ISS’s Disney flip flop, EPA sells cars now, OpenAI demands no guardrails, and CEOs get $$$

Introduction

LIVE from the 2025 ESG All-Star game, starring the ISS mascot Proxy The Foxy, it’s a Business Pants Friday Show here at March 14th Studios, featuring AnalystHole Matt Moscardi. On today’s weekly wrap up: Sam Altman wants free popsicles for life or the world will end, M&Ms soon to be monochromatic, and ISS is bored and lonely without Nelson Peltz. 

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. OpenAI declares AI race “over” if training on copyrighted works isn’t fair use

1. OpenAI urges Trump administration to remove guardrails for the industry

2. Grab co-founder Anthony Tan says ‘humans who don’t embrace AI will be replaced by AI’

3. Alibaba releases AI model that reads emotions to take on OpenAI

4. A new wearable from dating app RAW promises to track your partner’s emotions in real time

5. The Entire Internet Is Being Polluted by AI Slop

2. Tesla’s fall from grace may have no equal, says JPMorgan: ‘We struggle to think of anything analogous’

1. Morgan Stanley’s auto analyst polls his clients on what they think of Elon Musk—the results make for grim reading

2. Tesla's reputational hit while Elon Musk works for Trump is unprecedented, JPMorgan says

3. Trump declares Tesla boycott ‘illegal’ and vows to buy a new car from Elon Musk in solidarity

3. EPA Launches Biggest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History MM

1. EPA to Reconsider Legal Basis of US Climate Change Rules

2. E.P.A. cancels $20 billion in climate grants

3. EPA Chief Says 31 Actions Being Taken to Roll Back Environmental Regulations

1. Most of the actions are reconsiderations of existing policies, including regulations on power plants, the oil-and-gas industry, vehicles and wastewater

4. CEO pay is surging amid a roaring bonus rebound

1. CEOs are the gloomiest they’ve been in over a decade

2. Skyrocketing CEO pay can lead to huge corporate culture problems and whistleblowing employees

3. CEOs Don’t Plan to Openly Question Trump. Ask Again If the Market Crashes 20%.

Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):

1. DR: Costco is looking like the big winner after Target's DEI rollback (Costco workers now officially make $31 an hour—and can expect raises for the next two years) and Starbucks CEO defends company's DEI practices, says they are 'key' strength of business

2. DR: RFK Jr. pressures Big Food to remove artificial dyes in meeting with CEOs

3. DR: President Trump’s SEC Allows ‘Woke’ Shareholder Proposals; NLPC Denied

4. MM: JUDGES

1. Elon Musk must turn over records and answer questions on what he's doing at DOGE, judge orders

2. The Trump administration must bring back thousands of federal workers fired by Elon Musk’s DOGE, judge rules

3. President Trump’s SEC Allows ‘Woke’ Shareholder Proposals; NLPC Denied

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. CEO pay and its voters

1. Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel scored pay bump in 2024 despite revenue decline and missed sales target

2. Real-estate company Colliers gives CEO stock awards valued at US$48-million after concluding he was underpaid

3. Cardinal Health CEO pay climbs to $25M; Median worker pay dropped

4. US Bancorp's CEO pay increased 14% in 2024

5. So here’s the real game:

1. The next C-suite pivot is from a DEI to a DOGE mindset—and leadership roles are in for a shakeup

2. Translation: fire everyone, keep the money

2. Sycophants

1. Meta uses Elon Musk's X algorithm for its new community notes

2. OpenAI urges Trump administration to remove guardrails for the industry

1. OpenAI’s Sam Altman Urges A.I. Regulation in Senate Hearing

3. CEOs say they are losing faith in Trump: ‘I don’t trust that what’s said today will be true tomorrow’

3. ISS DR

1. Disney vote withhold on Lagomasino

2. Proxy Adviser ISS Supports Disney Board One Year After Fight (1)

Headliniest of the Week

1. DR: NYC Weed Shop Owner Says She May Park Her Tesla Outside and Give Out Sledgehammers to Destroy It

2. DR: Facebook Employees Would Lose Board Games Against Zuckerberg on Purpose, Former Executive Claims

3. MM: Trump says he will label vandalism against Tesla dealerships as domestic terrorism

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: NYC Weed Shop Owners who own sledgehammers

2. MM: Terrorists - imagine if your plan was to bomb the federal reserve and you were lumped in with a guy from Brooklyn with a handlebar moustache who spraypainted the word “jerk” on a Tesla!  Talk about watering down terrorism!

Predictions

1. DR: Sam Altman asks for all retail CEOs to give him free KitKats or China will win

2. MM: After the Environmental Protection Agency changed its entire mission from protecting the environment to selling cheaper cars and getting more people bad jobs, the department of health will change its mission to selling big macs and the comp committees at public companies will also decide whether a janitor named Eric is overusing his bathroom time allotment.