FRIDAY WRAP: WWE government, Jaguar and the non-US anti-woke movement, airline CEO blowhards

Introduction

LIVE from Vanguard’s "Mirror Voting Policy", it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here at November 22nd Studios, featuring AnalystHole Matt Moscardi. On today’s weekly wrap up: DEI and Meritocracy Shark Jumping, no more Jaguars for blue-collar America, A-Holey (or is it A-Holy) investors, Will the real Elon Shady please stand up?

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

Story of the Week (DR):

1. DOJ says Google must sell Chrome to crack open its search monopoly

1. The Department of Justice says that Google must divest the Chrome web browser to restore competition to the online search market, and it left the door open to requiring the company to spin out Android, too.

2. Stop & Shop cybersecurity issue empties shelves before Thanksgiving

1. Trump's new administration should 'not tolerate' the level of cyber attacks coming from Russia and China, Microsoft president says

2. The AI Effect: Amazon Sees Nearly 1 Billion Cyber Threats a Day

3. News Corp Shareholders Reject Activist Bid to End Dual-Class Share Structure

1. An advisory, nonbinding stockholder proposal requesting that the Board take the necessary steps to adopt a recapitalization plan that would eliminate the Company’s dual-class capital structure failed to pass as follows:

1. 35% FOR

2. Subtract Rupert’s shares: 64% FOR

1. The Murdoch family controls 41% of company votes, despite having a 14% stake in the company.

4. Has Meritocracy jumped the shark? Linda McMahon, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for education secretary: Trump's education secretary nominee once said she had an education degree. She doesn't. MM

1. The billionaire professional wrestling mogul served on the Connecticut Board of Education for a year starting in 2009

1. At the confirmation hearing in 2009, she said education was her passion and that her work as CEO of the WWE taught her "firsthand the skills Connecticut students need to obtain through education to be successful."

2. Stepped down for this:

1. McMahon is now facing fresh scrutiny for incorrectly claiming in a vetting questionnaire before being nominated to serve on the state Board of Education in early 2009 that she had earned a degree in education from East Carolina University in 1969; it was actually in French.

2. Member of board of trustees for Sacred Heart University in Connecticut (2004-2017)

3. McMahon also co-founded the conservative research group America First Policy Institute in April 2021, which says its mission is to "provide sound research and carefully crafted policy recommendations to advance the America First agenda"

1. Leadership Team: 15 white people/0 PoC

1. 9 women: 7 blond and 2 brunettes

4. Trump’s Education Secretary Pick Named in Sexual Abuse Lawsuit

1. A recent lawsuit alleges Linda McMahon knowingly enabled the sexual exploitation of children by a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) employee as early as the 1980s.

5. Work Advice: I’m uncomfortable with our CEO invoking Jesus in meetings

1. Reader: I’m a mid-level executive for a publicly traded company. I’ve been here four years, and I hope to stay until I retire about 10 years from now.

2. However, I feel increasingly uncomfortable when my CEO, a devout Christian whose family has owned the company since its founding a century ago, begins each meeting or company event with a Christian prayer. These are innocuous prayers that revolve around the health and safety of employees, their families, and our clients. But they always end the same way: “In Christ’s name, amen.” I’m frequently the only one in the room who doesn’t bow my head.

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

1. DR: Anti-woke shark jumping? MM

1. Jaguar dubbed 'Bud Light 2.0' after releasing modernist rebranding ad with androgynous models, no cars

1. Jaguar Rebrand Sparks Confusion, Angers Anti-‘Woke’ Critics—Including Elon Musk And Andrew Tate

2. Texas AG opens investigation into advertising group that Elon Musk sued for 'boycotting' X

2. Pro-family Volvo ad celebrated on social media following Jaguar rebrand backlash

1. Texas governor orders state agencies to sell China assets

3. Volvo Car AB top shareholder: Eric Li (via Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd.) - 79%

4. Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC top shareholder: Tata Motors Limited (which is controlled by Tata Sons Limited)

2. DR: Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is ‘billionaire proof’

1. “The billionaire proof is in the way everything is designed, and so if someone bought or if the Bluesky company went down, everything is open source,” Graber said. “What happened to Twitter couldn’t happen to us in the same ways, because you would always have the option to immediately move without having to start over.”

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. News Corp investors

1. 36% of non Murdoch investors wanted to stick with dual class structure

2. If we assume the top two investors that aren’t Murdochs - Independent Franchise Partners and SOF Ltd (who was founded by a Murdoch friend) - vote with the Murdochs, 17% of non Murdoch investors still wanted dual class structure

3. A mysterious 11,643 votes abstained - they had no opinion?  None?

4. EVEN IF they ALL voted for recapitalization - Murdochs included - they could still troll investors and ignore it since it was a NON BINDING ADVISORY VOTE!

