Justin Sullivan/Getty, Tom Williams/Getty, Tyler Le/BI
Michael Cohen is on the witness stand at Donald Trump's hush-money trial in New York.
He is the key witness behind prosecutors' "election conspiracy" theory.
Cohen began by describing an allegedly conspiratorial hey-day before the two men hated each other.
Michael Cohen testified at the former president's criminal hush-money trial Monday that Donald Trump warned about "a lot of women coming forward" before he announced his presidential run.
"You know when this comes out," Cohen said, quoting Trump while on the witness stand in a downtown Manhattan courtroom, "just be aware there's going to be a lot of women coming forward."
Cohen, Trump's personal-attorney-turned-nemesis, told jurors that Trump gave the warning in 2015, before he announced his presidential run.
It may be hard to believe, but 10 years before he coined the online taunt "Donald 'Von ShitzInPants," Cohen saw Trump as his co-conspirator bestie.
That's the story Cohen told jurors after taking the stand at Trump's hush-money trial on Monday.
When Trump asked him to work as his attorney at the Trump Organization, "I was honored," testified Cohen, who once boasted he'd take a bullet for the GOP-frontrunner.
"It was fantastic," Cohen testified Monday of his decade working for Trump, calling the Trump Organization "a big family."
"Working for him, especially during those 10 years, was an amazing experience in many, many ways," Cohen told the jury.
Prosecutors have been striving all trial to cast Cohen as the loyal top lieutenant who conspired with mastermind Trump and National Enquirer editor David Pecker to change the course of the 2016 election.
The three men met at Trump Tower in August, 2015, soon after Trump announced his run for office, prosecutors say.
With Trump at the helm, they hatched a plan. The Enquirer would smear Trump's opponents, write favorable stories about him, and "catch" negative, salacious stories that could damage the campaign.
Trump is on trial for allegedly falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 hush-money payment that buried one of those salacious stories — porn star Stormy Daniels' tale of an unpleasant, one-night fling at a Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament in 2006.
Cohen held a unique role in Trump's life, acting as a "fixer" and following in the footsteps of the hard-charging personal attorney who worked for Trump earlier in his life, the political operative and mob lawyer Roy Cohn.
Cohen did not work in the Trump Organization's general counsel office. He reported directly to Trump, and often took care of personal matters. On Monday, Cohen testified about an incident where he got a taxi cab driver to pay for repairs after hitting Trump's limousine.
Trump has tried to distance himself from his personal lawyer ever since the FBI first raided Cohen's residence in 2018.
At the trial, his attorneys have also tried to downplay his central role in Trump's life. Jeff McConney, the longtime corporate controller for the Trump Organization, appeared to give a deep sigh when he was first asked about Cohen on the witness stand.
"He said he was a lawyer," McConney said, to some laughter in the courtroom.
Hope Hicks, Trump's communications director at the Trump Organization, 2016 campaign, and White House administration, agreed with his lawyer that Cohen was "not helpful" at times and "went rogue."
"I used to say that he liked to call himself a 'fixer' or 'Mr. Fix It,' and it was only because he first broke it that he was able to come and fix it," Hicks testified.
One of Cohen's roles included shaping the perception of Trump in the press, trying to keep negative stories out of the papers. He said he lied and bullied people to please Trump.
"The only thing that was on my mind was to accomplish a task to make him happy," Cohen said.
Prosecutors said Friday that Cohen is the second-to-last witness in their case, which they expect will conclude this week.
Trump's lawyers have said they will call two defense witnesses. They have not said if one of those witnesses will be Trump himself, but the former president has said he will take the stand.
Cohen's time on the stand there was highly damaging.
He testified that Trump would set a highly-inflated, target number for his net worth on annual financial statements that banks used to lend Trump money.
Cohen said he and the Trump Organization's then-CFO would falsely "reverse engineer" the supporting data to hit that target net-worth goal.
Maybe a car hit an electricity-distribution pole or a falling branch took down a power line during a storm. It probably took at least a few minutes, maybe hours, before your power turned back on.
Most likely, that's because workers at your local utility first had to assess how to restore your power. Then dispatchers had to drive to the nearby switches that control the flow of energy and manually flip them until everyone's lights were back on.
Not in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Instead, software automatically sends commands to smart switches throughout the system, rerouting the flow of electricity to restore power in seconds.
The electric utility in Chattanooga, EPB, has invested $280 million in creating one of the smartest power grids in the country. It has this self-healing system and manages energy more efficiently than traditional grids, reduces carbon emissions, and saves customers money on their electricity bills.
"They are an example of people who are looking forward to say: We see technology coming," Kevin Schneider, the chief engineer studying power systems at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, told Business Insider. "It is a challenge. It will be expensive, but we view it as less expensive and less challenging than doing nothing for the next 10 years and then trying to catch up."
Nationwide, our power systems are in trouble. The infrastructure is aging and outdated, costing consumers billions a year in higher energy bills. Moreover, the aging grid is not ready for the barrage of increasingly severe weather that the climate crisis is bringing, nor the incoming surge of renewable energy and battery storage as the US moves toward the Biden-Harris administration's goal to achieve a carbon-pollution-free grid by 2035.
