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Good morning,
Today is Equal Pay Day. Put another way, it’s the day that symbolizes how far into the year women have to work until they earn as much as men will be in 2023.
For all of the efforts out there to narrow the gender pay gap, women still earn 84 cents for every dollar a man makes. For a 20-year-old woman just starting in a full-time career, that’s a loss of $407,760 over a 40-year career compared to her male counterpart.
But there are steps we can all take to close the gap: Speak up about improper pay practices, advocate for a pay audit and don’t blame women for the problem. (In fact, research has shown women negotiate more than men, but still earn less.)
BREAKING NEWS
(PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
A US intelligence report circulated Monday claimed China is strengthening its covert influence operations and may attempt to influence this year’s US elections, citing “growing efforts” to exploit perceived societal divisions on social media. The 41-page annual threat assessment by the Office of Director of National Intelligence states China may attempt to influence the 2024 elections “because of its desire to sideline critics of China and magnify US societal divisions.”
As part of a settlement between the state and civil rights advocates, Florida clarified that its controversial Parental Rights in Education Act—dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law—allows teachers and students to discuss gender and sexual orientation so long as it’s not in official instructions. The settlement, which both the state and the advocates are calling a win, requires the Florida Board of Education to send instructions to all school districts clarifying details about the law that was previously vague, the Associated Press reported.
BUSINESS + FINANCE
Bitcoin reached new heights Monday, topping $72,000 for the first time amid increasing institutional acceptance and continuing its impressive rally that has pulled the market back from the depths of a deep “crypto winter.” The The total cryptocurrency market was worth $2.84 trillion as of Monday, nearly tripling in value over the past year.
Shares of Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta suffered their worst day in nearly eight months Monday after former President Donald Trump called Facebook the “enemy of the people” on CNBC’s Squawk Box as the former president looks to bolster his rival social media platforms. The decline of nearly 4.5% comes on the heels of the company reporting its biggest-ever profits in the fourth quarter, and shares have surged nearly 29% in 2024.
TECH + INNOVATION
Fintech CEOs including Klarna’s Sebastian Siemiatkowski (left), Revolut’s Nik Storonsky (rear) and Stripe’s Patrick Collison (front) face great uncertainty over their startups’ valuations.
ILLUSTRATION BY YUNJIA YUAN FOR FORBES; PHOTO BYLEVON BISS FOR FORBES; ALEX FLYNN-BLOOMBERG; REVOLUT
Fintech’s boom and bust, u.s venture capital dollars flowing into the industry plunged from $141 billion in 2021 to $39 billion globally in 2023, has left many wondering what the startups are worth today. Eleven leading private fintech startups, including Plaid, Stripe and Klarna, are now worth 23% to 79% less than their peak fundraising valuations. Still, a falling valuation doesn’t necessarily mean a business is doing poorly.
Billionaire Elon Musk pledged to make his artificial intelligence company xAI’s chatbot Grok open-source, which would effectively allow the public to freely access the AI bot. Open-source modeling has become a focus for Musk in recent months, after the billionaire sued ChatGPT maker OpenAI—the company he cofounded and later left—for allegedly backtracking on its founding pledge of creating an open-source model to instead prioritize shareholders.
MONEY + POLITICS
US Senator Bob Menendez (center right), Democrat of New Jersey, leaves with his wife Nadine Menendez the Manhattan Federal Court in New York City following his arraignment on March 11, 2024. (Photo by Adam Gray / AFP) (Photo by ADAM GRAY /AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
Sen. Bob Menendez (DN.J.) pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of obstruction of justice stemming from a new indictment against him that alleged the congressman and his wife made their lawyers make “false and misleading statements” to prosecutors about loan and car payments that prosecutors say were actually bribes. The new charges followed past indictments against Menendez alleging he acted as a foreign agent of the Egyptian government and maintained a “corrupt relationship” with New Jersey businessmen. His trial is scheduled to begin May 6.
