Things people don’t want to do this summer, as evidenced by poor ratings: Watch CBS news anchor Tony Doukopil. Tune into Paramount+’s sci-fi teen drama “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.” Read President Trump’s Truth Social posts.
No matter how much Trump posts, and he has been posting a lot lately, traffic to the platform he uses as his megaphone for official White House statements and personal rants has fallen off significantly this summer. Last month, the overall number of monthly visitors to Truth Social was down about 36% from where it was in 2025, according to the online tracking firm Similarweb. The numbers were similarly dismal in June.
But Trump’s slumping media fortunes may soon get an infusion of cash, or bitcoin, or whatever it takes to line his coffers before the jig is up.
Never one to leave a source of income untapped, the president has come up with yet another way to add to the $2.2 billion he made in just the first year of his second term. His majority-owned Trump Media & Technology Group earlier this month announced that it was rolling out a new service aimed at cashing in on the president’s every word.
Truth API is a subscription service that offers early access to posts from Trump and other notable users of the platform, for a price. It’s charging fees of up to $100,000 and month.
But there’s a hiccup in the president’s latest grift. On Wednesday, media organizations Freedom of the Press Foundation and The Intercept sued Trump, filing a complaint saying that providing quicker access to his posts to those who pay was “extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional.”
Their suit alleges that Truth API contradicts the First Amendment’s guarantee of equal public access to the president’s statements and violates the Fifth Amendment by granting preferential access for “unreasonable sums.” The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, asked the court to block Trump from publishing official government information exclusively on Truth Social.
So why is this particular money-making scheme garnering so much attention outside Trump’s many other grifts? Because a president’s words can, and often do, sway the stock market. In the frenetic world of Wall Street trading, early access to statements and news from the Commander-in-Chief gives subscribers an edge, and as NPR pointed out, that could mean a difference of millions of dollars.
Unlike any other sitting U.S. president, Trump in his second term has ignored traditional means of communication such as press briefings, live addresses or posting official announcements, executive actions, press releases, and statements on the official White House Website. He’s done so in favor of communicating through his own privately controlled platform, delivering wild posting sprees that often forgo the fact-based, informative briefings we the people still need from our elected officials. But even back when he was using Twitter (now X) during his first term, the White House said his tweets should be considered official statements.
That standard still holds for his frequent barrages of boasts, insults, threats, grouses and indecipherable dispatches via Truth Social. After the humiliating failure of his America 250 celebration, he fired off 67 posts on Truth Social in just two hours, posting almost every single minute between 11:12 a.m. and 1:14 p.m. His musings ranged from attacks on a federal judge to a photo of himself at a 1991 New York City tree-lighting ceremony with his “Home Alone 2” co-stars.
That spree is now among the thousands more posts from the president, that have not been followed up by announcements from the White House outside of Truth Social. “In other words, President Trump’s posts are the only way to get official government news,” the lawsuit said.
Trump Media & Technology Group, or TMTG, is majority-owned by the president. It was launched following Trump’s account suspension across mainstream social platforms including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The platforms cited risks of inciting violence following the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. Trump responded by creating his own platform, and Truth Social debuted in 2022.
But the platform’s parent company, TMTG, has lost money ever since it went public in 2024. On Monday, Trump Media reported a $238-million loss for the second quarter, tied mostly to cryptocurrency assets. Executives told investors on a conference call that they are now going to focus their energy on Truth Social and soft-explained their latest scheme to profit off the presidency.
“Our customers will get published and publicly available posts fractionally faster” than everyone else,” said Kevin McGurn, the company’s interim chief executive. He added that such early access is a “well-established business practice.”
Unless it’s a sitting U.S. president doing the selling. We’re in uncharted territory, once again. But another big question around this new subscription service is whether investors and traders can trust the intelligence they get from early access to Trump’s posts.
It was revealed this week that the president published deceptive information last month, putting the lives of dozens in danger. Before leaving a NATO meeting in Turkey, he posted that he’d be riding on the older Air Force One “for old time’s sake” instead of the newly retrofitted, Qatari-donated jet. His misdirection was part of an elaborate ruse to mask his transfer from Air Force One to a military fighter jet following intel that Iran may be targeting the president’s plane. The subterfuge involved him stowing away in an airport catering container to sneak onto the jet. Of course a president has to be protected, but Air Force One still had members of the press and his administration aboard when they sent it into the sky. Essentially, they were unwitting decoys.