"Much of our grid infrastructure is 40, 50, 60-plus years old," Joe Rand, an energy policy researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told BI. "And so it is in need of upgrading and maintenance."
Smarter grids, like Chattanooga's, are just part of what it will take to modernize the American grid in the coming decades. They can deliver electricity in a "cleaner, more efficient, faster way," Joshua Rhodes, a research scientist studying smart grids at the University of Texas at Austin, told BI.
Offshore wind farms are one of the growing areas of renewable energy. There are almost 30 offshore wind projects in progress from Maine to North Carolina.
And this year is off to a solid start. South Fork Wind — New York's first offshore wind farm — began powering homes in March. And the Edwards & Sanborn project, the US's largest solar energy and energy storage project in California, came online in January.
Renewable energy is not only cleaner than fossil fuels but also often less expensive.
"In many parts of the United States, wind and or solar are basically the cheapest ways that we can generate electricity," Rand said.
But we have a long way to go to reach 100% clean electricity by 2035. Renewables are intermittent energy sources. Unlike fossil fuels, the amount of energy they generate fluctuates. But our grid system wasn't designed to handle that variation.
Plugging intermittent energy sources into this outdated grid network can cause problems, such as energy imbalances that exceed capacity and trigger outages, Philip Odonkor, an assistant professor in the School of Systems and Enterprises at Stevens Institute of Technology, told BI.
So what's happened is a bottleneck: Renewable projects are generating energy but with limited ways of getting it to towns and cities. At the end of 2023, 930 gigawatts of power — enough to power roughly 171 million homes — were waiting to connect to the grid.
To achieve zero-emissions electricity by 2035, the US needs to revamp the grid with up to 10,100 miles of new transmission lines that can transport renewable energy from point A to point B. The Midwest grid operator, Midcontinent Independent System Operator, has approved the country's largest transmission investment to date, totaling $10.3 billion, to improve how it delivers electricity to 45 million people across the Midwest.
But in general, construction on new high-voltage transmission has slowed to a trickle over the past decade, Rand said. In 2013, the US completed over 3,000 miles of transmission projects. Last year, it completed 251 miles.
It's not economic or technology barriers holding these projects back, Rand said: "It's institutional, regulatory, and social issues."
Breaking down barriers
The US grid isn't designed for fluctuating renewable energy, so much of it goes to waste because clean-energy projects can't connect to the grid.
Al Seib/Getty Images
When South Fork Wind began operations in March, it was a major milestone but also years behind schedule. Economic headwinds struck in 2020 with the Trump administration's moratorium on offshore wind, which stalled progress for two years.
"The clearest delay for South Fork was losing those years of progress," said Julia Bovey, the director of external affairs for offshore wind at Eversource Energy, which co-owns South Fork Wind with Ørsted.
Other obstacles stand in the way of clean energy — the biggest being the lengthy permitting process and interconnection queue delays. The permitting process for renewable-energy projects involves massive amounts of paperwork and can take three or more years to finish.
In the end, about 80% don't make it to completion, and those that do can get stuck in the clogged interconnection queue for as long as five more years. By the end of 2023, almost 12,000 projects were in the queue, waiting to be connected to the grid.
"It's a seriously complex process with so many stakeholders," Bovey said.
South Fork Wind was the first utility-scale offshore-wind project in the US to make it through this process. In doing so, it revealed a lot of issues that could be fixed through standardization and better agency coordination, Bovey said. But it also proved that bringing offshore wind online was possible.
"Every hope is that this has paved the way for future projects to be cheaper, bigger, faster, and just as responsible — just as well sited," Bovey said.
On the whole, Paul Denholm, a principal analyst and senior research fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is more skeptical of the country's prospects. We'll be closer to a 50% renewable-power grid by 2035 with the way things are going, he told BI.
Right now, we lack the federal policy necessary to solve regulatory and permitting delays, clear the interconnection queue, and drive rapid infrastructure upgrades and technology implementation, Denholm said.
For example, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator's transmission investment, while noteworthy, took 11 years to get approval, and its next series of approvals have been delayed.
"So from that standpoint, it's pretty clear that we're not on a path to get to 100%," Denholm said.
There's no going back
The US's demand for electricity is growing, with more electric vehicles, data centers, and heat pumps.
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
Regardless of how quickly the US gets there, we're headed for a clean-energy revolution. The federal government has invested nearly $100 billion in clean energy through its Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.
Old infrastructure must be modernized across the country because the production and use of energy are going to get much more complicated.
Nationwide, the grid draws power from about 12,000 power plants. Over the next 20 years or so, it will have to balloon to incorporate millions of small, distributed energy-generation resources, from hydropower dams to offshore wind farms to rooftop solar panels.
Then there will be the batteries, which store wind and solar energy until a rainy day. Meanwhile, newly electrified cars and heating systems will increase energy demand.
Eventually, home appliances may tap into data from the grid — how much people are drawing energy from it, how much carbon it's emitting, and how much electricity costs at any given hour — to help you make smart decisions about when to wash your dishes or heat your house.
"Historically it was meant to go one way," Schneider said of the grid. "Now we've got solar that pushes power back in. We've got EVs. We've got new loads like heat pumps. So the edge is getting so much more complicated with a lot more stakeholders in there."
