CEO

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump on Friday announced the U.S. government has secured a 10% stake in struggling Silicon Valley pioneer Intel in a deal that was completed just a couple weeks after he was depicting the company’s CEO as a conflicted leader unfit for the job.

“The United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future,” Trump wrote in a post.

The U.S. government is getting the stake through the conversion of $11.1 billion in previously issued funds and pledges. All told, the government is getting 433.3 million shares of non-voting stock priced at $20.47 apiece — a discount from Friday’s closing price at $24.80.

That spread means the U.S. government already has a gain of $1.9 billion, on paper. The remarkable turn of events makes the U.S. government one of Intel’s largest shareholders at a time that the Santa Clara, California, company is in the process of jettisoning more than 20,000 workers as part of its latest attempt to bounce back from years of missteps taken under a variety of CEOs.

Intel’s current CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has only been on the job for slightly more than five months, and earlier this month, it looked like he might be on shaky ground already after some lawmakers raised national security concerns about his past investments in Chinese companies while he was a venture capitalist.

Trump latched on to those concerns in an August 7 post demanding that Tan resign.

But Trump backed off after the Malaysian-born Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, leading to a deal that now has the U.S. government betting that the company is on the comeback trail after losing more than $22 billion since the end of 2023.

Trump hailed Tan as “highly respected” CEO in his Friday post. In a statement, Tan applauded Trump for “driving historic investments in a vital industry” and resolved to reward his faith in Intel.

“We are grateful for the confidence the President and the Administration have placed in Intel, and we look forward to working to advance U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership,” Tan said.

Intel’s current stock price is just slightly above where it was when Tan was hired in March and more than 60% below its peak reached 25 years ago when its chips were still dominating the personal computer boom before being undercut by a shift to smartphones a few years later.

The company’s market value currently stands at about $108 billion – a fraction of the current chip kingpin, Nvidia, which is valued at $4.3 trillion. The stake is coming primarily through U.S. government grants to Intel through the CHIPS and Science Act that was started under President Joe Biden’s administration as a way to foster more domestic manufacturing of computer chips to lessen the dependence on overseas factories.

But the Trump administration, which has regularly pilloried the policies of the Biden administration, saw the CHIPs act as a needless giveaway and is now hoping to make a profit off the funding that had been pledged to Intel.

“We think America should get the benefit of the bargain,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said earlier this week. “It’s obvious that it’s the right move to make.”About $7.8 billion had been been pledged to Intel under the incentives program, but only $2.2 billion had been funded so far. Another $3.2 billion of the government investment is coming through the funds from another program called “Secure Enclave.”

Although the U.S. government can’t vote with its shares and won’t have a seat on Intel’s board of directors, critics of the deal view it as a troubling cross-pollination between the public and private sectors that could hurt the tech industry in a variety of ways.

For instance, more tech companies may feel pressured to buy potentially inferior chips from Intel to curry favor with Trump at a time that he is already waging a trade war that threatens to affect their products in a potential scenario cited by Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics for the Cato Institute.

“Overall, it’s a horrendous move that will have real harms for U.S. companies, U.S. tech leadership, and the U.S. economy overall,” Lincicome posted Friday.

The 10% stake could also intensify the pressure already facing Tan, especially if Trump starts fixating on Intel’s stock price while resorting to his penchant for celebrating his past successes in business.

Nancy Tengler, CEO of money manager Laffer Tengler Investments, is among the investors who abandoned Intel years ago because of all the challenges facing Intel.

“I don’t see the benefit to the American taxpayer, nor do I see the benefit, necessarily to the chip industry,” Tengler said while also raising worries about Trump meddling in Intel’s business.

“I don’t care how good of businessman you are, give it to the private sector and let people like me be the critic and let the government get to the business of government.,” Tengler said.

Although rare, it’s not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM. The U.S. government’s stake in Intel coincides with Trump’s push to bring production to the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world.

By lessening the country’s dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the U.S. will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence.

Even before gaining the 10% stake in Intel, Trump had been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are powering the AI craze, to pay a 15% commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses.

FOOTBALL isn’t just about goals and ­trophies — it’s about people.

After all, clubs don’t make anything, don’t manufacture anything; all our assets are people.

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Dealing with people is a key part of my job as West Ham CEO. And dealing with a wantaway player is one of the toughest jobs in football.

We had our own Alexander Isak moment at West Ham in 2017 when Dimitri Payet wanted out… and the whole club felt it.

One day he just packed his bags, went to the airport and took a flight to Marseille.

That was despite the fact we told him we did not want him to leave, expected him to honour his contract and had done no deal with Olympique de Marseille for him to be transferred there.

We loved him, our supporters loved him, but he didn’t love us back and that’s hard to take.

The fans were heartbroken, the dressing room unsettled and every training session turned into a circus.

That’s the reality when a star man downs tools. The ripple effect is huge.

The press were camped outside, questions wouldn’t stop and the tension was obvious.

BEST ONLINE CASINOS – TOP SITES IN THE UK

I look at Newcastle’s situation with Isak and genuinely sympathise.
He’s a top striker, adored by the Toon Army, but once a player has his head turned, it changes everything.

Suddenly, the focus isn’t on football any more — it’s on one man’s future.

The hard truth is you can’t make an unhappy player happy. But that doesn’t mean you roll over.

The club has to stay strong, because it’s bigger than any one player.
Fans rightly expect loyalty, but as club executives, we have to protect the value of the asset and the pride in the badge.

With Payet, we stood firm. We made sure West Ham got the right deal. It hurt at the time, but the club came out stronger.

Newcastle will be thinking the same way. They will fight to keep Isak if they can, but if the moment comes where he has to go, they’ll make sure it’s on their terms — not his.

That’s exactly how it should be. Players come and go. Clubs don’t. That’s the heartbeat we’re all here to protect.

Isak has not been an isolated case — but the dynamics don’t change much. Remember Pierre van Hooijdonk ­refusing to play at Nottingham Forest?

Isak to Liverpool transfer saga timeline

• JANUARY: First links to Liverpool emerge

• FEBRUARY: £150million record fee mooted

• MARCH: Isak denies Newcastle contract talk

• APRIL: Eddie Howe hails Isak as “very professional.”

• MAY: Howe insists Isak will not be sold
• Last match in Newcastle shirt

• JUNE: Transfer links to Liverpool heat up

• JULY: Flies with Newcastle for Austria training camp
• Left out of Celtic friendly
• Liverpool hijack Toon’s Hugo Ekitike deal after making Isak enquiry
• Doesn’t travel for pre-season tour of Singapore and South Korea, citing injury

• AUGUST: Training by himself at Newcastle
• Liverpool have £110m bid rejected
• Isak stops training and goes on strike
• Moves out of his apartment
• Releases angry statement blasting ‘trust has been lost’
• Newcastle respond by insisting he won’t be sold unless it benefits club

And what about William Gallas, Peter Odemwingie, ­Carlos Tevez, Saido Berahino and even Cristiano Ronaldo’s ill-fated decision to return to Manchester United?

For a CEO, the challenge is balancing three things: the expectations, hopes and dreams of the supporters, the manager’s needs, and the dignity of the badge.

It’s not about forcing anyone to stay against their will. Unhappy players rarely, if ever, perform at their peak.

But it’s also not about rolling over at the first sign of discontent. The club’s interests must come first.

That means securing fair value, protecting the integrity of the squad and making sure supporters know their loyalty is matched in the boardroom.

In Payet’s case, we stood firm until the right solution came and the player moved. The lesson was that while football is very emotional, decisions must be rational.

Players come and go but, West Ham, like every great club, remains. That’s what we protect every single day.

Newcastle have been a football club for 144 years. And they will be around a lot longer than any one footballer.