TRAVEL + LIFESTYLE
Choice Hotels announced it was abandoning its $8 billion hostile takeover bid for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, a merger that would have created North America’s largest budget hotel franchisor. It ended a long saga for the company, after Choice publicly announced its intentions in October, at which point Wyndham had already rejected four offers from the company.
DAILY COVER STORY
Deepfaked Celebrities Hawked A Massive Trump Scam On Facebook And YouTube
EUGENE HOSHIKO/AP PHOTO
TOPLINE An ad featuring a fake Martin Luther King, Jr. implores viewers to take a free poll to support former President Trump. Complete it and they’ll be sent a free Trump flag, it says; they’ll need only cover shipping and handling.
It doesn’t mention the $80 recurring credit card charges they’ll incur after checking out.
When that charge comes through, it’s almost always unexpected, according to three victims Forbes spoke to and several dozen Facebook comments left by others. It’s also confusing, as it doesn’t originate with the Trump flag site; instead it comes from a website they never visited. The FTC and Justice Department has referred to this practice as “credit card laundering”—and pursued legal action against those who employ it.
Ads for the Trump flag scam has been viewed more than 100 million times on Facebook recently, according to the company’s ad library. One page running them has spent $1,500,000 in the past three months alone, making it Meta’s fifth largest political spender this cycle.
Scams targeting Trump supporters are common online, and the problem has gotten bad enough that the Trump campaign rolled out an official “endorsement seal” to let people know which organizations and vendors are actually affiliated with the former president. The Trump campaign did not respond to a comment request, but there is no evidence that Trump or his campaign has any connection to the scam.
A Forbes investigation traced the “free flag” scam through a tangled web of opaque and deceptive actors. There are those marketing the scam, including an advertiser involved in a runaround of Facebook and YouTube’s transparency systems. There’s the company that occasionally does ship out Trump flags, which has its fingerprints on several hundred sham storefront websites. And then there is a rat’s nest of LLCs, facilitated by a company that pays people a monthly stipend to establish shell corporations in their names, potentially ruining their credit in the process.
The pieces fit together in a way that minimizes each player’s exposure to the others’ misdeeds, and help them evade crackdowns from platforms, banks and law enforcement. Meta took down the accounts promoting the Trump scam after being contacted by Forbesand told Forbes that after further investigation, it also referred to the matter to law enforcement and issued a cease & desist.
WHY IT MATTERS “If ads hawking a pretty obvious scam can reach nearly 200 million impressions on Facebook and YouTube before being removed, what other nefarious ads might be able to do so?” says Forbes technology reporter Emily Baker-White. “Deepfakes are rampant across social media platforms right now, and it is not hard to imagine similar schemes aimed at influencing voters and changing political outcomes, rather than just making a quick buck.”
FACTS AND COMMENTS
The jobs of human resources executives have become more complicated and powerful amid a global pandemic and hybrid work. HR leaders, who remain predominantly female, have been seen much bigger titles and higher pay in the past three decades, research shows:
70%: The pay of chief human resources officers compared to what other non-CEO C-Suite members made in 2022, compared to about 40% in 1992
13%: The share of S&P 1500 firms with an HR executive among the top five paid executives listed in proxy filings, an increase from just 0.5% in 2022
$7.1 million: The median compensation among the 10 highest paid HR leaders, according to research firm Equilar
STRATEGY AND SUCCESS
Research has shown that positivity can benefit many aspects of our lives, including our careers. While negativity puts up walls, Positivity allows you to engage more effectively with others, keeping you focused on your talents and achievements rather than dwelling on failures. To get started on shifting your mindset, try this exercise: Examine your communications from the last week and track the ratio of positive comments to negative ones. If it’s not at least five positive to one negative, you probably have some work to do.
VIDEOS
QUIZ
The songwriting duo of Billie Eilish and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, became the two youngest people to have won two Academy Awards after winning for Barbie‘s “What Was I Made For?” on Sunday. How old are they?
A. 21 and 25
B. 22 and 26
C. 19 and 23
D. 25 and 28
Check your answer.
ACROSS THE NEWSROOM
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