Morning Brew Daily - Tesla Builds Cheapest Model Ever & Are Unions Dying?

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Episode 243: Neal and Toby recap how Tesla is handling the slowing EV market and what we know about its newest model coming in 2025. Plus, President Biden gets a big endorsement from the United Auto Workers union. Then, the Kyte Baby drama explained and what it says about the US parental leave system. Next, In-N-Out closes its first ever restaurant while Saudi Arabia opens its first ever liquor store. Lastly, burrito season is here and what Chipotle is doing to guac up their workforce. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Consider this comparison. PWC data found the percentage of CEOs who report revenue gains or cost reductions from AI is almost equal to the percentage who say they're still stuck. What separates these two groups? PWC points to a clarity issue. Even for CEOs, it's hard to tell what's AI hype, what's reality, and where this tech can make a tangible difference. Learn where AI can actually make an impact and what successful adoption looks like at

pwc.wc.com slash U.S. slash brew AI. That's pwc.com slash us slash brew AI. Good morning brew daily show. I'm Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, Tesla just got rear-ended in its earnings report. We're going to take it to the shop and inspect the damage. Then remember SPAC mania? The SEC does and it's doing its best to make sure it never happens again. It's Thursday, January 25th. Let's ride. This certainly got everyone talking yesterday. John Stewart is returning to the Daily Show on Comedy Central. As host from 1999 to 2015, Stuart turned the show into this comedic and political force that no one has been able to replicate since. So why come

back, John? Well, the new gig seems pretty cushy. Stewart will serve as executive producer and only sit in the host chair once a week on Mondays. Toby, do you think Stewart can make this show relevant again, or is late night just a dead medium? I mean, I think Comedy Central is certainly happy to have him back because in the last season of Trevor Noah Stint, viewership was down 70% from the peak John Stewart era. I do think the biggest difference between 2015, which is his last year of hosting and now, is the fact that TikTok exists now. So I do think that there is sort of this viral cycle that will boost some of these clips, even further than his viral clips from the days gone by. So I do think it's relevant to an election year. John Stewart's kind of uniquely good at

navigating the insanity of these of these political moments so I think that it's still relevant but specifically on social media like we should expect john stewart to you know his when he hosts monday night we expect him to see be all over ticot on tuesday very similar to what happens with s nl now saturday nights you know i don't know how many people actually watch on saturday night but you bet people are watching on youtube on sunday same with john oliver's rants on hbo they come on actually live sunday night and then no one kind of sees them until the next day Maybe that'll happen with Stewart, but I expected to be a little more limited effect if he's only hosting once a week. That TikTok, though, it will send it viral.

Before we jump into the show today, we have a quick word from our sponsor, Veem. Neil, I was playing Scrabble yesterday, and I looked into my hand and saw a V, two E's, and M, and an open A to play off of. Veem was staring me right in the face. Did you play it? Oh, you bet your buttocks I did. Now, my opponent wasn't happy, but once I told them that Veem believes. and radical resilience, which is all about being able to take data disruptions in stride and recover quickly. They were more accommodating. Probably like a 20-point word, too. Actually, 40. I snagged that

double word score. Head to veem.com today to discover more. That's VEEAM.com today. Today we helped a latte for Sam. Coffee shop get an insurance quote simply and easily and made sure A floral delivery van was able to make someone's day. We're the Hartford, with decades of experience ensuring millions of unique small businesses. When it comes to your small business insurance, Thank you. One size, absolutely does not fit all. Get a quote or find an agent today at thehartford.com slash small business.

Let's dive into some Tesla earnings where everyone's favorite auto-al-a-I-robotic slash energy company kind of disappointed across the board. Topline revenue, more or less met expectations coming in at $25.17 billion versus $25.87 billion expected. But in a decidedly on Tesla move, it warned of, quote, notably slower growth in 2024. Costs related to ramping up cyber truck production, along with increased expenses for AI projects, combined with the recent price cuts, also dented profitability. That said, it's Tesla, so there's always a bright, side. First, Tesla reported earlier this month that it delivered 484,000 cars in Q4,

beating estimates and setting an all-time record. But the biggest bright spot for Tesla fans is there's a new next-gen affordable car in the works codename Redwood set to begin production in 2025. You've had first tease plans for a 25,000 EV all the way back in 2020, but now it looks like there's a timeline in place for what would be Tesla's cheapest mass market car ever. Tesla is always so polarizing around earning seasons, depending on your view of the company. How's the future looking for it right now, Neil? You have a way rosier take, then. I think I do, and investors do.

