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Here’s what’s on the docket today…

POTUS relieves the head of the BLS of her duties, ESPN and the NFL are reshaping the sports rights landscape, and Tesla takes a massive L.

Enjoy the next 4 minutes and 35 seconds of blue-chip news and commentary.

Keep on snapping necks and cashing checks,

– tyler

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“We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.” - Donny Politics

The President was in mid-season form on Friday. He dropped a “You’re fired” like it was season 8 of The Apprentice. But it’s probably not who you think. Despite the recent headlines and public beefing, J-Poww is still gainfully employed…

POTUS made Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer redundant Friday afternoon… which ironically means that next month she’ll be on the wrong side of the equation in the unemployment rate calculation she used to be responsible for.

Why?

It appears to have something to do with Erika’s Bureau of Labor Statistics being about as accurate as Theranos’ blood tests (it probably doesn’t help that she was a Biden appointee).

You see, on Friday, the BLS dropped the July jobs report… and it was brutal. The US economy added just 73,000 jobs, well below the 100,000 estimate.

That certainly didn’t help Erika’s job security. But what appears to have been the nail in E’s coffin was the downward revisions of the previous two months. And it wasn’t just a rounding error. The May and June job numbers were slashed by a combined 258k jobs.

That means the employment situation went from “healthy” to “Jamie Dimon, Michael Burry, and all the other Buzz Killingtons were right all along.”

And before you go all “nobody’s perfect,” keep in mind this isn’t the first time Erika done f*cked up. Exhibit A: back in August of 2024, her Bureau slashed revised annual job growth by 818k. Woof.

You had one job, Erika (emphasis on had).

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+ I hear Bristol, CT is beautiful this time of year…

Rumor has it that ESPN $DIS ( ▲ 1.18% ) is about to ink a deal with the devil. The Worldwide Leader will reportedly absorb NFL RedZone, pretty much all of the NFL Network, and the handful of games that air on the TV home of the League. In return, the NFL would take a 10% stake in ESPN.

If all goes according to plan, you’ll be watching Scott Hanson hold his piss for 7 straight hours on RedZone on ESPN in the 2026-2027 season. Given the fat stack of equity changing hands, the government will need to sign off on the deal.

+ There are only two certainties in life: Death and OpenAI raising ungodly amounts of capital.

Sam Altman got his “funding secured” on Friday. The non-profit secured $8.3B as part of its broader $40B funding round that’s led by… shocker… Softbank. The round would value OpenAI at $300B. And I really think it’s time to start contemplating what we call a $1T startup (Teracorn? Pegacorn?)…

We also got some inside baseball on the AI giants’ metrics (unaudited, of course). Annual recurring revenue just hit $13B, up from $10B in June. And over the same time period, the number of paying users nearly doubled from 3M to 5M.

+ A jury in FL went all “pay that woman’s family their money.” Tesla $TSLA ( ▲ 1.22% ) will be on the hook for a portion of the $329M (~$250M) in damages being sought by the family of a woman who was killed by an Autopilot crash back in 2019. That’s bad news for Elon and Co. as it could set a precedent for how Autopilot-related deaths and injuries are treated (read: how many billboards pop up with “Have you or a loved one been injured by a Tesla in Full Self Driving?”)

+ It appears that at least one Fed governor is not happy with the amenities at the Central Bank’s new $2.5B HQ. On Friday, Adriana Kugler sent her resignation to President Trump and presumably fired off an email to her colleagues about how “the best part of working at the Fed was the people” and reminding them to “keep in touch” (spoiler: they won’t).

Kugler didn’t give specifics as to why she was stepping down. But she is taking a teaching role at Georgetown in the fall. Of course, the real headline here is that Trump has a new Fed governor role to fill. ICYMI, two of his appointees “dissented” at last week’s FOMC meeting (think: they thought it was time to lower rates).

+ I’m not mad, I’m disappointed. Warren Buffett didn’t strike me as the kinda guy to mail it in after announcing his retirement…

Over the weekend, Berkshire Hathaway $BRK.B ( ▲ 0.06% ) reported earnings, and, welp, it appears that the Oracle of Omaha is taking his eye off the ball during his farewell tour. Operating profit, which accounts for all of the companies the conglomerate fully or partially owns, fell 4%.

Oh, and Charlie Munger’s totally platonic (seriously guys, stop saying otherwise) best friend admitted what we all kinda knew for a while: the Kraft Heinz merger he orchestrated is a complete clusterf*ck. Berkshire took a $3.8B writedown on its stake as it awaits a potential breakup of the two.

+ US stocks “slumped on Friday, and the S&P suffered its biggest daily percentage decline in more than two months as new U.S. tariffs on dozens of trading partners and a surprisingly weak jobs report spurred selling pressure.” (Reuters)

+ The 10-year yield “tumbled Friday after a far weaker-than-expected July nonfarm payroll report and a new raft of tariffs were implemented by President Donald Trump.” (CNBC)

+ Oil “prices $2 a barrel on Friday because of jitters about a possible increase in production by OPEC and its allies, while a weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs report fed worries about demand.” (Reuters)

+ The “smart” money thinks there’s a 57% chance CPI comes in above 0.2% in July. (Kalshi)

⏪ On Friday…

+ Chevron, ExxonMobil, Moderna, Colgate-Palmolive, Linde, Enbridge, T. Rowe Price, and WW Grainger reported before the bell

+ It was the tariff deadline date for US trade partners

+ The July Jobs Report dropped

⏩ Today we’re keeping an eye on…

+ ON Semiconductor, Wayfair, BioNTech, and Tyson Foods report before the bell

+ Palantir, Hims & Hers, MercadoLibre, Axon, Navitas, Vertex, Simon Property Group, Diamondback Energy, and Vimeo report after hours

Friday, I asked, “You scored an invite to Jeff Bezos' wedding. You can sit next to whoever you want. What table you sitting at?”

32.99% of you said “Sydney Sweeney.”

Here’s what some of you guys had to say…

Here’s today’s question…

Oof.

Oh, and one more thing…

Sent from my Amazon Fire Phone. Please excuse any mistakes and typos.

Does this look like the face of a guy you should take financial advice from?

No, it’s the face of an individual who is financially irresponsible/dumb enough to be talked into spending money on a family photo shoot that he could have just done with his iPhone. So, act accordingly...

This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter is an investment recommendation. All content is created for entertainment, educational, or informational purposes only. Do your own research, or do yourself a favor and hire a professional.