Sometimes a president has to lie to stay safe. And often times this president peddles misinformation as a means to other ends, like amassing more money for himself while holding onto his seat of power. Paying for early access to Trump’s posts is a great idea — for Trump.
The chair of the California Senate’s utilities committee said Tuesday that he was “deeply troubled” by electric company executives’ recent threats to take action to protect their shareholders if they don’t get legislation in Sacramento to limit their wildfire liabilities.
In a letter to Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric, Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica) wrote that he was considering calling the utility executives to an oversight hearing to have them explain their plans.
Allen sent the letter after the Times reported that the two companies’ top executives promised their investors in recent conference calls that they planned to respond if they don’t get legislation for which they have been lobbying. Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers are working behind closed doors on a package of wildfire bills.
“While I understand that utility investors seek predictability for their invested dollars, and stable utilities are important to the state of California, we as legislators must balance the additional interests of wildfire victims and survivors, our residents’ ability to access affordable insurance, and the need to ensure affordable utility service,” Allen wrote.
“We are certainly not interested in being threatened as we seek a balanced path that is right for California,” he added.
In response to the letter, PG&E and Edison said Tuesday night that The Times had “mischaracterized” their executives’ comments to investors.
“PG&E’s objectives remain unchanged: safely and reliably serve our customers, ensure wildfire victims are compensated quickly and fairly, and protect customer affordability,” PG&E said in a statement.
Edison declined to comment further.
Besides chairing the Senate’s Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee, Allen also is running in November’s election to be the state’s next insurance commissioner.
Newsom and lawmakers already passed legislation that cut the state’s three biggest electric companies’ liabilities for wildfires. Edison’s shareholders, for example, may pay little of the billions of dollars of damage from last year’s devastating Eaton fire — which killed 19 people and left thousands of families in Altadena homeless — under current laws championed by Newsom to protect the utilities from bankruptcy.
The utilities say more needs to be done. Among the recommendations in a report ordered by Newsom is limiting the amounts that victims can receive for pain and suffering and capping the fees of attorneys who represent them.
The commissioned report also suggested that utilities should no longer reimburse property insurers for damage from fires sparked by electrical equipment. Although this would reduce utilities’ liability for fires, insurers say it would increase premiums for homeowners.
“If the Legislature does not act, or if they act and don’t actually solve the problem, then we’re going to have to take action,” Patti Poppe, PG&E’s chief executive, said on a July 23 call with Wall Street analysts.
Poppe did not specify what her company would do, but made it clear that any action would protect shareholders’ money.
In earlier conversations with analysts, PG&E executives had “alluded to the possibility of opportunistic share repurchases should the legislative process fail to deliver a more durable wildfire liability framework,” according to a report by the bank Jeffries.
Such buybacks could raise the company’s stock price and benefit shareholders while reducing money available for the utility’s California programs.
Last month, Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, told Wall Street analysts on a conference call that he too was prepared to make financial changes if the Legislature does not pass a comprehensive bill to cut the utilities’ financial wildfire risk before the legislative session ends Aug. 31.
Any legislation that passes without a protective framework for utilities, Pizarro said, would “influence how we prioritize and deploy future capital.”
Pizarro declined analysts’ requests to say where the company would cut back, but said the utility would continue spending aimed at keeping its grid safe and reliable.
“We’re going to evaluate the totality of the package that comes to us and figure out our response that goes along with it,” Pizarro said.
This month, state and county officials released their investigation into the Eaton fire, blaming the deadly inferno on Edison’s century-old transmission line that the company kept in place even though it hadn’t carried electricity since 1971.
Utilities have long known that idle lines could spark fires. In 2019, the Kincade fire in Sonoma County, which destroyed hundreds of homes, was ignited by an old, unused transmission line owned by PG&E.
At least seven of the 20 most destructive fires in California history have been sparked by the three biggest for-profit utilities.
One day after a LIV Golf players-only meeting failed to produce a resolution, CEO Scott O’Neil announced Wednesday that a lead investor plans to fund the tour beyond this season and that the golfers will become the majority equity holders in the league.
The LIV Golf board of directors approved the term sheet, O’Neill said, giving the league new life after the Saudi Public Investment Fund decided in April to cease its financial backing at the end of the current season. The PIF had backed LIV Golf since its inception in 2022, spending an estimated $6 billion.
