This week’s world-famous news haiku competition™ is about how Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has a website from the 1990s and fans say don’t mess with it. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET today, for consideration by your Cheddar peers.

Now: News!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

News You Need2Know

• JP Morgan offered $1 million to settle lawsuit

• Stocks rally on hopes of reopening Hormuz

• Musk settles with the SEC over Twitter boo boo

• Disney Posts strong earnings despite slowdown in p …

• Traders doubt GameStop's bid to acquire eBay

• Poll of the day: A slap on the wrist?

What’s the stock market up to, eh?*

$SPX ( ▲ 1.46% ) $DJI ( ▲ 1.24% ) $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter

 $JPM ( ▲ 1.78% )  $UAL ( ▲ 6.8% )  $CCL ( ▲ 6.79% )  $RCL ( ▲ 8.75% )  $AMD ( ▲ 18.62% )  $SMCI ( ▲ 24.54% )  $NVDA ( ▲ 5.77% )  $CVS ( ▲ 7.65% )  $UBER ( ▲ 8.53% )  $DIS ( ▲ 7.54% )  $GME ( ▲ 3.88% )  

JP Morgan offered $1 million to settle lawsuit

Wall Street loves a giant hush-money check, and JPMorgan Chase $JPM ( ▲ 1.78% ) recently offered a cool $1 million to a former investment banker, Chirayu Rana, to quietly settle his incredibly lurid sexual assault and racial discrimination claims. Spoiler alert: He rejected the offer, countered with a demand for $11.75 million, and now the entire mess has become a viral spectacle, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The bank claims its internal investigation found absolutely no merit to Rana's allegations. So why the seven-figure offer? A JPMorgan spokesman graciously explained: “We did try to reach an agreement to avoid the time and expense of litigation and to support an employee who was being threatened with the very reputational harm now unfolding. We continue to believe these allegations have no merit and new information raised as a result of the public filing only reinforces that conclusion.” 

Because paying out a million bucks for "meritless" accusations is totally standard practice. The accused female banker, Lorna Hajdini, isn't having it either. Her lawyers told the journal she “continues to categorically deny the allegations. She never dated this individual, never had a sexual or romantic encounter with him of any kind, and never gave him any drugs. She maintains that his false claims are entirely fabricated and tarnishing her reputation.”

Now, thanks to the internet's insatiable appetite for chaos, this failed hush-money attempt has morphed into AI-generated video reenactments across X and Instagram, becoming prime fodder for podcasters and, of course, cheesecasters like yours truly. The tweet above is the least lurid I could find, honestly. Have fun going down the rabbithole if you dare…

Quote of the Day

Stocks rally on hopes of reopening Hormuz

Global stock markets surged past their records yesterday as oil prices sank, driven by hopes that the U.S. and Iran might reach a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping. Easing oil prices provided a massive boost to companies with heavy fuel costs: United Airlines $UAL ( ▲ 6.8% ) flew, Carnival $CCL ( ▲ 6.79% ) rose with the tide, and Royal Caribbean $RCL ( ▲ 8.75% ) partied.

Beyond the geopolitical optimism, strong corporate earnings fueled the rally. The AI boom continues to reward investors, with AMD $AMD ( ▲ 18.62% ) , ahem, surging and Super Micro Computer $SMCI ( ▲ 24.54% ) coming in hot. Nvidia $NVDA ( ▲ 5.77% ) , the poster child of the AI revolution, also did the robot.

Other major players saw significant action. CVS Health $CVS ( ▲ 7.65% ) had healthy gains on strong first-quarter results, and Uber Technologies $UBER ( ▲ 8.53% ) drove (get it?) higher after an upbeat bookings forecast.

Feel free to submit your stock puns to the haiku competition address, just for a laugh.

Musk settles with the SEC over Twitter boo boo

Elon Musk has officially closed the book on his latest legal drama with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding his 2022 takeover of Twitter (now X).

The agency's lawsuit accused the billionaire of conveniently waiting 11 days too long to disclose his initial 5% stake in the platform. This filing delay allegedly allowed Musk to quietly scoop up more than $500 million in shares at artificially low prices, saving him a cool $150 million at the expense of unsuspecting investors.

To make the headache go away, a trust in Musk's name will hand over a $1.5 million civil penalty. While this technically marks the largest SEC fine in history for this specific type of violation, Musk settles without admitting any wrongdoing and, best of all, doesn't have to surrender a dime of the money he supposedly saved. Considering his staggering $789.9 billion net worth, the fine is literal pocket change: If your net worth were $500,000, it’s the equivalent of being fined 95 cents.

