,000 first-time crypto users.

Under Altman's tenure as CEO, OpenAI released popular generative AI tools to the public, including DALL-E and ChatGPT.

Both DALL-E and ChatGPT are known as "generative" AI, meaning the bot creates its own artwork and text based on information it is fed.

After ChatGPT was released on November 30, Altman tweeted that it had reached over 1 million users in five days.

ChatGPT was made public so OpenAI could use feedback from users to improve the bot.

A few days after its launch, Altman said that it "is incredibly limited, but good enough at some things to create a misleading impression of greatness." Altman posted that ChatGPT was "great" for "fun creative inspiration," but "not such a good idea" to look up facts.

ChatGPT recently began testing a paid version of ChatGPT called "ChatGPT Professional" that is supposed to give better access to the bot. In December, Altman posted that OpenAI "will have to monetize it somehow at some point; the compute costs are eye-watering."

In January 2023, Microsoft again announced it was making a "multibillion dollar" investment into OpenAI.

Although specifics of the investment were not shared, it is believed it is worth $10 billion. Before Microsoft's investment, other venture capitalists wanted to buy shares from OpenAI employees in a tender offer that valued the company at around $29 billion.

Altman is still interested in nuclear fusion and invested $375 million in Helion Energy in 2022.

"Helion is more than an investment to me," Altman told TechCrunch. "It's the other thing beside OpenAI that I spend a lot of time on. I'm just super excited about what's going to happen there."

He told TechCrunch that he's "happy there's a fusion race," to build a low-cost fusion energy system that can eventually power the Earth.

 

Last year, OpenAI launched its pilot subscription plan for ChatGPT Plus, which costs $20 a month.

People who pay $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus get benefits such as access to the site even when traffic is high, faster responses from the bot, and first access to new features and ChatGPT improvements.

The subscription is only available for people in the US, and OpenAI said it will soon start inviting people on the waitlist to join.

Altman wrote that OpenAI's mission is to make sure AGI "benefits all of humanity.

"If AGI is successfully created, this technology could help us elevate humanity by increasing abundance, turbocharging the global economy, and aiding in the discovery of new scientific knowledge that changes the limits of possibility," Altman wrote on OpenAI's blog.

Despite its potential, Altman said artificial general intelligence comes with "serious risk of misuse, drastic accidents, and societal disruption." But instead of stopping its development, Altman said "society and the developers of AGI have to figure out how to get it right."

Altman went on to share the principles that OpenAI "care about most," including "the benefits of, access to, and governance of AGI to be widely and fairly shared."

Altman said he and OpenAI are "a little bit scared" of AI's potential as it continues to develop.

In an interview with ABC News, Altman said he thinks "people should be happy that we're a little bit scared" of generative AI systems as they develop.

Altman said he doesn't think AI systems should only be developed in a lab.

"You've got to get these products out into the world and make contact with reality, make our mistakes while the stakes are low," he said.

 

 

 

In April 2023, OpenAI announced the option to turn off chat history in ChatGPT so the data can't be used to train and improve its models.

In a blog post, the company said it hoped the option to turn off chat history "provides an easier way to manage your data than our existing opt-out process."

When a user turns off their chat history, new conversations will be kept for 30 days for OpenAI to review them for abuse, then are permanently deleted.

In his first appearance before Congress, Altman told a Senate panel there should be a government agency to grant licenses to companies working on advanced AI.

Altman told lawmakers there should be an agency that grants licenses for companies that are working on AI models "above a certain scale of capabilities." He also said the agency should be able to revoke licenses from companies that don't follow safety rules.

"I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong," Altman said. "And we want to be vocal about that, we want to work with the government to prevent that from happening."

OpenAI launched a ChatGPT app for iPhones and Android users in 2023.

The app, which is free, can answer text-based and spoken questions using Whisper, another OpenAI product that is a speech-recognition model. Users who have a subscription to ChatGPT Plus can also access it through the app.

Altman met with leaders in Europe to discuss AI regulations and said OpenAI has "no plans to leave" the EU, despite his earlier concerns over the EU's proposed AI Act.

At the start of his trip, Altman told reporters in London that he was concerned about the EU's proposed AI Act that focuses on regulating AI and protecting Europeans from AI risks.

"The details really matter," Altman said, according to the Financial Times. "We will try to comply, but if we can't comply, we will cease operating."

However, he shared on X later in the week that OpenAI is "excited to continue to operate here and of course have no plans to leave."

In an October 2023 interview, Altman expressed "deep misgivings" about people befriending AI.