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TRANSFER NEWS LIVE – KEEP UP WITH ALL THE LATEST FROM A BUSY SUMMER WINDOW

The Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) has said Air Canada’s ongoing strike, in which 10,000 cabin crew members have walked off their jobs, is illegal after strikers ignored orders to return to work.

The regulatory board made the call on Monday after it previously declared that workers must return to the job as of 2pm ET (18:00 GMT) on Sunday.

The cabin crew for the Montreal-based carrier had pushed for a negotiated solution, saying binding arbitration would take pressure off the airline. Workers have said that the proposed wage hikes are insufficient to keep up with inflation and match the federal minimum wage.

The attendants are also calling to be paid for work performed on the ground, such as helping passengers to board. They are now only paid when planes are moving, sparking some vocal support from Canadians on social media.

A leader of the union on strike against Air Canada said on Monday that he would risk jail time rather than allow cabin crews to be forced back to work.

“If it means folks like me going to jail, then so be it. If it means our union being fined, then so be it. We’re looking for a solution here,” said Mark Hancock, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) national president, at a press conference after a deadline by the board to return to work expired with no union action to end the strike.

Air Canada’s CEO Michael Rousseau told the news agency Reuters that he was “amazed” that the union was not following the law, adding, “At this point in time, the union’s proposals are much higher than the 40 percent [hike we have offered]. And so we need to find a path to bridge that gap,” he said, without suggesting what that process would be. “We’re always open to listen, and have a conversation,” he said.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney voiced his support for the cabin crews, saying that they should be “compensated equitably at all times”.

Pushing for a resolution, Carney said, “We are in a situation where literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians and visitors to our countries are being disrupted by this action.”

The airline normally carries 130,000 people daily during the ongoing peak summer travel season and is part of the global Star Alliance of airlines.

On Monday, Air Canada suspended its third-quarter and annual profit forecasts as its planes remained grounded.

The union said it would continue its strike and invited Air Canada back to the table to “negotiate a fair deal”.

A government nudge

The government’s options to end the strike now include asking courts to enforce the order to return to work and seeking an expedited hearing.

The minority government could also try to pass legislation that would need the support of political rivals and approval in both houses of the Parliament of Canada, which are on break until September 15.

“The government will be very reticent to be too heavy-handed because in Canada, the Supreme Court has ruled that governments have to be very careful when they take away the right to strike, even for public sector-workers who may be deemed essential,” said Dionne Pohler, professor of dispute resolution at Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School.

Another option is to encourage bargaining, Pohler said.

The government did not respond to requests for comment.

On Saturday, Carney’s Liberal government moved to end the strike by asking the CIRB to order binding arbitration. The CIRB, an independent administrative tribunal that interprets and applies Canada’s labour laws, issued the order, which Air Canada had sought, and unionised flight attendants opposed.

The previous government, under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, intervened last year to head off rail and dock strikes that threatened to cripple the economy, but it is highly unusual for a union to defy a CIRB order.

Travellers at Toronto Pearson International Airport over the weekend said they were confused and frustrated about when they would be able to fly.

Italian Francesca Tondini, 50, sitting at the Toronto airport, said she supported the union even though she had no idea when she would be able to return home.

“They are right,” she said with a smile, pointing at the striking attendants.

The dispute between cabin crews and Air Canada hinges on the way airlines compensate flight attendants. Most, including Air Canada, pay them only when planes are in motion.

In their latest contract negotiations, flight attendants in both Canada and the United States have sought compensation for hours worked, including for tasks such as boarding passengers.

New labour agreements at American Airlines and Alaska Airlines legally require carriers to start the clock for paying flight attendants when passengers are boarding.

American flight attendants are now also compensated for some hours between flights. United Airlines’ cabin crews, who voted down a tentative contract deal last month, also want a similar provision.

On the markets, Air Canada’s stock is down 1.6 percent as of 12pm in Toronto (16:00 GMT). US carrier United Airlines – another Star Alliance member, which does not have a striking cabin crew and which serves several major Canadian cities – is up 1.4 percent.

US President Donald Trump said last week that Intel’s CEO Lip-Bu Tan was ‘highly conflicted’ because of his ties to Chinese firms.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is due to visit the White House after United States President Donald Trump last week called for his removal.

The executive of the tech giant was set to meet the president on Monday, a source familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency.

Neither Intel nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment.

Tan is expected to have an extensive conversation with Trump while looking to explain his personal and professional background, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which broke the news on Sunday, adding that he could propose ways Intel and the US  government could work together, the paper said.

Tan hopes to win Trump’s approval by showing his commitment to the US and guaranteeing the importance of keeping Intel’s manufacturing capabilities as a national security issue, the WSJ added.

Last week, Trump demanded the immediate resignation of Tan, calling him “highly conflicted” due to his ties to Chinese firms, comments that raised doubts about Tan’s plans to turn around the struggling US chip icon.

It was a rare instance of a US president publicly calling for a CEO’s ouster, and sparked debate among investors.

Tan said he shared the president’s commitment to advancing US national and economic security.

Reuters reported exclusively in April that Tan invested at least $200m in hundreds of Chinese advanced manufacturing and chip firms, some of which were linked to the Chinese military.

Tan, a Malaysian-born Chinese American business executive, was also the CEO of Cadence Design from 2008 through December 2021, during which time the chip design software maker sold products to a Chinese military university believed to be involved in simulating nuclear explosions.

Last month, Cadence agreed to plead guilty and pay more than $140m to resolve the US charges over the sales.

Intel’s stock surged ahead of the meeting. The company, which trades under the ticker INTC, is up more than 7.5 percent for the day as of noon in New York (16:00 GMT).

By&nbspAP with Eleanor Butler

Published on
08/08/2025 – 9:20 GMT+2

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Intel shares slumped on Thursday after President Donald Trump said in a social media post that the chipmaker’s CEO needed to resign.

“The CEO of Intel is highly conflicted and must resign, immediately,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!”

Trump made the post after Senator Tom Cotton sent a letter to Intel Chairman Frank Yeary, expressing concern over CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s investments and ties to semiconductor firms that are reportedly linked to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army. Cotton asked the board whether Tan had divested his interests in these companies to eliminate any conflicts of interest.

It’s not immediately clear if Tan, who took over as Intel’s CEO in March, has done so.

In a statement, Intel said it was “deeply committed to advancing US national and economic security interests”. The firm said it was making “significant investments aligned with the President’s America First agenda”.

Cotton’s allegations

“In March 2025, Intel appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO,” Cotton wrote in the letter. “Mr. Tan reportedly controls dozens of Chinese companies and has a stake in hundreds of Chinese advanced-manufacturing and chip firms. At least eight of these companies reportedly have ties to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.”

Cotton specifically called out Tan’s recent leadership of Cadence Design Systems in the letter. According to the US Department of Justice, Cadence, agreed in July to plead guilty to resolve charges that it violated export controls rules to sell hardware and software to China’s National University of Defense Technology, which is linked to the Chinese military.

Tan was the CEO of Cadence when the company violated the rules between 2015 and 2021.

The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security also fined Cadence $95 million for the same breaches, saying Cadence admitted that “employees of its Chinese subsidiary knowingly transferred sensitive US technology to entities that develop supercomputers in support of China’s military modernisation and nuclear weapons programs.”

Cadence did not immediately respond to AP requests.

The digital race

Tan previously launched the venture capital firm Walden International in 1987 to focus on funding tech start-ups, including chip makers.

China’s state media has described Tan as “actively” devoted to Chinese and Asian markets, having invested not only in the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, but also China’s state-owned enterprise SMIC, which seeks to advance China’s chipmaking capabilities.

