Hi! 420, evade it... Elon Musk’s xAI reportedly asked employees to offer their tax returns as training data for Grok in exchange for $420. Two months later, staff still have not been paid. Today we’re exploring:

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Berkshire adds Delta, boosts Alphabet, and sheds a slate of stocks in Q1

A handful of stocks got a Berkshire bump — or, for one particular name, a bruise — Monday morning, after the conglomerate’s latest holdings disclosure gave investors a first look at how the Buffett-built portfolio is being reshaped under new CEO Greg Abel, who took the helm in January.

According to its 13F filing, released Friday, Berkshire sold off its entire UnitedHealth stake, less than a year after first buying the stock in the second quarter of 2025. Shares fell as much as 5% in early trading, adding pressure to a health insurer already rattled by rising medical costs and DOJ scrutiny of its billing practices.

A number of smaller holdings were cleared out as well, including Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, Domino’s, and Pool Corp. — the latter two also relatively recent additions, bought in what looked like a recession-resistant consumer bet.

Paper plane

Meanwhile, the conglomerate added new names and bulked up existing bets, including those in two areas it had left in 2020. Berkshire bought a $2.65 billion stake in Delta Air Lines, returning to airlines after Buffett sold out of the sector during the pandemic. It also tripled its stake in The New York Times, deepening a media bet Berkshire only re-entered last quarter having sold off its newspaper holdings six years ago.

Alphabet got the biggest boost, with Berkshire more than tripling its stake to ~58 million shares, now worth about $23 billion. The company also added a small $55 million position in Macy’s.

Still, the new names barely register at Berkshire's scale: Delta accounts for less than 1% of its public stock portfolio, while Macy's is a rounding error at just 0.02%.

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Swatch’s collaboration with Audemars Piguet could help bring hype back to its bottom line

Now that the Labubu bubble has burst, and the crowds that flocked to “Marty Supreme” jacket pop-ups have dispersed, it was only a matter of time before another viral item dropped.

This time, hype merchants have zeroed in on a collaboration between Swiss watchmaker Swatch and another, more luxurious Swiss watch brand, Audemars Piguet. The “Royal Pop” collection features eight pop art-inspired pocket watches, based on Piguet’s iconic Royal Oak design, allowing fans to own something that resembles a $35,000+ timepiece for as little as $400 (or, sell it for more).

As noted by Business of Fashion, the much-anticipated collaboration has employed the “right mix of novelty, accessibility, and scarcity,” though since the product line was released in stores on Saturday, that last point is yet more salient. With chaotic crowds seen in New York, London, Dubai, and more, over 30 Swatch stores worldwide have had to be shuttered “in view of public safety considerations,” per the company.

Watch this space

In response to the fan frenzy, Swatch — already famed for its collaborations with artists, designers, and other watchmakers — has put a statement on its website that queues of more than 50 people at stores won’t be accepted. Still, looking at its financial record, selling that must-have product comes as a much-needed reprieve after years of stagnation.

Swatch Group’s revenues came in at ~6.3 billion Swiss Francs (~$8 billion USD) in 2025, down by a fifth from just two years prior and ~2.4 billion CHF below the company’s 2014 sales peak. Meanwhile, its operating profit more than halved from 2024 to just ~135 million CHF last year.

Recently, the company has struggled with weak demand in China and continued tariff fallout, owing to its long-held commitment to being “Swiss Made.” Now, Swatch is likely hoping the windfalls of its global hit will be enough to wind back the effects of a broader luxury sector slowdown.

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Climbing any mountain is a tremendous feat; scaling Mount Everest is an astounding achievement; doing the latter on multiple occasions is remarkable; what “Everest Man” Kami Rita Sherpa did yesterday is truly unheard of, as the 56-year-old Nepali mountain guide completed his 32nd successful Everest summit, breaking his own record set last year.

Kami wasn’t the only one reaching new heights on the mountain over the weekend either, after Lhakpa Sherpa, the “Mountain Queen,” also set a new record for women, completing her 11th Everest ascent yesterday.

Peak time

Despite hopeful climbers having to pay more than ever for an official permit to trek up the 29,032ft mountain, after Nepal officials raised the price for a spring season pass from $11,000 to $15,000 last September — the first price hike in nearly a decade — the government has still granted a record 492 permits for the March-May period.

That might sound a safety alarm for those who have already been raising concerns about overcrowding dangers at the top of the world’s highest peak, with the number of successful ascents having hovered around all-time highs in recent years.

According to figures from The Himalayan Database and mountaineer, climbing coach, and all-round Everest enthusiast Alan Arnette, there were an estimated 846 successful Everest summits last year, including those made by support climbers, guides, and sherpas like Kami Rita and Lhakpa. While that estimate is down slightly from the 2019 peak, there were also less than half as many deaths (four) last year, compared to the 11 that The Himalayan Database reported in the spring season 7 years ago.

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