Happy Friday Everyone! Today’s newsletter: 1,006 words…3.8 mins
🗞 Today’s Edition: Musk’s $1 Trillion Power Play, Megsy Sussex Returns To Acting, Amazon’s New ‘Bazaar’ App, Zuck’s ‘Biohub’, Orban At The White House… & much more!
🚨Watch For:
Syrian Interim-President Ahmad al-Sharaa to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House: Monday, Nov 10th
📜THE HIGHLIGHT
One killer insight to stash in your back pocket
💰💰 Musk’s $1 Trillion Power Play — Tesla’s All-In Bet on Its CEO
Tesla shareholders just greenlit the biggest CEO payday in history — worth up to $1 trillion — giving Elon Musk a potential path to become the world’s first trillionaire.
Over 75% of shareholders backed the plan at Tesla’s Austin meeting, despite pushback from proxy firms calling it “corporate monarchy meets sci-fi.”
💵 The deal’s structure: 12 tranches of stock options that unlock only if Tesla hits impossible-sounding targets.
An $8.5 trillion valuation
20M cars produced
1M robotaxis on the road
For context: That’s more than Apple’s current market cap times two.
🤖 Musk’s cut? His voting power could jump from 13% to 25%, effectively giving him near-complete control over Tesla’s future in AI, robotics, and energy.
Stock popped 2% on the news as Musk thanked shareholders — flanked by his humanoid robots dancing on stage.
The company’s board framed it as “vision-based capitalism”; critics call it “a golden leash with diamond studs.”
💡 Bottom line: Tesla isn’t just betting on EVs anymore — it’s betting that Elon is the business model.
♟️THE CHESSBOARD
Geopolitics Decoded In 3 Moves
President Trump with PM Orban of Hungary. Source: X/@WhiteHouse
🇭🇺 🇺🇸 Orbán's White House Oil Play: Strongman Diplomacy 101
Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán met President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss Hungary’s ongoing imports of Russian oil, seeking a potential U.S. sanctions exemption.
The talks also covered defense cooperation, energy investments, and the possibility of future peace talks with Russia hosted in Budapest.
Orbán faces growing EU pressure to curb reliance on Russian energy, even as Hungary blocks or delays EU funding for Ukraine.
Orban also said it would take a “miracle” for Ukraine to win on the frontlines and that Hungary and America should start a new “Golden Age”.
🧭 Bottom line: Budapest is balancing NATO and EU ties with its energy lifeline to Moscow; and keeping Washington close, remains key.
🇺🇿 🇺🇸 Trump’s $100B Uzbek Power Play
President Trump just announced a $100 billion trade and investment deal with Uzbekistan — one of the biggest U.S.–Central Asia pacts ever touted.
The deal includes $35B over three years, touching everything from critical minerals to aviation, energy, and tech — aka a bid to wean Washington off China and Russia’s supply chains.
Highlight: Uzbekistan Airways plans to buy 22 Boeing 787 Dreamliners worth $8B.
💡Bottom line: Central Asia’s now in play — and Trump’s calling dibs.
🌪 Typhoon Kalmaegi’s Deadly Trail
Typhoon Kalmaegi has left at least 188 dead in the Philippines and five in Vietnam, with 135 still missing, as it rips west toward Cambodia and Laos.
Winds hit 149 km/h (92 mph), flattening homes, uprooting trees, and forcing hundreds of thousands to evacuate.
Vietnam deployed 260,000 troops and declared flood alerts, while President Marcos Jr. declared a state of emergency across the Philippines.
💡Bottom line: One of the deadliest storms of 2025 — and another brutal reminder of how the Pacific keeps rewriting weather math.
🗽THE EMPIRE FILES
Political Drama From DC To NYC
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex
🇺🇸 Cornell Restores $250M in Federal Funding After Settlement
Cornell University reached a $250M agreement with the Trump administration to reinstate federal research funding that was paused amid civil rights investigations.
The deal includes a $30M payment to the government
Another $30M for U.S. agricultural research
And new reporting requirements on admissions and campus policies related to antisemitism, race, and gender identity.
Cornell says the move safeguards academic freedom while ensuring compliance with federal law.
⚡Context: Similar agreements have recently been made by Columbia and Brown.
👠 🎬 Meghan Markle Returns to the Screen (as Herself)
After an eight-year break, Megsy Sussex is dipping her toes back into Hollywood. She’ll make a cameo as herself in Amazon MGM’s new comedy Close Personal Friends, starring Lily Collins, Brie Larson, Jack Quaid, and Henry Golding.
Filming in LA, the movie follows a couple who befriends a celebrity pair in Santa Barbara — an on-the-nose echo of Meghan and Harry’s Montecito life.
Why now: Royal life = failed rebrand. Spotify podcast = canceled. Netflix deal = hanging by a thread. Hollywood's the only lane left.
Harry's take: "Unwavering support" (read: their Montecito mortgage isn't paying itself).
⚡When your best career move is playing yourself in a satire about fame-chasing, the irony writes itself.
🤖 CODES & POWER
Tech Wars, Crypto Chaos, and AI’s Black Mirror Moments
🛒 Amazon Bazaar Takes on Temu & Shein
Amazon just dropped Bazaar, a standalone low-cost shopping app in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, with most products under $10.
Think fashion, home goods, and lifestyle items, plus interactive features like social lucky draws.
Bazaar mirrors Amazon Haul but targets markets outside the U.S., Europe, and Japan, letting users shop with existing Amazon accounts and enjoy free returns in 15 days.
💡Bottom line: Amazon is doubling down on the global budget-shopping war, taking aim at Shein, Temu, and TikTok Shop.
🦠 Zuckerberg Bets Big on AI Biology
Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan are refocusing their Chan Zuckerberg Initiative on Biohub, combining AI with biology to accelerate disease research.
They’ve acquired EvolutionaryScale to build AI-powered cell models, enabling virtual experiments that could reveal treatments faster than traditional labs.
The goal: Open-source tools for scientists worldwide.
⚡Bottom line: After years in education and social causes, the couple is now betting their philanthropy on AI-driven biology to transform medicine over the next decade.
📺 FUN FACTS & TRIVIA
Mickey…or Mortimer?
Walt Disney originally planned to name his iconic mouse character "Mortimer Mouse" when creating him in 1928, but his wife, Lillian, convinced him to change it to "Mickey Mouse," feeling that "Mortimer" sounded too stuffy.
This story is widely documented in Disney lore, and Mortimer later became Mickey's suave, scheming rival in cartoons and comics.