Smart grids are essential for integrating all that new stuff. The rollout of smart-grid technologies, renewable projects, and new transmission lines will happen piecemeal across the country, at different paces in different places, depending on policies, utility finances, and the economy — high up-front costs can be a major deterrent. However, the return on investment can be even greater.
Take Chattanooga. EPB spent $280 million to refurbish its power system with smart technologies. In its first 10 years, the project generated $2.7 billion worth of economic value by creating jobs, attracting businesses, and reducing customers' electricity bills, an EPB-funded study found.
MISO foresees a similar return on its $10.3 billion investment. It estimates that investment will bring $37.3 billion of value for customers by transporting cheaper, more reliable power. So the benefits can outweigh the cost.
"As we move forward, things are becoming more complex," Schneider said. "And we need to find ways to work together collaboratively. Because no one group or organization has all the answers, it's going to be a lot of different things coming together."
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Welcome back! Take extra care to pick the right outfit today, because it could affect your mood. It's called "dopamine dressing," and it's all about feeling better by wearing your favorite styles.
Opinions fluctuate on the economy, but one group has a decidedly strong take.
In the subreddit r/economiccollapse, users are preparing for a Soviet Union-type fall of the US economy, writes Business Insider's Jennifer Sor. From investing in defense stocks to refusing to hold any savings in cash, the economic glass isn't half empty in the eyes of these users — it's almost dry.
The movement is gaining popularity, with the subreddit's membership growing 80% from the end of 2021 to the end of 2023.
Even passing interest in the potential downfall of the economy is on the rise. Searches for "stock market crash" and "economic crash" rose 17% and 15%, respectively, according to data Jennifer obtained.
There's an element of alarmism here, but the general pessimism mirrors how many Americans feel about the economy.
The stock market's been relatively strong, but there are some caveats. We have to thank AI for a good chunk of that. And considering the healthy amount of exaggerating companies have done to get on the AI bandwagon, it's easy to see how it could all come crashing down.
Ok, but jobs are still good, right? The unemployment rate is incredibly low!
Yes and no. Job growth slowed a lot in April, and it's hard for certain demographics, like high earners, to switch jobs.
Well, at least interest-rate cuts will provide some relief!
Yes, inflation is back. But there's still a path toward "economic nirvana." Neil Dutta, head of economics at Renaissance Macro Research, argues concerns over inflation are overdone. In fact, his reading of the data is that a soft landing is still in the cards.
An investing legend dies. Billionaire hedge fund manager Jim Simons died Friday at the age of 86. Renaissance Technologies, the fund he founded in 1982, is one of the most successful hedge funds in history with 66% in annualized returns (before fees) over a 30-year period.
The US-China rivalry could be a game changer for Big Tech. Sources told BI that mega-cap earnings growth will likely come under pressure from tensions between Washington and Beijing. Apple and Tesla are among the firms that could be particularly vulnerable.
3 things in tech
Alex Wong/Getty Images, STR / Contributor/Getty Images, Stephane De Sakutin/Contributor/Getty Images, Abanti Chowdhury/BI
How Mark Zuckerberg turned against the news. After the 2016 election, Zuckerberg held regular discussions about how to make news on Facebook more trustworthy and reliable. There was talk of buying a news outlet, or Facebook starting its own. But the CEO has since turned on the industry — thanks in part to cost, personal animosities, and Rupert Murdoch, insiders say.
A new crop of startups wants you to make friends — IRL. In an attempt to solve Gen Z and millennial loneliness, a new wave of companies is trying to help people make friends the old-fashioned way: through in-person events and meetups.
OpenAI is teasing something big. CEO Sam Altman promised last week that the ChatGPT developer will announce "new stuff" that "feels like magic" today. He shot down rumors that OpenAI is poised to release a search engine of its own, but didn't deny that the company is working on a search product.
3 things in business
Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI
Credit cards are getting smarter. Credit-card fraud protection is still far from perfect, but banks are getting much better at discerning which payments are fraudulent and which are legit. That's thanks to the astounding amount of data companies have collected on their customers.
One man's mission to legalize MDMA. For decades, Rick Doblin and MAPS, the nonprofit he founded, have been pushing to legalize medical MDMA. Now, the FDA could issue its approval as soon as this summer. However, insiders have begun voicing concerns about possible ethical lapses in clinical trials and questioning whether MAPS can effectively lead the movement into the future.
These people beat the millennial odds. The unique economic circumstances of the past few years have helped some members of the generation to surge ahead financially. Millennials that managed to buy real estate before the start of the pandemic have tended to be the big winners.
Elon Musk met with Argentine president Javier Milei last week.
Handout
Elon Musk seems to be courting Argentine President Javier Milei to secure lithium supplies.
Argentina has the world's second-largest lithium reserves, which are crucial for EV batteries.
The pair met up last month and have spoken about Tesla's investment opportunities in lithium.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been cozying up to Argentine president Javier Milei — and lithium may be one reason why.
Argentina has the world's second-biggest reserves of the metal used in batteries for electric cars.
Milei told the TV show "La Noche De Mirtha" in December that Musk had called him and said he was "extremely interested" in lithium.
