Business Pants

FRIDAY WRAP: CommerzBank’s new crystal waterfall CEO, ex-Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun’s last laugh, OpenAI’s flipfloppers, and Jamie Dimon says

Live from the Vanguard Charity Cornhole Tournament, where the players toss ESG-filled bean bags at GHG emissions target gameboards, it’s an all-new terrific Tuesday edition of Business Pants. Joined by Analyst-Hole Matt Moscardi! On today’s kimchi-filled proxy contest called September 24th, 2024: The Good Game! And a Data Drop!

Our show today is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for FREE.

Women on corporate board of directors now mandatory, announces the UAE

one director by Jan 2025

They knew and they lied': California sues ExxonMobil, alleging deception about plastics recycling

In the lawsuit, the state's attorney general says ExxonMobil misled consumers into believing that recycling was a viable solution for plastic waste, though it knew otherwise.

Cards Against Humanity’s lawsuit against Elon Musk is a brilliant stunt that makes a serious point

Game makers sued SpaceX for $15 million for littering on land they’d bought in 2017 to stop Trump from building a border wall

Social media owners top global survey of misinformation concerns

“One of the most pressing concerns highlighted by our survey is the influence of social media platform owners. Their control over content distribution and moderation policies significantly impacts the quality and integrity of information. The unchecked power of these entities poses a grave risk to the health of our global information environment”

Wynn Resorts settles shareholder lawsuit over CEO misconduct cover-up for $70 million

Wynn Resorts will cover $9.4 million of the settlement, while insurers will pay the remaining amount

The fallout also led to Steve Wynn paying a $10 million settlement to Nevada regulators and his ban from holding any role in publicly traded companies under the state’s jurisdiction. Wynn Resorts’ subsequent leadership, led by Matthew Maddox, has worked to distance itself from its founder and ensure compliance with new corporate governance standards

(Craig S. Billings has served as the Company’s CEO since February 1, 2022)

Pinterest CEO: To protect our kids online, Congress must make digital IDs the national standard—and require OS makers to share age-validation data with apps

Bill Ready

Melinda French Gates rips into the praise for sleepless CEOs as ‘so dumb’

Vanguard’s Investor Choice Pilot Highlights Growing Investor Engagement in Proxy Voting

Policy Preferences:

43% of investors chose Vanguard-advised policies

30.3% supported company board-aligned policies

24.4% opted for third-party ESG policies

2.3% selected not to vote

Global share buybacks fell 35% in 2024

The aggregate value of 2024 share buyback transactions was $163.53 billion through Sept. 9, compared to $354.85 billion, a year ago

Tyson Foods Sued Over Emissions Reduction Promises

The Environmental Working Group alleges that the world’s second-largest meat producer is misleading consumers by labeling a line of its beef “climate smart.”

People in this Dutch city will never see a fossil fuel billboard again

Next year, if you walk down the street in The Hague, you’ll no longer see billboards advertising new cars—unless the car is electric. You also won’t see ads for flights, cruises, or anything else that runs on fossil fuels

The Dutch city is the first in the world to pass a ban on street ads for fossil fuels and the products that use them

Amazon raises pay to more than $22 an hour, gives free Prime to transportation workers

23andMe independent directors quit board over unsatisfactory buyout plan from CEO

Jamie Dimon is still committed to DEI but says he’s not woke

Michael O’Leary says Ryanair’s value is depressed because he keeps calling people idiots

Speaking at Ryanair’s AGM on Thursday, the airline boss admitted his loose lips might be behind the company’s depressed share price, which has fallen by around 20% this year: “In Ryanair there’s always some news flow. We’re fighting some union or some minister or I’m calling some minister an idiot or they’re calling me an idiot.”

Introduction

LIVE from your ESG smokeless peach pit, it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here at September 20th Lane Studios, featuring ONE of your favorites: AnalystHole-man Matt Moscardi. On today’s weekly wrap up: Nike goes Back to the Future, Chief Kneeler Jamie Dimon yells at young people, Evil Tech CEOs continue to be, um, evil, and directors who love a free ride 

Today’s show is brought to you by freefloatanalytics.com - everything you ever wanted to know about who runs public companies, all free.