The stock is down nearly 8% this morning. This is a company that has ran into Holland Tunnel-level traffic. It's slowing down very considerably, facing the broader decline in demand for EVs in general. There's hyper-competition from China and BYD with their $25,000 cars. It hasn't really released any new compelling products for the mass market recently, besides the cyber truck. Not many people are going to buy that. And investors are seriously worried, not only about the carmaker's growth, but also Elon Musk's leadership and his commitment to Tesla. Yeah, the whole vibe around Tesla right now is different. The mood is different.

I mean, it expected a 21% rise in 2024 deliveries, which was well below their annual target of 50% that must set just three years. ago. So it just goes to show how different of a landscape we're currently in. And then also, remember, profit margins have always been Tesla's kind of night and shining armor. They've always been able to lap the field when it comes to how profitable they are in terms of compared to legacy automakers. But profit margins did go up slightly to 8.2%, up from 7.6% the previous quarter. But if we go back to last year, it was at 16%. So it just goes to show, again, with those price cuts that they've been doing that their once unassailable profit margin, margin is kind of shrinking right now.

This is the stat that kind of made my jaw drop about those price cuts and it's shrinking margins. Tesla sold 35% more cars in 2023 than in 2022. Its overall sales rose 1% over that time span. So it's selling a lot more cars, but it basically lost its pricing power in this race to the bottom with this hypercompetitive EV market. Yeah. And I mean, you mentioned kind of some of the rumblings around Elon Musk's commitment to the company, because he said last week that he wanted more control of the company or else he might take his toys and go play elsewhere if he didn't get 25% control the company,

specifically related to some of the AI projects are carrying out. So there's always, like, you're always kind of riding the Elon wave depending on his moods and depending on what he thinks going forward. So, yeah, there's definitely some crack showing in Tesla's facade right now. Moving on, Detroit is the place to be these days. not only are the Lions playing in the NFC Championship game, but the United Auto Workers Union is trying to play Kinmaker in the upcoming presidential election. Yesterday, President Sean Fane announced that the influential union, composed of 400,000 workers, would endorse Joe Biden for re-election in a joint appearance with the president.

While this wasn't a surprise since unions typically do endorse Democratic candidates, Fane did repeat the type of hardball tactics we witnessed during the UAW strikes last year. Last year, he said that Biden's endorsement wouldn't be freely given like it had been in the past, and that Biden had to earn it by showing commitment to unionize auto workers. Biden understood the assignment and headed up to Michigan in the fall to become the first sitting president in history to join the picket line with the UAW. Biden has billed himself as the most pro-union president ever, and yesterday he told the union, I'm honored to have your back and you have mine. That's the deal.

And for Biden, that's a good deal because the states home to the most UAW. members, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are the battleground states that could determine the election in 2024. Yeah, just as a numbers game, the union vote is a pretty big prize. There's 400,000 active members, 600,000 retired members. So that's a million voters right there. And again, the union doesn't vote completely as a monolith. Like, there is obviously individual people in there.

But just as a numbers game, it is nice to secure that vote kind of heading into this election cycle. Yeah. So if we actually do want to break down the union vote, they've done internal polling. It seems that they've reported that 30% are typically vote for Democrats, 30% are Republicans, and 30% are swing voters. But when it comes down to the election and actual voting, those 30% tend to decide to Democrats. So in the past few years, Trump has gotten about 30% of the union vote. There are definitely some cracks, though, when it comes to the union supporting Biden's kind of agenda.

because remember, the Biden's electric vehicle transition was a big issue for the union vote for Sean Fane because they think that it will threaten some of their job security. So it's been interesting because the UAW has tried to push back and prevent the president from issuing some of those EV grants that prioritize companies offering higher pay and stuff like that. So it is interesting to see that even though they supported it, there are some kind of pushback within the union itself. Yeah, it hasn't been. it's been a little bit of a rocky relationship because Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, according to the UAW, didn't go far enough to dangle incentives for companies to hire unionized

workers. And they are very worried about the transition to electric vehicles because electric vehicles, when you make them, they require a lot fewer parts, a lot fewer people. So it requires 30% less labor than internal combustion engines. So you can see why there's been a rocky relationship here because the UAW wants their most important thing is to protect union jobs and the transition to EVs and also our reliance on foreign countries for EVs, threatens to disrupt that equilibrium a little bit. Just to zoom out a little bit to see where unions are in the country right now, it is interesting because union membership is at record low rates, even though the sheer number of workers in unions

increase, but the workers of non-union companies actually increased at a faster rate, so the percentage went down. But support for unions are at a record high. A recent Gallup poll put it at 67% of the general population was supportive of unions, which is high from the record lows of kind of during the Great Recession. So it is interesting that unions are both falling in relevance, but also gaining in popularity, just as to provide some context of where unions are right now. Let's move on. This next story details the saga of a baby clothes manufacturer swept up by an internet maelstorm of mishandled parental leave, insincere apologies, and online outrage. So there's this company called Kite Baby that is known by lots of younger parents in cells,

sleepwear for babies. We're talking $75 sleep bags, $48 infant jogger sets. You get the picture. But the outrage started when word got out that the company had declined a new parent's request to work remotely. while her adopted son was in the neonatal intensive care unit. Sarah Green Carmichael, an opinion columnist for Bloomberg, likened it to Patagonia getting caught chopping down a redwood tree. It's just antithetical to the entire brand. Then the outrage cycle continued after Kite Baby's founder and CEO issued what many took to be an insincere apology where she was clearly reading off a piece of paper.

