Josh Raffaelli, who has long roots as a Silicon Valley investor and has backed a number of Elon Musk companies, is suing his former employer, the massive trillion-dollar AUM Brookfield Asset Management, reports the New York Times.
Much of Raffaelli’s complaint concerns how Brookfield covered pandemic-related real estate losses and alleges the company fired him after he filed a whistleblower complaint at the SEC. His suit makes allegations like fraud and bribery, while Brookfield vehemently denies any wrongdoing, it told the Times.
In February, Brookfield quietly shuttered the venture capital unit run by Raffaelli and rolled some assets into another unit, Bloomberg reported at the time. One of Raffaelli’s complaints in the suit is that Brookfield didn’t buy as much stock in Musk-owned companies as he had secured the ability to buy.
Raffaelli had deals to buy into Musk companies like SpaceX, xAI and the Boring Company, the suit alleges. Raffaelli’s Brookfield fund was, however, a big backer of Musk’s takeover of Twitter, Bloomberg reported.
The lawsuit is a very public battle for Raffaelli, who previously worked as a partner at the VC firm then known as Draper Fisher Jurvetson. (Today, it’s a collection of funds.) While at DFJ, Brookfield helped that firm’s make investments into Musk companies like SolarCity (acquired by Tesla), SpaceX, and Tesla.
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On YouTube, hundreds of thousands of viewers around the world are staring at an unmoving broadcast of the Sistine Chapel chimney. Occasionally, a seagull will swoop in and perch atop the roof for a few minutes. But for the most part, nothing happens.
On Wednesday, the College of Cardinals started the process of picking the next pope, who will succeed the late Pope Francis. This is a closed-door, sacred ritual, dating back long before mass media made it possible to quickly transmit news with so much public interest. So instead of issuing statements to the press, the conclave signals its progress to the public via smoke — black if they have not agreed on a new pope, and white if they have come to a decision.
While the smoke signal used to be for the benefit of local onlookers, there are now dozens of global broadcasters streaming 24/7 coverage of the Sistine Chapel’s exterior online. There is no narration from a television host — only the ambient noise of the packed city square, and perhaps a smattering of seagull calls.
In a time when YouTubers strive to optimize every last frame of their videos to boost their chances of viral fame, the mundanity of “conclave cam” is oddly awe-inspiring.
It feels like an extension of the Nordic “slow TV” trend, where public networks broadcast commercial-free footage of dull, yet calming scenes. For hours or days at a time, viewers can watch salmon swimming upstream, trains journeying across the countryside, or moose migrating to their summer habitat.
Within the context of YouTube, the surrounding user interface of these “conclave cams” is familiar — the unmoderated live chats move quickly, like a popular creator’s livestream. But unlike a Fortnite Battle Royale, there’s not really much to talk about in the chat. The chimney might emit black smoke, or it might emit white smoke. For the vast bulk of the broadcast, the most exciting moments occur when a bird flies through the frame.
But because it’s the internet, people end up arguing about politics, soccer, and Elon Musk. There’s some nasty language thrown in there. In some cases, viewers will buy superchats — bold blocks of text that are more noticeable in a busy chat — to declare their vision for the future of the Catholic Church.
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The point of watching a conclave livestream isn’t to find out when the next Pope is selected — that’s what breaking news push notifications are for. Instead, what’s alluring is the quiet. Office workers may pull up a stream in a tiny window in the corner of their laptop screen, looking over when they see a slight movement of a seagull out of the corner of their eye. When sunset hits, we watch as the sky gets darker and darker, until suddenly it’s night.
There’s something spiritual about this gathering of strangers on a common web page, but it has nothing to do with the actual religiosity on display. It’s the desire for people to experience something together — even if that something includes an unmoderated live chat.
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SpaceX’s satellite internet service, Starlink, is directly benefiting from the Trump Administration’s tariff trade war, according to leaked State Department memos obtained by the Washington Post.
The memos show the U.S. pushing countries to adopt Starlink. Some show that countries believe that doing so could help lubricate their U.S. trade and tariff negotiations. One memo about the tiny African nation of Lesotho, which the U.S. imposed a 50% tariff against, flat-out said so about its new 10-year deal with Starlink, the Post reported.
Elon Musk is the founder CEO of SpaceX and one of the Trump administration’s closest advisors. A White House spokesperson told the Post there was no conflict of interest. The State Department described the work of pushing deals for an American satellite company as “patriotic” in light of competition from China. SpaceX did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
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