O’Neil, who made the announcement at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., the site of this week’s tournament, did not identify the investor or terms. He said the league hopes to finalize the transaction in September and that “our next chapter will make our players the majority equity holders in LIV Golf, a first for a major global sports league.”
“LIV Golf has an agreement in place with a lead investor, signed by the investor and approved by the board, to anchor the transaction and play a key role in supporting the path forward for the league’s next era, driven by and for the players,” O’Neil said in a statement. “We’re also seeing strong interest from more than a dozen additional parties to potentially serve as minority investors, creating a multi-partner model built for long-term stability and growth.”
The players-only meeting on Tuesday at Trump National came soon after O’Neil and other LIV Golf executives spoke to the players. The only player to speak at length with the media after the meeting was Richard Bland, who told the Athletic that Bryson DeChambeau had led the discussion to follow O’Neil’s lead, but that nothing definitive had been determined.
“We’re in this together. We’re fully backing Scott,” Bland said. “I think probably in the next two to three weeks we’ll have a bigger picture. We’re just in that kind of stage at the minute that we’re positive with what’s going on, but we just need everything to be fully signed off so you can go forward.”
O’Neil said in June that LIV Golf needed to secure roughly $300 million from outside private equity or institutional investors to sustain operations through 2027 and beyond. He has been pitching “LIV 2.0” with a streamlined business model.
“What we don’t have is a lot of time,” he said in June. “So we’re very urgently out there talking to those who are interested. We like the pool, but we have to get this done through the summer.”
It appears O’Neil might have met the deadline, although questions remain unanswered. LIV has been mulling whether to cancel its Team Championship on Aug. 27-30 at the Cardinal in Plymouth, Mich., the final tournament of the season. The purse is $40 million, cash that instead could be earmarked for 2027.
O’Neil said that making players the majority equity holders “gives the league the foundation to keep growing the game worldwide…. In the meantime, our focus is on delivering a great week for fans and players at Bedminster and finishing the 2026 season strong.’’
The competition will reduce to 10 events from next season, with five in the United States and five held around the world.
There were 14 events planned for the 2026 season but in April, LIV postponed June’s New Orleans competition amid questions over its future and has not announced a rescheduled date.
O’Neil said LIV is focused on “delivering a great week for fans and players at Bedminster” in New York, starting on Sunday and “finishing the 2026 season strong” – but made no explicit mention of the final two events scheduled this season, in Indianapolis from 23 August and the concluding team championship in Michigan from 30 August.
Major winners including Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Cameron Smith, Martin Kaymer and Sergio Garcia remain part of the LIV roster after having left the PGA Tour.
American major champions Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed rejoined the PGA Tour after it introduced a returning member programme.
In July, the PGA Tour and DP World Tour struck an alliance with the Asian Tour in another blow to LIV Golf.
O’Neil added: “We’re also seeing strong interest from more than a dozen additional parties to potentially serve as minority investors, creating a multi-partner model built for long-term stability and growth.”
LIV was founded in 2021 and launched the following year with 54-hole events and took its name from the Roman numeral for 54.
However, it moved to the tradition 72-hole format for golf tournaments from this season.
Under a new licensing agreement, Netflix will be streaming “The Walking Dead” franchise globally.
Netflix and AMC Global Media, the network that originally aired the zombie series, inked a new five-year co-streaming deal, according to a press release on Thursday. Both companies will be able to show the original “The Walking Dead” series and its six spinoffs on Netflix and AMC+. The deal is valued at $500 million, AMC Global Media said in its second-quarter earnings report.
“This deal creates a global destination for this universe — all shows, all episodes — making the franchise more accessible than ever to fans around the world. In addition, the co-exclusive agreement allows us to bring the original series to AMC+ for the first time early next year,” Kristin Dolan, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement. “This agreement is a fantastic result for our companies, for the fans and for this timeless IP.”
AMC Global Media is renting the franchise, not selling it. The five-year licenses run separately for each show, with start dates that vary based on territory and the expiration of existing streaming deals. The rights to “The Walking Dead” revert to AMC Global Media when the term ends.
The company also keeps global rights to run the “Walking Dead” universe on its own services throughout. Dolan told investors the agreement would supply what she called “a meaningful source of cash flow for years to come,” framing it as evidence that the company’s library still commands premium prices even as its cable business shrinks.
The agreement will extend the franchise’s reach on Netflix in places like the U.K., Italy, Australia and New Zealand — making episodes available beginning in 2027.