5. Want to send a real message?  Vote against directors at OTHER company boards:

1. Ana Pessoa - Cosan SA, 4% influence (totalitarian)

2. Kelly Ayotte did not run for reelection- Blackstone, 3% influence (totalitarian)

3. Oh wait, you can’t - THEY ONLY WORK AT TOTALITARIAN BOARDS.  

2. Congrats investors - the richest man gets to do this because you let him

1. Elon Musk's Father Says It Would Be 'A Big Concern' If Elon Had To Step Away From Board Meetings At His Companies To 'Go To Government'

1. Reminder: the board that allows him - at his one share, one vote company - to “Go to government”, you voted them in!

1. 78.5% for Kimbal

2. 67.9% for Lachlan Murdoch

2. He’s richest - because you voted for his pay a second time!

2. Vivek/Musk DOGE cuts targeting $500bn of spending

1. The Twitterfication of government - cuts target 38% of government employees at least (hard to say for certainty) - around 775,000 employees

2. If they actually cut just 25% of them, it would be nearly 200,000 people laid off

3. Last BLS estimate had unemployment at 4.1% (7m people) - this would single handedly increase unemployment to 4.23%, a 3% increase in the number of unemployed people COUNTRY WIDE

3. Airline CEOs DR

1. Ed Basitan, Delta: Trump’s approach to regulation could “be a fresh of breath air,”

1. Biden was a “level of overreach”

2. He didn’t like…

1. Cash refunds within a few days of canceled or “significantly delayed” flights

2. A proposal that airlines seat families with young children together at no extra cost

3. Regulating loyalty programs

4. A rule meant to provide more transparency around fees airlines charge customers

3. Delta couldn’t get back to actually taking reservations after the Crowdstrike crash - and they didn’t want to refund passengers

4. Here’s our take from Proxy Countdown:

1. Masterclass in best practice board mediocrity

2. Robert Isom, American Airlines: “We have to invest in this industry” touting government support during the pandemic

1. American had among the highest buybacks in the industry prior to COVID (ie, not investing in the industry, investing in the stock)

1. American BORROWED money to buy back its stock ($12bn from 2014-19)

2. They owed $25bn going into COVID, twice the other US airlines

2. The stock was down 90% still in 2024

1. Still on the board who helped get American here:

1. John Cahill (12% influence, 0.285 TSR)

2. Susan Kronick (9% influence, 0.283 TSR)

3. Denise O’Leary (9% influence, 0.305 TSR)

4. Matt Hart (7% influence, 0.396 TSR)

5. Martin Nesbitt (6% influence, 0.324 TSR)

6. Jeff Benjamin (5% influence, 0.551 TSR)

7. Mike Embler (5% influence, 0.489 TSR)

2. That’s 53% of board influence that are still there since the Great Buyback

3. Side note: Trump pledged to elimnate diversity programs meant to diversify air traffic controllers and pilots - 3.6% of pilots and flight engineers are black, 8% are women

Headliniest of the Week

1. DR: Boeing’s CEO tells staff to stop ‘bitching by the water cooler’ and focus on beating Airbus

1. “Don’t sit at the water cooler and bitch about people”

2. MM: Grimes Says Elon Musk Has Become "Unrecognizable" and Florida man accused of posing as Elon Musk, defrauding elderly woman of $250K 

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: Bluesky CEO Jay Graber

2. MM: EVERY NEW BOARD MEMBER AT THE National Fisheries Institute

1. NFI’s bylaws allow for a 51-person Board, with 45 at-large Directors. There is an 18-person Executive Committee drawn from the Board and six officers. NFI elects a new slate of board members annually to serve three-year terms. 

2. They added 13 new board members this year!

3. They approved the outgoing president’s $684,035 salary!  What percentage of the 51 knows there’s a CEO of the National Fisheries Institute?

Predictions

1. DR: Coca-Cola starts adding fluoride to Diet Coke and Nestle’s new ad campaign includes Hot Pockets’ new slogan: now with a “lemony-herbed Shingles vaccine sauce”

2. MM: New Boeing CEO is making friends by failing to close the strike for over a month after declaring victory, and now telling staff to stop ‘bitching by the water cooler’ and focus on beating Airbus.  PREDICTION: Boeing staff bitches at the water cooler about new CEO Kelly Ortberg, look for jobs at Airbus