Story of the Week (DR):

Nike CEO John Donahoe is out, replaced by company veteran Elliott Hill

Hill retired from Nike in 2020 after a long career with the company, but the board and Executive Chair Mark Parker asked him to come back, citing their many years of working together

Nike co-founder Phil Knight said that he: “couldn’t be more excited to welcome Elliott back to the team” and that “We’ve got a lot of work to do but I’m looking forward to seeing Nike back on its pace.”

Nike welcomes new CEO with $27 million payday

23andMe’s independent board directors resign MM

In response the CEO said in an SEC filing: “I am surprised and disappointed… We will immediately begin identifying independent directors to join the board.”

Masimo CEO Joe Kiani ousted from board after proxy fight; Politan wins two seats

Single class; 9%

Federal Reserve cuts US interest rates for the first time in four years

Goodliest of the Week (MM, pretending to be AB):

Tyson Foods Sued Over Emissions Reduction Promises DR

Tucker Carlson plans to start a nicotine-pouch company after deciding Zyn is ‘not a brand for men’

He “joked” on a podcast it’d make your genitals “enhanced”

The company (owned by Philip Morris) put out a statement saying “nope”

He said “you’re a bunch of liberal drones” and that they donated to Kamala and they’re good for “your girlfriend or something” because it starts with Z

They do not donate to Kamala, they donate more to GOP

Jamie Dimon tells Gen Z to stop wasting its time on TikTok and read books instead

Cleanup Group Says It's on Track to Eliminate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Exhausting-est of the Week (DR, pretending to be JS):

Secret Service Probing Musk’s Post About Threats to Biden and Harris

GOP 'woke week' advances package of anti-ESG bills

F.T.C. Study Finds ‘Vast Surveillance’ of Social Media Users DR

Meta, YouTube and other sites collected more data than most users realized, a new report by the Federal Trade Commission finds.

The Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday it found that several social media and streaming services engaged in a “vast surveillance” of consumers, including minors, collecting and sharing more personal information than most users realized.

Due to AI fakes, the “deep doubt” era is here

Billionaire Larry Ellison says a vast AI-fueled surveillance system can ensure 'citizens will be on their best behavior'

Sam Altman may be in his villain era, but no one seems to care

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

Data:

We have access to 10,429 companies in the Free Float Analytics database

4,565 of them are tagged as “Totalitarian” companies - companies where a single person (founder or founders, controlled companies, dual class) owns the majority of influence

Those boards have 19,872 directors that are wholly independent - not family, executives, or insiders

The number of those directors that quit in protest of the fact that the founders do whatever they want: 0… UNTIL YESTERDAY

So here’s a short list of assholes who have way more reason to quit:

Robin Washington - on TWO Totalitarian boards (Salesforce, Alphabet)

Brad Smith - on TWO Totalitarian boards (Netflix, Amazon)

Meta

Marc Andreessen

Andrew Houston

Tracey Travis

Peggy Alford

Tony Xu

Robert Kimmitt

Nancy Killefer

John Arnold

Oracle

Awo Ablo

Bruce Chizen

George Conrades

Jeffrey Berg

Leon Panetta

Michael Boskin

Naomi Seligman

Rona Fairhead

Wick Moorman

William Parrett

Tesla

Joe Gebbia

Kathleen Wilson-Thompson

Robyn Denholm

Full list available as a data drop!

Bonus asshole - do you think he fucking matters? Republican lawmakers issues warnings about ‘far-left’ Facebook board billionaire John Arnold

Data

High school only graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed as college graduates.

Typical earnings for bachelor’s degree holders are $40,500 or 86 percent higher than those whose highest degree is a high school diploma.

Median lifetime earnings are $1.2 million higher for bachelor’s degree holders.

Even when adjusting for sociodemographic data, graduating college is a big fucking deal

Asshole: Sam Altman and the “whatever dude, just BE a billionaire and it’s cool” college dropouts

Sam Altman tells high schoolers dropping out of college wasn’t a big deal

Data

Roll back ESG To Increase Retirement Earnings Act or the RETIRE Act DR

The guy who wrote/sponsored the bill - Rick Allen of Georgia - also happily tried to amend the constitution to ban gay marriage (his argument was a bible passage, and said anyone who votes for it is going to hell), sued to overturn the 2020 election, and failed to disclose his stock holdings, and wouldn’t you know, he’s on the energy and commerce committee and his biggest contributors are a local Caterpillar dealer, the Koch Brothers, the National Chicken Council, and a lumber company

Killing proxy voting by paperwork!

