President Trump allegedly pushed for North Dakota-based Fisher Industries — whose CEO Tommy Fisher donates to the GOP and regularly appears on Fox News — to be awarded a border wall contract, administration officials told the Washington Post.
Why it matters: Trump personally filed the request on multiple occasions, alarming Department of Homeland Security officials and military personnel, particularly because the contract is worth billions of dollars, the Post reports. Trump adopted Fisher's idea that a steel design could speed up the completion of the project and lessen the cost burden to taxpayers
A prominent Silicon Valley investor tells Axios that U.S.-China trade tensions are "the new Cold War."
Driving the news: In this Cold War, tech has evolved from a negotiating point (IP theft, forced transfer) into a cudgel (Huawei, rare earths, etc.). Trade tensions are also having a negative impact on startups, particularly in "hard tech" areas like AI, advanced manufacturing, IoT, machine learning, and networking.
Endeavor Group, the talent agency and live events company led by Ari Emanuel, filed for an initial public offering yesterday.
The big picture: While legacy media businesses have spent billions of dollars building "pipes" (cable networks, movie theaters), Endeavor has focused on owning premium content that can then be distributed through those pipes.
Harvey Weinstein has reached a "tentative" $44 million settlement alongside his former studio's board members encompassing lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct from more than 80 women, the New York Times reports.
Why it matters: While Weinstein is facing criminal action on rape charges, much of his alleged sexual misconduct involved harassment, which is solved via civil matters such as these lawsuits. As the Times notes, "[T]he details of any settlement — such as whether it includes an admission of wrongdoing by Mr. Weinstein — would carry significant symbolism."
Having largely held up as traders bought the trade war dips, stocks tumbled on Thursday along with just about every other risk asset.
What happened: A spate of weak manufacturing reports from around the globe and more trash talk from the U.S. and China may have finally broken the camel's back.
Refinery29, the venture-backed digital media company focused on millennial women, is looking to raise up to $20 million in new funding, according to an SEC filing.
Why it matters: The company plans to use the funds to expand internationally and for its originals studio and events business, Axios has learned. The company was rumored to be in merger talks with Group Nine Media, another millennial-focused venture-backed brand recently, though there's no concrete deal at the moment, according to sources.
Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration are struggling to get international aviation regulators on the same page to certify the Boing 737 MAX globally following approval of a software fix, reports the New York Times.
Why it matters: At a meeting on Thursday, aviation regulators continued to press the FAA for more information about the flight control system — known as MCAS — thought to have led to the 2 deadly 737 MAX crashes, and how the software fix will be assessed in the future, per the NYT. A sticking point between the FAA and international regulators concerns whether to require pilots to undergo new training in flight simulators, rather than via written materials.
President Trump's aluminum tariffs have driven up the cost of cans and in turn have cost the beer industry nearly 40,000 jobs since 2016, reports Bloomberg.
Why it matters: A report from 2 trade groups said direct, indirect and induced jobs fell to 2.19 million in 2018 from 2.23 million in 2016. Though the industry claims it does not blame the slump entirely on Trump's tariffs, a spokesperson told Bloomberg that "brewers are making fewer investments because of the added cost of aluminum." Brewers are being forced to decide how they want to deal with the increased cost of aluminum, and it means either throwing the cost at consumers or laying off workers.
Endeavor Group, the talent agency and live events company led by Ari Emanuel, filed for an initial public offering on Thursday.
Why it matters: In addition to owning Hollywood's largest talent agency, Endeavor also houses the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Professional Bull Riders, plus a video streaming effort that's signed such clients as World Wrestling Entertainment.
The Trump administration announced a $16 billion aid package for U.S. farmers on Thursday in an attempt to offset retaliatory Chinese tariffs.
Details: The USDA said on Thursday the $16 billion package will come in three separate installments. The first payment is scheduled to come out in July or August, and the second payment will be made in late fall. A third payment will be made in early 2020.
There are no calm waters in sight in the U.S.-China trade fight, but even before the latest round of tariffs, the retail industry had been tumbling in a whirlpool.
The backdrop: For the past few quarters, retailers have warned analysts about the U.S.-China trade war's potential to hurt sales as tariffs push prices up and turn shoppers away. But those effects have been invisible so far because the first two rounds of tariffed products largely excluded consumer goods.
HBO's "Game of Thrones" may be over, but for lots of streaming media companies, winter is coming.
The big picture: Data shows that consumers across all ages are more than 30% likely to cancel a subscription streaming service after the show or series they are watching has ended. This creates big headaches for streaming companies over how to keep consumers from leaving, especially as the streaming space grows increasingly competitive.
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