Story of the Week (DR):

‘Merica:

Elon Musk says he'll form the 'America Party' if Trump's 'insane' spending bill passes

Trump says he'll 'look' at deporting Musk as feud reignites

Buffett donates $6B in Berkshire stock to 5 foundations: Lifetime giving tops $60B MM

9.43 million shares to the Gates Foundation

943,384 shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation;

660,366 shares to each of three charities led respectively by his children Howard, Susie, and Peter: the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Sherwood Foundation and NoVo Foundation

Mark Zuckerberg sees 'the beginning of a new era' for humanity in superintelligence

Tech Workers Say They're Rapidly Being Replaced by AI

Burger King to roll out 1,900-calorie 'yokozuna' burger in sumo collab

The 2,590-yen ($18) Baby Body Burger features five flame-grilled beef patties, four slices of bacon and four slices of cheddar cheese

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's Extravagant Wedding Sparks Global Debate on Wealth Inequality

The reportedly $50m affair booked all nine of Venice’s yacht ports, closed parts of the city to the public and forced the relocation of hotel guests to make room for the happy couple.

Though Sánchez claims to be “dedicated to fighting climate change”, and Bezos has called the issue “the biggest threat to our planet”, their guests arrived in the City of Bridges via 96 private jets, the most carbon-intensive mode of transportation.

If Caitlin Clark’s worth a ‘billion’ to WNBA, why is she paid only a fraction of that?

$78,066

Average annual salary for NBA players during the 2024-25 season: approximately $12M

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

DR: Zohran Mamdani’s victory in NYC mayoral primary leaves Wall Street 'alarmed' and 'depressed' MM

MM: EU Regulators Propose Integrating ESG Risks into Stress Tests for Banks, Insurers DR

This might be the realest use of ESG data ever

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

 Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's lavish Venetian wedding by the numbers

Jeff Bezos Planned $5.4 Billion Amazon Stock Sale on Wedding Day

Amazon deploys its 1 millionth robot in a sign of more job automation

Disabled Amazon workers in corporate jobs allege ‘systemic discrimination’

Proxy season

Better than expected, but uncertainty remains: The 2025 US proxy season

Here’s the summary:

The number of shareholder proposals are down in the US

But investor support for the non anti-woke proposals remains steady at around 20% in favor, which is great

No actions by the SEC have increased in number, but not percentage holding steady at 69% rejected, but companies are still listening to investors through engagement

Not in the summary:

NOT SINGLE MENTION OF A DIRECTOR VOTE

Director votes make up 98% of global voting - 98%!  And proxy season is only shareholder proposals and the anti woke?  Are you fucking joking?

No mention of the average approval for directors?

No mention of the rise of activists - this is the most active year for activist investors in recent memory?  Mike Levin has been cataloguing it on the Shareholder Primacy podcast - more activism, larger slates, more wins?

Isn’t the story how ISS and Glass Lewis ignore directors unless there’s an activist involved?  Or that views on how to measure director performance are shifting?

No, the constant story we hear is about the 500 or so shareholder proposals that happen - not the 80,000 active directors that get a vote

Investors are racist

Philippine corporate governance hindered by highly concentrated ownership, OECD says

CONCENTRATED corporate ownership, particularly among family owned listed firms, undermines corporate governance, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said.

“These ownership structures often blur the lines between ownership and management, which can lead to the appointment of successors based on family ties or loyalty rather than qualifications, increasing the risk of poor leadership and weak oversight,

It said such controlling shareholders may choose to benefit themselves at the expense of minority shareholders through related-party transactions, asset transfers or the appropriation of company resources for personal or familial use.

The OECD said corporate governance weaknesses and concentrated ownership structures continue to weigh on investor confidence in some Asian markets

I read the Sweden report - Sweden is majority dual class shareholders held by foundations, with power concentrated amongst white men even though they mandate 40% women on boards

Minority shareholders basically have no real rights, as the companies are owned by a web of family and foundation interests - but OECD said:

… a shareholder with practical majority control of the votes in the company can exert significant control, but also that efficient governance requires there to be a shareholder, or a coalition of shareholders, that monitors the company, engages with the board, and proposes and votes on important matters such as the election of board directors. Dual class share structures have been allowed in Swedish law for over a century to facilitate such engagement.

Extensive individual shareholder rights, allowing any shareholder (regardless of the size of their holdings) to add items to the agenda of the general shareholder meeting, to ask the board questions at the general shareholder meeting, and to challenge a decision by the general shareholder meeting in court (with the court being able to invalidate a decision and even replace it with another).

So it’s ok in Sweden for the majority of the market to be controlled because shareholders can go to the annual meeting and complain without power, but in Asia where they don’t bother pretending it’s bad?

Companies are fucking with your votes

Press Release: Deirdre Stanley to Join PayPal's Board of Directors - Jun 24, 2025

Increase board size, add person… 19 days after the AGM

No mention of expansion in the proxy, no mention of Deidre Stanley

Data I have on executive searches suggests it takes an average of about 220 days to find a CEO - assume that it takes 50% of that to place a director

That would mean PayPal likely started searching for Deidre to join the board at the beginning of March this year

The proxy came out April 21, 2025 - for nearly two months, PayPal knew it would expand the board and add this person, but it never mentioned it in the proxy or allowed investors to vote on their own representation?

I ran numbers on how often this happens - companies fucking with the timelines to add directors to their boards without votes less than 30 days after the AGM.  If you want the full numbers, go download our Proxy Countdown show, but here are the highlights:

In the last 5 years, it’s happened 247 times - at more than a dozen companies, it’s happened more than once

At Rockwell Automation, this happened EVERY YEAR for THREE YEARS - they paid a person without a vote

Headliniest of the Week

DR: People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into "ChatGPT Psychosis"

MM: Elon Musk Says He Is So Sorry for His Horrible Behavior

Who Won the Week?

DR: Charlize Theron: “I think we might be the only people who did not get an invite to the Bezos wedding. But that’s OK because they suck…”

MM: As we barrel towards a country that throws the elderly, disabled, and children off of healthcare and denies food access, there can be only one winner.  Bacon.  Like, real bacon.  Kraft Heinz recalls more than 367,000 pounds of Oscar Mayer turkey bacon over listeria concerns

Predictions

DR: Charlize Theron is forced to marry Kimbal Musk in order to maintain her American citizenship

MM: Joe Gebbia, who is now on both DOGE AND the Tesla board, resigns from BOTH simultaneously, saying, “I can’t be bought”, right after he sells the 4,000 shares of Tesla he got as part of the board at a nice price of $64/share and nets $1.1m