She then issued another apology for the previous apology, but the damage was done. Neil, I think the reason this has struck such a nerve with people and why we're talking about it today is that it combines so many elements of modern American culture, the lack of parental leave for new parents, inflexible working arrangements, social media outrage cycles, brands being insincere. It is a perfect storm. It is a perfect storm. This company stepped in so many piles of bird do-doo. It's hard to know which one to pick at first. Let's first talk about the apology. Okay, so whenever you say that there were two apologies, You put apology plural. You know that the company has a PR disaster. If you consulted a single PR professional, you would say not to post an apology to TikTok. Because when you put yourself out on TikTok, that is just, you're just asking for reactions and for this to go viral. I don't know what a better platform would be.

Maybe LinkedIn has a little less virality. But the fact is, this company lived and died by social media. They were so big on Instagram and TikTok. and that was the reason for their success largely. And so I think they also thought that they could quell the growing criticism also on social media. But this has led to actually significant boycotts because you have moms filming themselves, taking Kite Baby products, and literally tossing them out in the snow. So this could have actually material impacts on their business.

Oh, absolutely. And if you look at the comments under these videos, which I did, it's just people selling other brands that provide alternative to Kite Baby's products. But I also do want to talk about kind of the hot button issue around corporate inflexibility, around remote work requests. I mean, remember, during the high of the pandemic, many working moms kind of got a ton of jobs piled on them. Like, you had their actual paying job, and you have to take care of the kids. You have to educate the kids as well. And then as we kind of emerged with the pandemic, remote work was this blessing in disguise.

Once their kids went back to school, they finally had the flexibility. They've been fighting for for so long. And yet here we are again having this conversation about, companies not being accommodating to new moms in flexible work arrangements. Especially a baby company. Right. Again, and that touches on the last issue, which is brands being insincere. Corporate consumers right now are very astute and very adept, and they can see through if a brand is actually walk in the walk or if they're just talking to talk, and this is just a perfect example of a brand

that completely messed up the walking and the talking. For the final point, I have a question for you. What do the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua, New Guinea, Tonga, and the United States have in common? I got nothing. They are the only six countries in the world without a form of national paid leave. Oh, interesting. So our paid leave policies are very minimal bare bones paid leave policies, definitely also in the spotlight with this particular company. I mean, they only offered two weeks of maternal paid leave if you weren't owed an employee for 12 months or more,

and there's no national law. So Texas, where this company is based, kind of leaves it up to employers. I think only a quarter of all U.S. private employers offer some sort of paid leave. So that also kind of raised people's ired as to our, you know, the fact that we're only one of six countries in the entire world without this type of policy. Yeah, truly ridiculous. All right, before we jump into the next part of our show, we're going to take a quick break. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the Home Depot.

Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at $179, like the next grill three burner gas grill, or get $50 off a select Weber Spirit grill and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th, Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com

slash price match for details. Not loving your AT&T or T Mobile Bill? Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot. Good news. Bring your AT&T or T mobile bill to Verizon and we'll give you a better deal. So get away from that unfortunate phone bill and get to Verizon. Run, ride, canoe. Whatever it takes, we'll be here.

Bring your AT&T or T mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal on the best network. A better deal. No surprises. That's Verizon. Best Network based on Route Metrics, Best Overall Mobile Network Performing with U.S. Second Half 2025. All rights reserved.

It must provide a recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person who gave me the deal. Additional Terms Conditions and Restrictions Apply. Welcome to Neal's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats. from the week's news that will give you full-body goosebumps. First up, how many 123-year-olds do you know? The answer should be zero since the oldest human lived 122. But apparently more than 2,200 companies in the world have board directors aged 123 years and above.

One listed director was 942 years old, which means they were born in the 11th century. That guy is always complaining about Gen Z. These shocking findings come from a Moody's investigation into shell companies that expose how their complex structure and secrecy could facilitate financial crimes. And it's not just medieval people filling board seats that raised red flags. Thousands of companies had directors below five years old. One China-based textile and clothing manufacturer reported $2 billion in annual revenue despite having one employee. 22,000 entries had a registered address at the Egyptian pyramids. and one individual had 5,700 rolls at 2,800 different entities.