Musk previously claimed the delay was just an inadvertent mistake (perhaps he was high on Ketamine?), accusing the SEC of targeting his free speech. Taking a victory lap, his lawyer Alex Spiro said: "Mr. Musk has now been cleared of all issues related to the late filing of forms in the Twitter acquisition, as we said from the outset he would be.”

#Burn🔥

Song of the Day: Metric, ‘Tremolo.’

Here’s a glossy post-punk affair that blends the band’s signature synth-rock with cinematic, atmospheric layers. Enjoyez-vous!

Disney Posts strong earnings despite slowdown in park visitors

Disney's $DIS ( ▲ 7.54% ) new CEO, Josh D’Amaro, just faced Wall Street for the first time, and the verdict is in: Investors seem to rather like the fella. Driven by impressive streaming profit growth, Disney's quarterly earnings smashed expectations, sending shares surging in morning trading. But under the hood of the Magic Kingdom, there’s a slight glitch: People aren't visiting the theme parks quite as much.

Attendance at its Florida and California parks dipped by 1% compared to last year. While a 1% drop sounds microscopic, Disney parks are closely watched as a bellwether for consumer confidence and the broader economy. Are high travel costs keeping families away, or is it the fierce new competition from NBCUniversal's Epic Universe in Florida? Disney management pointed the finger at international travel dips and that very Universal rivalry.

To get those turnstiles spinning again, Disney is aggressively slashing prices. They’re currently dangling a $50 summer "park hopper" ticket for kids, a massive discount from the usual eye-watering $168 to $279 standard pricing. Despite the hiccups, executives remain upbeat about the rest of the year, citing highly encouraging forward bookings. The streaming business might be booming, but the theme park battle is clearly just heating up, and let’s be honest, $4-a-gallon gas doesn’t help.

“Our immediate priority is disciplined execution,” Mr. D’Amaro said. Still, it’ll take a while for the company’s stock to reach its all-time highs of 2021…

Traders doubt GameStop's bid to acquire eBay

In a move that has left Wall Street scratching its collective head, GameStop $GME ( ▲ 3.88% ) CEO Ryan Cohen recently announced a monstrous $55.5 billion cash-and-stock proposal to acquire the online marketplace eBay $EBAY ( ▲ 2.75% ) . There is just one tiny, multi-billion-dollar mathematical hiccup: GameStop's entire market capitalization is hovering at just under $11.9 billion.

Naturally, prediction markets are highly skeptical. Traders on the platform Kalshi $KALSHI ( 0.0% ) currently give the video game retailer a mere 26% chance of successfully pulling off this acquisition in 2026 — and that's on a measly trading volume of just over $2,000. Meanwhile, the crowd on Polymarket $POLYMARKET ( 0.0% ) is even less optimistic, pricing the odds of a completed takeover at a dismal 15%.

To soothe investor concerns over how exactly a $12 billion company swallows a $55 billion giant, Cohen appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box." Instead of unveiling a masterstroke of financial engineering, the interview proved disastrously vague. When pressed on the financing details, Cohen simply offered: “We are offering half cash, half stock, and we have the ability to issue stock in order to get the deal done. But the full details of the offer are on our website.” He then confidently wrapped up his multi-billion-dollar pitch with the ultimate, ironclad corporate strategy: “We will see what happens.”

Unsurprisingly, that didn't exactly inspire confidence on the trading floor. In reaction, shares of GameStop tumbled nearly 8%, while eBay stock happily jumped more than 5.5%.

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Poll of the day: A slap on the wrist?

Poll of the day: Google “influence”

We asked: “Pick the most influential company of 2025-26, from TIME's long list.”

You answered:

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Caterpillar ($CAT): Because nothing says "the digital frontier" like a giant yellow bulldozer digging a very physical, very muddy hole for a server farm. (49)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Novo Nordisk ($NVO): For ensuring the "collective zeitgeist" of 2026 can finally fit into its high-school prom outfit. (89)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Polymarket ($POLYMARKET): I’d explain my choice, but I’ve already bet my mortgage on "Option C" winning this poll by a 4% margin. (48)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ SpaceX: For their selfless commitment to… cough… “colonizing Mars.” (19)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Gap ($GAP): Because apparently, the "true architect of our future" is just a guy in a really well-marketed pair of 1990s-revival khakis. (29)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Corning ($GLW): For providing the glass for the screens we use to watch Hailey Bieber’s skincare routine while our self-driving tractors do all the work. (29)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Rhode: Proving that the most powerful "X factor" in modern industry is just the perfect peptide lip treatment and a really good ring light. (14)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Google: The "Old Reliable" of AI—currently sweating nervously while a bulldozer and a betting app try to take its lunch money. (127)
404 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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