“maintain a record of any proxy vote, proxy voting activity, or other exercise of a shareholder right, including any attempt to influence management”

ESG piece of this is nothingburger, calling it ESG is strictly political theater for Blackrock’s seven ESG analysts and the guy running HUD’s ESG Program (Emergency Solutions Grants Program) to get confused

“Notwithstanding paragraph (A), if a fiduciary is unable to distinguish between or among investment alternatives or investment courses of action on the basis of pecuniary factors alone, the fiduciary may use non-pecuniary factors as the deciding factor if the fiduciary documents [why]”

But because investors have basically ceded the alternative democracy to companies, this will cement it - rather than using your vote, you were happy to gamble so conservatives in the US are taking away your right to vote by making it so onerous you don’t bother at all

“The fiduciary duty to manage shareholder rights appurtenant to shares of stock does not require the voting of every proxy or the exercise of every shareholder right.”

This replaces the “Prudent man standard of care” section on fiduciary duty which basically says you have to invest prudently… 

Headliniest of the Week

DR: ESG is Coming For Your Toilet Paper

MM: Real Madrid’s $1.9 billion stadium cancels all concerts because the music was too loud

Who Won the Week?

DR: 23andMe for pretending to look like independent director heroes (when really this is just about the share price)

MM: Anne Wojciki - finally she can conduct a board meeting in a bathrobe if she wants!  No more fake listening!

Predictions

DR: New CEO of Southwest Airlines will NOT be a…. Woman.

My initial hunch was this was a great Glas Cliff CEO moment but then I looked at the 15 companies in this article: Long-Term Returns of Paul Singer’s Activist Targets and of the 15 companies cited her, including Juniper Networks, PayPal, Alcoa, and NRG Energy, all 15 of the companies are run by… dudes.

An article in June reported that Paul Singer is under scrutiny for gifting conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito an undisclosed private flight, donated $10 million in June to the Senate Republicans’ top super PAC. I wonder who he’ll be voting for in November??

MM: John Donahoe, newly retired, joins the board of 23andMe because he’s used to an overvoting founder and hey, who cares, right?

Live from Vanguard and Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” bumpersticker, it’s an all-new terrific Tuesday edition of Business Pants. Joined by Analyst-Hole Matt Moscardi! In today’s ESG-shaped bass guitar called September 17, 2024: a very special seminar where we help business news headline writers be better at their jobs, otherwise known as BIZ NUGGETS!

Our show today is being sponsored by Free Float Analytics, the only platform measuring board power, connections, and performance for FREE. 

DAMION1

Boeing two for Tuesday:

In our 'Oh great, you pay me 273 times the median salary and I have to sit with the knuckle draggers!?' headline of the week. Boeing execs barred from flying business class to save money during strike

In our 'Strike could cost Boeing the equivalent of 3 failed former CEO Dave Calhouns per day' headline of the week. Strike could cost Boeing $100 million-plus in daily revenue, analysts say

$33M

In our 'Chefs will put their recipes on a pizza box to help Pizza Hut make better pizza' headline of the week. Pizza Hut will put your résumé on a pizza box to help you get a job

On the Yum Brands board, only 2 of 12 directors selected a Pizza Hut food as their favorite Yum Brands food. Taco Bell wins with 5, KFC a close second with 4. At least there's a demographic that's worse off than women on this board (4 of 12) and that's Pizza Hut lovers

In our 'Zuck is banning Putin from Facebook for being a shithead' headline of the week. Meta is banning Russian state media outlets like RT from its apps everywhere for engaging in political interference campaigns

SAME HEADLINE: WHO DID IT BETTER?

