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A launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites suffered a rare midflight failure Thursday evening.
The rocket’s upper second stage failed to reignite its engine as planned and was destroyed, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed.
Falcon 9 is grounded until the Federal Aviation Administration signs off on SpaceX’s investigation of the incident, the federal regulator confirmed to CNBC.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is pictured launching satellites to orbit in space after it lifted off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, U.S., in this screenshot obtained from a handout video released on July 12, 2024. 
Spacex | Via Reuters

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is grounded, pending an incident investigation, after an inflight failure — a rare misfire for the company’s workhorse vehicle.
The mission, known as “Starlink Group 9-3,” launched from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on Thursday evening and was carrying 20 satellites bound for low Earth orbit.

The rocket’s lower first stage, or booster, operated as expected before returning to land. But the rocket’s upper second stage failed to reignite its engine as planned and was destroyed, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed.
“Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown,” Musk wrote in a post on social media. RUD, or “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” is a term SpaceX uses to refer to an explosive or destructive event. The company said in a later update that the engine failure came after a leak of liquid oxygen in the second stage.
Falcon 9 is grounded until the Federal Aviation Administration signs off on SpaceX’s investigation of the incident, the federal regulator confirmed.
“The FAA will be involved in every step of the investigation process and must approve SpaceX’s final report, including any corrective actions,” the agency said in a statement to CNBC.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flies carrying a payload of 22 Starlink internet satellites into space after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base, as seen from Los Angeles, on March 18, 2024.
Mario Tama | Getty Images

The Starlink mission was the 69th Falcon 9 launch of the year — with the company averaging a blistering pace of a launch every two to three days in 2024 — but the investigation will likely delay launches planned in the weeks ahead, including two crewed missions: The private Polaris Dawn and NASA’s Crew-9.

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SpaceX still deployed the 20 Starlink satellites but noted that the second stage engine failure means the satellites were in “a lower than intended orbit.” In an update Friday afternoon, the company said it made contact with 10 of the satellites in an effort to use the satellites onboard thrusters to climb higher in orbit.
Despite the attempted recovery, SpaceX confirmed that the “enormously high-drag environment” from being in the wrong, lower orbit means the satellites will not be recovered. The 20 satellites will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up.
“They do not pose a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety,” the company wrote in a statement on its website.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off on the USSF-124 mission for the U.S. Space Force and Missile Defense Agency in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Feb. 14, 2024.
Joe Skipper | Reuters

Falcon 9 has been on an unrivaled run of success for nearly a decade, chocking up more than 300 consecutive successful orbital launches since its previous inflight failure in June 2015, during the NASA cargo mission CRS-7.
In total, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has launched 354 missions to orbit, with more than 300 of those featuring successful landings and resulting in the reuse of rocket boosters more than 280 times.

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Up to $9 trillion is expected to be passed along to spouses and partners in the coming years as part of what’s being called “the horizontal wealth transfer,” according to a new report.
There are over 43 million people in the Americas over the age of 75, with over $50 trillion in combined transferrable wealth.
Women now make up over 11% of the world’s millionaires, nearly double the share in 2016, according to Julius Baer.

Charday Penn | E+ | Getty Images

Up to $9 trillion is expected to be passed along to spouses and partners in the coming years as part of what’s being called “the horizontal wealth transfer,” according to a new report.
Over the next 20 to 30 years, aging baby boomers and older generations are expected to pass down $84 trillion in wealth to charity and family members. Younger generations, including Generation X, millennials and Generation Z are expected get the bulk of the inheritances.