“The Walking Dead” premiered on the AMC network in 2010, introducing audiences to the high-stakes world of a zombie apocalypse. In 2011, the series began streaming exclusively on Netflix in the U.S. The show aired for 11 seasons and became one of AMC’s most influential shows. Other popular programs from the network include “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad.”
“Audiences have discovered and loved ‘The Walking Dead’ on Netflix for nearly 15 years and the show continues to attract new fans,” Lori Conkling, Netflix’s vice president of licensing, said in a statement.
The deal landed alongside a rough quarter. AMC Global Media reported second-quarter revenue of $547 million, down 9% from a year earlier, and a loss of 51 cents a share, compared with 91 cents in profit in the same period last year. Operating income fell to about $16 million from $64 million.
Netflix’s second-quarter earnings showed mixed results. The company‘s revenue rose 13% to $12.6 billion; its net income was $3.4 billion, up 9% from a year ago; and its advertising business is on track to reach $3 billion in revenue this year, double the amount in 2025.
The same filing offered some details on Netflix’s acquisition of InterPositive, the AI post-production startup founded by Ben Affleck, for $587 million in cash in March.
But Netflix’s stock price has continued to waver due in part to investor concerns about the streamer’s future growth.
Sandi Smolker/iStock Editorial via Getty Images
Netflix stock plunged 9% on Friday morning to $67.74 a share, after the streamer’s second quarter earnings report renewed concerns among investors and analysts about the streamer’s future growth.
The Los Gatos-based company on Thursday narrowed its 2026 forecast to $51 billion to $51.4 billion from $50.7 billion to $51.7 billion, causing equity analysts to cut their estimates. The stock reached a new 52-week low on Friday and is down 49% from a year ago.
“This outlook likely reinforces investor concerns,” wrote analysts from Guggenheim Securities in a research note on Friday, which has a “buy” rating on the stock.
Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its declining stock price.
Investors have been skittish about the amount of time people spend on the streaming platform. Netflix’s share of TV viewing time in the U.S. has steadily declined in recent months as YouTube has gained market share, according to Nielsen data.
Investors are concerned that if people spend less time watching Netflix, it could cause people to cancel their subscriptions and make it more challenging for Netflix to raise prices in markets like the U.S.
Netflix said engagement is healthy on its platform and its programs continue to draw large audiences with popular shows like crime drama series “I Will Find You.”
Netflix said subscribers watched more than 97 billion hours on the streaming service in the first half of the year, up 2% from a year ago.
“We are increasingly concerned that younger generations are less interested in long form content as their time migrates to ‘free’ social media platforms,” wrote Jeffrey Wlodarczak, CEO of Pivotal Research Group in a report on Friday, who has a hold recommendation on Netflix stock. “We believe this will result in slower subscriber growth and attempts by the company to offset this via more aggressive price increases and investment in content.”
Netflix executives in a Thursday earnings presentation emphasized that measuring engagement at the company goes beyond hours spent watching the streaming service.
“There is not a linear relationship between view hours and revenue and profit because all hours are not created equal,” said Greg Peters, Netflix co-CEO on an earnings presentation on Thursday. “All hours don’t provide the same kind of value to the business.”
The streamer said it plans to allocate just over 5% of its content spend on live programming this year. Live content has been a key driver for subscriptions, accounting for six of the top 10 new member sign-up days over the last five years, the company said, even though it makes up roughly 1% of overall watch time this year.
The company is also diversifying the content it offers on its platform, adding live sports games and video podcasts, in addition its large library of TV shows and movies.
Netflix revenue rose 13% to $12.6 billion in the second quarter. Net income was $3.4 billion, up 9% from a year ago.
The company said its advertising business is on track to reach $3 billion in revenue this year, double the amount in 2025.
Netflix on Thursday reported higher revenues and profit in the second quarter as it sought to assure investors about its growth prospects.
The streaming giant reported revenue of $12.6 billion in the second quarter, up 13% from a year ago. Net income during the period rose 9% to $3.4 billion.
Netflix said it expects revenue to grow 12% in the third quarter, but lowered its 2026 revenue forecast to $51 billion from $51.4 billion.
The results were roughly in line with what analysts had predicted and were driven by recent price increase and growth in advertising revenue. The latter is expected to reach $3 billion this year, the company said.
In a presentation with analysts, Netflix executives touted global expansion plans.
