Forbes Daily Briefing

Eric Trump jumped on an earnings call in February ready to do what Trumps do best—sell. His company, American Bitcoin, had debuted just a year earlier and was already trading on the Nasdaq. “We are fast becoming the leader in the bitcoin world, and I truly think we have the greatest brand of all,” Eric said. “I want to recognize Mike, Asher, Matt and everybody at American Bitcoin.” It was a noteworthy closing—“and everybody at American Bitcoin”—given that there is hardly anyone else at American Bitcoin. An annual report filed one month after the earnings call stated that the company has just two full-time employees, presumably chief executive Mike Ho and president Matt Prusak. Maybe there are a couple of others—Ho also serves as an executive at another company. Someone who worked in investor relations at Ho’s other company for less than a year now calls herself “chief of staff” at American Bitcoin on her LinkedIn page. Another person says she started as American Bitcoin’s social-media manager in January. (Asher Genoot, the executive chairman, sits on a five-person board with Ho and three independent directors.) The Trump family learned long ago that there is money to be made in acting like things are bigger than they actually are. Fred Trump, Donald’s father, allegedly juiced his profits by duping authorities into thinking his projects cost more than they actually did. Donald Trump lied to banks (and media outlets like Forbes) about the value of his assets, leading a New York judge to conclude that he committed fraud. Eric Trump got caught up in that case, too, and was banned from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation for two years. He created his own company anyway, incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Florida, then marketed it in a way that would make his forefathers proud. By Dan Alexander, Senior Editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Berlin world premiere of Michael—the new Antoine Fuqua-directed biopic starring Michael Jackson’s nephew Jaafaar in the title role—saw thousands of King of Pop fans gather outside the theater, rapturous applause after each of the movie’s musical numbers, and fawning praise over the lead performance. Left out of the celebratory film and tightly controlled red carpet rollout was any mention of thesexual abuse accusations that complicate his legacy. Yet producer Graham King admitted to being “nervous and anxious” to see the film with audiences for the first time. “A lot has happened on this film that I question how, why,” said King, who also produced the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. “I used to say Freddie Mercury was throwing hurdles down at me. Michael did the same. So Michael and Freddie are up there together laughing right now.” With an initial $150 million budget, Michael was already the most ambitious biopic of all time when it wrapped initial production in May 2024. That was before the estate’s executors learned of a clause in a 1994 settlement with one of Jackson’s child molestation accusers agreeing to never dramatize their story on screen, rendering a significant amount of footage useless. Instead of a 3.5-hour epic, Lionsgate and the filmmakers decided to end the movie in the late 1980s at the height of Jackson’s career following Thriller and Bad—and the estate agreed to fund 22 days of additional production at a cost Forbes estimates to be more than $25 million (some reports put it at as much as $50 million). By Matt Craig, Reporter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tesla’s biggest problem may no longer be Chinese competitors, slowing demand for its EVs or the still-theoretical payoff from robotaxis and humanoid robots. It might be SpaceX. If Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite-internet company goes public at anything close to the rumored $1.75 trillion valuation, it will not just be one of the biggest IPOs in history. It will give Tesla investors tired of waiting for the CEO’s promises to materialize something they haven’t had in a while: a potentially bigger, more exciting way to invest in the Musk myth. Certainly, SpaceX, with its reliable and steady leadership under long-time president Gwynne Shotwell, is shaping up to be a shinier proxy — with fewer close competitors or awkward quarterly questions about exactly when Tesla can take on Waymo in self-driving tech or actually deliver its C-3PO-style robot. “There are many Tesla investors who perceive SpaceX to be a better investment for many reasons,” Ross Gerber, a Tesla investor and CEO of Santa Monica, California-based Gerber Kawasaki, which manages over $4 billion, told Forbes. “If I sell my Tesla shares, nobody's going to argue that it's not overvalued. And if I want to buy the sizzle, I'm going to buy SpaceX. And that's what people want to do. A lot of people think this is going to be easy money.” By Alan Ohnsman, Senior Editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Chad Janis had the idea to sell gummy-bear-shaped nutritional supplements four years ago, he had to convince manufacturers it could be done and retailers that customers would prefer his green gummies. He didn’t know how right he was. His brand, Grüns (from the German word for greens) now ships around 10 million gummies every day, and this week, London-based conglomerate Unilever announced it was acquiring Grüns for an estimated $1.2 billion. The 33-year-old former private equity investor has now cemented his place in the consumer packaged goods industry as a founder who has secured one of the sector’s best—and quickest—exits in the past decade. The Beaverton, Oregon-based Grüns currently has some one million customers and its superfood gummy bear is the top-selling green supplement on Amazon and across retailers nationwide. “We didn’t build it to sell it. But we want to make an impact on millions of people’s lives,” Janis tells Forbes. “We think [Unilever has] a track record of brands that have success and they help them have more impact. They’ve done it multiple times before with peers we look up to.” By Chloe Sorvino, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The trend of mainland Chinese tech companies flocking to list in Hong Kong shows no sign of abating. The latest to make its stock market debut is Gpixel Changchun Microelectronics, a developer of CMOS image sensors that enable robots to “see.” Shares of the company, headquartered in the Chinese industrial hub of Changchun, rose 144% since its listing on Friday, making founder and chairman Wang Xinyang a billionaire. Wang, 46, is Gpixel’s largest shareholder with a 23% stake. Together with the 1.6% holding of his wife Zhang Yanxia, Gpixel’s chief operation officer, Wang is worth $1.3 billion based on Tuesday’s closing price of HK$97.5. Gpixel didn’t respond to a request for comment regarding Wang’s billionaire status. Gpixel’s IPO raised HK$2.6 billion ($332.4 million), drawing cornerstone investors including private equity giants Hillhouse Investment and Boyu Capital, as well as early ByteDance backer Source Code Capital and Hong Kong-based Value Partners. Gpixel disclosed in its prospectus that it will use 76% of the IPO proceeds for R&D investments, including building a new R&D center in Hangzhou, and the rest to expand operations in Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan. The company specializes in CMOS image sensors, which are chips that convert light into electrical signals to capture images, and are embedded in a range of electronic products from smartphones and cameras to X-ray machines and robots. Operating under a fabless model, Gpixel designs sensors that are mostly used for industrial applications, such as detecting defects in semiconductor manufacturing and robot navigation. They are also deployed in advanced cameras, such as those used for scientific research. By Zinnia Lee, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elon Musk is the planet’s richest person by far, worth $839 billion as of Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires list. He also ranks among the least philanthropic billionaires. Sure, Musk has transferred $8.5 billion of Tesla stock to his charitable foundations (1% of his net worth)—but nearly all of it is still sitting there idle. Only an estimated $500 million, or 0.06% of Musk’s vast fortune, has ever been disbursed to those in need. His lack of giving raises a question: What would our billionaires ranking look like if the world’s most generous people—such as Warren Buffett (who has donated more than half of his Berkshire Hathaway stock so far) and Bill Gates (who has moved, alongside his ex-wife Melinda French Gates, more than $60 billion into the Gates Foundation)—had never donated a dollar to charity? To find the answer, we adjusted the net worths of the planet’s most generous billionaires, assuming they kept any shares they’ve given away and that cash gifts were instead invested at market rates of return. The result: our True Net Worth ranking, detailed by Forbes chief content officer Randall Lane in a recent TED Talk. By Matt Durot, Forbes Staff Chase Peterson-Withorn, Assistant Managing Editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A U.S. special forces soldier who participated in the raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been charged with using classified information about the operation to win more than $400,000 on the online betting platform Polymarket. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kalshi caught and suspended three political candidates who bet on the outcomes of their own elections, the prediction market company said in a statement on Wednesday, fining the three politicians and issuing five-year bans from their platform. Minnesota State Senator Matt Klein, a candidate running for the Democratic nomination for Minnesota’s second district in the House of Representatives, agreed to pay a $539.85 fine. Ezekiel Enriquez, a former candidate for the Republican primary for a congressional district in Texas, was fined $784.20. Enriquez lost this race after the primary elections in March. Both Klein and Enriquez bought less than $100 worth of contracts on their own elections, according to Kalshi’s filings, and both were also issued five-year suspensions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elon Musk is the planet’s richest person by far, worth $839 billion as of Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires list. He also ranks among the least philanthropic billionaires. Sure, Musk has transferred $8.5 billion of Tesla stock to his charitable foundations (1% of his net worth)—but nearly all of it is still sitting there idle. Only an estimated $500 million, or 0.06% of Musk’s vast fortune, has ever been disbursed to those in need. His lack of giving raises a question: What would our billionaires ranking look like if the world’s most generous people—such as Warren Buffett (who has donated more than half of his Berkshire Hathaway stock so far) and Bill Gates (who has moved, alongside his ex-wife Melinda French Gates, more than $60 billion into the Gates Foundation)—had never donated a dollar to charity? To find the answer, we adjusted the net worths of the planet’s most generous billionaires, assuming they kept any shares they’ve given away and that cash gifts were instead invested at market rates of return. By Matt Durot, Forbes Staff Chase Peterson-Withorn, Assistant Managing Editor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Arthur Mensch’s vision for Mistral, and AI itself, can be summed up in one word: independence. Unlike its black-box Silicon Valley rivals, most of Mistral’s AI models are what techies call “open weight.” In this sort of open-source model, customers are free to get under the hood, customize the AI using their own data or download it for free to run offline (or from a laptop). The message resonates. Old-school execs are spooked by the world-consuming rhetoric of OpenAI and Anthropic and the emerging threat of Chinese AI companies. Mensch’s talk of control and sovereignty is soothing, as is his pitch that Mistral will deploy engineers to set up and run the tech for them. Your data doesn’t even need to leave the office, let alone the country. “We are really the only company that allows [building] core business automation and products on top of an open stack, and that is something that is valuable everywhere in the world,” says Mensch, 33, from Mistral’s offices in the trendy 10th arrondissement of Paris, as kids play soccer in the courtyard out back. By Iain Martin, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s pick for Federal Reserve chair, faced the Senate Banking Committee at a confirmation hearing Tuesday morning. While he addressed Senate Democrats’ concerns over Fed independence and pressure from the president, Warsh largely avoided discussing details about his fortune. Senator Elizabeth Warren had already taken particular issue with Warsh’s vague financial disclosure. In addition to accusing Warsh of mishandling the 2008 financial crisis while he was a Fed governor from 2006 to 2011 and calling him “[President Trump’s] chosen sock puppet,” Warren criticized Warsh’s disclosure for its “failure to disclose the full extent of his assets,” which in turn poses immediate issues. “One or more of his dozens of funds and entities could hold stock in a prohibited financial institution, and the public would never know,” stated an April 15 report by Warren’s Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. At yesterday’s hearing, Warren continued to press Warsh—whose father-in-law is Trump’s billionaire pal Ronald Lauder—asking whether his Juggernaut Fund L.P. invested in Chinese-controlled firms or any companies affiliated with President Trump and his family or with Jeffrey Epstein. Warsh simply responded that “those assets will be sold” if he’s confirmed. In his financial disclosure filed on April 10, he had written that the assets weren’t disclosed “due to pre-existing confidentiality agreements.” By Giacomo Tognini, Deputy Editor Simone Melvin, Forbes Staff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In dueling court filings the Rowling and Justice families are at loggerheads. At stake is control of the Greenbrier Resort. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2026/04/17/texas-hotel-billionaires-set-to-foreclose-on-greenbrier-owner-senator-jim-justice/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Defunct startups are being liquidated for their Slack archives, Jira tickets, and email threads—operational exhaust that AI labs now treat as premium training data. Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/annatong/2026/04/16/ais-new-training-data-your-old-work-slacks-and-emails/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices