Good Morning. Elon spent three weeks suing for a charity he once asked to own 90% of. We break down the verdict.
We also include Carvana flipping dealers, a $67B power company monopoly, and how The Wolf of Wall Street closes anyone (forwarded this email? Join 523k readers).
TOP STORY TODAY
Musk Wanted 90%
A nine-person Oakland jury unanimously rejected Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman on Monday, ruling the statute of limitations had expired. Deliberations took under two hours. The verdict clears OpenAI's path to a public listing.
Musk had alleged Altman manipulated him into donating tens of millions to a nonprofit, then converted it into a for-profit venture. Evidence showed Musk knew of and supported the for-profit plan as early as 2017, even requesting 90% equity control before walking away.
Musk plans to appeal. OpenAI recently closed a $122 billion funding round, Silicon Valley's largest ever. President Greg Brockman testified his OpenAI stake is now worth roughly $30 billion.
$74B Used-Car Shop
Used-car giant Carvana is quietly muscling into new-car sales, and traditional dealers are rattled. The company has spent over $160 million acquiring seven Stellantis dealerships across the country, selling Jeeps, Rams and Dodges entirely online.
Its Casa Grande, Arizona store became the top-selling Stellantis dealership in the U.S. by April, moving roughly 350 vehicles a month versus 30 to 50 before Carvana took over. One Kansas City buyer paid $1,290 to ship a $51,000 Jeep Wrangler from 1,000 miles away rather than visit a local dealer.
Carvana now boasts a $74 billion market cap, larger than GM, Ford or Stellantis. Stellantis recently capped dealers at one acquisition per 12 months, but Carvana's in-progress deals were grandfathered through.
Power Bill Monopoly
NextEra Energy announced yesterday an all-stock deal to acquire Dominion Energy for roughly $67 billion, creating the world's largest regulated electric utility by market cap. The combined company will serve approximately 10 million customer accounts across Florida, Virginia, and the Carolinas.
The merger arrives as AI data centers send U.S. power demand soaring. Dominion already powers hundreds of data centers in Virginia, while NextEra expanded a Google Cloud partnership in December to build campuses nationwide. Officials in at least six states are now fighting proposed utility rate hikes.
Dominion shares jumped 9.61% on the news while NextEra fell 5%. NextEra stockholders will own 74.5% of the combined business. The deal is expected to close in 12 to 18 months, pending shareholder and regulatory approvals.
TOGETHER WITH GRANOLA
The AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings
You know that feeling when you leave a meeting and immediately forget half of what you agreed to?
That's not a memory problem. It's a meetings problem. When you're back-to-back all day, there's no time to process. No time to write the follow-up. No time to turn "we should probably..." into something that actually happens.
Granola helps you become the person who actually does what they said they'd do.
You take notes during the meeting: just quick bullets, nothing formal. Granola transcribes in the background and turns those notes into clear summaries with actual next steps.
After the call, you can share your notes with the team so everyone's aligned. Or chat with them to pull out exactly what you need to do next, without re-reading the whole thing.
No more "wait, what did we decide?" moments. No more dropping the ball because you had three calls in a row and couldn't keep track. Just clarity. And follow-through.
Download Granola and try it on your next meeting.
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TODAY’S LIFE ADVICE
The $40B Scam in Your Fridge
The global food fraud industry is worth around $40 billion a year.
Truffle oil: zero truffles. It's petroleum-derived chemical.
Wasabi: 99% is dyed horseradish.
Vanilla: only 1% of products worldwide are real.
Honey: a third of what's traded internationally is fake.
Parmesan: Walmart's "100% Parmesan" was 7.8% wood pulp.
Maple syrup: up to half of "100% pure" might be counterfeit.
The FDA inspects just 1-2% of imported foods. The fix from food-fraud experts: buy things in their whole form. You know what a lobster looks like, but lobster ravioli sometimes has no lobster.
Go closer to the source. With food. With advice. With everything.
How Jordan Belfort Closes Skeptical Buyers
Jordan Belfort's most-watched YouTube video shows exactly how to flip a skeptical prospect into a paying client without burning their existing vendor relationship.
The Wolf of Wall Street's playbook:
Diagnose their biggest pain point first
Validate, never attack, their current vendor
Ask for 30 days with a small slice of their business
Reframe trust: "If I had a three-year track record, would you say yes?"
Want to watch a convicted stock fraud charm $20 million in hedging from a dairy farmer in 19 minutes? Here’s the video.
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TOGETHER WITH SKECHERS
Cheap Running Shoes Cost More Than You Think
A $90 running shoe sounds like a deal. Until you realize the foam is dead at 250 miles and you're buying three pairs a year. That's $270 to run roughly 750 miles.
The Skechers AERO Razor runs $140 and is built to hit 500+ miles on a single pair. One pair, not three.
What gets you there:
A super critical foam midsole called HYPER BURST PRO that holds its bounce instead of pancaking by month three.
A real rubber outsole, Goodyear Performance Rubber, the same tire-grade compound that survives 50,000 miles on a car.
A built-in arch system called Arch Fit instead of a flimsy insole that flattens in the first month.
Buy once. Run further.
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Fun Links
College majors ranked by ROI [List]
“Dad Books” are a dying breed [Blog]
25 coffee maxims to live by [Blog]
Female-artist-of-the-year [Video]
The world’s coldest startup pitch [Video]
Jimi Hendrix’s favorite song writers [List]
Huckberry’s summer beach reads [List]
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