Musk plans for Tesla to build cheaper cars. The company said last month it will launch "new and more affordable products" earlier than expected, after previously mooting the second half of 2025.
But those ambitions partly rely on Tesla getting enough lithium supply for its EV batteries at a decent price.
Lithium supply security has become a major priority for firms like Tesla. Lithium production outside the US rose by 23% in 2023 from the previous year due to strong demand from the battery market, according to data from the United States Geological Survey.
Tesla broke ground on a Texas lithium refinery last May, which it said would open this year, Reuters reported at the time. Musk said at the ceremony: "As we look ahead a few years, a fundamental choke point in the advancement of electric vehicles is the availability of battery-grade lithium."
Musk's courting of Milei could suggest he thinks getting lithium from Argentina is an answer to that problem.
He met the Argentine leader for the first time last month at Tesla's factory in Austin. Argentina's ambassador to the US, Gerardo Wethein, told Argentine media that the pair talked about Tesla's "investment opportunities" in lithium, the Financial Times reported.
Musk met up with Milei again last week, shared a photo of them on X, and later told his followers: "I recommend investing in Argentina."
The far-right Milei won last November's presidential election in a victory welcomed by the likes of Donald Trump. He's vowed to fix Argentina's battered economy, where inflation is running at about 300%, but austerity measures have triggered widespread strikes.
Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
US average rent rose to just under $2,000 per month in April, Zillow reports.
Tenants now need to earn 36% more than they did in 2019 to afford a typical rent.
While rent growth continues, multifamily construction has softened its advance.
Renters just can't catch a break, with April's average US rent rising to just a hair below $2,000.
According to the latest Zillow report, prospective tenants now need to earn $79,889 to spend no more than 30% of their income on rent — a common threshold used to mark affordability. That's $21,197 more than in 2019, or a 36% pricing upsurge.
In this five-year timespan, wages haven't been able to keep pace with US rent growth, which has appreciated 1.5 times faster than income, the real estate firm said. Since the pandemic's start, rent has increased 31.4%, though income has only grown 23% through February.
This trend still holds true in most cities, such as New York, Boston, Cincinnati, and Buffalo, Zillow added in a separate report. On a monthly basis, Oklahoma City was the only metro area to see rents fall in April.
But the sector is showing some slight improvement. Although rents continue to climb, strong multifamily construction has softened upside momentum, providing some relief amid a severe housing shortage. Supply has previously stood so low that half of tenants spent over 30% of income on rent, Harvard researchers reported in January.
Yet last year, national rent growth was finally eclipsed by wage growth, both rising 3.4% and 4.3%, respectively.
Zillow also found that typical multifamily rent outpaced single-family homes on a monthly basis, reversing a pattern that first emerged in July.
Still, the surge in rental pricing has locked many tenants out of potential homeownership. And while a financial strain for many, renting is expected to remain much cheaper than buying for a long time, according to a CBRE note from March.
Homebuyers have faced similar challenges as renters, navigating a market that is burdened by low inventory. Added headwinds also include high mortgage rates and rising insurance costs in some parts of the country.
According to Redfin, the median US monthly housing payment has swung to a new record high, hitting $2,894 in the four weeks through May 5.
Kykuit, a 40-room mansion in Sleepy Hollow, New York, belonged to the Rockefeller family.
It was built in 1913 for John D. Rockefeller, founder of the Standard Oil Company.
The property features an art gallery, sprawling gardens, and a collection of vintage cars.
At the height of his success, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil fortune comprised 1.5% of the gross domestic product of the United States, according to the Library of Congress. He was the world's first billionaire, with a net worth of $1.4 billion in 1937 (around $29.5 billion today), and the richest individual in the world at the time, according to Harvard Business School.
Kykuit (pronounced "kai-kit"), a 40-room Classical Revival-style villa in Sleepy Hollow, New York, was his idyllic seasonal oasis about 30 miles north of New York City.
Built in 1913, Kykuit belonged to four generations of the Rockefeller family before former New York governor and US Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller left it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation after his death in 1977, according to the Hudson River Valley Institute. The estate opened to the public in 1991.
Today, visitors can tour the home and its lush gardens overlooking the Hudson River through Historic Hudson Valley. Tours are available from May through November and range from $25 to $75 depending on length. In May 2023, I took the Classic Tour, which lasted two hours and 15 minutes and cost $45 (the price has since increased to $55 for one adult ticket).
Take a look inside.
Tours of Kykuit leave from the Visitor Center, where I perused a gift shop with books about the Rockefellers and crafts by local artisans.
The gift shop at Kykuit.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
I checked in at the front desk and received a wristband.
My wristband.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
A shuttle bus transports tour groups from the Visitors Center to the mansion — it's a quick five-minute drive.
The bus takes visitors to the mansion.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
As I disembarked the bus, I felt transported back in time by Kykuit's Classical architecture, which featured Roman gods, and its serene garden landscapes.
Kykuit Mansion.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
The lush wisteria growing up the sides of the mansion was imported from China in 1820, according to our tour guide.
Wisteria growing at Kykuit.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
Our tour guide also shared that Tiffany's created the glass torch lamps in the front yard.