DR: In our 'Whatever you do, please don't mistake me for somebody who gives a shit!!' headline of the week. Jamie Dimon is still committed to DEI but says he’s not woke

MM: In our 'I’m a full-throated, red-blooded, patriotic, unwoke, capitalist CEO.  Also, my assistant told me we have black people that work at JPMorgan now, so that's cool.' headline of the week. Jamie Dimon is still committed to DEI but says he’s not woke

DR: In our 'I re-wrote this headline for clarity: Disinterested and racist/sexist board of directors' Impact on Corporate DEI Policies' headline of the week. Robby Starbuck's Impact on Corporate DEI Policies

MM: In our 'The side of the bottle says, "Side effects include increased racism, misogyny, anger issues, self-loathing, c-list internet celebrity, and a possible cabinet position in the Republican White House..." Should I take it?' headline of the week. Robby Starbuck's Impact on Corporate DEI Policies

DR: In our 'Nelson Peltz has already taken credit for this' headline of the week. The Walt Disney Company makes history with record-breaking 60 Emmys

MM: In our 'Nelson Peltz was disappointed in the result, saying, "Only 60?  Probably because of all the blacks they keep casting."' headline of the week. The Walt Disney Company makes history with record-breaking 60 Emmys

DR: In our 'Can we cut-and-paste the formatting of this headline to this one from the NYT: How Telegram Became a Playground for Criminals, Extremists and Terrorists. Or this one from Futurism: OpenAI's Strawberry "Thought Process" Sometimes Shows It Scheming to Trick Users' headline of the week. Boar’s Head will never make liverwurst again after outbreak that killed 9

MM: In our 'It's the Germans fault' headline of the week. Boar’s Head will never make liverwurst again after outbreak that killed 9

DR: In our 'Is this what an S&P 500 board with only 18% female influence looks like?' headline of the week. Delta is reminding prospective flight attendants that they must wear 'proper' underwear to their interviews

MM: In our 'Given 74.6% of flight attendants are women, this is for you ladies - only Elon Musk can wear a diaper to work like a big fat baby.' headline of the week. Delta is reminding prospective flight attendants that they must wear 'proper' underwear to their interviews

DR: In our 'Zuck pretends to cede control' headline of the week. Instagram gives parents more control over teen accounts

MM: In our 'Mark Zuckerberg retains total and complete control of Instagram' headline of the week. Instagram gives parents more control over teen accounts

MATT1

In our 'Just because there's asbestos in our baby powder doesn't mean you're sick because of OUR asbestos... That could be ANYONE's asbestos... Have you checked Gary's house?  I mean, no offense Gary, but your house smells like asbestos all the time.  I'm pretty sure there was asbestos in the breakroom coffee machine - or at least it tasted like it.  Given these facts, judge, we rest our case.' headline of the week. J&J gets $260 million talc verdict overturned in Oregon, new trial ordered

In our 'We only have 74.6% of directorships, 93.9% of CEO positions, and make 120% more.  It's a long road to get to 100% of everything like it used to be, but someone has to climb it.  Strap in boys, let's get it done!' headline of the week. Elon Musk's Quest to Make Men Great Again

In our 'I'm running out of things to say about Elon Musk and his terrible tweets' headline of the week. I'm running out of things to say about Elon Musk and his terrible tweets

In our 'I'm sorry, I thought this was the snarky bad joke downer show... how the hell did this headline get in here?' headline of the week. Cleanup Group Says It's on Track to Eliminate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

FRIDAY WRAP: Alan Shaw’s fun times, Southwest has no board left, D&D AI, Deere’s DEI hypocrisy

THE GOOD GAME: Southwest’s board shakeup, Norfolk’s CEO gone, one Peltz off Wendy’s, and Newsmax’s IPO

FRIDAY WRAP: VW’s ex CEO trial, Hasbro is a healthcare company, shorting testosterone, and big oil curriculum

BIZ NUGGETS: DEI u-turns, AI and Facebook hear you cough, Calhoun’s giggle in space, and ESG proposal zero support

FRIDAY WRAP: Telegram’s Durov arrested, Starbuck’s new remote worker, DEI coward data, Musk threatens a judge

FRIDAY WRAP: Musk’s pay vote, OpenAI’s new board bro, Google’s monopoly, market meltdown, vegetable health care, and cybertruck google eyes