Business

During his third presidential campaign, he sold Bibles, sneakers, photo books and cryptocurrencies. Now Donald Trump is launching a brand new business enterprise: diamond-studded watches.

The Republican presidential candidate unveiled the “Official Trump Watch Collection” on Thursday. The costliest version, with 122 diamonds on the bezel and three 18-karat gold versions, costs $100,000. Another “Fight Fight Fight” model is listed for $499.

Trump has peddled a spread of branded products since his White House campaign began in 2024, following his long tradition of mixing his political and business interests. The release on Thursday, 40 days before Election Day, could open him as much as criticism for monetizing his campaign, particularly as he argues that Vice President Kamala Harris is out of touch with Americans' economic problems.

While web sites for the assorted products note that proceeds from their sales do circuitously profit Trump or his campaign, in addition they note that every product is subject to a “paid license agreement.” This is similar mechanism that allowed Trump to profit for years from selling water, vodka and steaks long before he entered politics.

Earlier this week, he announced the sale of $100 silver coins featuring his face. In March, before Easter, Trump posted a video on Truth Social urging his followers to spend $59.99 on a “God Bless the USA Bible” inspired by country singer Lee Greenwood's patriotic ballad was. Trump takes the song to the stage at each of his rallies and has performed with Greenwood at events.

In February, he hawked latest Trump-branded sneakers at Sneaker Con, an event that bills itself as “the biggest sneaker show in the world.” The shoes, shiny gold high-tops with an American flag detail on the back, are being sold as “Never Surrender High-Tops” for $399 on a brand new website that also lists other Trump-branded shoes in addition to cologne and perfume “Victory47” sells for $99 a bottle.

Trump has also dabbled in NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, reporting last 12 months that he made between $100,000 and $1 million from a series of digital trading cards depicting him in cartoon-like images, including as an astronaut, Cowboy and superhero.

Some of those items, including coins, sneakers and Bibles, were listed as being affiliated with CIC Ventures LLC, an organization that Trump said he owned in his 2023 financial disclosure and that has the same agreement with 45Footwear, which also says it’s Trump's “Names” used. Likeness and Image under a paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license could also be terminated or revoked in accordance with its terms and conditions.”

The items were put up on the market as a part of a $489 million civil fraud judgment against the previous president, which a New York appeals court on Thursday appeared ready to cut back or vacate.

According to a disclaimer on a sales website, the watches are subject to the same agreement to license Trump's name, image and likeness, and the proceeds from their sales don’t go to Trump's campaign or the Trump Organization and “are not designed, manufactured or distributed.” or sold by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, or any of their respective affiliates or principals.”

Instead, TheBestWatchesonEarth LLC – the corporate listed because the distributor – says it’s using the name, likeness and likeness of “Trump” under a paid license agreement, which might be terminated or revoked based on the terms. Trump watches are intended as collectibles for individual enjoyment only, not for investment purposes.”

A Trump campaign spokesman referred questions on the licensing agreement to the Trump Organization, which didn’t immediately return a message searching for comment. TheBestWatchesonEarth LLC also didn’t immediately reply to an inquiry in regards to the deal via its website.

Venture capital plays a very important role within the creation of latest firms, but there may be also a persistent gender gap on this field.

More than 4 out of 5 partners at U.S. enterprise capital firms are men. Surveys and Research show. Perhaps this is expounded to the indisputable fact that VC firms are predominantly channelling their funds to firms run by men: In 2023 only about 1 in 4 According to Crunchbase data, enterprise capital funds have been awarded to women-led firms.

Advocates of gender equality have long called for firms to have more female enterprise capitalists on their teams. The idea is that more women in investment decisions will result in more funding for women-led firms.

As a Professor of EntrepreneurshipI wondered if this assumption was supported by facts, so my co-authors and I analyzed funding decisions of greater than 150 mid-sized and enormous U.S. VC firms over an eight-year period.

When women don’t support women

What we found surprised us: Firms whose decision-making bodies included more female enterprise capitalists offered less financing to women-led firms. Each additional female enterprise capitalist in a firm's decision-making body was related to a 0.46% decrease within the share of newly funded women-led firms in its investment portfolio.

Since the common funding round in our sample was $5.4 million, because of this adding an extra female enterprise capitalist to a VC decision-making group ends in women-led firms receiving roughly $25,000 less in funding.

To be clear, my team will not be claiming that individual female enterprise capitalists are accountable for this state of affairs. Our work was not intended to assign personal responsibility. We simply found that more women in enterprise capital decision-making circles was related to less funding for female-led firms.

At first glance, this may occasionally seem paradoxical. But it’s consistent with previous research This shows that male dominance within the US financial marketplace for female entrepreneurs is firmly entrenched. According to our interviews with female entrepreneurs and senior enterprise capitalists, this fosters a culture by which women tend to present strategy to their male colleagues.