The front yard of Kykuit Mansion.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
Sculptures from Nelson A. Rockefeller's vast modern art collection decorated the front porch.
The front porch of Kykuit.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
The raised step at the entrance was designed for the Rockefellers to easily disembark from horse-drawn carriages.
The entrance to Kykuit Mansion.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
Our first stop inside the house was the Office, which featured a copy of a 1767 portrait of Benjamin Franklin that hangs in the Green Room of the White House.
The Office in Kykuit.
Historic Hudson Valley
I could picture the Rockefellers hosting fancy gatherings in the Music Room, the largest room in the home. It used to contain an organ, but the original grand piano remains.
The Music Room in Kykuit.
Historic Hudson Valley
However, John D. Rockefeller and his wife, Laura, were devout Baptists, so they didn't serve alcohol while entertaining guests in the Dining Room.
The Dining Room in Kykuit.
Historic Hudson Valley
In the China Room, a set of dishes from Nelson Rockefeller's time as President Gerald Ford's vice president was embossed with "E Pluribus Unum" — "Out of Many, One" — which appears on the US' Great Seal.
The China Room in Kykuit.
Historic Hudson Valley
A portrait of Abby Rockefeller, the wife of John D. Rockefeller Jr., hung in the Alcove with standing lamps designed by 20th-century Swiss sculptors the Giacometti brothers.
The Alcove in Kykuit.
Historic Hudson Valley
Kykuit's Library functioned as a family room, where the Rockefellers would gather after Sunday lunches, according to our tour guide.
The Library in Kykuit.
Historic Hudson Valley
I was surprised to find a full art gallery in the basement furnished with works by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, collected by Nelson Rockefeller.
An art gallery in the basement of Kykuit.
Historic Hudson Valley
"Kykuit" comes from the Dutch word for "lookout." At 500 feet above sea level, the mansion's terrace provided gorgeous views of the gardens and the Hudson River.
Gardens at Kykuit.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
Architect William Welles Bosworth designed different sections of the gardens to feel like different rooms, our guide said.
Gardens at Kykuit.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
In one area, rows of linden trees were precisely manicured to create an allée, from the French word for "alley."
An allée of trees at Kykuit.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
At every location on the grounds, I could hear the rippling sound of water fountains.
The Tea House on the grounds of Kykuit.
Talia Lakritz/Business Insider
The last stop on the tour was the Rockefeller family's stables and garages, where they kept their stagecoaches and vintage cars.
Vintage cars at Kykuit Mansion.
Brian Haeffele/Historic Hudson Valley
With Kykuit's Classical architecture, impressive art collection, and manicured gardens, I felt like I was visiting a historic villa in Europe.
On a roll, Donaldson parted ways with Night Media and its CEO Reed Duchscher, Semafor reported on May 5. The Dallas-based company would "no longer be his primary talent-management agency," the report said.
Donaldson confirmed the news to Bloomberg, saying he and Duchscher still get on but that it "makes sense" to instead build a team of his own.
Influencer-economy experts are torn on whether Donaldson's move will be widely replicated.
It highlights what happens when influencers get to a stage where they believe they no longer need a buffer between them and traditional media — a dynamic that has long caused tension.
Building on borrowed territory
Nikita Walia, the founder and CEO of Blank Strategy Inc., who has worked in consumer social media since 2012, told Business Insider that Donaldson's decision was evidence "of creators not wanting to build on borrowed territory."
"They want to own their brand connections, they want to own their audience, and they want to make sure they're getting the most they can out of those relationships," she said.
Walia predicted that the future of talent agencies would depend on being able to understand this approach "instead of just being a middleman brokering deals."
Katya Varbanova, an influencer industry expert and CEO of Viral Marketing Stars, told BI that talent agencies are only useful to creators when "they have more influence than you."
"When you're MrBeast, and you are the most powerful YouTube creator, you don't really need them," she said.
Another example of this trend could be the case of Gleam Futures, the pioneering influence-management agency.
Gleam became famous for molding the careers of huge British YouTubers like Zoella, Alfie Deyes, and Jim Chapman — but recently closed its talent arm, which has run since 2010.
Writing for industry outlet The Drum, agency boss Raff McDonald wrote that Gleam was a casualty of the times, upended by creators seeking a more direct link with their audiences.
Agencies and creators, ultimately, have different priorities, Varbanova said.
A creator's focus is "making something epic," Varbanova said, while a talent agency wants to know: "How do I squeeze the most amount of money from this brand?"
This is helpful in a creator's earlier days, freeing them to put all their energy into their content while delegating the business side.
But tensions can rise if creators are constantly pushed toward brand deals they don't believe in.
Donaldson has evolved, Varbanova said, and built multiple businesses, including Feastables and MrBeast Burger. He is now a brand himself.
"He's just taking control of his brand," Varbanova said. "Ultimately, I think he is somebody who values control over money. It's actually how he's been able to grow so much — because he is such a control freak."
There are drawbacks to total control
Courtney Bagby Lupilin, the CEO and founder of Little Red Management, told BI there are drawbacks to MrBeast-style total control.
An in-house team would likely have a narrower network than a talent agency and be able to offer less support with other tasks.
The talent managers who survive will be those who foster individual relationships with all their influencer clients, Lupilin said.