The demands made by Trump and Cotton come as economic and political rivalries between the US and China increasingly focus on the competition over chips, AI and other digital technologies that experts say will shape future economies and military conflicts.

Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has raised concerns that Chinese spies could be working at tech companies and defence contractors, using their positions to steal secrets or plant digital backdoors that give China access to classified systems and networks.

On Thursday the Arkansas Republican wrote to the Department of Defense, urging Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to ban all non-US citizens from jobs allowing them to access DoD networks. He has also demanded an investigation into Chinese citizens working for defence contractors.

“The US government recognises that China’s cyber capabilities pose one of the most aggressive and dangerous threats to the United States, as evidenced by infiltration of our critical infrastructure, telecommunications networks, and supply chains,” Cotton wrote in an earlier letter, calling on the Pentagon to conduct the investigation.

National security officials have linked China’s government to hacking campaigns targeting prominent Americans and critical US systems.

“US companies who receive government grants should be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars and adhere to strict security regulations,” Cotton wrote on the social platform X.

Playing catch-up

Intel had been a beneficiary of the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act, receiving more than $8 billion (€6.9bn) in federal funding to build computer chip plants around the country.

Shares of the California company slid 3.5%, while markets, particularly the tech-heavy Nasdaq, gained ground.

Founded in 1968 at the start of the PC revolution, Intel missed the technological shift to mobile computing triggered by Apple’s 2007 release of the iPhone, and it has lagged behind more nimble chipmakers. Intel’s troubles have been magnified since the advent of artificial intelligence — a booming field where the chips made by once-smaller rival Nvidia have become tech’s hottest commodity.

Intel is shedding thousands of workers and cutting expenses, including some domestic semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, as Tan tries to revive the fortunes of the struggling chipmaker.

Chipmaker Intel is the latest tech company facing political pressure from President Trump.

On Thursday, Trump called for the immediate resignation of Intel Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan, who took the helm in March to turn around the beleaguered chipmaker.

“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

Trump didn’t say what the conflicts were in his post, but his remarks came after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) sent a letter to Intel’s board, expressing national security concerns about Tan’s reported ties to Chinese companies. Cotton cited a report from Reuters that said Tan has invested in more than 600 Chinese firms and some of them have links to the country’s military.

Trump’s call for Tan’s resignation adds to a list of issues Intel already has to deal with.

The 57-year-old tech company, once the most valuable U.S. chipmaker, is trying to keep up as the race to dominate artificial intelligence escalates. The Santa Clara, Calif., company has been losing money and has seen its stock plunge while it falls behind rivals such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.

As of Thursday morning, Intel’s share price was down 2% to $19.92. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump said Wednesday during an event in which Apple announced an additional $100-billion investment in the United States that he plans to place a tariff on semiconductors, but that there won’t be a charge for companies building in the United States.

While he praised companies such as Apple and Nvidia, he criticized Intel.

“Intel was just taken over the coals. They were taken to the cleaners, frankly, and moved to other places, in particular Taiwan,” Trump said at the event.

Intel, known for making the “brains” that power computers, has been investing heavily in its foundry business, taking on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which makes chips for companies including Apple and Nvidia. During the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded Intel roughly $8 billion to support manufacturing and advanced packaging projects in the United States.

United States President Donald Trump has fired off a social media message calling on the head of the US technology firm Intel to resign from his post as chief executive officer.

Trump’s decision to denounce Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan on Thursday morning sent the company’s stocks tumbling, amid the uncertainty about the future of its leadership.

“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately,” Trump wrote. “There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!”

Trump’s post appeared to be a response to reports that Tan has invested nearly $200m in Chinese technology manufacturing and chip firms, including some with links to the country’s military.

But the president’s social media message also raises concerns about his apparent willingness to get involved in the affairs of private companies, even calling for dramatic changes in leadership and direction.

Scrutiny on Tan’s ties to China

Tan, a longtime technology investor, is relatively new to his post. He was appointed as Intel’s CEO on March 12, and he also serves on the company’s board of directors.

Previously, Tan served in leadership positions at the software company Cadence Design Systems, and he was a founding partner for the venture capital firm Walden Catalyst Ventures.

His personal investments — and the investments of the venture funds he manages — caught the public’s attention shortly after his appointment at Intel, though.

In April, the news agency Reuters reported that, between March 2012 and December 2024, Tan invested in Chinese firms that create technology for the People’s Liberation Army, China’s armed forces.

For some US politicians, that raised a conflict of interest.

On Wednesday, for instance, Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas posted a letter on social media written to the chairman of Intel’s board of directors, Frank Yeary.

In it, he demanded more information about Tan’s hiring and his investments in China.

Cotton pointed out that, on July 28, Cadence Design Systems agreed to plead guilty to federal charges concerning the sale of technology and intellectual property to China’s National University of Defense Technology.

That plea deal resulted in criminal and civil penalties of more than $140m.

“I write to express concern about the security and integrity of Intel’s operations and its potential impact on US national security,” Cotton wrote in his letter to Yeary.

“Mr Tan reportedly controls dozens of Chinese companies and has a stake in hundreds of Chinese advanced-manufacturing and chip firms. At least eight of these companies reportedly have ties to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.”

In an accompanying message to his social media followers, Cotton added that Intel “owes Congress an explanation”. Intel and Tan have yet to respond to the concerns.

Trump pushes ‘America First’ plan

For years, the US and China have been locked in tense competition for economic and political dominance, and the US has repeatedly accused China of attempting to poach American innovation and spy on its technology firms.

China, meanwhile, has denied such allegations, describing them as part of a US smear campaign.

Founded in 1968, Intel has long been a flagship US technology firm, known for producing computer parts like microprocessors. But in recent decades, the company has struggled to keep pace with its competitors, particularly as artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed Silicon Valley, Intel’s longtime home.

Trump, however, has sought to bolster domestic manufacturing with his “America First” economic agenda, which leverages tariffs to discourage the import of products from abroad.

On Tuesday, the Republican leader even said he planned to impose 100-percent tariffs on foreign chips and semiconductors sold in the US.

But Trump has faced criticism for testing the boundaries of his executive power — and, in some cases, seeking to impose his will on the running of private companies.

Since taking office for a second term, for instance, Trump has withheld federal funds from private universities in order to extract guarantees that those institutions would eliminate their diversity initiatives and implement disciplinary reforms, among other demands.

In an interview with Reuters, analysts appeared split over whether Trump was overplaying his hand.

“Many investors likely believe that President Trump has his hand in too many cookie jars, it’s just another signal that he’s very serious about trying to bring business back to the US,” said David Wagner, the head of equity and a portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors, which has invested in Intel.

Meanwhile, Phil Blancato, the CEO of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management, told Reuters that Trump ousting Tan could have a chilling effect on US business.

“It would be setting a very unfortunate precedent,” Blancato said. “You don’t want American presidents dictating who runs companies, but certainly his opinion has merit and weight.”

It is unclear how Trump’s pressure campaign against Tan may affect Intel’s future.

Last year, Intel received $8bn in subsidies under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, to build further chip manufacturing plants in the US.

Aug. 7 (UPI) — President Donald Trump called for Lip-Bu Tan, the chief executive officer of the Intel technology company to step down Thursday.

“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately,” Trump posted to his Truth Social account. “There is no other solution to this problem.”

Although Trump hasn’t clearly explained the reason behind his declaration, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., did pen a letter Tuesday to Intel’s Chairperson Frank Yeary in regard to Intel Tan, who was appointed in March.

“I write to express concern about the security and integrity of Intel’s operations and its potential impact on U.S. national security,” Cotton wrote. “Mr. Tan reportedly controls dozens of Chinese companies and has a stake in hundreds of Chinese advanced-manufacturing and chip firms.”