Altman made it clear that he doesn't believe humans should try to be friends with AI in an interview during Wall Street Journal's Tech Live event.

"I personally really have deep misgivings about this vision of the future where everyone is super close to AI friends, and not more so with their human friends," Altman said.

 

On November 17, 2023, OpenAI shocked tech fans by announcing that Altman would no longer be the company's CEO.

In November, the OpenAI board of directors announced that Altman would be stepping down from his role as CEO and leaving the board, "effective immediately."

In a blog post, the board said it "no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI," and added that Altman was "not consistently candid in his communications."

"We are grateful for Sam's many contributions to the founding and growth of OpenAI," a statement from OpenAI's board says. "At the same time, we believe new leadership is necessary as we move forward."

Altman issued his own statement via a post on X.

"i loved my time at openai. it was transformative for me personally, and hopefully the world a little bit. most of all i loved working with such talented people," Altman wrote.

He added: "will have more to say about what's next later."

But days after the ouster, Sam Altman returned to the helm of OpenAI.

After a chaotic weekend over his firing, Altman and OpenAI announced that he would return to the tech company as CEO.

"We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo," the company wrote on X.

In January, Altman confirmed he married his partner Oliver Mulherin.

Altman is married. The OpenAI CEO wed his partner Oliver Mulherin, with photos from the wedding circulating on social media in January 2024.

An attendee of the wedding confirmed to Business Insider that the pictures weren't AI-generated. His husband is an Australian software engineer who previously worked at Meta, according to his LinkedIn profile.

OpenAI launched its text-to-video model Sora.

In February, OpenAI unveiled Sora to the public. The program — named after the Japanese word for "sky" — creates up to 0ne-minute long videos from text prompts. 

"We're teaching AI to understand and simulate the physical world in motion, with the goal of training models that help people solve problems that require real-world interaction," OpenAI wrote in Sora's announcement.

Sora is still in the midst of risk and harm assessments by red teamers, but Altman is already showing off its capabilities on social media, and the company is reportedly shopping the tool around to Hollywood.

Altman and his husband signed the Giving Pledge in 2024.

A few weeks after Forbes declared Altman a billionaire, he and his partner signed the Giving Pledge, vowing to give away most of his fortune.

"We would not be making this pledge if it weren't for the hard work, brilliance, generosity, and dedication to improve the world of many people that built the scaffolding of society that let us get here," the pledge letter read.

They continued: "There is nothing we can do except feel immense gratitude and commit to pay it forward, and do what we can to build the scaffolding up a little higher."

OpenAI introduced GPT-4o in May and demonstrated its capabilities.

During its "Spring Update" on May 13, OpenAI announced GPT-4o, an updated version of its large language model that powers ChatGPT. OpenAI CTO Mira Murati made the announcement, and Altman didn't make an appearance despite actively promoting the event on X. 

Altman might've been absent from the presentation, but the demonstrations of ChatGPT's voice and video capabilities created buzz online. It also led to Altman and his company being called out by actor Scarlett Johansson, who alleged that the OpenAI chatbot Sky's voice sounded "eerily similar" to her own after she declined a partnership.

Altman's post on X referencing a movie in which Johansson voices someone's virtual girlfriend was quickly called into question, and the company soon said that it would not move forward with the voice heard in the demo.

Apple announced a partnership with OpenAI at the Worldwide Developer Conference in June.

After much debate about how it would enter the AI arms race, Apple announced at WWDC 2024 that it would partner with OpenAI to close the gap between it and its rivals.

Although Bloomberg reported that Apple isn't paying OpenAI in cash, the tech titan's solid installed base of over two billion users means more people may use ChatGPT if it comes integrated with Siri. According to the presentation, Siri will be able to handle more complex requests with help from ChatGPT.

Altman was spotted attending WWDC the day the partnership was announced and speaking to high-ranking Apple employees ahead of the keynote. 

Correction: February 2, 2023 — An earlier version of this story defined AGI incorrectly and listed the incorrect age at which Altman was named president of Y Combinator. AGI in this context stands for artificial general intelligence. Altman became president of Y Combinator at 28, not 31.

• Microsoft's AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, has laid out his main goals for the company.
• The DeepMind cofounder is overseeing key teams, including Bing, Edge, and Copilot.
• In a podcast chat with Seth Rosenberg, Suleyman said he wanted to "uplevel" Copilot's quality.

Microsoft's newly installed AI chief, Mustafa Suleyman, is keen to ensure that the Big Tech company is not underestimated.

