☕️ Legal cage match

Why only The Rock gets to say “Jabroni”... March 02, 2024 [View Online]( | [Sign Up]( | [Shop]( [Morning Brew]( PRESENTED BY [Mugsy]( Good morning. Your best bet to score a cheap hot dog will probably remain Costco, because the Philadelphia Phillies announced they’re scrapping their famous $1 hot dog night promotion following a wiener-hurtling incident at the game last year. “It wasn’t just the throwing,” John Weber, SVP of Phillies ticket operations and projects, told the AP. “But obviously, you know, the throwing was a little bit of a tipping point.” —Sam Klebanov, Cassandra Cassidy, Matty Merritt, Abby Rubenstein, Neal Freyman MARKETS Nasdaq 16,274.94 +1.14% S&P 5,137.08 +0.80% Dow 39,087.38 +0.23% 10-Year 4.180% -7.2 bps Bitcoin $62,402.59 +2.02% NYCB $3.55 -25.89% *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 4:00am ET. [Here's what these numbers mean.]( - Markets: Stocks were [ripping]( yesterday, with the Nasdaq notching an all-time high and the S&P 500 closing above 5,100 for the first time. Tech stocks led the way, especially Nvidia, which closed with a market cap over $2 trillion. But trouble may be brewing at regional banks: New York Community Bancorp [plummeted]( after swapping out its CEO and revealing it had found weaknesses in its risk controls.  AI [Musk sues OpenAI for not benefiting humanity enough]( [Musk and Altman]( Illustration: Cameron Abbas, Photos: Getty Images Anyone still upset that the Musk-Zuck cage match got called off will get a chance to witness a tech billionaire standoff with much higher stakes: a Musk-Altman legal battle. Elon Musk [sued OpenAI]( and its co-founders, CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman, yesterday, alleging that they breached the organization’s founding agreement by letting it become too profit-motivated. Musk’s beef with OpenAI goes way back: He co-founded it in 2015 as a nonprofit alongside Altman and other tech moguls, and alleges he even gave it $44 million of his own cash. But he left OpenAI’s board in 2018 after feeling that it was straying from its goals, according to the filing. Musk vs. OpenAI The lawsuit claims that instead of fulfilling its mission to develop AI for the public benefit, the $80 billion company betrayed its original goals by: - Developing advanced AI for profit (the organization now has a for-profit subsidiary but it’s [bound]( to hew to the nonprofit’s mission), and becoming a “de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft.” The tech giant invested $13 billion in OpenAI, buying 49% of its business arm. - Improperly licensing its GPT-4 AI model to Microsoft despite having an obligation to create such sophisticated tools for nonprofit ends. The suit asks the court to require OpenAI's research to be public. But some wonder whether Musk might have an ulterior motive in dragging OpenAI to court. Last year, he founded a rival AI startup, the Grok chatbot-maker xAI. OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon said in an internal [memo]( seen by Bloomberg that the company “categorically disagrees” with Musk’s allegations, and a separate memo from Altman said he missed when Musk competed by just making better tech. Musk vs. AI Despite developing AI himself and [using it to roast]( World Economic Forum President Klaus Schwab, Musk has long been wary of rushing the development of the tech. In 2018 he said that AI is “far more dangerous than nukes.” Last year, Musk was among the hundreds of tech luminaries who signed an open letter calling on all AI labs to pause testing of powerful AI systems for six months. Altman pushed back at the time, saying that OpenAI takes safety into account. It’s been a rough week for Altman…the Musk lawsuit follows a WSJ report that the [SEC is probing]( whether OpenAI misled investors around his brief ouster as CEO last November.—SK   PRESENTED BY MUGSY [Jeans more comfortable than sweatpants]( [Mugsy]( Mugsy stretch denim is the best thing to happen to legs since…well, chairs. With a cotton blend that’s softer than clouds, Mugsy’s are designed to [move with you]( never against you. Meaning you can wear them literally anywhere. The best part? Every single order on [Mugsy.com]( is guaranteed with free shipping and free returns, so there’s absolutely no risk. Join the hundreds of thousands of dudes who have ditched their old jeans for Mugsys, the most comfortable jeans on Earth. Oh, and all Morning Brew customers get 10% off their order using code: BREW10 at checkout for the next 48 hours only. Choose from hundreds of styles now—[your legs will love you](. WORLD [Tour de headlines](#) [Humanitarian aid being airdropped to Gaza by Jordan]Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua via Getty Images US to airdrop aid to Gaza. With the humanitarian crisis in Gaza growing worse amid the Israel–Hamas war, President Biden said the US would begin [airdropping]( humanitarian aid into the area over the coming days. The decision follows an incident