Good morning.
Two tech billionaires started this week with egg on their face, and for once, it had nothing to do with a live product demo.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and NantHealth founder Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked, each at the eleventh hour, the U.S. presidential endorsements of Kamala Harris by the editorial boards of their newspapers, the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, respectively. Both papers endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 and have a long history of endorsing political candidates.
Why are we shocked that two tech founders interfered at century-old newspapers they own? Because they vowed they wouldn’t when they bought them. “The best newspapers are the voice of the people,” Soon-Shiong wrote in 2018. Bezos was more forthright in 2013: “The paper’s duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners.”
You can take the founder out of the mode, but you can’t take the mode out of the founder, I suppose. —Andrew Nusca
P.S. I’ll be interviewing the great Wynton Marsalis about jazz, leadership, and the future of democracy at our Fortune Global Forum, Nov. 11-12 in New York City. Interested? Request an invitation here.
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Officials are concerned about Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin talkTesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk during a political rally in New York City on October 27, 2024. (Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images)
Elon Musk has been in “regular contact” with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022, raising concerns in the federal government about national security, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Musk, of course, owns SpaceX, the primary provider of rocket launches for the Pentagon and NASA. He also said he has a security clearance giving him access to sensitive information about U.S. military and intelligence programs.
In their discussions, the two men broached at least one geopolitically important topic. Putin asked Musk to “avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping,” the Journal said.
Musk didn’t respond to the Journal’s request for comment about his contact with one of the biggest U.S. adversaries. But he replied with two laughing emojis to a post on his social media service X that said: “Welp, the Swamp’s ‘Trump is Hitler’ didn’t work. Might as well give ‘Elon is a Russian agent’ a whirl.”
A Kremlin spokesperson also dismissed the Journal as overblown, saying the only call between Musk and Putin focused on “space as well as current and future technologies.”—Jessica Mathews
UnitedHealth data breach sets an awful new record
A ransomware attack on UnitedHealth Group in February compromised data of more than 100 million people, making it the biggest health-related breach in U.S. history.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services disclosed the updated number of people affected last week, months after the attack caused a wave of healthcare system outages across the country.
Hackers targeting UHG’s technology unit, Change, accessed identifying personal information, like names, addresses, and Social Security numbers. They also stole health data, including diagnoses, treatment plans, and insurance, as well as payment information.
The next biggest hack of U.S. health info involved software services Welltok in 2023 and affected the data of 14 million people.
In a statement, a UHG spokesperson said the company is still working to identify and notify all the individuals affected. If you suspect or know your data was compromised, you should change the passwords on your important accounts and consider freezing your credit. —Jenn Brice
Satya Nadella gets a big payday
Want a big fat raise even when you think you don’t deserve it?
Well, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s got one—his overall compensation climbed more than 60% this year—despite requesting lower pay after his company was hit with cybersecurity attacks.
Last year, Nadella earned $48.5 million, with a base salary of $2.5 million plus stock awards, a cash bonus, and other compensation. But this year, while his base salary stayed flat, his total pay soared to more than $79 million, mostly coming from stock awards.
Specifically, Nadella asked for a lower bonus as a sign of contrition after suspected Chinese hackers gained access to U.S. officials’ accounts in 2023. In early 2024, Russian hackers followed up by infiltrating accounts of top Microsoft executives.
Based on Microsoft’s calculation, Nadella was due a bonus of more than $10 million this year. But because of his request for less, the board gave him $5.2 million instead. (Its compensation committee includes two former CEOs and two current ones.) Not bad, huh? —Sharon Goldman
Boeing wants to sell its space business
Aerospace giant Boeing is under such financial strain that it’s exploring the sale of the business unit that supports key NASA missions, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Friday.
That could include the company’s Starliner space taxi program and operations related to the International Space Station, but would not include NASA’s massive Space Launch System rocket.
All of this was under consideration before Kelly Ortberg took over as Boeing CEO in August, according to the report. Before Ortberg came onboard, Boeing even held discussions with Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space company about taking over some NASA programs.
The news comes shortly after Boeing reported third-quarter results that showed a $6 billion loss as its commercial aircraft unit has been hobbled by a strike that continues to drag on, with workers rejecting the latest offer.
As Ortberg put it during his first earnings call as CEO last week: “We’re better off doing less and doing it better than doing more and not doing it well.” —Jason Ma
AI is coming for the back catalog
Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is one of the all-time seasonal greats, but did you ever find yourself wondering what it might sound like in another language?
If so, rejoice, for producer Auero Baqueiro has wrangled a new version that replaces Lee’s actual vocals with AI-processed Lee vocals, singing in Spanish.
The revamped classic is entitled “Noche Buena y Navidad” and it comes with a seal of approval from Lee herself. She recorded the original way back in 1958, at the age of 13; today, she’s a sprightly 79.
It sounds pretty good—listen here on YouTube—but this isn’t just a novelty. It’s also the first example of Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest music company, using AI to translate a track from its enormous, ripe-for-the-squeezing back catalog.
Expect to hear more reworked hits in the near future. —David Meyer
More data
—Waymo is self-driving its way to more funding. Coming soon: More service in existing markets.
—The U.S. Copyright Office won’t let preservationists study video games remotely.
—Did Tether violate anti-money laundering rules? Federal authorities are investigating.
—Google Gemini 2.0 may arrive before the end of the year, if the team can work out performance kinks.
—Perplexity had acquisition offers from Notion, OpenAI, and X. Reportedly upwards of $200 million.
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