On a recent podcast with Seth Rosenberg, Suleyman explained his new responsibilities at the company. He said he oversaw key teams, including Bing and Edge, and Copilot, Microsoft's flagship AI product.

Suleyman added that he'd been impressed with Microsoft's scale and reach since joining the company in March.

"The quality of products and their scale and reach is sort of much greater than you might think as a kind of default Silicon Valley person who had grown up in Google," he said.

He said the company's reputation in Silicon Valley needed a "rethink." Despite being one of the most valuable companies in the world, Microsoft has somewhat existed in the shadow of its old rival, Google, for the last decade.

Suleyman cofounded DeepMind before Google acquired it. After the acquisition, he spent two years at Google as a vice president of AI product management and AI policy.

After parting ways with the company in 2022, Suleyman cofounded Inflection AI, which Microsoft later acquired. He was then installed as CEO of Microsoft AI to lead the company's AI efforts.

Suleyman said his main goal at the company was to "uplevel the quality of Copilot."

"We're rapidly building some of the best models in the world, partnering very closely with OpenAI, building on top of all of OpenAI models and infrastructure, fine-tuning their models," he said, adding the next phase of AI assistants Microsft was eyeing focused on memory and personalization.

"Your AI should remember everything about you, all your context, all your personal data, everything that you've said and be there to support you and be your aid and your sidekick you know throughout your life. That's what we're going to be focused on," he said.

Microsoft's Copilot has proved relatively popular with users. The company benefited from being quick to market with the product, beating Google's rival effort by several months.

However, Business Insider previously reported that one of the top complaints from Microsoft's customers is that Copilot doesn't perform as well as OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Microsoft has said customers aren't using the new tools properly and is paying a partner to produce videos to teach customers how to write better prompts.

Representatives for Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI made outside normal working hours.

• Singapore is the most expensive city for high-net-worth individuals, according to a new report.
• The Asian city-state is followed by Hong Kong and London in Julius Baer's Lifestyle Index.
• The ranking takes into account the costs of housing, jewelry, whiskey, and hotel suites.

If you've got millions in the bank and you want to spend them slowly, don't move to Singapore.

The Asian city-state is the most expensive major global city for high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) to live in, according to a new report.

Singapore tops Julius Baer's Lifestyle Index, released annually by the Swiss bank. It's followed by Hong Kong and London.

Shanghai has dropped down the rankings from last year, falling from second to fourth place.

Julius Baer says the index analyzes the cost of goods and services representative of "living extremely well" in 25 major global cities. These include the costs of prime real estate, jewelry, whiskey, boarding school, business-class flights, luxury hotel suites, laser-eye surgery, and MBAs.

"This provides an overview of the relative cost of maintaining a high-net-worth lifestyle in various major urban centres," the bank said.

Julius Baer described Singapore as a "highly desirable" place to live and work in, referring to its politics, healthcare, crime rate, public transport, and currency. "The Singaporean government works hard to make the country attractive to global business and wealthy people, and the currency remains strong," the bank said.

This has helped push up prices. Of the 25 cities on Julius Baer's list, Singapore had the most expensive vehicle prices, second-highest childbirth costs, and third-priciest residential property.

As of June 2023, just under six million people lived in the city-state, which has an aging population. It has a life expectancy of 83 years — 5.5 years higher than that of the US — and a low fertility rate of less than 1.0.

Singapore has the fourth-highest number of millionaires in the world, according to a ranking of cities by investment-migration consultancy Henley & Partners that used data from December 2023. Singapore had nearly 250,000 millionaires as well as more than 300 people worth at least $100 million, per the report, which calculated that the city's millionaire population had grown by 64% in a decade.

Julius Baer listed Hong Kong as the second-most expensive city for HNWIs of the 25 on the list, with the second-highest residential property costs. Hong Kong, which had 7.4 million residents as of its 2021 census, has nearly 150,000 millionaire residents, according to data from Henley & Partners.

Julius Baer said that, across the globe, the greatest price increases between 2023 and 2024 were for premium consumer items like fashion and jewelry, "where pricing has been rising steeply for several years." This is due to rising material, energy, and labor costs as well as strong currencies in Europe, where many luxury houses are based.

Every European city included in the ranking — Barcelona, Frankfurt, London, Milan, Monaco, Paris, and Zurich — moved up the list this year. Zurich, described by Julius Baer as "this year's runaway star performer," shot up eight places in the ranking to become the sixth most expensive city for HNWIs on its list, which the bank attributed to the strength of the Swiss franc.