Yet because surviving spouses and partners typically get the initial inheritances, and because women typically outlive men, bequests in the coming years will largely go to women, according to the UBS Global Wealth Report.
An estimated $9 trillion will be transferred “intra-generationally,” meaning from one spouse to another, according to the report.
“Life expectancy varies between men and women, and quite frequently couples have an age gap, therefore the inheriting spouse will typically own and hold onto this wealth for an average of four years before passing it on,” the report said.
UBS calls it the “horizontal wealth transfer,” since the wealth is moving intra-generationally rather than intergenerationally. And while little noticed, the horizontal transfers have the potential to reshape the wealth management, investing and luxury spending landscape, which has largely been dominated by men.
“Most people have a rather feudal idea of wealth going down through generations,” said Paul Donovan, chief economist of UBS Global Wealth Management. “But about 10% is likely to go sideways, to spouses or partners and not yet giving it to children, although it will shift over time.”

According to the report, the largest horizontal wealth transfers will be in the Americas. There are over 43 million people in that region over the age of 75, with over $50 trillion in combined transferrable wealth. The average age of the individuals passing down wealth is over 85, the report said.

While some families may pass fortunes directly to next generations, inheritances can often be a two-step process — first going to the surviving spouse and then handed down by that spouse to the next generation. (Estate law typically allows the surviving spouse to inherit property of unlimited value without being subject to estate tax).
The report estimates that after $9 trillion is passed to spouses, they will pass down over $8.4 trillion to next generations, making them key decision makers in the great wealth transfer.
Those transfers, along with other broader forces in the economy, are adding to the so-called “feminization of wealth.” With women’s incomes and wealth rising, combined with inheritances for both older and younger inheritors, analysts expect women will make up a growing share of high net-worth investors and consumers.
Women now make up over 11% of the world’s millionaires, nearly double the share in 2016, according to Julius Baer.

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The biggest impact will be on wealth management. Donovan said 45% of UBS’s wealth clients are now women.
“It’s important when it comes to wealth management,” he said. Wealth management clients, he said, will likely be “different people, with different ideas and different things they want to do with their wealth.”
A McKinsey report estimated that women are expected to control most of the $30 trillion in baby boomer wealth by 2030. While the wealth management industry has been traditionally dominated by male clients and male advisors (accounting for 85% of the latter group), McKinsey said that’s changing fast.
“After years of playing second fiddle to men,” the report said, “women are poised to take center stage.”
McKinsey said that compared with five years ago, 30% more married women are making financial and investment decisions, and more women than ever are the family breadwinners, “spurring growth in their investible assets.” 
Luxury brands traditionally geared toward men are also adapting. In the luxury watch market, women’s watches are one of the fastest growing segments. Jean-Christophe Babin, the CEO of Bulgari, told me earlier this year that “the trend is toward more and more feminine and more unisex watches. Women have increasing power, in terms of independence, autonomy and purchasing power. We think that will continue.”
Philanthropy could also benefit from the horizontal wealth transfer. Giving to groups focused on women and girls grew 9% in 2020, the latest year measured, to over $8 billion, according to the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
Melinda French Gates just pledged $1 billion to women’s and girls’ causes, and MacKenzie Scott has given away over $17 billion of her fortune since 2019, including large grants to Girl Scouts of the USA.
“We will see a dramatic shift in ownership of wealth,” Donovan said. “It is going to be quite significant in looking at who controls the resources that finance the global economy.”

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The owner of a beachfront mansion in Delray Beach, Florida, is looking to shatter a local price record with a home that delivers old-school Italian flair above ground and hidden personality below.
The upper levels are adorned with 300 stone-carved columns, vaulted ceilings and even a fresco painted in Florence, Italy.
Meanwhile, the home’s subterranean space is packed with modern luxuries including a super car gallery, glowing tequila bar and a steel vault packed with piles of cash.
CNBC takes a tour of the mansion, currently listed for $60 million.

The Mar Pietra compound in Delray Beach, Florida, is being offered at $60 million.
Daniel Petroni

The owner of a beachfront mansion in Delray Beach, Florida, is looking to shatter a local price record with a home that delivers old-school Italian flair above ground and hidden personality below.
While the upper levels are adorned with 300 stone-carved columns, vaulted ceilings and even a fresco painted in Florence, Italy, the home’s subterranean space is packed with modern luxuries including a super car gallery, glowing tequila bar and a steel vault packed with piles of cash.