Tan served as the CEO of Cadence Design Systems, a tech and software company, from 2009 to 2021, which was charged in July by the U.S. Department of Justice with conspiracy to commit export control violations. The charges are based on actions that occurred between February 2015 and April 2021.

Cadence has since pleaded guilty, and under a plea agreement will pay criminal penalties of around $118 million to resolve the charges, as well as more than $95 million in civil penalties.

Cotton noted in the letter that Tan was the CEO during the period of admitted criminal activity, and also that Intel was granted almost $8 billion under the CHIPS and Science Act, which funds the production of semiconductors.

“Intel is required to be a responsible steward of American taxpayer dollars and to comply with applicable security regulations,” Cotton further wrote. “Mr. Tan’s associations raise questions about Intel’s ability to fulfill these obligations.”

Cotton then requested information regarding Intel’s knowledge of the investigation of Cadence and if Tan’s activities as Candence CEO were vetted, and if Tan was required to divest from any semiconductor firms with connections “to the Chinese Communist Party or the People’s Liberation Army and any other concerning entities in China that could pose a conflict of interest for Intel’s CEO.”

Intel stock opened down and continued to drop Thursday from an after-market high Wednesday of $20.99 to $19.70 at 10:55 a.m. EDT.

Greg Saunier already had reasons to be wary of Spotify. The founder of the acclaimed Bay Area band Deerhoof was well acquainted with the service’s meager payouts to artists and songwriters, often estimated around $3 per thousand streams. He was unnerved by the service’s splashy pivots into AI and podcasting, where right-wing, conspiracy-peddling hosts like Joe Rogan got multimillion-dollar contracts while working musicians struggled.

But Saunier hit his breaking point in June, when Spotify’s Chief Executive Daniel Ek announced that he’d led a funding round of nearly $700 million (through his personal investment firm, Prima Materia) into the European defense firm Helsing. That company, which Ek now chairs, specializes in AI software integrated into fighter aircraft like its HX-2 AI Strike Drone. “Helsing is uniquely positioned with its AI leadership to deliver these critical capabilities in all-domain defence innovation,” Ek said in a statement about the funding round.

In response, Deerhoof pulled its catalog from Spotify. “Every time someone listens to our music on Spotify, does that mean another dollar siphoned off to make all that we’ve seen in Gaza more frequent and profitable?” Saunier said, in an interview with The Times. “It didn’t take us long to decide as a band that if Daniel Ek is going harder on AI warfare, we should get off Spotify. It’s not even that big of a sacrifice in our case.”

A small band yanking its catalog won’t make much impact on Spotify’s estimated quarterly revenues of $4.8 billion. But it seemed to inspire others: several influential acts subsequently left the service, lambasting Ek for investing his personal fortune into an AI weapons firm.

Spotify did not return request for comment about Ek’s Helsing investments.

This small exodus is unlikely to sway Ek, or dislodge Spotify from dominating the record economy. But it may further sour young music fans on Spotify, as many are outraged about wars in Gaza and elsewhere.

“There must be hundreds of bands right now at least as big as ours who are thinking of leaving,” Saunier said. “I thought we’d be fools not to leave, the risk would be in staying. How can you generate good feelings between fans when musical success is intimately associated with AI drones going around the globe murdering people?”

Swedish mogul Ek, with an estimated wealth around $9 billion, may seem an unlikely new player in the global defense industry. But his interest in Helsing goes back to 2021, when Ek invested nearly $115 million from Prima Materia and joined the company’s board. [Helsing, based in Germany, says it was founded to “help protect our democratic values and open societies” and puts “ethics at the core of defense technology development.”]

With his investment, Ek joined tech moguls Jeff Bezos and Palmer Luckey in pivoting from nerdier cultural pursuits (like online bookselling and virtual reality) into defense. The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers said then that Ek’s actions “prove once again that Ek views Spotify and the wealth he has pillaged from artists merely as a means to further his own wealth.”

A range of anti-Spotify protests followed later, like a songwriters’ rally in West Hollywood in 2022 and a boycott of Spotify’s 2025 Grammy party, after Spotify cut $150 million from songwriter royalties. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulled their catalogs in response to Rogan spreading misinformation about COVID-19.

Yet eventually, both relented. “Apple and Amazon have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at Spotify,” Young said in a pithy note in 2022. “I hope all you millions of Spotify users enjoy my songs! They will now all be there for you except for the full sound we created.”

Daniel Ek, founder and CEO of Spotify, in 2023.

(Noam Galai / Getty Images for Spotify)

Ek’s latest investment seems to have struck a nerve though, especially in the corners of music where Spotify slashed income to the point where artists have little to lose by leaving.

After Deerhoof’s announcement, the influential avant-garde band Xiu Xiu announced a similar move. “We are currently working to take all of our music off of garbage hole violent armageddon portal Spotify,” they wrote. “Please cancel your subscription.”

The Amsterdam electronic label Kalahari Oyster Cult had similar reasoning: “We don’t want our music contributing to or benefiting a platform led by someone backing tools of war, surveillance and violence,” they posted.

Most significantly, the Australian rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard — an enormously popular group that will headline the Hollywood Bowl Aug. 10. — said last week that it would pull its dozens of albums from Spotify as well. “A PSA to those unaware: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in AI military drone technology,” the band wrote, announcing its departure. “We just removed our music from the platform. Can we put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better?”

“We’ve been saying ‘f— Spotify’ for years. In our circle of musicians, that’s what people say all the time for well-documented reasons,” the band’s singer Stu Mackenzie said in an interview. “I don’t consider myself an activist, but this feels like a decision staying true to ourselves. We saw other bands we admire leaving, and we realized we don’t want our music to be there right now.”

Ek’s moves with Prima Materia come as no surprise to Glenn McDonald, a former data analyst at Spotify who became well known for identifying trends in listener habits. McDonald was laid off in 2023, and has mixed feelings about the company’s priorities today. It’s both the arbiter of the record industry and a mercurial tech giant that only became profitable last year while spinning off enormous wealth for Ek.

“It’s well documented that Spotify was only a music business because that was an open niche,” McDonald said. “I’m never surprised by billionaires doing billionaire things. Google or Apple or Amazon investing in a company that did military technology wouldn’t surprise me. Spotify subscribers should feel dismayed that this is happening, but not responsibility, because all the major streamers are about the same in moral corporate terms.”

McDonald said the company’s push toward Discovery Mode — where artists accept a lower royalty rate in exchange for better placement in its algorithm — added to the sense that Spotify is antagonistic to working artists’ values. More recently, Spotify rankled progressives when it sponsored a Washington, D.C., brunch with Rogan and Ben Shapiro celebrating President Trump’s return to the White House, and raised $150,000 for Trump’s inauguration (Apple and Amazon also donated to the inauguration).

While Ek’s investments in Helsing are not directly tied to Spotify, the money does come from personal wealth built through his ownership of Spotify’s stock. Fans are right to make a moral connection between them, McDonald said.

“Ek represents Spotify publicly, and thus its commitment to music. Him putting money into an AI drone company isn’t representing that,” McDonald said. “He can do whatever he wants with his money, but he is the face of a company as controversial and culturally important as Spotify. So yeah, people want to hold him to a less neutral standard.”

For artists looking to leave the service, the actual process of getting off Spotify varies. For King Gizzard, which releases its catalog on its own record labels, it was easy to remove everything quickly. Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu needed time to clear the move with several labels and former band members who receive royalties.

Being a smaller, autonomous band enabled Saunier to act according to his values, even at the cost of some meaningful slice of income. He has considered that, by torching his band’s relationship with Spotify, Deerhoof’s music could slip from away from some fans.