The 25 global cities in Julius Baer's report, listed from most- to least-expensive for HNWIs

1. Singapore
2. Hong Kong
3. London
4. Shanghai
5. Monaco
6. Zurich
7. New York
8. Paris
9. São Paulo
10. Milan
11. Sydney
12. Dubai
13. Taipei
14. Jakarta
15. Miami
16. Mexico City
17. Bangkok
18. Barcelona
19. Frankfurt
20. Mumbai
21. Manila
22. Santiago de Chile
23. Tokyo
24. Vancouver
25. Johannesburg

• I'm a Sephora employee, so I know the best products to stock up on to prepare for the summer.
• The Sephora Collection Love the Lift curling-and-volumizing waterproof mascara doesn't flake on me.
• The Estée Lauder double-wear stay-in-place foundation keeps my skin looking flawless all season.

Sephora offers tons of great products, and as an employee, I'm always looking to find the best ones.

Over the nearly two years I've worked at Sephora, I've loved stocking up on the best makeup for each season. This summer, I'm focusing on products that will look good no matter how hot it gets.

Luckily, the store carries plenty of long-lasting, sweatproof beauty items that are sure to withstand the summertime heat. Here are five beauty products I'd recommend grabbing at Sephora to prepare for summer.

The Sephora Collection Love the Lift curling-and-volumizing waterproof mascara doesn't flake on me at all.

The Sephora Collection Love the Lift waterproof mascara is by far one of my favorite products for the summer. I like that it's waterproof, so I can wear it at the beach or to other summertime events without worrying about my mascara running.

I've worn it in the pool, and it's never flaked or left me with "raccoon eyes." I also love that the formula is made with wax, so it curls and lifts my lashes beautifully.

The Estée Lauder double-wear stay-in-place foundation lasts all day, even in the heat.

This liquid foundation has a beautiful matte finish and can last up to 24 hours on the skin, making it perfect for busy summer days. I find this oil-free foundation lasts in hot, humid weather while still feeling lightweight and comfortable.

I wear the shade 2N2 Buff, which is a light-medium color with subtle golden undertones.

I use the One/Size On 'Til Dawn mattifying waterproof setting spray when I need my makeup to stay in place all day.

This waterproof setting spray gives my skin a matte finish that lasts all day. It's made with green-tea extract and witch hazel, which help tighten pores and absorb oil, respectively.

It also has a transfer-proof formula, which means it won't easily rub off and will keep my makeup in place all day through the heat. Even if I'm sweating, I know my makeup isn't going anywhere as long as I'm wearing this setting spray. 

I love the formula of the Kosas Blush is Life dimensional-and-brightening blush.  

This talc-free powder blush is made with squalane and hyaluronic acid to keep skin hydrated and balanced. The silky smooth blush melts into my skin and seamlessly blends to create a radiant look.

The blushes come in buildable, dimensional pink, orange, and mauve hues for a long-wearing, healthy flush of color on the cheeks. I have the shade Blissed, which is a perfect combination of peach and pink.

The Fenty Skin Hydra Vizor Huez tinted moisturizer looks flawless on my skin.

This lightweight moisturizer with SPF protection makes my skin look glowy and plump each time I apply it. It can also help reduce the appearance of pores and dark spots.

This two-in-one moisturizer and sunscreen has SPF 30, so it's perfect for wearing at the beach or out in the sun. It gives me natural-looking coverage and comes in various tints — I wear shade four.

• Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Perfect Match" season two.
• In season two, "Love Is Blind" alum Micah Lussier couples up with "Dated & Related" star Kaz Bishop.
• Here's an update on their on their relationship. 

Micah Lussier said she broke up with Kaz Bishop after he kissed another contestant after "Perfect Match" season two finished filming.

Micah was a contestant on the latest season of "Perfect Match" after she tried and failed to find a husband on Netflix's most popular reality show, "Love Is Blind."

In episode two, Micah paired up with "Dated & Related" alum Kaz Bishop and the pair won two couples' challenges in the season.

But their relationship was a roller coaster in the second half of the season after Kaz continually flirted with new contestants and Micah questioned her partner's loyalty.

This came to a head in episode nine when the pair had a screaming match. Micah was angry with Kaz for talking to a third new contestant, Christine Obanor, and kissing Holly in a game. Kaz was annoyed that Micah told other contestants that they were the weakest couple.

They broke up, and Kaz matched up with Christine, and Micah paired up with Izzy Zapata.

In the following episode, Kaz had second thoughts and spoke to Micah about rebuilding their relationship. Micah didn't immediately give in but eventually decided to match with Kaz.

At the end of the season, they were still coupled up, but the relationship didn't last long.