where Israeli troops fired on Palestinians approaching an aid convoy, resulting in a skirmish that killed 115 people. Biden also vowed the US would press Israel to allow more aid to enter by land, saying, “We’re going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need.” Crowds came out for Alexei Navalny’s burial. The Russian opposition leader, who recently died under mysterious circumstances in a remote arctic prison, was [laid to rest]( in Moscow yesterday. Thousands of mourners gathered around the church, where a rushed Eastern Orthodox funeral service took place under tight police control. Prominent opposition politicians, as well as US, German, and French ambassadors to Russia, showed up to pay their respects. People threw flowers along the route of the hearse as crowds accompanied the funeral cortege to a nearby cemetery, where many were heard chanting anti-Putin slogans. Law enforcement detained at least 128 memorial participants across Russia, according to human rights group OVD-Info. It’s very snowy in California. Storms with fierce winds began [dumping snow]( on the Sierra Nevada on Thursday and are expected to continue through the weekend, with most of the area under a blizzard warning through Sunday. As much as 12 feet has been predicted in the mountains, and the snowfall is likely to snarl travel and create potentially life-threatening conditions. But it will also help shore up the state’s water supply, since the snowpack was at 80% of its average coming into March before the storm began. HEALTHCARE [Walgreens, CVS to sell abortion pills in-store]( [Mifepristone tablets]( Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Two of the biggest pharmacies in the US will soon start filling prescriptions for abortion pills. Walgreens and CVS announced yesterday that they received certification to [sell mifepristone]( first pill in a two-step regimen used to terminate pregnancy—following a regulatory change by the FDA last year to allow sales in pharmacies. Walgreens said it will provide the pill as early as next week in states where it’s legal, including select locations in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California, and Illinois. CVS will sell it Massachusetts and Rhode Island locations in the coming weeks. Neither pharmacy will make the drug available via mail order. What it means: Medication abortion is the most common method to terminate pregnancy in the US, according to the CDC. Before the FDA changed its regulations last year, mifepristone could only be ordered from a handful of mail-order pharmacies or specially certified clinicians, which made [accessing]( the drug arduous. Now, patients prescribed the drug in states where abortion is legal will be able to obtain it from a pharmacy like any other medication. But...the future availability of mifepristone will depend on how the Supreme Court rules in a case that [challenges]( this expanded access to the drug. Oral arguments will begin later this month, and a decision is anticipated before the end of June.—CC   TOGETHER WITH VEEAM [Veeam]( Level up your cyber resilience. Your biz’s finances will thank you. Data breaches aren’t cheap—the average data breach cost $4.35m in 2022. To help you save big, [we teamed up with Veeam]( to create an interactive that spills all the deets on data security and financial success. [Take a look](. ENTERTAINMENT [The Rock finally owns his name…and insults]( [Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson]( Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images Incredibly, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson really does own your “candy ass.” The actor and former WWE superstar was [awarded]( ownership rights to his famous nickname, along with 24 other phrases and popular insults he used in the ring (“candy ass” included). Johnson, who first became famous for elbowing people in spandex before he was The Scorpion King, joined the board of directors of TKO Group, which owns WWE, earlier this year. The deal came with a pretty sick lineup of IP: He now owns “If you smell what The Rock is cooking,” “The People’s Elbow,” and of course, calling someone a “roody poo,” among other signature verbal abuses. Big picture: This deal has more significance than just making a buttoned-up corporate lawyer file paperwork for the word “Jabroni.” Celebrities have increasingly [applied]( for trademark registration to protect their names and catchphrases from showing up on bootleg merch. Johnson gets a cut every time products with his IP are sold. In the age of personal brands, every utterance is valuable. In October, Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce [filed]( to register his name, social media handle, and several of his sayings, including “Alright Nah.” He was catapulted to global fame last year due to his relationship with Taylor Swift, and now he’s reportedly [shopping]( his podcast around for a potential eight-figure deal.