“Everyone I know hates Spotify, but we’ve been conditioned to believe that there is no other option,” he said. “But underground music is filled with so many beautiful examples of a mom-and-pop business mentality. I don’t need to dominate the world, I don’t need to be Taylor Swift to be counted as a success. I don’t need a global reach, I just need to provide myself a good life.”

Yet the only artists that might genuinely sway Ek’s investments would be ones with a global reach on the caliber of Swift. She has pulled her catalog from Spotify before, in 2014 just after releasing her smash album “1989.”

“Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for,” she said, before eventually returning to Spotify in 2017.

It’s hard to imagine her, or other comparable pop acts, taking a similar stand today, especially as the major labels’ fortunes are so bound up in Spotify revenues. Spotify reported a $10 billion payout to rights holders in 2024, roughly a quarter of the entire global recorded music business. Its stock has surged 120% over the last year, but in the second quarter of 2025, the firm missed earnings targets and dropped 11% this week, for the stock’s worst day in two years. “While I’m unhappy with where we are today, I remain confident in the ambitions we laid out for this business,” Ek said in an earnings call.

This recent, small exodus most likely didn’t contribute to that. But it might add to a creeping sense among young listeners that Spotify is not a morally-aligned place for fans to enjoy beloved songs.

“I actually think Spotify will eventually go the way of MySpace. It’s just a get-rich-quick scheme that will pass, become uncool, one that had its day and is probably in decline,” Saunier said. “They wrote an email to me seemingly to do face saving, which makes me think they’re more desperate than we think.”

Acts like Kneecap, Bob Vylan and others have been outspoken around the war on Gaza, at real risk to their careers — proof that young fans care deeply about these issues. While Ek would argue that Helsing helps Ukraine and Europe defend itself, others may not trust his judgment.

“Maybe it’s silly to expect cultural or moral leadership from Daniel Ek, but I don’t want it to be silly,” McDonald said. He thinks fans and artists can morally stay on Spotify, but hopes they build toward a more ethical record industry.

“It’s hard to see what ‘stay and fight’ consists of, but if everyone leaves, nothing gets better,” he said. “If we’re going to get a better music business, it’s going to come from somebody starting over from scratch without major labels, and somehow building to a point where we have enough leverage to change the power dynamic.”

King Gizzard’s Mackenzie looks forward to finding out how that might work. “I don’t expect Daniel Ek to pay attention to us, though it would be cool if he did,” Mackenzie said. “We’ve made a lot of experimental moves in music and releasing records. People who listen to our music have been conditioned to have trust and faith to go on the ride together. I feel grateful to have that trust, and this feels like an experiment to me. Let’s just go away from Spotify and see what happens.”

July 21 (UPI) — The new chief executive officer at Astronomer is speaking out following last week’s Coldplay concert kiss cam controversy, as he acknowledged the now viral video has raised brand awareness for the tech firm.

Pete DeJoy, co-founder and interim CEO, issued a statement Monday — called “Moving Forward at Astronomer” — after former CEO Andy Byron and Astronomer’s head of Human Resources, Kristin Cabot, were caught in an embrace Wednesday night on Coldplay’s jumbotron at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. Both Byron and Cabot, who are married to other people, ducked out of the camera shot when they saw themselves on the screen.

“The events of the past few days have received a level of media attention that few companies — let alone startups in our small corner of the data and AI world — ever encounter,” De Joy said.

“The spotlight has been unusual and surreal for our team, and, while I would never have wished for it to happen like this,” he added, “Astronomer is now a household name.”

DeJoy stepped into his new role at Astronomer, “a company that I’ve proudly poured my entire professional life into helping build,” over the weekend after Byron tendered his resignation.

On Monday, DeJoy seized the company’s current spotlight to highlight its true mission.

“Over the past few years, our business has experienced incredible growth. What was once a mission to help companies with Apache Airflow has turned into so much more,” DeJoy said.

“We’re privileged to sit at the center of our customers’ data and AI strategy, powering data pipelines behind in-game analytics of your favorite sports team, LLM powered chatbots for customer support, training AI for self-driving cars and every mission-critical process in between,” DeJoy continued in an attempt to steer attention away from the controversy.

Astronomer’s “mission is bigger than any one moment,” he said.

July 19 (UPI) — Software developer Astronomer says former Chief Executive Officer Andy Byron resigned amid controversy following his attendance at a recent Coldplay concert.

New York-based Astronomer confirmed Byron’s resignation on Saturday and said co-founder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy is its interim chief executive officer while its board of directors seeks a permanent replacement for Byron.

“Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding,” Astronomer officials said Saturday in a post on X.

“Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.”

Byron is married but was caught attending a Coldplay concert with another woman on Wednesday night at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.

The stadium’s “kiss cam” zeroed in on Byron with his arms wrapped around a woman standing in front of him during the concert, NBC News reported.

When they realized they were on the kiss cam, Byron ducked out of the camera shot, while the unidentified woman covered her face.

Coldplay’s lead singer Chris Martin noticed the pair’s reaction during the concert and opined: “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”

The video of the moment went viral, and social media sleuths identified the man as Byron.

Astronomer placed him on leave on Friday before accepting his resignation a day later, according to NBC News.

The tech firm is a relatively small company with fewer than 500 employees and noted the viral incident’s impact on its operations.

“While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not,” Astronomer said in its X post.

“We’re continuing to do what we do best: helping our customers with their toughest data and AI problems.”

An estimated 650 companies from 60 countries have gathered at the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has called China’s open-source artificial intelligence a “catalyst for global progress” and says it is “revolutionising” supply chains.

In a speech during Wednesday’s opening ceremony of the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing, Huang – whose firm last week became the first to touch $4 trillion in market value – hailed China’s role in pioneering AI, describing Chinese AI startup DeepSeek as “giving every country and industry a chance to join the AI revolution”.

Huang made the comments a day after Nvidia announced it will resume sales of its H20 AI chips to China after the United States government pledged to remove licensing restrictions that had halted exports.

“AI is transforming every industry from scientific research and healthcare to energy, transportation and logistics,” said Huang, who also praised China’s “super-fast” innovation, powered by its “researchers, developers and entrepreneurs”.

The California-based company produces some of the world’s most advanced semiconductors but cannot ship its most cutting-edge chips to China due to Washington’s concerns that Beijing could use them to enhance its military capabilities.

Nvidia developed the H20 – a less powerful version of its AI processing units – specifically for export to China. However, that plan stalled when US President Donald Trump’s administration tightened export licensing requirements in April.

“Huang says he’s now free to sell to the Chinese market thanks to negotiations with China on trade,” Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu said, reporting from Beijing. “The Trump administration has confirmed that in exchange for rare earths, it will allow the chip to now be sold into China.”

“The US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that it was “filing applications to sell the Nvidia H20 GPU again”.

Nvidia has also announced it is developing a new chip for Chinese clients called the RTX Pro GPU, which would also be compliant with US export restrictions.

The announcement from Nvidia boosted tech firm stocks around the world with Wall Street’s Nasdaq Composite index rising to another record high and stocks in Hong Kong also rallying.

The tightened US export curbs were imposed as China’s economy wavers. Domestic consumers are reluctant to spend, and a prolonged property sector crisis is weighing on growth.

President Xi Jinping has called for greater self-reliance in the face of increasing external uncertainty.

“China is really fashioning itself as a champion for free trade and this global supply chain expo is about positioning China as a crucial part of that global logistic infrastructure,” Yu said. “Beijing is trying to make a statement, and that statement is unlike the Trump administration would have the world believe – China is not replaceable” as evidenced by the roughly 650 companies from 60 countries represented at the expo.

Jensen Huang says Trump administration has assured his company it will be granted licences to export advanced chips.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says the technology giant has won approval from United States President Donald Trump’s administration to sell its advanced H20 computer chips, used to develop artificial intelligence, to China.