In an article published by Netflix's Tudum on Monday, Micah said that they broke off the relationship before they left Mexico, where the series was filmed.

Kaz said Micah cut him off after hearing rumors that he kissed another cast member, who was not named, after the finale.

"Before we even made it off the show, she sent me a text message saying that she truly hates me," he said. "It escalated very quickly, but she was messaging other people."

During Wednesday's episode of "The Viall Files" podcast, Micah confirmed that the alleged kiss led to the breakup, saying it happened when she had left their hotel for a press day.

"I looked at him, and for a lack of a classier way, I was like, 'You're dead to me. Never speak to me again,'" Micah said. "And I never talked to him again."

Micah said that the only reason she stuck by Kaz in the show was because she wasn't interested in anyone else.

"In real life, I don't care. I don't have time for it. There's other options. Like, get the hell out of here. Pack your bags," Micah said.

Micah and Kaz do follow each other on social media, and Micah said they have spoken to each other again recently.

But, they both seem to have moved on from the relationship.

Kaz told Entertainment Tonight in June that he's in a relationship with another person, though he did not name them.

Meanwhile, Micah has posted several TikTok videos about going on dates with other people.

Micah also told Tudum that she was going to keep her love life private for now.

"There's going to be a hard launch when I have a ring on my finger and that will be the next time you guys hear from me," she said.

"Perfect Match" season two is available on Netflix.

Correction: June 17, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated the number of episodes in the spoiler warning. There were nine episodes, not six.

• North Korean soldiers sent to aid Russia in Ukraine would be "cannon fodder," the Pentagon said.
• The two nations signed a new security pact, and some Korean units look set to go to Ukraine.
• Russia is known for treating its soldiers as highly disposable and has suffered high death tolls.

North Korean troops that are sent to Ukraine to aid in Russia's war would become "cannon fodder," the Pentagon said.

Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday that "I think that if I were North Korean military personnel management, I would be questioning my choices on sending my forces to be cannon fodder in an illegal war against Ukraine."

Ryder was responding to a question about North Korea potentially dispatching army engineering units to Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, which is occupied by Russia.

According to South Korea's TV Chosun, citing a South Korean government official and referenced by Reuters, North Korea is planning to send construction and engineering forces to occupied Ukraine as soon as next month for rebuilding work.

Earlier this month, Russia and North Korea signed a pact agreeing to give each other military assistance if the other is attacked.

Countries including the US and Japan condemned the move, with South Korea saying it was considering sending weapons to Ukraine as a result. South Korea's president described the pact as a threat to his nation's security.

Ryder described North Korea potentially sending military forces to Russia as "certainly something to keep an eye on," and hinted at the high number of Russian casualties throughout the war.

The UK Ministry of Defence said at the end of May that the total number of killed or wounded Russian soldiers since February 2022 was around 500,000.

It also said that the average daily number of Russian personnel casualties in May was over 1,200.

Russia is known for treating its own troops as highly disposable.

This includes through using "meat wave" tactics, where it sends waves of poorly trained and unsupported soldiers toward Ukrainian positions to try to overwhelm them.

A Russian soldier who plans offensives said this month that he has to send men forward knowing they will likely die, but doesn't tell them how low their chances of survival are.

"I can't tell the men, otherwise they wouldn't fight with the hope of winning," he said.

• Elon Musk's ire this year has extended from Mark Zuckerberg to MacKenzie Scott.
• The mercurial billionaire has often fired insults and traded barbs at his contemporaries on X.
• "I have fun sparring with Elon. He likes to troll and so do I," Mark Cuban told BI.

Elon Musk runs half a dozen companies, but the work involved in keeping the Muskonomy humming hasn't stopped him from beefing with his fellow billionaires this year.

His platform of choice for trading barbs, firing insults, and sharing generally unfiltered thoughts is X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, which he bought in late 2022.

"Have I shot myself in the foot multiple times? Yes," Musk said of his posting habits in an April 2023 interview with BBC's James Clayton.

"I think I should not tweet after 3:00 a.m. If you're gonna tweet something that maybe is controversial, save it as a draft, then look at it the next day and see if you still want to tweet it," he added.

To be sure, Musk's history of fights stretches way further back than 2024, and not everyone he trades barbs with takes it personally.

"I have fun sparring with Elon. He likes to troll and so do I," Mark Cuban told BI on Monday. "I have no issues with him."

Here's a non-exhaustive list of the billionaires Musk has fought with in 2024.

Representatives for Musk didn't respond to a request for comment from BI for this story.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Cage match, anyone?