"Don't just be an extension of their brand," she said. "Be a valuable resource they need on their side."
Walia argued that agencies can still be helpful in furthering an influencer's career, but they need to modernize — especially if their clients follow a similar path to Donaldson.
"The middleman relationship of a traditional talent manager doesn't quite fit the times," she said.
A car equpped with Zoox's autonomous driving technology.
Anadolu/Getty Images
Amazon-backed Zoox is under investigation following two crashes involving its self-driving tech.
The NHTSA said two motorcyclists were injured after colliding with Zoox vehicles that braked unexpectedly.
Zoox was bought by Amazon for $1.2 billion in 2020 and plans to launch a robotaxi service.
Another self-driving car company is facing an investigation over safety concerns.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Monday it had opened an investigation into Zoox, which was acquired by Amazon for a reported $1.2 billion in 2020, after two vehicles equipped with the company's self-driving systems collided with motorcyclists after braking unexpectedly. Reuters was first to report the news.
Both crashes resulted in minor injuries, according to the regulator, and the two Toyota Highlander SUVs involved were both operating in an autonomous driving mode in the lead-up to the collision.
Zoox is the latest company to face questions from regulators over the safety of its self-driving technology.
Tesla recalled two million vehicles late last year after the NHTSA found that the company's Autopilot system did not do enough to prevent misuse. The Elon Musk-run automaker is now facing a further investigation into whether that recall was adequate.
The company has been testing it in California, with the ambition of launching an autonomous ride-hailing service in the future.
However, no commercial release date for the vehicle has been announced, and Zoox is currently under an additional NHTSA investigation into its self-certification tests for the robotaxi model.
Zoox did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside normal working hours.
Westchester County Executive George Latimer is giving Rep. Jamaal Bowman the fight of his political life.
John Minchillo/AP Photo; Lev Radin/Getty Images; Alyssa Powell/BI
Rep. Jamaal Bowman is in the fight of his political life ahead of the June 25 primary.
He's been outraised by George Latimer, a local politician backed by pro-Israel groups.
A Bowman loss would be the biggest setback for the left since the end of Bernie Sanders's 2020 bid.
It was a bright, chilly spring day in the coastal village of Port Chester, New York, where Rep. Jamaal Bowman and the man who could run him out of Congress — Westchester County Executive George Latimer — found themselves in the same small public park.
Local workers and labor activists were there to commemorate Worker's Memorial Day, an international day of remembrance for those who have died or been injured on the job. As Bowman delivered a booming 4-minute speech over the din of passing cars and the screeching of nearby construction, Latimer stood silently beside State Sen. Shelley Mayer, one of a litany of local politicians and Democratic Party officials who have backed the county executive over the congressman.
As a procession of speakers took turns assailing local developers and contractors for sidelining organized labor, exploiting undocumented workers, and failing to safeguard against hazardous workplace conditions, Bowman placed his arm around mine and another reporter's shoulders and brought us in.
"My opponent," Bowman whispered slowly, as Latimer stood just a few yards away, "received an award from developers."
Later that afternoon, sitting in the back hatch of his car outside a high school in Mount Vernon, the congressman suggested that Latimer is running a racist campaign against him. The county executive, whose primary slogan is "results over rhetoric," has at times sought to highlight Bowman's boisterous personal style as a distraction from the issues that the district is facing. During his current term, the congressman has had public, attention-getting spats at the Capitol with the likes of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, and George Santos.
"That's racist dog-whistle shit," Bowman told me. "Historically, Black men haven't been allowed to be loud, Black women either, right? Certain groups aren't allowed to be loud, we're not allowed to be outspoken, we're supposed to be quiet and thankful that the white man has even given us an opportunity to not be slaves."
Bowman speaks in Port Chester on April 25.
Bryan Metzger
"He's coming up with a rationale on identity because he doesn't have a substantive enough argument to justify [his reelection]," Latimer told me over Zoom the following week. "He's fishing for an angle here that doesn't exist."
Bowman's primary has clear national implications: He may be the single most endangered member of the progressive "Squad," along with Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, and either of their defeats would mark the biggest electoral setback for the left since the end of Sen. Bernie Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign. Owing to Bowman's views on Israel, deep-pocketed groups — including a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) — are expected to spend tens of millions of dollars to unseat the congressman ahead of the June 25 primary. If polling is to be believed, Bowman is already in deep trouble: an internal campaign poll showed the congressman ahead by just 1 point, while another poll commissioned by Democratic Majority for Israel showed him trailing Latimer by 17 points.
"He was recruited by AIPAC to run against us because we called for a permanent cease-fire," Bowman said of Latimer. "He's literally running on the war crimes of Benjamin Netanyahu."
Bowman at an anti-AIPAC rally in Queens, New York in March.
Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
But it's not just Bowman's pro-ceasefire position that has imperiled him. Since September — when he infamously pulled a fire alarm in a House office building — Bowman has faced a rolling series of controversies, particularly his dismissal of reports of sexual violence on October 7 as "propaganda" and the surfacing of his past history of dabbling in 9/11 conspiracy theories. He has since backtracked and apologized on both counts, but also insists that they aren't a big deal.