“We’re entertaining an audience approaching a billion people with still lots of room to grow into our addressable market on every measure,” said Spencer Neumann, Netflix’s chief financial officer, in the earnings presentation. “We believe we’ve got lots and lots of runway for solid growth ahead of us.”
Those comments appeared intended to assuage investors who’ve grown concerned that people could be spending less time on the streaming service as rivals like YouTube gain market share.
Netflix’s share of TV viewing time in the U.S. has steadily declined in recent months as rivals have gained market share, according to Nielsen data.
The streamer represented 7.8% of all TV viewing in the U.S. in April — the lowest percentage since May 2025. It was 7.5% in April 2025, Nielsen said.
By comparison, YouTube has seen its share of the streaming audience grow. YouTube’s TV viewing share in April rose to 13.4%, up from 12.4% a year earlier, Nielsen said.
Some investors fear that if viewership is down, subscribers could cancel the service, which would negatively affect the platform’s growing advertising business. It could also undercut Netflix’s ability to raise prices in the U.S. and other countries.
Those worries have caused Netflix’s stock price to plummet 41% in the last year. The stock closed on Thursday at $74.35 a share, up 1%. In after hours trading, the stock fell 8%.
“The engagement elephant continues to rear its head and investors are on edge that an earlier price hike in a seasonally tough period and lighter content slate could have driven more churn than usual,” wrote Morgan Stanley Research analysts in a research note.
On Thursday, Netflix said in a letter to shareholders it has a sophisticated understanding of its consumers and “we know not all hours are equal” and that engagement on its platform is “healthy.”
“The entertainment industry remains dynamic and competitive,” Netflix told shareholders. “We aim to stay ahead by executing against our three areas of focus: delivering more entertainment value, leveraging technology to improve every aspect of our service, and improving monetization.”
The Los Gatos-based company said it plans to allocate more than 5% of its content spend on live programming this year. Live content has been a key driver for subscriptions, accounting for six of the top 10 new member sign-up days over the last five years, the company said.
In the first half of 2026, Netflix said members watched more than 97 billion hours, up 2% from a year ago. Among the most popular shows: the crime thriller “I Will Find You,” which had 87 million views; and the romantic comedy film “Voicemails for Isabelle,” which garnered 71 million views.
Netflix has been adding new types of content to its platform, including video podcasts to help increase engagement with subscribers during the day.
As part of the diversification efforts, the platform has expanded its portfolio of live programming over the years, including adding NFL games and streaming Major League Baseball’s opening day game.
In 2022, Netflix had also faced investor pressure when it reported declining subscribers for the first time in more than a decade. That pushed the company to delve into other areas including advertising, gaming and cracking down on password sharing.
The jailing of one of Indonesia’s most influential entrepreneurs in a controversial corruption case has raised fears of damage to investor confidence in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
Nadiem Makarim, the cofounder of the popular super-app Gojek, was last month sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly abusing his authority while serving as the country’s education minister.
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Makarim was found guilty of giving favourable treatment to Google, an early investor in Gojek, when procuring Chromebook laptops for schoolchildren during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prosecutors argued that Makarim, who served as former Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s education minister from 2019 to 2024, inflicted state losses of $120m, alleging that he should have been aware the laptops would not work in remote areas with poor internet access.
Critics of the prosecution have argued that the case against Makarim lacks evidence and that the startup founder-turned-politician is the latest victim of a campaign of political retribution being waged by the administration of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.
Nicky Fahrizal, a researcher of politics and social change at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta, said foreign investors will inevitably think twice before committing capital to Indonesia following the verdict.
“The Nadiem case, along with a string of similar incidents, has served as a warning signal to investors,” Fahrizal told Al Jazeera.
“For them, non-economic factors, such as legal certainty and the quality of the judicial system, are absolute prerequisites.”
Makarim was found guilty by a panel of five judges on June 30, following charges related to the procurement of more than 1 million laptops intended for use in schools in remote and impoverished areas.
At the trial held at the Indonesian Court for Corruption Crimes in Jakarta, prosecutors alleged that Makarim deliberately tailored the tender specifications to favour Google, which invested in Aplikasi Karya Anak Bangsa (AKAB), Gojek’s then-parent company.
Scrutiny of the tender process first arose among the public after it emerged that the Chromebooks often did not work in remote areas, raising questions about how Google was chosen in the first place.
“Choosing a device that relies on an internet connection amid uneven infrastructure… demonstrates a mismatch with needs…” Judge Sunoto said during the sentencing.