In June 2023, Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a fight following reports that said Meta was building a rival to X.

"I'm up for a cage match if he is lol," Musk said in an X post on June 20, 2023.

"Send Me Location," Zuckerberg responded via an Instagram story the next day.

Zuckerberg launched his text-based social media platform, Threads, a month later. The fight with Musk didn't see as much progress, with both parties publicly cooling on the idea in one way or another.

Musk appeared to backtrack on the fight, saying in August that he would need to undergo "minor surgery" for some older injuries. This was after he'd claimed that the fight would be live-streamed and would take place at an "epic location" in ancient Rome.

Zuckerberg brushed aside Musk's proposed cage match last year, but Musk hasn't forgotten about the fight. In fact, he's brought it into 2024.

"If only Zuckerberg were as tough (sigh). I've offered to fight him any place, any time, any rules, but all I hear is crickets," Musk said in an X post on May 15, a day after Zuckerberg celebrated his 40th birthday.

Representatives for Zuckerberg didn't respond to a request for comment from BI for this story.

OpenAI chief Sam Altman

Sam Altman isn't your typical Musk rival. Altman cofounded OpenAI with Musk in 2015 and interviewed Musk a year later when he was still the president of Y Combinator.

But differences in thought over how OpenAI should be run have driven a wedge between the men.

In February, Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman, accusing the company of violating its nonprofit mission by partnering with Microsoft. Musk withdrew his lawsuit against Altman in June, just a day before a judge was set to consider OpenAI's request to dismiss it.

"More on this later," Musk said of the lawsuit's withdrawal on June 12.

Musk has been a vocal critic of Altman's leadership of OpenAI after the company found success with its AI chatbot ChatGPT.

"OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it 'Open' AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft," Musk wrote on X in February 2023.

Altman has remained civil when publicly responding to Musk's barbs.

In March, the OpenAI chief told podcaster Lex Fridman that he found Musk's lawsuit bewildering and expected Musk to have "more empathy" for OpenAI's ambitions.

"It wasn't that long ago Elon was crazily talking about launching rockets when people were laughing at that thought, so I think he'd have more empathy for this," Altman told Fridman.

Representatives for Altman didn't respond to a request for comment from BI.

"Shark Tank" star Mark Cuban

Billionaire Mark Cuban is no stranger when it comes to getting caught in Musk's crosshairs.

Cuban has feuded with Musk on multiple topics, ranging from their differing views on corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion to their opinions on President Joe Biden.

"Mark Cuban is desperately trying to signal his 'virtue', but his hypocrisy convinces no one," Musk said on X in January after Cuban voiced his support for corporate DEI initiatives.

At one point, Musk called Cuban a "racist" in an X post for backing DEI. He later deleted the post.

In March, Musk threw a jibe at Cuban after the "Shark Tank" star said he'd vote for Biden even if the president "was being given last rites."

"'If Biden were a flesh-eating zombie with 5 seconds to live where, upon being re-elected, Earth would plunge into a 1000 years of darkness, I would still vote for him.' — Mark Cuban," Musk wrote in an X post.

Cuban, however, doesn't seem too bothered by Musk's jabs.

"I have fun sparring with Elon. He likes to troll and so do I," Cuban told BI. "I have no issues with him."

While I have your attention. Wanted to say thank you!

Your consultants for @tesla followed up today about using @costplusdrugs drugs to save the company money. Truly appreciate it.

(And my limit is 300 years of darkness) https://t.co/MpaJp8Ocde

— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 5, 2024

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Jeff Bezos' ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott

Musk has also gone after the former spouses of billionaires this year.

In March, Musk slammed Jeff Bezos' ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, for her charitable giving.

"'Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse' should filed be listed among 'Reasons that Western Civilization died,'" Musk wrote in an X post on March 6. He later deleted the post.

Scott's philanthropy has been a long-running bugbear for Musk, who claimed in May 2022 that his companies were being sidelined by the Democratic Party partly because Scott had donated to "PACs posing as charities."

Scott was married to Bezos for 25 years. The pair finalized their divorce in 2019. As part of the settlement terms, Scott received $38 billion worth of Amazon shares.

Scott did not publicly respond to Musk's post in March, though she did ramp up her donations in the wake of his remarks.

On March 19, Scott announced she would donate $640 million to 361 organizations. That sum was more than double the $250 million she had initially pledged to give away last year.

Representatives for Scott didn't respond to a request for comment from BI.

Melinda French Gates, the former wife of Microsoft founder Bill Gates

In June, Musk ripped into Melinda French Gates after she gave her first presidential endorsement to Joe Biden.

