Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - How Toxic Leadership Affects Stock Price

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Nicole gives her weekly roundup of headlines that affect you and your finances. On deck today: what do Twitter, Activation Blizzard and Vice have in common? We'll give you a hint: it's not most likely to succeed...

One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that

I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then, that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime. Feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bancorp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details.

I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Here's your weekly roundup of the headlines that affect you and your finances. Let's start with Elon. Oh, Elon, Elon, Elon. He is the dude who has kind of ruined Twitter, tweeted a picture of his nightstand covered in empty cans of caffeine-free Diet Coke and two fake guns, and also tweeted incorrect details about the death of his own child to win an argument on the internet. All of which might make you think maybe Musk should think twice before he tweets. Musk, however, has been in court trying to avoid exactly that. His now infamous tweet, quote, funding secured to take Tesla private was the subject of lawsuits and investigation

and cost Musk and Tesla a minimum of 40 million bucks. After that incident, it was decided that anything Musk tweets about Tesla is supposed to be vetted by a lawyer first, which considering some of the out-of-pocket stuff he's tweeted over the last few years and how much it's cost him, having a lawyer review his tweets seems like something that should be standard practice for him. However, Musk appealed this ruling, but on Monday, a federal appeals court judge rejected Musk's bid to free his tweets. So what Musk has referred to as his muzzle is going to have to stay on. Speaking of lawyers and CEOs behaving badly, can we have some real talk about Vice going bankrupt?

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday. On one hand, part of me loves Vice. I actually remember reading Vice as a physical magazine. I have a very soft, nostalgic spot for all the startup journalism ventures that were trying to make it big in traditional media. It was valued at $5.7 billion in 2017 and was being branded as the future of media. But those glory days did not last. And before finally declaring bankruptcy, the company struggled to find a buyer willing to pay even a billion dollars for the company,

which was a far cry from the $5.7 billion valuation. In the late 2010s, many young female writers came forward about being sexually harassed at Vice and its musical, vertical, noisy. Now, reports are surfacing that there may have been financial misdeeds as well. The co-founder, former CEO, and current executive chairman of Vice, Shane Smith, is notorious for fostering an environment in which sexual harassment, hard partying, and blurred lines were the norm. During Vice's financial glory days, Shane Smith was almost legendary for his excessive and showy lifestyle. I remember him buying a $23 million mansion in Santa Monica

and allegedly once spent $300K on a single dinner in Vegas. Some reports have Smith describing himself as post-economic and pocketing $100 million from the company's $500 million fundraising round in 2014. If these reports are true, it may go a long way toward explaining Vice's fall from power. And since we're talking about toxic work environments, let's check in on Microsoft's deal to buy Activision Blizzard. Microsoft makes the Xbox, which is a big player in the gaming space, pun intended. But despite acquiring some significant games like Minecraft, Microsoft has generally struggled in the game development department, with their most successful property being the Halo series. In order to bulk up their gaming intellectual properties, Microsoft decided to acquire

Activision Blizzard. Now, you may not have played some of Activision's most successful games, but you've definitely heard of them, like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and Candy Crush, to name a few. This collection of games would be a logical pairing for Microsoft and a chance for them to bulk up in an area where they have long struggled. And why was this awesome portfolio of games and developers available for cheap? Because of a culture of sexual harassment. That's why. There are a lot of stories of sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard, but one particularly nasty one is what's being named cube crawls, where men in positions of power would get drunk and literally crawl through the cubicles of women who worked for

them and groped them. The kind of stuff nightmares are made of. Now, the United States and the UK have both attempted to block the purchase because of concerns over Microsoft having too much of a monopoly in the cloud gaming area if it was permitted to purchase Activision. This has been interpreted as a sign that the United States government is going to attempt to limit the expansion of the tech companies, which increasingly touch every corner of our lives. However, the deal was unexpectedly approved by the European Union. This adds just another layer of complication to the United States government's ability to limit the expansion of giant multinational companies like Microsoft.

At the center of all these stories are how a toxic boss can tank a company. While Vice may have never been worth what everyone wanted it to be worth, Activision was and is a digital gold mine. And while Elon Musk was one of Tesla's greatest assets for many years, he has also become their greatest liability. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. While I don't recommend investing in individual companies if you're a newbie investor, if you do choose to do so, make sure you do the research on the leadership and the corporate culture as well. Activision and Tesla are both publicly traded companies, and both companies have gone through moments where their stock price dropped dramatically due to bad press around the CEO. A great leader can carefully steer a company to new levels of profitability, but a crummy one can drive a

great company straight into the ground. One of the most stressful periods of my life was when I was in credit card debt. I got to a point where I just knew that I had to get it under control for my financial future and also for my mental health. We've all hit a point where we've realized it was time to make some serious money moves. So take control of your finances by using a Chime checking account with features like no maintenance fees, fee-free overdraft up to $200, or getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit. Learn more at Chime.com slash MNN. When you check out Chime, you'll see that you can overdraft up to $200 with no fees. If you're an OG listener, you know about my infamous $35 overdraft fee that I got from buying a $7 latte and how I am still very fired up about it. If I had Chime back then,

that wouldn't even be a story. Make your fall finances a little greener by working toward your financial goals with Chime. Open your account in just two minutes at Chime.com slash MNN. That's Chime.com slash MNN. Chime feels like progress. Banking services and debit card provided by the Bank Corp Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. Members FDIC. SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible Chime members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Terms and conditions apply. Go to Chime.com slash disclosures for details. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. Our researcher is Emily Holmes.

Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at moneynews and TikTok at moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.