—MM   GRAB BAG [Key performance indicators](#) [Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development saying ]Arrested Development/20th Century Fox Television via Giphy Stat: The price of food these days may be totally bananas, but actual bananas are one of the rare grocery store purchases that don’t induce inflation-driven sticker shock. The average [price of bananas]( hasn’t risen above 80 cents per pound since 2004, IMF data shows, and Axios calculated that at the current inflation rate, it’d take 210 years for the price to hit $10. What’s keeping the price tag so low? It’s a combination of huge plantations with good growing conditions, low labor costs, trade agreements, and the need for sellers to move the fruits fast before they’re brown and only good for banana bread. Quote: “Disney stories are filled with heroes and villains. We know who the villains are in this story, and we know they cannot be entrusted with protecting this company’s rich legacy or guiding its bright future.” There’s a battle raging in Mickey’s kingdom between Disney CEO Bob Iger and activist investor Nelson Peltz—whose Trian Fund Management owns ~$3 billion in Disney stock and wants two board seats—and Walt Disney’s grandchildren (and his brother Roy’s grandchildren) have picked their side. The Disney family members [sent two letters]( to shareholders backing Iger in the fight, saying, “Disney is not a company that makes widgets—it makes magic,” and Iger is “faithful” to that. Casting activist investors as the big bad, one letter called them “wolves in sheep’s clothing” who want to tear the company apart. Read: A tech billionaire is quietly buying up land in Hawaii. No one knows why. ([NPR]( NEWS [What else is brewing](#) - [The CDC]( says you no longer need to isolate for five days if you have Covid as long as you’re fever-free and your symptoms are improving. - [Donald Trump’s]( lawyers asked a Florida federal judge to push back the trial date over classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago until after the election. Meanwhile, [a judge]( in Georgia hopes to decide within two weeks whether to kick the district attorney accusing Trump of election interference in the state off the case over her relationship with a colleague. - [Boeing]( is in talks to buy back Spirit AeroSystems, a fuselage maker it spun off in 2005 that’s connected to many of the recent issues with Boeing Max 737 planes. - [Reddit]( is reportedly seeking a valuation of up to $6.5 billion in its stonks stock debut. - [The IRS]( is going after people who earned between $400,000 and $1 million but failed to file tax returns as far back as 2017. - [Chick-fil-A]( says you should toss any packages of its Polynesian Sauce you’ve got shoved in a drawer because it might contain wheat and soy allergens. RECS [Saturday To-Do List graphic] Be precise: Here’s the difference between [historic and historical](. Come for the magic: Take a trip to the cinema this month and you might see [an update]( to the iconic Nicole Kidman ad. Watch: An expert rates movie [snake attacks]( on how real they are. Today I learned: There are more [golf courses]( than McDonald’s locations in the US. First day jitters: Grab BambooHR’s [free pre-onboarding checklist]( to give your employees a [seamless]( first day + beyond. The checklist includes tasks for HR, IT, and even onboarding buddies.* *A message from our sponsor. GAMES [The puzzle section](#) Brew crossword: In today’s puzzle, you’ll learn about America’s smallest national park—and a lot more. [Play it here](. Open House Welcome to Open House, the only newsletter section for billionaire recluses. We’ll give you a few facts about a listing and you try to guess the price. [Arizona compound.]Zillow Today’s [compound]( is in Gilbert, Arizona. The 9,326-square-foot living (and playing) space is situated on 4.35 acres. There’s so much to do on this property you won’t ever need to leave…why would you want to leave—there’s no reason to leave, please stay here. Amenities include: - 5 beds, 6 baths - Private shooting range and go-kart track (not combined) - Covered basketball court with seats for your friends to watch you try to dunk How much for the desert oasis? SHARE THE BREW [Share Morning Brew]( with your friends, acquire free Brew swag, and then acquire more friends as a result of your fresh Brew swag. We’re saying we’ll give you free stuff and more friends if you share a link. One link. Your referral count: 0 [Click to Share]( Or copy & paste your referral link to others: [morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=4904f90a]( ANSWER $20 million Word of the Day Today’s Word of the Day is: arduous, meaning “hard to accomplish or achieve.” Thanks to Kevin from St. Louis for the difficult suggestion. Submit another [Word of the Day here](. Written by [Neal Freyman]( [Abigail Rubenstein]( Sam Klebanov, [Cassandra Cassidy]( and [Matty Merritt]( Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up [here](. 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