"Might be the downfall of western civilization," Musk said in an X post on June 20.

Musk isn't exactly a fan of French Gates' ex-husband, Bill Gates, either. The Tesla CEO was furious when he learned that Gates had shorted Tesla's stock, as detailed in Walter Isaacson's biography of Musk.

"How can someone say they are passionate about fighting climate change and then do something that reduced the overall investment in the company doing the most? It's pure hypocrisy," Musk told Isaacson.

Shortly after he'd turned down a philanthropic opportunity with Gates, Musk took to X to share a meme that compared the Microsoft founder to the pregnant man emoji.

"In case you need to lose a boner fast," Musk said on April 22, 2023.

in case u need to lose a boner fast pic.twitter.com/fcHiaXKCJi

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2022

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Representatives for Gates and French Gates didn't respond to requests for comment from BI.

OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla

Unlike most of the billionaires on this list, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla fired salvos at Musk first.

"With @elonmusk, feels like a bit of sour grapes in suing @OpenAI, not getting in early enough, not staying committed and now a rival effort," Khosla, an OpenAI investor, said on X in March, while referencing Musk's AI startup xAI.

"Like they say if you can't innovate, litigate and that's what we have here. Elon of old would be building with us to hit the same goal," Khosla added.

"Vinod doesn't know what he is talking about here," Musk replied.

But Khosla wasn't done. Days later, he gave Musk — a frequent poster and reposter of memes — a taste of his own medicine when he posted a meme ridiculing xAI.

https://t.co/wa6MUngFYp pic.twitter.com/uBu2bQhfpB

— Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) March 7, 2024

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Representatives for Khosla didn't respond to a request for comment from BI.

• After a breakup, I decided that having two children under 2 wouldn't deter me from graduate school.
• While my kids slept, I studied, and they helped inspire me throughout the years. 
• Now that I have my Master's, I am able to celebrate all the milestones we reached together.

I would have never guessed that being single, juggling my career, graduate school, and parenting two toddlers would be stamped on my bingo card. But here I am, thriving despite it all.

As a single mom of two, every achievement feels even sweeter. Every achievement reminds me and shows my children that no dream is too distant. Graduating with a Master's of Social Work from the University of Texas at Arlington with two toddlers feels more than a personal achievement. It's a testament to perseverance and the unwavering support of my incredible village.

It all began three years ago. After the relationship with their dad ended due to his infidelity, I decided to prioritize myself. Though I hoped we'd co-parent well, it didn't turn out that way. So, I became laser-focused on being the best mom I could be. As a first-generation high school and college graduate, I knew obtaining another degree would be challenging. However I didn't realize how different those challenges would be in my present reality.

In fact, as I started to discuss my plans to continue my graduate studies with others, some saw it as courageous, while others thought balancing deadlines with diapers was outright crazy. Many suggested waiting until my children were school-aged. While I welcomed their feedback, I knew it could be done. I just had to figure out how.

I had to redefine motherhood while pursuing my dreams

I dared to disrupt the idea that single motherhood had to be synonymous with struggle or that my dreams should be placed on the back burner to be a good mother. Above all, I wanted to model perseverance and the value of education for my kids. So, when my eldest was 15 months old, and my youngest was just 3 months old, our journey began.

Balancing my career in political organizing with late-night assignments, mandatory practicums for my MSW, and early mornings of Pixar's "Finding Dory" was challenging. Still, those precious moments of mimicking the whale sounds made by Dory with my children fueled my determination.

While I never found quite the right work-life balance people rave about, our trio cultivated systems and routines that worked for us.

Our days were long, and my nights were longer. During different stages of my graduate program, I adapted our routine. When my children napped, I scheduled work blocks to focus on work calls and client updates. The boys knew that Tuesdays were laundry days, and they loved helping with loading the washer and unloading the dryer. Online grocery orders saved us time, and the boys enjoyed bringing in groceries and stocking drinks in the refrigerator. Picking up their own toys and putting them away when not in use became habitual. At bedtime, we sang nursery rhymes together until they fell asleep, and then I'd read for my courses and write to stay on track.

Involving them in our routine kept them busy and engaged. With their love and constant support, we not only survived but thrived.

I learned to celebrate all achievements and milestones as a family

Being recognized as one of 17 outstanding students out of a graduating class of over 200 is an honor. It recognizes the nights of hard work and determination. But more than that, I'm proud that my sons are polite and mannerable. At ages 2 and 3, they can identify most of the alphabet, count and identify numbers beyond 20, recognize primary colors and shapes, know the careers of people in their neighborhood, their names, my name, our address, and more.

