A tale of two Bezos businesses
Jeff Bezos surprised many when he spoke of his hopes for President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power at the DealBook Summit last month. The duo’s reset took a new twist with Amazon’s announcement that it would release a documentary on Melania Trump shot by an outcast filmmaker, and more tumult at The Washington Post.
But Bezos, like other business leaders, has been moving closer to the president-elect, and the decisions are inevitably being analyzed in that context.
Amazon called it a “behind the scenes” look at Trump — but she will have a big say. The documentary will be released this year on its Prime Video service and in theaters; filming began after the election. Melania is an executive producer, suggesting that she will be able to shape the narrative.
The documentary was directed by Brett Ratner, who was accused of sexual misconduct. Ratner is the high-profile director and producer of films such as “Rush Hour” and “The Revenant.” But he disappeared from Hollywood after six women leveled accusations against him that Ratner denied. He has resurfaced after entering Trump’s orbit. It’s another example of Trump’s MAGA movement’s career-rehabilitating powers, Semafor’s Ben Smith writes — and how tech platforms are willing to reject “progressive judgments on people and content.”
The fallout from The Post’s refusal to endorse a presidential candidate is still playing out. Last week, Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, quit after saying the paper killed a cartoon depicting Bezos and other tech C.E.O.s bending the knee to a statue of Trump. She called that decision a “game changer,” and “dangerous for a free press.” (The Post rejected Telnaes’s version of events, saying the cartoon was rejected for editorial reasons.)
More disruption could come soon. On Sunday, Oliver Darcy reported in his Status newsletter that The Post’s star political reporter Josh Dawsey was joining an exodus from the paper, and that layoffs were expected this week. The paper has already struggled to hire a new executive editor after a number of top candidates reportedly pulled out of the running.
Yet Bezos has doubled down on his Post decision. He told Andrew at the DealBook Summit that he was “proud” of the move and was “optimistic” about a second Trump term. That view has unnerved many of his Post employees. But there is little sign that he or other business leaders will stop courting Trump soon. Since the election, Trump has pulled in $200 million to fund his inauguration, including from big corporations.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel sue the U.S. government for blocking their merger. The companies accused President Biden and other officials of corrupting the review process, and harming the American steel industry and its workers. U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel also sued Cleveland-Cliffs, its C.E.O. and the international president of the steelworkers union, claiming that they had illegally undermined the proposed deal. Biden moved to block the deal last week, a move that is creating diplomatic tensions between Tokyo and Washington.
New York City faces its first big test of congestion charging. The city became the first in the country to charge motorists to enter certain areas of Manhattan on Sunday, with some drivers required to pay $9. Day 1 caused few hiccups, but Monday morning traffic looms, and President-elect Donald Trump has promised to reverse federal approval for the program.
“The Brutalist” and “Emilia Pérez” are the big winners at the Golden Globes. The films won a series of awards, making them and their stars leading contenders for the Academy Awards. “The Brutalist” won best drama, best actor for Adrien Brody and best director, while “Emilia Pérez” was awarded best comedy or musical and best supporting actress for Zoe Saldaña. Demi Moore also won her first Golden Globe Award of her five-decade career for her role in “The Substance.”
A labor dispute upends Big Ski
With overcrowded slopes and some U.S. daily lift-ticket prices topping $325, the economics of skiing has long felt broken.
That frustration has come to a head in Park City, Utah, where a strike by ski patrollers has led to the closure of roughly two-thirds of the biggest ski resort in the United States.
The standoff has reignited criticism of a wave of consolidation that has transformed an industry struggling with climate change, dwindling skiable real estate, and a clash between mountain communities and Wall Street-funded expansion.
What’s happening: On Dec. 27, The Park City Professional Ski Patrol Association, went on strike against Vail Resorts — which owns Park City Mountain and 41 other resorts in Australia, Europe and North America — demanding a pay raise to $23 per hour from $21.
The move has prompted huge lift-line waits, and a torrent of gripes about ruined vacations. Vail Resorts’s stock has fallen more than 6 percent since the strike started.
Negotiations are set to resume on Monday. Vail says that it has made “significant progress resolving 24 of the 27 contract items.” Ski patrollers and other unionized staff members argue that they have been priced out of the booming local real estate market. They are represented by the Communications Workers of America union, which has made big inroads with workers in Hollywood and the tech industry.
Their plea has gained some support: a GoFundMe account has raised more than $250,000.