The news came in a company blog post late on Monday, and Huang also spoke about the coup on China’s state-run CGTN television network in remarks shown on X.

“The US government has assured Nvidia that licences will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” the post said.

“Today, I’m announcing that the US government has approved for us filing licences to start shipping H20s,” Huang told reporters in Beijing.

He noted that half of the world’s AI researchers are in China.

“It’s so innovative and dynamic here in China that it’s really important that American companies are able to compete and serve the market here in China,” he said.

Huang recently met with Trump and other US policymakers, and this week, he is in Beijing to attend a supply chain conference and speak with Chinese officials.

The broadcast showed Huang meeting with Ren Hongbin, the head of the China Council for Promotion of International Trade, which is hosting the China International Supply Chain Expo, which Huang was attending.

Nvidia is an exhibitor.

Nvidia has profited enormously from rapid adoption of AI and last week became the first company to have its market value surpass $4 trillion.

However, the trade rivalry between the US and China has been weighing heavily on the industry.

Washington has been tightening controls on exports of advanced technology to China for years, citing concerns that know-how meant for civilian use could be deployed for military purposes.

The emergence of China’s DeepSeek AI chatbot in January renewed concerns over how China might use the advanced chips to help develop its own AI capabilities.

In January before Trump began his second term in office, the administration of US President Joe Biden launched a new framework for exporting advanced computer chips used to develop artificial intelligence, an attempt to balance national security concerns about the technology with the economic interests of producers and other countries.

The White House announced in April that it would restrict sales of Nvidia’s H20 chips and AMD’s MI308 chips to China.

Nvidia had said the tighter export controls would cost the company an extra $5.5bn, and Huang and other technology leaders have been lobbying Trump to reverse the restrictions.

They have argued that such limits hinder US competition in a leading edge sector in one of the world’s largest markets for technology.

They have also warned that US export controls could end up pushing other countries towards China’s AI technology.

Nvidia’s US-traded shares slipped 0.5 percent in after-hours trading on Monday, but its shares traded in Frankfurt, Germany, jumped 3.2 percent early on Tuesday.

July 14 (UPI) — American consumer health company Kenvue on Monday fired CEO Thibaut Mongon.

Kenvue, which produces Aveeno, Band-Aid Brand, Johnson’s, Listerine, Neutrogena and Tylenol, announced that Mongon “has departed the company” and stepped down from the board.

Kirk Perry, a director with more than 30 years of technology and business transformation experience, was appointed as interim CEO.

“As interim CEO, I am excited to leverage my decades of experience leading businesses across the consumer and technology industries and work with the Board and leadership team to put the business on the strongest footing to deliver on Kenvue’s full potential and realize our goal of top-tier financial performance,” Perry said.

Heidrick & Struggles, an executive search firm, is assisting the company in a search for its next fulltime CEO.

“The Board’s strategic review is underway, and we are considering a broad range of potential alternatives, including ways to simplify the Company’s portfolio and how it operates. At the same time, with the CEO transition and recent appointment of a new CFO, we are aligning leadership expertise to drive the Company forward,” said Larry Merlo, Kenvue’s Chair of the Board. “We are confident that the steps we are taking put Kenvue on the right path to deliver both near- and long-term value creation for shareholders.”

American Apparel’s billboards were hard to miss when traversing Los Angeles in the 2000s. The ubiquitous ads for the L.A.-based clothing company featured gritty, amateurish photos of seemingly ordinary young women, posed suggestively, in various states of undress. As for the clothing, there wasn’t much of it. A tube sock here, a thong there. American Apparel’s apparel clearly wasn’t the draw.

The underage appearance of the models was disturbing but not entirely shocking given the controversial Calvin Klein ads over previous decades, and by the year 2000, Britney Spears’ schoolgirl-meets-stripper-pole routine in her “Oops! … I Did it Again” video was popular with tweens and moms alike. Yet there was something about the voyeuristic, predatory nature of American Appeal’s ad campaign that felt different, worse, beyond exploitative.

“Trainwreck: The Cult of American Apparel,” a documentary now streaming on Netflix, explains why those billboards felt more like criminal evidence than sexy ads. The 54-minute film breaks down what was happening on the other side of the camera at the company, led by problematic founder and CEO Dov Charney, and there’s nothing hip or fashionable about the abuse chronicled in it, which features footage, research and firsthand accounts from former employees.

Dov Charney founded American Apparel and was its CEO until he was fired after allegations of misconduct.

(Netflix)

The doc is part of a Netflix series that touches on messy, disastrous events, brands and people such as the Balloon Boy scandal and the so-called Poop Cruise. High-end stuff it’s not, and this installment of the series isn’t nuanced or long enough to be an in-depth exploration of a troubled company and its volatile founder. It does, however, lay bare an abusive culture at American Apparel and how Charney — who shot many of the ads himself — turned his own alleged regressions into a wildly successful branding campaign.

The documentary tracks the rise and fall of American Apparel and its CEO from the company’s inception in 1989 to it becoming one of the largest garment manufacturers in the United States until its bankruptcy in 2015. Reimagining plain sweatshirts and other wardrobe basics as hip alternatives to blingy jeans and gawdy UGG boots, the L.A.-made clothing was promoted as “Ethically Made — Sweatshop Free.” It later garnered the unofficial title of indie sleaze, just in time to resonate across a new thing called social media.

Charney is seen in action through reams of footage captured by employees and others in his orbit. Former workers tell their stories, recalling how they were hired or advanced into management positions despite having no experience. One recalls how new hires at the company received a welcome gift box that included a vibrator, a book by Robert Greene titled “The 48 Laws of Power,” a Leica camera and a Blackberry so Charney could contact them 24/7. They were also asked to sign nondisclosure agreements which would later make it difficult to hold Charney accountable for alleged misconduct.

EJ and Jonny are among the former American Apparel employees interviewed in the documentary. (Netflix)

Footage shows Charney as a wiry, supercharged figure who frequently berated his staff as “losers” and worse. He housed chosen employees at his Silver Lake mansion, the Garbutt House, and they included a gaggle of young women whose roles seemed to be as surrogates and enforcers for Charney — workers referred to them as Dov’s Girls. Then in his 40s, he’s shown verbally accosting young employees, some of whom were teenagers at the time. At least one clip captures him parading around naked in front of two female employees.

After defining fashion for roughly a decade, the thriving company began to nosedive by the 2010s as news of Charney’s inappropriate behavior and oppressive conditions in the workplace surfaced. He was accused of mistreating young employees in the company’s stores and offices, as well as exploiting undocumented employees in the factory, but it was allegations of sexual misconduct and assault in the workplace that made headlines, leading to his ouster as CEO. Women who claim they were sexually assaulted by Charney are interviewed in the documentary.

Charney did not disappear after his fall from grace. He founded another clothing manufacturer, Los Angeles Apparel, and he reportedly works on Yeezy, the fashion brand created by Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. Rolling Stone reported that Charney printed West’s controversial “White Lives Matter” T-shirt.

As for American Apparel, it was bought by a Canadian clothing company that relaunched the brand shortly before the pandemic. The clothes are no longer made in L.A., but curiously, the indie sleaze billboard campaign has returned to the city. It’s disturbing in a throwback kind of way, pointing to a time when pedo-marketing was king, and the creepy folks behind the ads were heralded as marketing geniuses.

By the looks of the first trailer for “Bugonia,” Emma Stone’s latest collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos will be just as brilliantly bizarre as its predecessors.

“Bugonia,” an English-language remake of the South Korean sci-fi comedy “Save the Green Planet!,” follows two conspiracy theorists who believe Stone’s high-powered chief executive character is an alien planning to destroy planet Earth — so they kidnap her.