"I'm like, are y'all serious? Y'all don't have much of anything present-day, so you bring up a blog I wrote 10 years ago," Bowman said of the 9/11 conspiracy theories. "That stuff never comes up. What comes up most of all, is 'thank you for your support of Palestinians, thank you for the work you do, we hate that [Latimer's] running.'"
Bowman's belief that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza — while increasingly accepted by most of the Democratic base — has not helped his reelection prospects in a district home to an estimated 110,000 Jewish people, many of whom remain supportive of Israel and repulsed by the congressman's views. In January, Bowman lost the support of the liberal pro-Israel group J Street over his rhetoric on Israel.
But if Bowman's worried, he's not showing it. When I visited the district in late April, he told me that the campaign has felt "similar to the energy that we felt in 2020," when he first unseated longtime Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
'The fire alarm incident is troubling'
George Latimer has a deep history as an elected official in Westchester, beginning with a stint on the city council of Rye — one of the New York state's wealthiest communities — in 1987. He then served a 13-year stint in the county legislature, eight years in the state assembly, and another five in the state senate until 2017, when he defeated Republican Rob Astorino to become county executive, a position akin to that of a governor in a county of roughly one million people.
Latimer in White Plains, New York in December.
Jeenah Moon/Washington Post via Getty Images
Latimer insists that his decision to challenge Bowman was reluctant, that he saw his congressman as trying to be the "spokesperson for a national movement" rather than focusing on the needs of the district. "The elected congressman is not going to be the secretary of state," Latimer told me. In fact, the county executive largely sought to downplay the national impact he might have as a member of Congress, saying that there's "not going to be a George Latimer climate change bill" and that he "won't be there long enough to become a committee chairman, let's be honest."
Like Bowman, Latimer has a blunt and direct speaking style that sometimes leades to gaffes, such as his invocation of the racist lynching of Emmett Till when commenting on the sexual misconduct allegations against then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2021. When asked about Bowman's charge of racism, Latimer pointed to his appointment of Ken Jenkins, a Black man, as his deputy county executive. "No racist person does that," he said. Latimer has also taken heat during this primary for accusing Bowman of "taking money from Hamas," an apparent reference to the fact that some organizers of a Bowman fundraising event characterized the October 7 Hamas attack as an act of resistance.
In contrast to Bowman's characterization of Latimer as merely an AIPAC recruit, the county executive said that he'd been approached as far back as the spring of 2023 about running, both by members of the Jewish community and "people in the business community who felt that [Bowman] really wasn't an advocate" for them. Latimer indicated that he would be far more of a bipartisan legislator than Bowman, throwing out the names of Republicans like Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania or Tom Kean of New Jersey as potential partners on flooding issues. "I would try, in a mature way, to have good relations with as many people as I could," he said.
"I have to tell you that the fire alarm incident is troubling," Latimer said, unprompted, during our conversation. "He pulled the alarm purposefully. It's clear, it's clear."
The congressman has long maintained that the September 30 incident, which came as House Democrats were seeking more time to review a stop-gap government funding bill before voting on it, was an accident. He has since paid a $1,000 fine, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of pulling a fire alarm, and was censured by the House — including three fellow Democrats — in December. Latimer argued that the security camera footage of the incident showed that Bowman was "willing to just flat-out misrepresent what he did."
"It doesn't really come up at all. I mean, the fire alarm thing, people almost immediately knew it was BS in terms of how it was being blown up," Bowman told me. "Honestly, anyone who's going to vote against me because of that, versus my record, it's like, okay, you weren't really a supporter anyway."
Bowman's record is also a topic of contention: the congressman claims to have brought over $1 billion in federal funding back to the district. While over $40 million came in the form of so-called "earmark" funding in annual government spending bills that were directly secured by Bowman, the vast majority of that sum came from federal funding streams and grants where his involvement was far less direct, as local outlets have noted. "He hasn't delivered anything like a billion dollars to the district," said Latimer. "That's a bogus claim."
Bowman and Latimer have known each other for nearly four years, first meeting for coffee after the congressman's 2020 primary victory. But despite serving the same area, both indicated that they have little relationship with one another. "I'm not trying to be snide, I just don't see him much out in most of the Westchester community," said Latimer. "It hasn't been much of a relationship, not necessarily bad, but just hasn't existed much over the last two years, maybe more." Bowman, for his part, said Latimer's team was "always lukewarm at best, and never really reciprocated the genuine love and respect that I had for him, and all my colleagues when I engage them."
'AIPAC is not a racist organization'
It goes without saying that Israel is the defining issue of the race. Bowman's call for a cease-fire in the days after October 7 and his continued criticism of Israel — including voting against a recent tranche of military aid — enraged plenty of his constituents and helped catalyze Latimer's campaign. The congressman has frequently pointed to a March poll commissioned by the Working Families Party, a progressive group that supports Bowman, showing that 69% of the district's residents support a cease-fire.
When I asked Latimer about his own views on Israel's war in Gaza, he declined to outline the circumstances under which he may support conditioning military aid, saying that he simply trusts President Joe Biden and wants him to have the "maximum amount of flexibility" to deal with the war without congressional restrictions. "I get very frustrated when I hear people talking about what Israel is doing, what Israel is doing, what Israel is doing, and we don't talk about what Hamas has done," Latimer said. "Do I think Israel could do better? Everybody could do better."