The two distinct design themes are wrapped in a limestone-clad residence located on the town’s ultra-high-end South Ocean Boulevard. The 23,000-plus square-foot home is called Mar Pietra, Italian for “sea stone.”
“So much stone went into this house, I thought it was appropriate,” owner Massimo Musa told CNBC.

Musa founded and sold several companies in the eye-care industry. He also develops real estate and built Mar Pietra with this now ex-wife.
The passion project took five years to complete and employed dozens of craftsmen, painters and sculptors, many of them from Italy. Tons of limestone were shipped here from Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula; hand-carved marble made the journey from Verona, Italy; and massive panels of cedar arrived from Colombia.

Sunrise over the pool. Under the archways on the left is a loggia that includes an outdoor kitchen, dining area and lounge.
Daniel Petroni

According to the listing, the mega home sits on 100 feet of beachfront. There is a main residence and guest house and all together nine bedrooms, 12 full baths and seven half baths. The climate-controlled subterranean garage adds 4,000 more square feet, with even more space added via covered areas such as a luxurious loggia that houses another kitchen, bar, lounge and dining area.

The massive estate is five times the size of the average Delray Beach home sold during the first quarter, and its eight-figure price tag is more than 18 times the area’s almost $3.3 million average sales price for a luxury home, according to the Elliman Report. The report defines luxury homes as the top 10% of sales.
The highest sale price ever achieved in Delray Beach was $34 million for a listing also located on South Ocean Boulevard that sold in 2021. According to public records, the top sale price per square foot was also recorded in 2021, at just under $2,600 per square foot. Mar Pietra’s list price would put it right in line with that value metric.

The grand salon’s ornately carved ceiling was inspired by a palazzo in Rome. The room overlooks the pool and ocean.
Daniel Petroni

The trophy home’s massive footprint and its giant oceanfront lawn are a rare sight on this strip of beach in Palm Beach County. According to Musa, that is because of the lot’s unique zoning history.
Public records show he bought the lot, along with the lot across the street on the Intracoastal Waterway, for $9 million back in in 2002. At the time, the oceanfront parcel had a hotel on it, which means the land was under hotel zoning regulations. Musa, who immigrated to the U.S. from Italy, tore down the old building so he could build a beachfront family home that paid homage to his home country.

A pair of stone staircases leads from the oceanfront lawn up to Mar Pietra’s limestone-clad sundeck and pool area.
Daniel Petroni

Even after the hotel’s demolition, Musa says, the land’s hotel zoning remained intact. That allowed him to build a home with a larger footprint and smaller setbacks. Plus, the residence could extend closer to the shoreline than current residential zoning typically allows. 
Also grandfathered in was a portion of beachfront lot that was cleared decades ago by the hotel’s owners, something Musa told CNBC current regulation would never allow. That clearing is now a lush evergreen lawn, made of artificial grass, that rolls across the back of his one-acre property where it meets the natural vegetation on the sandy shoreline.

A balcony on the home’s second level overlooks the pool, ocean and large artificial lawn that borders the beach.
Daniel Petroni

The home’s position 21 feet above sea level and its sheer size is impressive, but like many listings at this price point, it is not always easy to find a buyer. While the estate has been on and off the market since December 2021, its $60 million price tag holds steady. It is currently offered by South Florida listing agent Senada Adzem of Douglas Elliman.
“This trophy estate stands as one of South Florida’s finest bespoke luxury properties, designed to evoke timeless elegance,” Adzem told CNBC.