Stone and Lanthimos have previously worked together on “The Favourite” (2018), “Poor Things” (2023) and “Kinds of Kindness” (2024). “Bugonia” marks their third consecutive film in three years.

The trailer — released Thursday by Focus Features — opens with a voiceover, a metaphor and a shot of a beehive. “The workers gather pollen for the queen,” Jesse Plemons, who worked with Lanthimos and Stone in “Kinds of Kindness,” says as the trailer cuts to Stone’s swaggering CEO.

After a quippy kidnapping montage with Plemons and Aidan Delbis’ characters set to Green Day’s “Basket Case,” Stone is shown lying unconscious in a bed. Jarring chords alternate with action-packed footage of fist fights and police chases, all framed in Lanthimos’ quintessential style.

“How can you tell she’s an alien?” Delbis asks. Plemons replies, “Well, the signs are obvious.”

The conspiracy theory — and the truth about the CEO’s extraterrestrial status — remain anything but obvious in this initial teaser; fans will have to wait for the film’s release.

“Bugonia” is set for a limited run on Oct. 24 before expanding wide Oct. 31. Stavros Halkias and Alicia Silverstone round out the cast.

Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter and Lakers president and controlling owner Jeanie Buss broke their silence Wednesday on a blockbuster deal that shocked many in and outside of the Los Angeles.

A news release issued by Walter’s team confirmed his acquisition of majority ownership stake of the Lakers, with the transaction expected to close in the third or fourth quarter of this year.

During the sale talks, the valuation of the Lakers was placed at $10 billion, a record for a professional sports team, people with knowledge of the deal not authorized to discuss it publicly told The Times. ESPN reported it is possible the value could swell to $12 billion before the transaction is complete.

Buss, whose family has had control of the Lakers for 46 years, will remain governor of the team and “continue to oversee all team operations on a day-to-day basis for the foreseeable future,” the statement confirmed.

Walter and Todd Boehly — a partner in the Dodgers ownership group — became the Lakers’ largest minority shareholders in 2021 when they bought 27% of the franchise, a stake previously held by Phil Anschutz.

Jerry Buss, Jeanie Buss’ father, bought the team for $67.5 million in 1979 in a deal that included the Los Angeles Kings and the Forum in Inglewood. Buss sold the Kings to Bruce McNall in 1988.

“The Buss family is deeply honored to have looked after this incredible organization for almost half a century,” Jeanie Buss said in the statement. “From the day our father purchased the Lakers, we have been determined to deliver what the City of Los Angeles deserves and demands: a team that is committed to winning — relentlessly — and to doing so with passion and with style.”

Buss said she felt confident Walter would lead the franchise to success. During his tenure, the Dodgers signed a collection of stars headlined by two-way wonder Shohei Ohtani. The team won the World Series last year, their second championship and fourth World Series appearance in the last eight years.

“I have gotten to know Mark very well over time and been delighted to learn how he shares those same values,” Buss said. “For the last four years, Mark has been an excellent partner to us, and we are thrilled to keep working with him to continue the Lakers’ extraordinary legacy.”

Walter, the chairman and CEO of TWG Global, has ownership stakes in the Dodgers, the WNBA’s Sparks, the Billie Jean King Cup, the Cadillac Formula 1 Team and the Professional Women’s Hockey League.

He said the Lakers “have long been one of the most iconic franchises in sports.”

“Since Dr. Jerry Buss first purchased the team in 1979, they have truly set the standard for basketball in one era after another, which is why you can find people anywhere in the world wearing Lakers shirts and jerseys,” Walter said.

Control of the Lakers went into a family trust after Buss died in 2013, with daughter Jeanie Buss operating as the team’s governor. The structure of the trust meant the majority of Buss’ six children — Johnny, Jim, Jeanie, Janie, Joey and Jesse — had to agree to the deal for a sale to occur.

The structure of the family trust, according to people familiar with it, doesn’t allow for ownership to pass down to heirs after death, meaning the split among the siblings would go from being shared six ways down to five and so on.

“I admire what [Jerry Buss,] Jeanie and the Buss family have built, and I know how much this special organization matters to Southern Californians and to sports fans everywhere,” Walter said. “I also have tremendous respect for Jeanie’s continued commitment to maintaining the Lakers’ long-term vision and elite status, and I’m excited to work with her on the next era.”

Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong continues to hold a minority owner share of the Lakers.

The agreement for the sale of the Lakers came about three months after Bill Chisholm agreed to buy the Boston Celtics with an initial valuation of $6.1 billion — which was going to be a record, topping the previous mark of $6.05 billion sale for the NFL’s Washington Commanders.

The Lakers transaction was viewed as a massive surprise in NBA circles.

The Celtics’ sale is not yet finalized, pending final approval by the NBA’s board of governors.

The Lakers, led on the court by stars LeBron James and Luka Doncic, are preparing to start their 78th season later this year. The team has reached the postseason 65 times in franchise history, including 32 trips to the NBA finals and 17 championships.

The Associated Press’ Tim Reynolds contributed to this report.

Los Angeles County’s looming agreement with its biggest labor union is expected to cost a little more than $2 billion over three years — the latest hit to a budget besieged by financial woes.

The cost estimate, provided to The Times on Monday by the county chief executive office, will necessitate more belt-tightening for a government that’s running out of notches.

The deadly January wildfires are expected to cost the county $2 billion. The Trump administration has threatened cuts that would ravage the county’s public health budget. The L.A. County supervisors agreed this year to a historic $4 billion sex abuse settlement — the largest of its kind in U.S. history — and required most departments to make 3% cuts to help pay for it.

The cuts aren’t done, Chief Executive Fesia Davenport warned the supervisors Monday as she walked them through the latest version of the county’s sprawling $49-billion budget.

To pay for salary bumps and bonuses for county workers in the tentative labor agreement, the updated budget slashes $50.5 million, cutting funding for parks, swimming pools and violence prevention, among other programs. Soon, each department will need to make an additional 5.5% cut, said Davenport, whose office drafts the budget and leads labor negotiations.

“We are taking this extraordinary step because we simply have no alternative,” she said.

The supervisors unanimously approved the recommended budget Monday, which included an initial round of cuts to pay for some of the expected labor costs and the multibillion-dollar sex abuse settlement.

Despite their unanimous vote, the supervisors had little nice to say Monday about the plan.

“While the budget may look like it’s healthy, it’s a sick patient,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis.

As a result of the cuts, two probation offices are expected to shutter. County swimming pools will shut down earlier. Regional parks will now close two days a week.

“Like every other Angeleno, I’m mad too,” said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who noted a petition she had seen on Nextdoor that morning protesting the two-day-a-week closure of Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in her district.

The county announced last week that it had reached a tentative agreement with SEIU 721, which represents 55,000 county workers. The agreement, which still needs to be ratified by the union membership and the supervisors, includes a $5,000 bonus in the first year, followed by a 2% cost of living adjustment and $2,000 bonus in the second year and a 5% salary increase the third year.

The county is in negotiations with 16 smaller unions. The $2.1-billion price tag assumes that those unions will adopt similar salary increases and bonuses as SEIU 721.

To pay for the new labor costs, the chief executive office said the county will dip into its general fund for $778 million. The remaining $1.2 billion or so will come from federal and state funds meant for staffing costs.

David Green, the head of SEIU 721, said his members were “thrilled” with the tentative contract — the fruit of months of negotiations and a two-day strike this spring.

Last year, the city of Los Angeles agreed to contracts covering 33,000 union workers, many of whom would receive a pay increase of 24% over the next five years. The contracts, which the city estimated would add $3.5 billion in costs over five years, were a contributing factor in a massive budget shortfall that the City Council closed with layoffs and other spending cuts.

Green, who negotiated with both the city and county, said comparing the two was like “apples and oranges.”