Latimer at a menorah lighting in White Plains, New York in December.
Jeenah Moon/Washington Post via Getty Images
A central character — and boogeyman — in this primary is AIPAC, the decades-old bipartisan advocacy group whose staunchly pro-Israel positions are increasingly to the right of a Democratic Party that's grown more sympathetic toward Palestinians. Progressives frequently note that AIPAC supports Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 election results (though plenty of other bipartisan groups and PACs do the same thing). Furthermore, AIPAC's "United Democracy Project" super PAC is sustained in large part by multimillion-dollar contributions from Republican megadonors, even as the PAC spends mostly in Democratic primaries — most often against non-white progressive candidates.
"It's an attempt by the megadonors who prop up Donald Trump and the MAGA movement to attack and defeat a handful of Black and brown progressive incumbents," Justice Democrats spokesman Usamah Adrabi told me of AIPAC, deriding Latimer as an "empty suit that is just a vessel for Republican billionaires to attack and malign Jamaal Bowman."
A little more than a third of Latimer's contributions have been routed through AIPAC, and a Working Families Party analysis provided to Business Insider shows that hundreds of thousands of dollars have flowed to the county executive's congressional campaign from donors who have given mostly to Republicans, including Donald Trump. Latimer told me that he's "always gotten support from Republican people" because of his focus on "getting things done" as an elected official. "Those donors have donated to me primarily because of my position on Israel, not because I'm pro-choice or pro-LGBTQ," he said.
"AIPAC is not a racist organization," Latimer added. "They say that, 'Oh, it goes after Black individuals.' Well, it goes after Squad members, not because they're Black, but because they've been anti-Israel in their various positions."
Latimer has reported raising $3.6 million since he launched his campaign, while Bowman has raised $2.7 million since January 2023. The county executive also boasts far more local financial support: Roughly 70% of Latimer's itemized contributions come from donors in New York state, and roughly half of them are from the district. Meanwhile, just 28.5% of Bowman's itemized contributions come from New York and just 10% come from the district, while a plurality — nearly 31% — come from California.
"He's raising [money] from interests outside the district that are clearly not local," said Latimer. "I'm getting it from people who are local, who don't like him, and want me as an alternative."
'They're not against me just because of my policies on Israel'
Part of what's made the race so contentious is the geography of the district, which spans predominantly-Black communities in the Bronx and Mount Vernon, to more Latino and mixed cities like Yonkers and New Rochelle, to predominantly white and heavily Jewish townships like Scarsdale, Rye, and Harrison. Both men have accused the other of not representing the entirety of the district, and both of them may have a point.
"The district represents the country in a couple of ways," said Bowman, who has long lived in the Bronx. "It's diverse, but it's also segregated as hell." The congressman speaks somewhat dismissively of the wealthier parts of the district that lie deeper into Westchester. "They're not against me just because of my policies on Israel," said Bowman. "I'm also pro-worker over corporations, I have bills that's about taxing the wealthy and making sure corporations pay their fair share."
"He didn't travel into Scarsdale and Harrison and get to know the people there," Latimer said of Bowman. "He focused on a few communities that he felt he could connect to, and he has his relationships there, and he ignored the rest of the district."
Latimer has his own challenges, largely stemming from the fact that he's a white man seeking to unseat a Black incumbent in a majority-minority district. Though he grew up in Mount Vernon, Latimer has long lived in Rye, and the core of his support lies in the district's more affluent communities. "I freely admit that in the Bronx, I'm going from zero to somewhere, because I haven't represented the Bronx," said Latimer. "You know, it's a learning curve."
Bowman addresses students at a high school in Mount Vernon, New York.
Bryan Metzger
But the county executive insists that it's "baloney" to say that he only represents the wealthy parts of the district, ticking off the endorsements he's garnered from Democratic committees in majority-minority communities, his support from a local bus drivers' union — "these are people who live in urban settings, and the way that I've worked with them and dealt with them is absolutely positive" — his work on a Black maternal health initiative, and the work that his county government did to repair Memorial Field, a stadium that's "primarily used by young people and African American young people in Mount Vernon."
It was at Mount Vernon High School where Bowman — a longtime educator who founded a middle school in the Bronx in 2009 — seemed especially in his element. Striding through the halls on his way to the auditorium, he remarked that the school "used to be off the chain," but that a new principal had "really turned it around" in recent years. As he addressed a room full of predominantly-Black students at a "Shark Tank"-esque career education competition, he held up his iPhone while urging them not just to get a job, but to create jobs. "Do you want to work for Apple, or do you want to build and create the next Apple, or the next company that's even better?" asked Bowman. "Do you want to have an iPhone and use it? Or do you want to create a new cellphone no one ever thought of or heard of before?"
Outside the high school, Bowman remarked that "Black women are the biggest barometer" for him when it comes to evaluating some of the missteps he's made, given that "they see me as their son or grandson."
"The biggest thing I get from them is like, stay out of trouble," said Bowman. "Because they remember the civil-rights movement, they know history, they know what happens to us when we get in these positions, and we screw it up."
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