The main hall features vaulted ceilings and a few of the home’s 300 stone columns.
Daniel Petroni

The kitchen features Italian white marble and reclaimed beams that span the ceiling.
Daniel Petroni

According to the Elliman Report, luxury single-family home inventory in the first quarter rose more than 12% over the previous year, and the average sales price of a luxury single-family home in Delray Beach dropped more than 33%.
Despite data that suggests the market may be experiencing some headwinds, Adzem remains confident in the list price and South Florida’s high-end real estate market.
“The ultra-luxury real estate market will continue to prosper,” she said. “Wealthy clients love Palm Beach County, valuing oceanfront locations, privacy and uniqueness above all else.”
To support that claim, Adzem points just 400 meters down the street to a sale in Highland Beach, where just this May an oceanfront home traded for $50 million, or more than $2,800 per square foot. On this coastline, Mar Pietra could actually be considered a relative bargain. A nearby smaller home, also on South Ocean Boulevard, recently listed for $74 million, or about $5,100 a square foot.

The home’s family room, overlooking the pool and ocean.
Daniel Petroni

According to Adzem, Mar Pietra commands a premium in part for its quality of construction and the property’s rare zoning allowances, which she called priceless.
“These generous zoning allowances enabled our client to create a truly unique property that would otherwise be impossible,” she said.

A seating area in Mar Pietra’s loggia overlooking the sunrise.
Daniel Petroni

It is hard to imagine a potential buyer taking issue with the estate for being too small, but Adzem said in this part of Florida, it is not out of the question. So, the real estate broker and her client are ready to offer a solution.
“What’s really unique about the home is the fact that my client is willing to sell it with the Intracoastal Waterway lot that would create the only ocean-to-intracoastal compound in Delray Beach, Florida.”
The two-lot deal, Adzem said, would deliver enough land to develop another waterfront house that could include a rare spot on the Intracoastal Waterway to dock a mega yacht. As for the price tag to buy the full package deal, Adzem said she would only discuss that number with prospective buyers.

Here is a closer look at Mar Pietra and what you would get for $60 million:

Vehicles entering the estate pass through a porte-cochere that doubles as a guesthouse.
Daniel Petroni

The home’s driveway passes through a grand archway called a porte-cochere that leads to a circular motor court. Inside the limestone structure is a two-story guesthouse spanning more than 2,700 square feet with three bedrooms, three full baths and two half baths.

At the center of the motor court is a fountain flanked by mature palms and framed by a driving surface that combines mosaics, marble and faux grass.
Daniel Petroni

Beyond the circular motor court is a giant stone staircase that ascends to the main residence.

Mar Pietra’s grand staircase arrival.

Through the arches at the top of the stairway is a central open-air courtyard. Musa says the design was inspired by Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami.

Dramatic archways surround the home’s open-air central courtyard.
Daniel Petroni

The courtyard leads to the home’s main entrance, where a butterfly staircase reigns over a double-height foyer.

The foyer’s ceiling rises over 30 feet, with limestone archways, and a grand marble staircase.
Daniel Petroni

The two-story library is clad in stained cedar from Colombia, with a large marble fireplace carved in Verona, Italy.
Daniel Petroni

The home’s library spans two levels with a spiral staircase that rises up to the second floor — and the room delivers much more than books.

The upper level of the wood-paneled library offers a closer look at the Italian fresco overhead.
Daniel Petroni

Musa says the cedar-wrapped room’s design was inspired by the Vanderbilt estate, while the fresco on the ceiling takes inspiration from the Sistine Chapel. The mural, Adzem told CNBC, was painted in Florence, Italy, shipped to Florida and affixed to the ceiling, where the artist made the final finishing touches.

The library’s onyx bar with book-matched cedar panel walls and flooring designed with intricate inlays.
Daniel Petroni

The lower level of the library includes an onyx bar and a lounge area. On the upper level, windows around the home office are filled with views of the pool and ocean.

The home office on the library’s upper level.
Daniel Petroni

The primary suite is also on the second floor, with views from every window.

A seating area and double-sided fireplace at the entry of the primary suite’s sleeping quarters.
Daniel Petroni

Mar Pietra’s primary suite.
Daniel Petroni

The suite’s two baths feature contemporary designs, imported marbles and walk-in closets. The white marble bath flows seamlessly into a boutique-style, walk-in wardrobe with a cabinet island, jewelry showcase and separate shoe closet.