“The economic climate has gotten worse in a lot of ways,” he said. “I think you felt a little bit of that in L.A. county bargaining.”

County supervisors appeared supportive of the agreement in Monday’s meeting, though quick to pan the overall financial picture.

“This is a budget I don’t like — I don’t think anyone does,” said Hahn.

But it could be worse, she noted.

“I know this is a budget … that won’t put us in the hole,” she said.

Warner Bros. Discovery is in poor shape — so much so that Chief Executive David Zaslav has decided to unwind the 2022 merger he orchestrated by splitting the company in two.

But Zaslav himself is doing just fine, to the chagrin of shareholders.

In a rare searing rebuke, investors recently cast a symbolic vote disapproving of Zaslav’s 2024 compensation package, which rose 4% to $51.9 million compared with the year before.

The package, approved by the company’s board of directors, ensured that Zaslav remained one of the nation’s highest-paid corporate leaders. Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services, known as ISS, described the company’s executive compensation packages as “an unmitigated pay-for-performance misalignment.”

The situation renewed scrutiny of the compensation levels for leaders of the top entertainment companies, which remain high compared with peers in other industries.

Although 2024 was a bad year for Hollywood, it was a very good year for some of the industry’s top executives, according to a survey of data by Equilar, which studies executive pay, for The Times.

The median compensation for those executives for 2024 was $33.9 million, up 7% from 2023, Equilar said. That’s about double the median compensation of CEOs at S&P 500 companies, which was $17.1 million last year.

The compensation data include stock options, base salaries, bonuses and other perks for CEOs from Netflix, Fox Corp., Roku, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., AMC Networks, Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery and the Walt Disney Co.

Paramount was excluded from the median data because of a change from one CEO to three in April 2024.

“The compensation packages remain somewhat out of whack based on the good old days where the margins were substantially higher,” said Evan Shapiro, a former NBCUniversal executive who now runs his own company. “The Hollywood era got used to very specific — some would argue irrational — pay packages and never readjusted itself when the business went haywire.”

Pay packages increased for Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, reflecting the streaming giant’s strong performance. The value of Sarandos’ pay package went up 24% to $61.9 million, while Peters’ went up 50% to $60.3 million.

Other executives whose compensation increased included Bob Bakish, who was ousted as CEO of Paramount in April 2024. He had a package worth $86.96 million in 2024 (which included his roughly $69 million severance), up 178% from $31.3 million a year earlier.

Disney chief Bob Iger, who spent 2024 mounting a turnaround for the Burbank-based company, earned $41.1 million, up 30% from the previous year. During the year, Disney had renewed strength at the box office and achieved streaming profitability after years of losses.

Fox Corp.’s CEO Lachlan Murdoch’s total pay rose 9% to $23.8 million, while Roku CEO Anthony Wood got a bump of 37% to $27.7 million.

Others got a pay cut. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts’ 2024 compensation declined 5% to $33.9 million, primarily due to a lower cash bonus. AMC Networks CEO Kristin Dolan had a 40% drop to $8.7 million last year related to a $6.8-million equity award she received in 2023 tied to her promotion to CEO.

Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer earned $18.2 million in the company’s fiscal 2024 year, down 15% compared with $21.5 million from fiscal 2023.

For 2024, the highest-paid chief executives among publicly traded media and entertainment companies compiled by Equilar for The Times were Bakish, Zaslav, Sarandos, Peters and Iger.

Most of the companies declined to comment or referred The Times to proxy statements filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Fox Corp. did not return a request for comment.

The increase in pay reflects a broader trend at publicly traded companies. Compensation is increasing as companies try to align pay with performance by handing out large stock awards, said Amit Batish, senior director of content for Equilar. Certain awards such as stock options typically benefit executives only if the stock goes up.

Some executives are also adding security perks after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year, he said.

Several Hollywood executives had pay packages last year that were worth substantially more than the median, Equilar said. With so much change and disruption happening in the entertainment business and plenty of competition for skilled leadership, companies believe they need to pay up to hold on to executive talent.

“Especially in the entertainment industry that’s constantly evolving, with streaming services taking over, there’s constant fluctuations in the market, so companies are looking to find ways to keep their executives on board and motivated,” Batish said.

Sky-high executive compensation has resurfaced debate about a subject that has been simmering since even before the 2023 strikes led by writers and actors — the widening pay gap between executives and workers.

Many entertainment workers have left Southern California due to the lack of work, as more productions are moving out of the area due to increased costs. Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal and Paramount have continued to lay off employees. Some entertainment workers struggling to find jobs have adopted the saying “Persist to ’26,” replacing last year’s “Survive ‘til ’25.”

“Any survey of executive pay, generally there’s a disconnect between what people see in their own checking accounts and when they see what executives, particularly for top Fortune 500 companies, earned,” said David Smith, a professor of economics at the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School. “There’s often discontent with the chasm between the rank and file and CEOs.”

Zaslav became a symbol of that ire in 2021 when his compensation package was valued at $246.6 million, which included stock options tied to the merger. The value of his 2024 compensation was much lower at $51.9 million, but still higher than other executives such as Disney’s Iger.

Following the nonbinding shareholder “say on pay” vote, Warner Bros. Discovery pledged to address shareholder concerns. Those changes are expected to lower Zaslav’s future payouts. Similarly, Disney and Netflix in recent years have been hit with negative shareholder votes on the pay, leading to adjustments.

Zaslav’s target annual cash bonus opportunity will shrink from $22 million to $6 million after splitting Warner Bros. Discovery in two, separating studios and streaming services from linear cable networks, the company said. Zaslav’s base salary would remain $3 million.

“We structured the new compensation packages to address shareholders’ feedback by fostering pay-for-performance alignment,” Warner Bros. Discovery board chair Samuel A. Di Piazza Jr. said in a statement.

While Warner Bros. Discovery worked on retiring $4.4 billion in debt through cost-cutting and launched its streaming service Max (which is being rebranded back to HBO Max) in 70 markets last year, the company also had some fumbles, including losing the NBA on its TV networks.

“It appears the board may have been out-negotiated,” said Lloyd Greif, chief executive of Los Angeles investment bank Greif & Co. “They created incentives that did not directly translate into a higher stock price, or higher revenue and EBITDA growth” — referring to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. “So,” he added, “you have to look at the results and say, the board blew the call.”

The company’s compensation committee said it took into account Zaslav’s performance across different goals including revenue, cash flow, enhancing the motion picture slate, cost controls, launching Max globally and securing talent.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s revenue in 2024 fell 5% to $39.3 billion, compared with 2023. Adjusted earnings excluding certain items fell 11% during that same time period. The stock price declined about 7% in 2024.

“It just sends a very bad message to your teams,” said Paul Verna, vice president of content at research firm Emarketer, adding that leaders should inspire their teams amid challenges facing the industry. “It’s very hard to do that when you’re firing thousands of people but not really absorbing any pain yourself in your own compensation.”

The committee saw the loss of the NBA U.S. TV rights as a positive, saying it resulted in a “more efficient long-term relationship with the league,” according to the company’s proxy filing.

When the compensation committee evaluated those figures, it took out costs related to a joint venture called Venu Sports that was meant to launch in 2024 but was scrapped, as well as new sports rights programming and packages.

That irked some groups, including ISS, though some executive compensation experts said it is not uncommon for companies to factor out some costs deemed to be out of the executive’s control.

The reverberations of the shareholder vote continue.

It could cause the board to put pressure on the compensation committee to improve its performance or activist shareholders to target the company for a proxy contest, Lawrence Cunningham, director of the University of Delaware’s Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, wrote in an email to The Times.

“Shareholder votes on pay, even when non-binding, send a signal that can be important,” Cunningham wrote. “A 60% no vote is huge.”