Following the verdict, prosecutor Corneles Geeb Paulus hailed the outcome as a victory for “the schoolchildren whose rights were taken away and who were deprived of equitable access to digital education across Indonesia”.
Google has denied providing or offering authorities any inducements to win the tender.
The California-based tech giant, which has a market value of more than $4 trillion, was not indicted in the case.
“From a legal standpoint, authorities seem to have hit a wall in their efforts to secure sufficient evidence and establish the necessary criminal nexus to prosecute the corporation,” the CSIS’s Fahrizal said.
“From a political perspective, Google is a tech giant with immense business influence.”
Taking action against Google could have jeopardised the government’s ongoing digitalisation efforts, Fahrizal added, describing the company as “too big to fail” within the digital sector.
Trissia Wijaya, an Indonesian-born research fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, said Nadiem’s prosecution, coupled with the uncertainty of the business environment under Prabowo, would inevitably erode market confidence.
“Regardless of whether Nadiem is actually guilty or not, he is a symbol of startups and market optimism in Indonesia, especially in the mid-2010s,” Wijaya told Al Jazeera.
“When Gojek started booming and gaining traction, Indonesia was one of the main target countries for global investors, both from the US and China, to invest in the fintech industry,” Wijaya added, describing Indonesia’s business environment as being at a “critical juncture.”
Since taking office in 2024, Prabowo has faced criticism over his handling of the economy, including high levels of spending on public initiatives, such as his signature free lunch programme, which is expected to cost about $15bn this year.
In June, the Indonesian rupiah hit an all-time low against the US dollar, a nadir economic analysts partly attributed to investors’ scepticism about Prabowo’s populist economic policies.
For his part, Prabowo has denied that he is anti-business, while emphasising that Indonesia must uphold the rule of law.
“Some have claimed that I dislike foreign investors and will drive them away, but that is not the case. I have met many investors who are planning to enter the market,” Prabowo told a conference for young entrepreneurs in the city of Lampung last month.
“The government must create a favorable environment for entrepreneurs, including the enforcement of the law. If the law is not enforced, what ensues is the law of the jungle… law based on power, and in the end, that is not good for any of us.”
Siwage Dharma Negara, a co-coordinator of the Indonesia studies programme at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said Indonesia’s reputation as an investment destination had already been in decline before the Makarim verdict.
“Investors are unsure about the credibility of government policies, and they are unsure about the credibility of institutions, whether executive, legislative, or judicial in Indonesia,” Negara told Al Jazeera.
“Nadiem’s case is only one factor that has damaged foreign investor confidence. But there are many other factors that contribute, including government policies that are increasingly less pro-market.”
Teguh Yudo Wicaksono, an economics lecturer at Universitas Islam Indonesia in Yogyakarta, said that although he does not expect the case to have much of an impact on foreign investment, it could deter Indonesian talent based overseas from returning home.
“This could result in a brain drain and Indonesia losing talent,” Wicaksono told Al Jazeera.
Makarim attended Harvard Business School and Brown University in the United States before returning to Indonesia in 2006 and cofounding Gojek four years later.
In 2019, Gojek, which began as a ride-hailing business before evolving into a super-app that also offers food delivery and digital payment services, became the first Indonesian tech company to achieve a valuation of more than $10bn.
Not all observers see the Makarim case as a negative for investor sentiment.
I Gusti Ngurah Bayu Pradana, an expert in business law at the Bali-based Malekat Hukum International Law Firm, said the enforcement of corruption law should be seen as a “positive signal for legal certainty and governance quality in a country, rather than a negative one”.
“Experienced foreign investors generally understand that the greatest risk in investing is not the existence of law enforcement, but rather, legal uncertainty, or a situation in which the rules of the game are unclear, legal processes lack transparency, or enforcement is selective and unpredictable,” Pradana told Al Jazeera.
While Makarim was found guilty of abusing authority and causing state losses, he was acquitted of an additional charge of directly seeking to enrich himself, and he was handed a lower sentence than the 18 years sought by the prosecution.
While reading the verdict, Judge Andi Saputra also presented a dissenting opinion, saying that he found “no evidence of malicious intent or malicious acts” and scant “causal connection or indication between the conflict of interest and the corporate crime”.
The Malekat Hukum law firm’s Pradana pointed to the judge’s dissenting view as evidence of the Indonesian judiciary’s independence and rigorous fact-finding.
