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SpaceX has settled a lawsuit filed by the maker of the popular party game Cards Against Humanity over accusations that Elon Musk’s rocket company trespassed and damaged a plot of land the card company owns in Texas. Texas court records show a settlement was reached in the case last month, just weeks before a jury trial was scheduled to begin on Nov. 3. The card maker said in a statement Monday that it could not disclose the terms, and SpaceX did not return email and telephone messages left with the company and its Texas lawyer seeking comment. Cards Against Humanity, which is headquartered in Chicago, originally purchased the plot of land in 2017 as part of what it said was a stunt to oppose President Donald Trumps efforts to build a border wall. In its lawsuit, Cards Against Humanity alleges SpaceX essentially treated the game companys property located in Cameron County in far south Texas as its own for at least six months. The lawsuit said SpaceX, which had previously acquired other plots of land near the property, had placed construction materials, such as gravel, and other debris on the land without asking for permission to do so. Cards Against Humanity said in an email Monday to The Associated Press that SpaceX admitted during the discovery phase of the case to trespassing on its property. The company said a trial “would have cost more than what we were likely to win from SpaceX. The upside is that SpaceX has removed their construction equipment from our land and were able to work with a local landscaping company to restore the land to its natural state: devoid of space garbage and pointless border walls. The company has previously said 150,000 people had each contributed $15 toward helping purchase the land in Texas and that they had hoped to pay back those donors with proceeds from a settlement. Over the years, Cards Against Humanity says the land has been maintained in its natural state. It also says it displayed a no trespassing sign to warn people they were about to step on private property. The company was asking for $15 million in damages, which it says includes a loss of vegetation on the land. Were we hoping to be able to pay all our fans? Sure. But we did warn them they would probably only be able to get like $2 or most likely nothing, the company said. Sean Murphy, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
For most people, its natural to assume that if something is exclusive to the wealthiest echelons of society, it must be better. Asset management firms looking to access trillions of retail investor dollars explicitly reference this exclusivity when marketing private equity offerings. But investors should be wary when fund marketers talk about democratizing investing or opening access to areas previously only available to the elite. Reasons to be wary Investing is already democratized. The SEC eliminated fixed trading commissions in 1975, and innovation has made investing in publicly traded stocks cheaper and easier ever since. Online trading platforms allow people of modest means to easily buy shares in almost any publicly traded company. The advent of cheap, passively managed mutual funds and exchange-traded funds has made building a diversified portfolio easier and more affordable than ever. Moreover, public capital markets are a good thing. Investors who buy publicly traded stocks or bonds get transparency about their investment with ready liquidity. Meanwhile, private capital investments are often opaque and illiquid. There has been considerable debate about whether private investments generate higher returns. Measuring performance for private equity and private debt is not straightforward. Most industry benchmarks use internal rates of return, which arent really comparable to traditional performance measures like total return. Researchers have examined some of the findings related to this topic. A 2020 paper by Ludovic Phalippou, An Inconvenient Fact: Private Equity Returns & The Billionaire Factory, argues that net of fees, returns for private equity funds have been in line with those of the public equity markets since 2006. PitchBook, which is part of Morningstar, has also gathered data on public market equivalent returns for private equity. Based on those metrics, private equity funds with 2020-2023 vintage years did not generate positive excess performance returns, although funds with 2011-2019 vintages fared significantly better. Semiliquid private equity and venture capital funds Even if private capital had a performance edge in the past, theres no guarantee that this advantage will continue or that those managers will be the better performers. As Morningstars Jeff Ptaknotes, private equity funds typically have widely dispersed returns, meaning a large gap between the top and bottom performers. Your returns could differ wildly from those of benchmark indexes. As large private equity firms increasingly tap retail capital, the instruments available to average investors probably wont be the best. Investment sage Bill Bernstein stated: The first people who invested in private equity got the filet mignon and the lobster tails, and the Vanguards and Fidelities of this world are going to wind up with tuna noodle casserole. On the venture capital side, getting access to the next startup unicorn early in the game sounds appealing. But for every SpaceX, thousands of early-stage companies never take off, and there is additional risk from leveraged exposure to privately held companies. Final thoughts When you hear about the virtues of access to investments that were off-limits, its worth considering who really benefits. As passively managed funds with rock-bottom expense ratios continue to gain market share, asset management firms are pressed to find new sources of high-margin revenue. That new source of revenue, in many cases, is you. Amy C. Arnott, CFA is a portfolio strategist for Morningstar. This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance
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E-Commerce
Twitter/X has a unique problem. After the departure of users following Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media site (and again following his short stint with the Trump administration), the site has a surplus of unused user names. Now it’s looking to capitalize on that. The company has opened a waitlist for what it’s calling the “handle marketplace,” where it will sell abandoned and inactive usernames. But theres a slight catch: To make a bid for one, you’ll likely need to be a Premium+ or Premium Business subscriber to the site. Some handles will be effectively free, included in the cost of the subscription. But for “rare” handles, X is warning users the price tag could be steep. “Rare handles,” the company wrote in an FAQ about the marketplace, “may be priced anywhere from $2,500 to over seven figures, depending on demand and uniqueness.” It’s unclear if usernames X took away from active users (including @music and @sports) will be included in the sale. Two types of “‘inactive’ handles will be made available,” the company said. “Priority” usernames will include “full names, multi-word phrases, or alphanumeric combinations.” Handles that have “short, generic, or culturally significant names will be deemed rare. If youre considering signing up for a Premium+ or Premium Business subscription just to grab the name you want, then cancellingmuch like streaming subscribers do when hot series roll outyoure likely to be disappointed. If the username you choose is classified as “Priority,” you’ll only be allowed to keep it as long as youre a subscriber. Once you cancel or downgrade, you’ll revert to your current username. A Premium+ subscription on X.com costs $40 per month or $395 per year. Business subscriptions run from $2,000 per year (or $200 per month) to $10,000 (or $1,000 per month). X has been looking for ways to boost revenues since Musk took over in 2022. While the company as a whole has not reported any financials, its U.K. division made a financial filing in April showing a 66.3% drop in revenue in the year following Musks takeover. Research firm EMarketer, however, projects that X’s U.S. digital ad revenue will jump 17.5% to $1.3 billion this year from $1.1 billion in 2024. The distribution of “Rare” handles will be handled differently. The company says there will be “public drops” for some, which will be given away for free “based on merit,” with multiple users allowed to apply. The handle will be awarded based on the user’s engagement and “past contributions.” Users will not, seemingly, have to be a Premium+ or Premium Business subscriber to take part in these disbursements. Other rare handles, though, will be sold at “fixed” prices via invitation and will require a subscription. The price, X says, will be “determined by a number of factors, including popularity of word, character length, and cultural significance.” Once purchased, buyers of these handles will keep them even if they cancel their subscription. Examples of Direct purchase usernames included @one, @fly, and @compute.X said it’s hoping the handle marketplace will extend beyond the X world. “We are establishing a new standard for social media handlesa framework we hope the broader industry will adopt, similar to how Community Notes has influenced online transparency,” it wrote. X’s sale of inactive usernames has been rumored for months. In April, a user spotted the framework for the “handle inquiry” process. Reselling usernames was something Musk began discussing as early as January of 2023, however, as part of his campaign of purging the site of inactive accounts. X might stand alone right now in terms of reselling usernames, but it’s not the only company that’s thinning out inactive users. Google, in 2023, announced plans to do away with inactive Google accounts, deleting Gmail, Google Chat, Google Drive and other services that hadnt been accessed for a long period of time (generally two years), saying those were more likely to be compromised by hackers.
Category:
E-Commerce
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