Business Roundtable wants to end shareholder proposals, Subaru’s knobs, OpenAI hate humans, and Ralph Lauren’s line of 2x4s

Story of the Week (DR):

1. CEOs to the rescue?

1. Trio Of Top CEOs Warn Trump Tariffs Will Empty Store Shelves

1. During a private meeting in the Oval Office on Monday, the CEOs of Walmart, Target and Home Depot reportedly told the president that supply chains could freeze and prompt stores’ shelves to go barren if he doesn’t rein in his sharp tariff plans, and meddles with the Federal Reserve.

2. Target CEO Brian Cornell (25%): Mr. The Gay Pride Display Is Too Expensive Because THere are Too Many Colors (719:1)

3. Home Depot CEO Ted Decker (25%): Mr. Charlie Munger Would Hate Him because He Got a BA in English (443:1)

4. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon 6%: (They should have sent a Walton family member) Mr. Racism Was Solved So It’s Time to Move on from DEI (976:1)

2. Elon Musk says he's stepping back from DOGE

1. Elon Musk was supposed to work in government as a special employee for 130 days. He just pledged to spend ‘a day or two’ per week for the remainder of Trump’s 4-year term

2. After spending three months trying to radically reshape the federal government and its workforce, Elon Musk on Tuesday said he would soon be stepping back from the White House DOGE office.

3. "Starting next month, I will be allocating far more of my time to Tesla," Musk said during Tesla's earnings call, adding that "the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency" was done.

4. Tesla profit drops 71% as carmaker warns ‘political sentiment’ could impact future demand

3. Business Roundtable urges SEC to amend proxy-voting process MM

1. The Securities and Exchange Commission should reform the proxy-voting process by making it more difficult for certain shareholder proposals to make it onto company proxy ballots, according to an April 23 report from the Business Roundtable.

2. “The current state of the proxy process is unsustainable,” the advocacy group comprising more than 200 CEOs said in its report. “Companies are being forced to divert significant resources and attention toward responding to a flood of ideology-driven shareholder proposals — resources that would be better spent driving long-term value creation. These escalating costs ultimately fall on shareholders, yet there is little evidence that such proposals yield meaningful economic benefits.”

3. Median US CEO pay hits record $16.8 million on soaring stock awards

1. Median pay among top U.S. CEOs rose 7.5% to a record $16.8 million for 2024, a new study found, as big stock grants boosted leaders' reported earnings well beyond the pay received by U.S. workers. Study looked at 320 companies in the S&P 500 with pay data filed so far this year

4. ESG Pope has died: Pope Francis Pushed ESG. How the Church’s Investments Did.

1. The Vatican’s investments are generating a profit, perhaps from a renewed focus—led by the late pontiff—on social values aligned with the Catholic Church. Francis died on Monday at age 88 after a long health crisis.

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

1. DR: Subaru Is Bringing Back Physical Knobs and Buttons in Its Cars MM DR

2. DR: Twinkies’ New Owner Courts a Novel Group of Snackers: Stoners

3. MM: Tesla whistleblower wins legal battle against Elon Musk

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. OpenAI DR

1. When asked to generate assholes of the week, ChatGPT suggested as the FIRST ASSHOLE: 

1. OpenAI’s “Safety Is Optional” Strategy

1. Launched GPT-4.1 with zero safety report—claiming it’s not “frontier.”

2. Updated its Preparedness Framework to say it might lower safety standards if rivals do.

3. Former staff filed an amicus brief supporting Elon Musk’s lawsuit, saying for-profit incentives undermine safety.

4. Also stopped safety testing of fine-tuned models unless released openly.

5. This is tech’s version of “if the other kids jumped off a bridge...”

2. In 2025… OpenAI updated its safety framework—but no longer sees mass manipulation and disinformation as a critical risk

3. Not to be outdone by other college dropout middle school losers, OpenAI considering its own social network to compete with Elon Musk's X