A marble-clad bath in the primary suite.
Daniel Petroni

One of the primary suites’ two walk-in closets.
Daniel Petroni

Deep below the dune that Mar Pietra is perched upon is a subterranean lair with a very different design story. It is more modern down there and packed with contemporary luxuries.

Mar Pietra’s subterranean garage is air-conditioned and spans more than 4,100 square feet.
Daniel Petroni

The home’s so-called auto lounge is an underground garage adorned with giant crystal chandeliers, ornate ceilings and parking for seven cars. During CNBC’s visit, it was staged bumper to bumper with $5 million worth of rare Lamborghinis. 

The lower level’s lounge offers a view of the car salon through a floor-to-ceiling wall of curved glass.
Daniel Petroni

The parking area leads to a lounge designed for people who like to admire their rides. A wall of curved glass separates the lounge from the garage and delivers a great view of the parked supercars. The steel vault on the side wall is an art piece with a functioning door and stacks of money inside.

The lower level’s tequilla bar is clad in white quartzite.
Daniel Petroni

The lower level also includes a tequila-only bar wrapped in quartzite. After dark, lights embedded in the stone can ignite the surfaces with a milky-white glow. 

Mar Pietra’s subterranean home theater.
Daniel Petroni

There is also a state-of-the-art theater, with a floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall electronic screen, and it is one of the home’s two cinemas. More

The U.S. Department of Labor announced a settlement with Dollar General, requiring the retailer and its subsidiaries to pay $12 million in penalties and implement significant workplace safety improvements. 
The new set of fines add to the more than $21 million in fines from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that the discounter has racked up since 2017 due to blocked fire exits, dangerous levels of clutter and other safety claims.
Under the new settlement, Dollar General is required to significantly reduce its inventory and increase stocking efficiency to prevent blocked exits and clutter, among other measures.

A sign hangs above a Dollar General store in Chicago on Aug. 31, 2023.
Scott Olson | Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Labor announced a settlement Thursday with Dollar General, requiring the retailer and its subsidiaries to pay $12 million in penalties and implement significant workplace safety improvements in its more than 19,000 stores nationwide. 
The new set of fines adds to the more than $21 million in fines from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that the discounter has racked up since 2017 due to blocked fire exits, dangerous levels of clutter and other safety claims. Gun violence has also been an issue for Dollar General stores: 49 people have been killed and 172 people have been injured at Dollar General stores by gun violence, according to 2023 data from nonprofit Gun Violence Archive.

A repeat offender with the Department of Labor, Dollar General became the first company to be added to OSHA’s “severe violators” of workplace safety rules list in 2023 after the agency expanded the reach of its safety enforcement program.
“This agreement commits Dollar General to making worker safety a priority by implementing significant and systematic changes in its operations to improve accountability and compliance, and it gives Dollar General employees essential input on ensuring their own health and safety,” Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Douglas Parker said in a press release.
Under the new settlement, the Tennessee-based retailer is required to hire additional safety managers and significantly reduce its inventory and increase stocking efficiency to prevent blocked exits and clutter. It is also required to provide safety and health training to all employees and to develop a safety and health committee with employee participation.
Dollar General has hired third-party consultants and auditors to identify hazards and perform unannounced annual compliance audits, created a new Safety Operations Center and maintained an anonymous hotline for employees and the public to report safety concerns.
The third-party auditors were first commissioned as a response to a shareholder vote in May 2023 calling for one, a decision that the company opposed at the time.

The settlement with the Department of Labor also requires Dollar General to monitor outcomes of those efforts and provide quarterly reports to OSHA.
Under the agreement, Dollar General will be required to correct safety hazards such as blocked access to fire extinguishers and electrical panels and improper material storage at its stores within 48 hours and submit proof of correction. The discounter will be subject to additional fines of $100,000 a day up to $500,000 if it fails to do so.
CNBC has reached out to Dollar General for additional comment.

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Delta said the Paris Olympics will translate to a $100 million revenue hit because travelers are heading to other destinations.
Delta has the most service of any U.S. airline to Paris and holds a joint venture with Air France.
European travel demand has been robust this summer, and Delta executives expect strong bookings to the region through the start of November.

The Paris 2024 logo, representing the Olympic Games is displayed near the Eiffel Tower three months prior to the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic games on April 21, 2024 in Paris, France. 
Chesnot | Getty Images

For more than 10,000 Olympic athletes, making it to Paris this summer is a dream come true. Thousands of potential tourists feel otherwise.
Delta Air Lines says travelers are avoiding the city this summer and booking to destinations elsewhere, amounting to a $100 million hit for the airline during an otherwise bustling summer for European travel, CEO Ed Bastian said.

Delta’s third-quarter profit and revenue forecast fell short of Wall Street expectations after airlines flooded the market with added flights. The airline reiterated its full-year outlook on Thursday.
“Unless you’re going to the Olympics, people aren’t going to Paris … very few are,” Bastian told CNBC. “Business travel, you know, other type of tourism is potentially going elsewhere.”
Delta has the most service of any U.S. airline to Paris and holds a joint venture with Air France. Together, the two carriers have approximately 70% market share in nonstop service between the U.S. and France, according to consulting firm ICF.

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On July 1, Air France-KLM, the parent of Air France, forecast a revenue hit of as much as 180 million euros ($195.5 million) in June through August because of the Olympic Games.
“International markets show a significant avoidance of Paris,” the company said. “Travel between the city and other destinations is also below the usual June-August average as residents in France seem to be postponing their holidays until after the Olympic Games or considering alternative travel plans.”

Bastian said Paris demand after the Olympics, which run July 26 through August 11, will likely be strong. “During the period itself there’s a little bit of a hesitation,” he said. Air France-KLM had a similar projection.

Delta Airlines check-in desk at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport.
Bertrand Guay | Afp | Getty Images

One clear deterrent for mid-summer travel to Paris: Prices for hotel rooms are set to skyrocket.
Hotel-data firm STR said revenue per available room for upscale hotels in the City of Light will soar as much as 45% in July and August from the year-earlier period. Meanwhile, it forecasts a 3% to 5% increase in the metric in London and 2% to 4% increase in Rome for the same months.
Many travelers were already shifting their European vacations beyond the traditional summer travel season, Delta’s president, Glen Hauenstein, said on an earnings call on Thursday. That gives airlines a chance to earn more revenue outside of traditional peak seasons.
“We see the season extending as a whole group of people, whether or not it’s retirees, whether or not it’s people with double incomes and without children, who don’t have the school concerns,” he said. “It’s actually a better time to go to Europe in September and October than it is potentially in July and August when the weather is so hot and everything is so packed.”
He also said Delta is seeing a boom in travel to Japan, thanks in large part to a favorable exchange rate for U.S. tourists.
“When the yen was 83 [per U.S. dollar], it was very difficult to be able to afford to go see Japan and all the great things that Japan has to offer. With the yen at 160, it’s a very different world for U.S. travelers and they seem to be taking great advantage of that,” Hauenstein said.
Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032. More

The National Football League is considering allowing private equity team ownership of up to 10%, Commissioner Roger Goodell told CNBC in an exclusive interview Thursday.
The NFL has previously outlawed private equity minority ownership, but rising team valuations have caused the league to rethink its policies.
The NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS all allow private equity team ownership of up to 30%.

Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the National Football League, after the morning session at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 10, 2024.
Kevork Djansezian | Getty Images

The National Football League is considering allowing minority private equity ownership for its 32 teams of up to 10%, Commissioner Roger Goodell said in an exclusive CNBC interview Thursday.
“As sports evolve, we want to make sure our policies reflect that,” Goodell said in an interview with CNBC’s Julia Boorstin at Allen & Co.’s annual Sun Valley Conference. “We’ve had a tremendous amount of interest [from private equity firms], and we believe this could make sense for us in a limited fashion, probably no more than 10% of a team. That would be something we think could complement our ownership and support our ownership policies.”

