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Top stories today:
1. Apple wins Epic Games antitrust appeal
2. Microsoft may stop force-bundling Teams into Office
3. Tucker Carlson fired from Fox for election fraud coverage, lawsuit, messages
4. First Republic loses 41% of deposits in Q1, even as banks inject $30B

0. Data and calendar

1. Apple wins Epic Games antitrust appeal, but will likely allow 3rd party app stores anyway

• Appeals Court agreed with lower court that Apple can prohibit 3rd party app stores. Epic sued because Apple forced them to pay the App Store's 30% fee, or else face an expulsion.

• “Relevant market”, the core of the battle: Epic tried to argue that Apple is a monopoly in iOS app stores, which in one interpretation is true, but the courts ruled in favor of Apple, who say that the gaming market is broader and includes other platforms, such as Android, Playstation, Xbox, the internet, etc.

• Apple might have to allow 3rd party app stores anyway, as early as next year with its iOS 17, thanks to the EU's Digital Markets Act. - Bloomberg, Techcrunch

Our view: in a globalized world, companies have to follow the laws of U.S., EU, and sometimes China

• Western companies usually comply with laws and regulations that either the U.S. or the EU pass: this new Digital Markets Act is a good example, but also GDPR and others. When China has a new rule, in contrast, sometimes companies choose to only follow it only there (e.g. Apple following China's censorship laws).

• That is one argument about why Brexit was poorly executed: now the UK is usually the 3rd market Western companies usually go after: U.S. first, then EU, then the UK. Britain's advantage is that it is still the largest market in Europe that has English as its legal language, which makes doing business in the country much easier for global firms.

2. Microsoft may stop force-bundling Teams into Office, also thanks to the EU

• Microsoft wants to avoid a formal investigation by EU regulators, after a 2020 complaint by Slack. - FT

  • In 2013, Microsoft was fined $731M for refusing to unbundle Internet Explorer out of Windows.

Our view: Again, EU is being tougher than the U.S. and making global rules

• We expect Microsoft to also unbundle Teams in the U.S. and in most global regions, to avoid similar scrutiny from other regulators.

3. Tucker Carlson fired from Fox for election fraud coverage, producer lawsuit, private messages

He was fired because of:

• His coverage of election fraud claims and January 6, which contributed to Fox losing $0.8B in its 1st settlement on the matter (a similar one with Smartmatic is likely coming soon). - LA Times

• A lawsuit by Abby Grossberg, a producer who worked on Carlson's show. In March, Grossberg sued Fox alleging frank and open sexism from co-workers and Carlson, and that Fox's lawyers manipulated her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case. - Semafor

• His messages that became public during trial. In them, he had strong words about Fox management and some public figures, like Sidney Powell (a “cunt”) and Donald Trump. Some messages were redacted by the Court and could have contained even harsher words. Of note, Carlson only learned about his firing on Monday morning. - Washington Post, WSJ

• Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch, and Suzanne Scott had made the decision Friday night, but Carlson was also informed Monday morning. - Bloomberg

Shares closed at -3% after hitting -5%

In related news, Don Lemon was also fired from CNN

CNN denied that Lemon was denied a meeting with management

Our view: good riddance to both, and good news for online news

• Both Carlson and Lemon were bad journalists. The former promoted cheap populism and conspiracy theories like the 2020 election fraud, and the latter promoted extremist identity politics.

• Cable news is a dying breed: the median age of a Fox News prime-time viewer is 68. The future of news belongs to the internet: newsletters, websites, Youtube, and Twitter.

What's next for Tucker? Daily Wire? Trump's VP?

• Daily Wire is the largest conservative online platform today, and they might have the money to pay for Tucker, who was making an estimated $15-35M at Fox.

• He could also start his own Youtube/podcast.

• Or even become Trump's VP. The media is talking about him running for office. That'd be too risky: why not be Trump's VP, and if successful be the obvious candidate for 2028?

4. First Republic loses 41% of deposits in Q1, even as banks inject $30B

Without the $30B injection, losses would have been 57%:

Shares are down 21% in the pre-market

Our view: large bank contagion is unlikely

• QE/BTFP, i.e., money printing, is working for now. Volatility in banking stocks has cooled down, and so has inflation.

• Bank deposits have only slightly decreased:

Read more: WSJ.

5. Other headlines

Tech

• OpenAI CTO Q&A: on GPT-4, AGI, more.

• Google Authenticator now syncs 2FA codes, gets new icon.

• Snap receives 3x more 1-star reviews after AI chatbot launch.

• AI spam is already flooding the internet, including in Amazon reviews.

• Supreme Court declines to hear AI patent case; lower court had ruled patents can only be issued to human inventors.

• OpenAI trying to get GPT trademarked; so far, no luck.

• ChatGPT is forcing tech startups to innovate or be duplicated.

Biotech

• Life Bio shows good data in primates with OSK partial reprogramming therapy.

• UNITY Bio shows senolytic therapy treating eye disease DME in Phase 2.

Business

• CS had lost $68B in Q1; not clear how close bankruptcy was.

• UBS: revenue -7% to $8.75B, profits -51% to $1.03B.

Crypto

• South Korea indicts Terraform co-founders Daniel Shin, 9 others; freezes $185M in assets.

• Coinbase files petition to compel SEC to provide more guidance.

• New House GOP stablecoin bill says they are not securities.

• Most DeFi projects lose all their TVL after hacks.

• Tornado Cash developer to be released from prison tomorrow.

• Bitboy is told by judge to “be careful” after pig joke, threats.

U.S. politics

• Atlanta DA to announce “charging decisions” between July 11 and Sep. 1.

• Biden officially launches his Presidential campaign.

• U.S. envoy to the UN asks Lavrov to release 2 detained Americans.

• North Dakota follows Florida and bans abortions after 6 weeks.

• Floridians endorsing Trump is not a good sign for DeSantis.

• Ken Griffin didn't like DeSantis’ abortion or Ukraine moves.

World

• BRICS: 19 countries apply to join.

6. Interesting tweets, memes, and images

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