Research also suggests that girls in male-dominated fields have incentives to distance yourself from less powerful women to enhance their status. This may explain why female enterprise capitalists are hesitant to fund female-led startups.

The value of trust and neutrality

However, my team also found that Two key aspects can mitigate this effect.

First, we didn’t find the identical negative effects when senior enterprise capitalists in a decision-making group had previously worked together, suggesting that trust plays a task.

And when a gaggle includes politically neutral enterprise capitalists, which we were in a position to judge from public records of political donations, it reduces the negative impact on funding for women-led firms. This is because politically impartial decision-makers Group communication and consensus constructing.

Our findings suggest that enterprise capital firms should consider progressive approaches to combat gender bias. For example, they might invite external female investment professionals who’ve contacts with many incumbent enterprise capitalists to function advisors. These professionals could then independently evaluate investment proposals and supply advice to enterprise capital firms' decision-making bodies.

In some cases, efforts to advertise women within the workplace will pay off. An evaluation of all of the S&P 1500 Index from 2004 to 2015 showed that calls for more gender diversity within the boardrooms were related to the inclusion of more female directors.

Yet, as our research shows, efforts to advertise diversity are usually not all the time so successful, particularly in male-dominated contexts just like the U.S. corporate finance market. In fact, they will backfire in the event that they fail to handle underlying cultural biases and power dynamics.

To be clear, our study will not be a call to desert the pursuit of diversity amongst enterprise capitalists. Rather, it underscores the importance of persevering until women achieve equal status in business and society at large.

It's a well-recognized refrain in tech boardrooms and government corridors: China is aggressively difficult America to a synthetic intelligence arms race. Whoever wins will control the geopolitical landscape – and the worldwide economy – for generations.

for years, Pentagon officials and tech luminaries like Eric Schmidt, Peter ThielAnd Alex Karp have parroted this doomsday scenario.

But the narrative doesn't hold water.

It's convincing Proof The China's AI capabilities were overestimated. Although Chinese technologies have evolved rapidly, they don’t pose a direct threat to national security. Remember alternative perspective from retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan: ““Sometimes it feels like with AI we are dangerously close to making the same flawed assessment of the ‘bomber-missile gap’ that we did with the Soviet Union in the early 1960s.”

The Cold War era bomber–Missile gap was illusory, however it triggered a nuclear arms race with devastating political, environmental and psychological consequences. It was also extraordinarily expensive, reportedly costing American taxpayers $5.8 trillion an estimate. That’s greater than $11 trillion today.

A rational geopolitical evaluation should consider China's challenges. Of the country The economy has slowed For 20 years, there is no such thing as a end in sight. A demographic decline will halve China's population by the tip of the century. A Brain drain attracts talented Chinese researchers to Australia, Canada and the European Union. As the outgoing President of Taiwan said Tsai Ing-wen last fallChina is simply too burdened with domestic problems to invade Taiwan.

Then why does the concept have one Catastrophic battle between “AI superpowers” seized? The answer is deceptively easy: for some, war is profitable. Even more essential is preparation for algorithmic warfare.

The Chinese AI threat narrative increases and serves to justify and speed up the Pentagon's demand for high-tech weapons, surveillance and logistics systems US spending on defense technology, while government AI research is being targeted towards military slightly than civilian purposes. Tech corporations are lining up to assert their share of the Defense Department's $886 billion annual budget — and not only giants like that Amazon, Microsoft, GoogleAnd Palantirbut additionally lots of of Silicon Valley Venture capital-backed defense technology startups.

These corporations also do business with foreign militaries, including Google $1.2 billion contract Cooperation with the Israeli Ministry of Defense has sparked protests amongst employees appalled by the corporate's support for the war in Gaza. Google fired 28 employees over protests earlier this week.

These changes alter the character of the military-industrial complex. In 1961, President Eisenhower warned Americans that unrestricted defense spending threatened democracy by giving defense contractors “unwarranted influence” over Congress.

That still applies today. Dozens of former Pentagon officials now work for enterprise capital firms. The “Revolving doorThe conflict between the Pentagon and personal industry continues to be teetering, but military officials are as prone to lean toward Silicon Valley investment firms as they’re toward Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, or other “traditional” defense contractors.

While such practices could also be acceptable for consumer products, there may be way more at stake when Silicon Valley's startup model is applied to military products particularly AI enabled weapon and monitoring systems that make unpredictable decisionsor fail when the operating environment changes. The use of inadequately tested technologies will end in the deaths of innocent people and the deaths of American troops.

If the pace of development and deployment of military AI weapons and surveillance systems continues to speed up, the tip result shall be an expensive arsenal of flawed, unreliable and dangerous technologies that don’t work as advertised.