The NFL hopes to set its new ownership policies by the end of the year, Goodell said. The 10% cap would be a starting point, and the league is open to raising it in time, he said.
While other major U.S. sports leagues, including the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer all allow private equity ownership of up to 30%, the NFL has resisted taking money from institutional funds, such as private equity, preferring limited partners to be individuals or families.
WATCH: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell discusses ownership policies, international expansion

But franchise valuations have steadily risen as the NFL has signed lucrative media deals, meaning fewer people can afford team ownership. In 2023, Josh Harris, co-founder of private equity firm Apollo Global Management, headed a group that paid $6.05 billion for the Washington Commanders — the most money ever spent on a U.S. professional sports franchise.
“Unless you’re one of the wealthiest 50 people [in the world], writing a $5 billion equity check is pretty hard for anyone,” Harris told CNBC “Squawk Box” co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin at the CNBC CEO Council Summit in Washington, D.C., last month.

Harris tapped 20 people to help raise money for his bid, including former NBA superstar Magic Johnson; former Google CEO Eric Schmidt; and David Blitzer, the Blackstone Group senior executive who previously partnered with Harris to buy the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils.
“Raising that amount of capital was unique; it had never been done before,” Harris said. “I think it may be leading to some rethink into the consideration of letting private equity, as an example, or institutional investors into the NFL.”
The National Women’s Soccer League allows private equity firms to take majority control of franchise teams, unlike the other U.S. professional sports leagues. Private equity incentives around reaching investment targets and exit thresholds could alter the motivations for ownership in ways that make the bigger sports leagues uncomfortable.
Minority stakes typically come with little or no decision-making power on the team. That is likely comforting to the NFL if it allows private equity investors, but it has also limited the number of individuals interested in taking smaller stakes in teams.
“These people are really rich and successful. They’re used to being the center of the universe. And now you go, I need a quarter of a billion dollars. Fantastic, what do I get? Nothing,” Ted Leonsis, the owner of the Washington Capitals, Wizards and Mystics, told ESPN in May. “Do you have any control? Any role? No, you’re passive investors. You’ll get your name on a website somewhere or something and you get to tell people I own a piece of an NFL team.”
Private equity firms, tasked with finding investment vehicles to make returns on their assets under management, may be better suited to minority ownership.

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Boom-and-bust cycles all tend to look the same. A consumer fad or industrial urgency fuels demand for a product. Prices rise. Producers invest in capacity. By the time new supply materialises it outstrips already sated demand. Prices crash. Then, at some point, things get so cheap as to set off another demand upswing. And so on.The inevitability is comforting for bosses in industries from mining to chipmaking. Not, though, in battery manufacturing. Anticipating booming demand for electric vehicles (EVs), since 2018 companies around the world have ploughed more than $520bn into battery-making, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a research firm. Sure enough, the investments (plus improvements in technology) have pushed down the prices of batteries and, since these make up a third of the cost of an EV, of battery-powered cars. But not sufficiently to entice motorists to go electric. And so the industry is facing a bust without ever having had much of a boom. More

GERMAN POLITICS is followed closely in Paris. So is French politics in Berlin. Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, said on July 8th that he was “relieved” that the far right failed to win the French parliamentary election on July 7th. What Mr Scholz did not mention were worries in German companies about what the New Popular Front (NFP), the leftist alliance which won the most votes and includes a hard-left element led by a former Trotskyist, have in store for business.What happens to French business matters to Germans because ties between Deutschland AG and France SA are closer than ever. Germany is France’s biggest export market and its biggest trading partner. France is likewise among the largest recipients of German goods and services. Businesses in each country invest a lot across the Rhine. Airbus, a Franco-German planemaking Goliath worth over €100bn ($108bn), is among Europe’s most valuable companies. Siemens, a German engineering conglomerate, and Alstom, a French one, were blocked by EU trustbusters from creating an Airbus for trains but still plan to build locomotives together. More