For us, this degree represents countless nights balancing deadlines with their growth and development milestones — from first steps to first assessments, from my endless chapters of reading to their bedtime stories, from practicum hours to scheduled playdates. We made it work.

I set a goal to finish what I started for them. In the end, we did this together.

• Silent layoffs and quiet firing appear to be on the rise.
• The trend aims to minimize negative company traction but risks breaking employee trust.
• Experts warn quietly getting rid of employees can create PR disasters and harm company morale.

"Quiet quitting" came and went. Then there was "grumpy staying."

But the latest workplace trends — "silent layoffs" and "quiet firing" — could be the most harmful to date.

Silent layoffs occur when a company provides staff with severance packages but asks them to keep quiet about the details of their exit.

Quiet firing or quiet quitting, meanwhile, is a subtle move by bosses to make a role less appealing, motivating workers to quit rather than forcing them out through layoffs.

Experts warn that both can create PR disasters and harm company morale.

A cautionary tale

The most recent high-profile example of silent layoffs is PwC, a UK-based accounting firm that launched a voluntary severance program earlier this year.

According to the Financial Times, PwC asked employees not to disclose that they had received a settlement and advised them what to write in their goodbye emails to colleagues.

A spokesperson for PwC told FT that the voluntary lay-offs were implemented to "respond to changing client demand, attrition rates, and new opportunities."

"Through limited targeted voluntary severance, we can continue to recruit at entry level and where different skills are needed," the statement said.

PwC declined to comment when contacted by Business Insider.

Amit Rawal, a management lecturer at City University of London's Bayes Business School, told BI that silent layoffs have become "increasingly popular across larger corporations."

The goal of silent layoffs is likely to minimize the amount of negative traction the company receives. Eloise Skinner, a psychotherapist who focuses on workplace well-being, told BI that this strategy can be successful for a business if it's kept under the radar.

"Theoretically, by keeping layoffs relatively low-profile, trust in the business — from stakeholders and existing employees — can be retained, and restructurings can happen without excessive external analysis," Skinner said.

But if the news is leaked, like in PwC's case, the trust is broken — both for current employees and the general public.

Quiet firing

Silent layoffs were made illegal across the US in February 2023 as part of the National Labor Relations Act. According to CNN, the ruling was enforced by the National Labor Relations Board, an independent federal agency that sets out regulations most businesses — with the exception of railroads and airlines — must abide by.

Lucas Botzen, an HR expert and CEO at Rivermate, told BI that the ruling stops businesses from creating nondisclosure agreements or any other kind of agreements that would prevent an "employee or employer from enjoying certain rights that are bestowed on them by law, such as speaking out against unlawful practices or discrimination."

But companies in the US are still finding ways to quietly cut employees by making their roles less appealing.

As BI previously reported, technology firm Dell in February ordered hybrid employees to return to the office three days a week regardless of where they live. Workers who choose to be fully remote will face limited career progression, an anonymous source told The Register.

In November, Amazon decided that employees may have their promotions blocked if they didn't come into the office for three days a week.

"Subtly encouraging someone to leave is seen as the easier option," Suzanne Horne, a partner in employment law at legal firm Paul Hasting, told the BBC in 2022. "If the employee eventually resigns, it's the 'no-fault approach': severance doesn't need to be paid, conflict is avoided and both parties are ultimately happy."

'A PR disaster waiting to happen'

Experts told BI that quietly getting rid of employees could easily backfire when employees opt to fight back and speak out.

These tactics "breed mistrust, tarnish a company's reputation, and can lead to uncontrolled leaks of sensitive information," said Evan Nierman, founder of PR firm Red Banyan and author of "The Cancel Culture Curse."

"When transparency is sacrificed, the rumor mill takes over, creating a narrative of fear and instability," he said.

Dan Buckley is an HR expert and CEO of Cognexo, an AI-led platform that helps boost the employee experience. Speaking to BI over email, Buckley said silent lay-offs are "usually a futile attempt to maintain morale among remaining employees and manage their brand."

"Open communication is crucial, and anything less invites suspicion and erodes brand integrity," Nierman said.

"Ultimately, the cost of trying to silence your former employees will outweigh the short-term benefits of secrecy."

When it comes to quiet firing, Horne told the BBC that it can create an "us versus them" mentality. "You have the engaged employees, and then those just quietly left there, sometimes without their knowledge," she said. "It doesn't create an inclusive or high-performance workplace culture."