“For foreign investors considering Indonesia as an investment destination, the takeaway from this case should not be alarm, but rather confidence that Indonesia’s legal system functions and can hold anyone accountable equally before the law,” Pradana said.
“So long as investment contracts are clearly drafted, business processes are conducted transparently, and implementation complies fully with applicable laws and regulations, investment in Indonesia remains a safe and promising choice.”
A future that, he says, has always intrigued him – and perhaps not dissimilar to David Beckham.
Like Bale, the English icon was his nation’s footballing figurehead and could have had his pick of post playing jobs, before ending up a co-owner of MLS franchise Inter Miami as part of various business interests.
Was that route an influence?
“I think so; a lot of American athletes do that type of thing and I would read about it and listen to interviews about what they’ve done,” says Bale, whose old Real Madrid teammate Luka Modric has become a minority investor in Swansea City.
“A lot of players still go down the coaching route, management or even with younger players at academies.
“But you are seeing more players being a bit more business minded. Maybe because we’ve done so much on one side, this side becomes a new chapter, a new world.
“It always really interested me, but I didn’t really have the opportunity before being introduced to John.”
The John who could help Bale build it like Beckham is experienced US investor John Shulman, founder of private equity firm Juggernaut Capital.
The company is said to have $1bn in capital commitments and had already been investing in various sport businesses – from golf courses and volleyball to “thrill” sports – but sensed an opportunity, especially when it came to Europe and the UK.
Shulman says he wanted to bring on board “an elite, iconic athlete” to help launch a sports specific investment platform – Juggernaut Diversified Sports – ready to invest more than £500m.
And after an introduction – and, naturally, a round of golf – found one.
“There is only a small number of human beings on the planet who have done what Gareth has done,” Shulman says.
“We’re good investors, but what we lacked is the mindset, experience, drive and unique perch Gareth does.
“I mean, the guy has got it all. What he can do on the pitch, I’ve seen him do in the boardroom metaphorically. So I have nothing but excitement about [our plans], doing it at the right time and the right place and the right way.”
Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is joining the ranks of entertainment industry power players embracing generative AI.
Black Forest Labs, the German AI startup behind the text-to-image model Flux, announced Tuesday that Scorsese is joining the company as an advisor.
The company unveiled the collaboration on its website with a video of the auteur using Flux to storyboard scenes, which involves mocking up shots before filming.
“This conveys a cinematic intelligence,” he said in the video, discussing the program’s uses with Black Forest Labs co-founder and Chief Executive Robin Rombach and Creative Artists Agency co-founder Michael Ovitz. According to the New York Times, Ovitz, an investor in Black Forest Labs, helped bring Scorsese aboard, along with Rick Yorn, Scorsese’s talent manager, whose investment firm BroadLight Capital is also an investor.
In a statement, Scorsese emphasized the potential for AI to transform the storyboarding process.
“For 70 years, I’ve been creating my own storyboards. There’s always been this problem of how do you communicate what you see in your head to your cast and crew. There are some things you have to see and feel,” he said. “I’m interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling, and seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences.”
Traditionally, storyboarding is done by hand or digital illustration through a collaboration between directors and storyboard artists.
Scorsese’s public espousal of this technology marks the latest shift in attitude about AI from powerful Hollywood creatives. Since generative AI became widely accessible in 2022, Hollywood has struggled to navigate its power to rapidly upend industry norms.
Scorsese is not the first decorated filmmaker to embrace AI. James Cameron, the Oscar-winning “Avatar” director, is on the board of directors for Stability AI, where Rombach worked before launching Black Forest Labs. In his keynote address at the AI on the Lot conference last week, director and screenwriter Paul Schrader expressed a mixture of admiration and caution toward the technology.
“AI does not create — it combines,” Shrader said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”
Not everybody is on board with generative AI’s potential transformations. Guillermo del Toro and Seth Rogen spoke out against the technology at Cannes last month, and below-the-line wokers, screenwriters and actors have continued to express apprehension and even horror at the prospect of being replaced by generative AI.
Scorsese’s entry into the AI field might especially shock fans given his traditionalist approach to filmmaking. In 2019, he famously criticized Marvel movies, calling them “theme parks” and “not cinema.”
“It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being,” he said in a 2019 interview with Empire Magazine.
Even if his filmmaking centers humanity, Scorsese’s partnership with Black Forest Labs demonstrates his willingness to incorporate non-human assistance.
“Remember, cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve,” he said in the statement on Black Forest Labs’ website.