1. It’s not OpenAI, it’s Sam Altman, college dropout

4. Remember when they had a board?

2. Blaming China

1. Elon Musk worries Chinese companies will fill out the world’s top 10 robot makers—but claims Tesla is, and will stay, No. 1

2. Google says DOJ's proposal for breakup would harm U.S. in 'global race with China'

3. Trade war woes: Boeing stock sinks after China reportedly blocks plane deliveries

3. Wispy stache middle school manflakes who are going to MAKE you like them, whether you want to or not

1. Damion will rate whether these headlines make him finally like the techbro manflakes:

1. Elon Musk Reportedly Sends DMs on Twitter Offering Women the Chance to Have His Babies

2. Tesla really wants the Cybertruck to be a working man's truck

1. Elon 'rattled' as he's brutally trolled in gaming livestream from private jet

2. Huge Number of People Who Used to Like Elon Musk Now Detest Him, Polling Shows

3. Someone Is Hacking Crosswalk Buttons to Speak in the Voice of Elon Musk Lamenting the Terrible Sadness in His Life

3. Meta co-sponsors White House Easter Egg Roll amid blockbuster antitrust trial

4. Trump lashes out at British hedge fund for betting against Truth Social

1. Trump Media wants the SEC to investigate a hedge fund that has a $105 million short on the company

4. Jokes on you, Luigi

1. UnitedHealth stock craters as CEO calls disappointing results 'unusual and unacceptable' (he blamed the Biden administration)

1. UnitedHealth CEO's pay jumps 12% to $26.3M as company revenue hits record $400B

2. UnitedHealth spent $1.7 million on executive security

5. Rewriting history

1. I literally hate this: How Did Elon Musk Make His Money?

1. “Many people would have simply taken this larger-than-life fortune and retired, but not Musk. Instead, he invested $100 million to start SpaceX, $70 million to found Tesla and $10 million in SolarCity.”

2. HE DID NOT FOUND IT

1. Tesla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning

2. They built the first roadster and got funded

3. Musk INVESTED in Tesla in the Series A and became chair of the board

4. Musk didn’t actually run the company - until he appointed himself CEO in 2007, four years after he initially invested and after he raised a lot of money for them

5. Musk kicked out the actual founder

6. Eberhard actually SUED Musk because Musk refused, like a big fucking diaper baby, to acknowledge that Eberhard founded the company

7. Eberhard actually built the first mobile charging devices for Teslas, too

8. That’s how he works - Musk raises money from friends and lies about what he actually does - he’s a big fat fraud, just like with video games

Headliniest of the Week

1. DR: Priscilla Chan's tuition-free school that championed DEI is closing after 10 years

1. In a statement on its website, the Primary School didn't indicate why it was closing its East Bay and East Palo Alto locations at the end of the 2025-2026 academic year and said only that it was a "very difficult decision" that came "after much deliberation."

2. DR: Ralph Lauren’s CEO says sometimes employees need to be ‘hit by a 2×4 across the forehead’ to get important feedback to sink in: Patrice Louvet DR MM

3. MM: Facebook Pushes Its Llama 4 AI Model to the Right, Wants to Present “Both Sides”

1. Isn’t this just saying “we wish the people we stole from to make the model were more conservative, so we’ll just make it more that way”?  Like, Zuck just doesn’t like actual people?

4. MM: Zuckerberg Encourages Theatergoers to Use Their Phones While Movie Is Playing

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: Stoners: 4/20, Twinkies, and physical nobs in Subarus

2. MM: Hall monitors - Roblox CEO says he wants to protect your kids — but you're going to need to pitch in, too.

Predictions

1. DR: Business Roundtable urges SEC to adopt annual meeting rule requiring investors to memorize a unique 40-digit PIN that gains them entry into the meeting room

MM: Meta’s oversight board rebukes company over policy overhaul - Meta said it will respond to oversight board’s distress about community notes and policy shifts in 60 days.  The prediction: Meta’s response will be to shut down the oversight board.  OVERSIGHT IS SO 2019.