The U.S. ski industry is dominated by a few giants. The sector took off in the 1980s after President Jimmy Carter ordered the U.S. Forest Service to stop regulating lift-ticket prices, Michael Childers, a professor at Colorado State University, told DealBook. Most resorts are on federal lands, and operators pay the government a lease that is “well below” the “market value for the land in which they operate,” he added. The Forest Service and other agencies have taken a hands-off approach to regulating the sector, he noted.
Is antitrust scrutiny of the industry set to grow? Last year, the Justice Department started investigating a bid by Alterra Mountain, another industry giant, to buy Arapahoe Basin in Colorado — the first such antitrust inquiry in decades. That prompted analysts to pepper Kirsten Lynch, the C.E.O. of Vail Resorts, with questions on earnings calls about whether greater regulatory scrutiny was coming.
Despite the tensions, industry watchers are skeptical that the Trump administration, which has pledged to step up deregulation, will stand in the way of Big Ski.
Remembering Sam Butler, a top corporate adviser
Samuel Butler, a longtime corporate lawyer who worked on some of the most transformative deals of the 20th century, including Time’s takeover of Warner Communications and Disney’s acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC, died on Saturday in New York, DealBook’s Michael de la Merced reports. He was 94.
Butler, who counted Warren Buffett as a friend, was among the longest-serving leaders of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, the blue-chip law firm. He was also a prominent figure in civic institutions, including the New York Public Library.
Butler became a go-to adviser for M.&A. during the deals boom of the 1980s and 1990s. After graduating from Harvard and Harvard Law School and clerking for Justice Sherman Minton of the Supreme Court, the Indiana native joined the firm in 1956.
He became its presiding partner in 1980, and during that time he advised on the sales of Squibb to Bristol-Myers, CBS to Westinghouse, and Salomon Smith Barney to Travelers Group. He stepped down in 1998, having become Cravath’s third-longest-serving leader.
“Sam was an extraordinary lawyer whose judgment was consistently sought out by clients in their most challenging and consequential moments,” Faiza Saeed, Cravath’s presiding partner, said in a statement to DealBook.
Butler forged a decades-long friendship with Buffett. The two first met when Butler was a director of Geico in the mid-1970s, when Buffett began investing in the auto insurer. The Oracle of Omaha credited Butler with saving the troubled insurer by recruiting Jack Byrne as C.E.O. (Berkshire eventually bought Geico in 1996, with Butler advising on the deal.)
Such was their bond that Buffett called Butler in on a Thursday in July 1995, telling him he needed help with a complex deal set to be announced on Monday: Disney’s takeover of Capital Cities/ABC, where Buffett was a major shareholder. Butler later recalled that the transaction had to be done on that timeline, or Disney might try to recut the deal. The sale was announced on schedule.
“During Sam’s tenure at Cravath, everybody wanted him as their lawyer,” Buffett said in a statement to DealBook. “Berkshire was lucky to have the opportunity to work with him.”
He is survived by three children, nine grandchildren (including the investor Nick Brown) and eight great-grandchildren.
The week ahead
Jobs, the Fed, the future of TikTok and the sentencing in President-elect Donald Trump’s hush-money trial are expected to dominate the agenda this week. Here’s what to watch:
Monday: Jensen Huang, the C.E.O. of the chipmaker Nvidia, is set to deliver a keynote address at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. Artificial intelligence is expected to be in the spotlight at the annual tech trade show extravaganza.
Wednesday: The Fed is scheduled to release minutes from its December policy meeting, potentially revealing more detail about the path of interest rates over the first months of the Trump administration.
Thursday: Major U.S. stock markets will be closed as part of a national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States.
Friday: It’s jobs day, with economists expecting to see a slight cool-off in hiring.
Elsewhere, the future of TikTok, which could be banned in the United States this month, will be the subject of a landmark Supreme Court hearing. And in New York, Trump is set to be sentenced in his hush-money criminal case.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
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Italy is reportedly in talks with SpaceX over a $1.6 billion deal to supply secure telecommunications for its government via Starlink. (Bloomberg)
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Centerview Partners is considering selling a stake in its business for the first time or pursuing an initial public offering. (WSJ)
Politics and policy
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Why the Biden administration’s decision to block Nippon Steel’s purchase of U.S. Steel won’t stop Japanese companies from doing deals in the United States. (NYT)
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Congress is set to certify President-elect Donald Trump’s election win, but memories of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol loom large. (NYT)
Best of the rest
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Here’s the latest on the winter storm that’s slamming into the Mid-Atlantic states this morning after causing widespread disruption across part of the Midwest. (NYT)
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“Sam Altman on ChatGPT’s First Two Years, Elon Musk and A.I. Under Trump” (Bloomberg)
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