Shell companies, totally not sketchy at all. Yeah, this is one of my favorite reports ever. Every single nugget just got better than the last. I truly do love the textile company that said, we got $2 million revenue with only a single employee. It is interesting, though, because shell companies do have their place. They have a reason for existing, but also it's also just famously used for lots of corporate fraud. and this is just the tip of the iceberg because this is just one report, so shell companies, man.

I mean, 47, and it's not kind of like evenly distributed over the course of the world. When you look at Panama, 47% of companies in Panama raised red flags in this Moody's report. Then the Panama papers come out, and I think they cleaned up their act a little bit, but it is kind of an interesting look at this murky world that's able to facilitate financial crimes. I think $1.9 trillion is laundered each year. Okay, my second number is one, which is how many liquor stores there will soon be in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom, a conservative Muslim theocracy, had banned alcohol since 1952. But in the next few weeks, it's planning to open its first liquor store in the capital Riyadh,

another sign it's loosening strict religious rules to attract foreign investors in tourists. This won't be a free-for-all like town hall liquors in College Park. The store is only open to non-Muslim diplomats. No people under the age of 21 are allowed in. true comedy seller fashion, you can't take pictures or have your phone out. It's a baby step for sure, but it does fit a pattern of Saudi Arabia entering this new chapter of secularization, including reversing a ban on women driving and allowing public entertainment, music, and mixing of genders. This is, in a word, symbolic. Yeah, it's definitely symbolic, and there's been

this tension of how do you modernize a country that has typically been governed by kind of a lot of religious laws. It is interesting going back to the history of when alcohol was banned, though. Liquor was banned across the country after an intoxicated Saudi prince shot a British diplomat in the 1950s following a party. So you can see why they kind of dropped the hammer back then. We'll see if something similar happens in this kind of new era. Right. But they need to diversify their economy away from oil. And they're spending $500 billion on this new megacity called Niam. And there's been rumors that they're going to sell wine, beer, and cocktails there. And I guess alcohol is kind of table stakes if you want to attract foreign investors, because you have all these soccer players

coming in. You have entertainment, moguls, and tech, and, you know, they like to have a cocktail afterward. Well, it's also, like, alcohol historically throughout all of human history has been a way to kind of bond and create community. And so even though, of course, in moderation, but that is something if you're trying to build a civilization, if you look back through history, alcohol is usually plays a well specifically business deals right that too all right so my last number was about a historic first for a store opening my final number is about a historic first for a store closing burger chain in and out is closing its store in Oakland california marking the first time in the company's 75 year history that it will shut down a location the reason crime in the local

area the company said that its customers and staff members are regularly victimized by car breakins property damage, theft, and armed robberies. And so while this location was still profitable, in and outset, it wasn't safe to continue operating it. Of course, this brings to mind many other retailers that have closed up shop across the country, citing a surge in crime. Several reports, though, have cast out on those motivations, particularly at Target. They produced data that shows level of crime was not worse near those store locations

compared to others in the same city. Still, at least in Oakland, violent crimes were up 21% in robbery. Robberies rose 37% last year. Right. It is kind of an area thing because a nationally violent crime fell to 8.2% in 23 after a rise in 2021. But as you said, in Oakland, it's at 21%. So there is just a lot of crime in this area.

You don't often see a brand specifically point to crime because when Target closed those scores and did it, people kind of pushed back against it. But in and out did not mince words here at all. They said it is crime. Our employees feel unsafe and we just can't operate. operate anymore, even though the store is profitable. Okay, thank you for those numbers, Neil. It's time to move on, though.

So I know some of you listening to the show might have only started paying attention to business news more recently, and if so, might have missed out on the SPAC mania of 2020 and 2021. It was a wild time, let me tell you. SPACs, aka Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, are essentially shell companies that list themselves on the stock market for the sole purpose of merging with a private company to take it public. It's sort of a corporate sleight of hand that allows companies to sell stock to investors with a lot less of the typical disclosures that come along with a more traditional

IPO. That always rubbed the SEC the wrong way, and yesterday, the commission voted to adopt rules to require additional disclosures around the SPAC process in order to protect consumers from getting a raw deal. Uncertainty around these impending regulations definitely popped the SPAC bubble. More than 860 SPACs raised $246 billion in 2020 and 2021, but last year saw just 31 SPACs raised just $3.8 billion. Neil, the headlines yesterday were reading that this is the end of SPAC mania. Is this the end and is it a justified end? This, when you read into how the mechanisms of SPACs work, you wonder how it was ever legal. I mean, they've been around for decades and had not really been used as a way to go public,

but they boom during the really low interest rate environments of 2020 and 2021, very much in line with the crypto boom and the meme stock mania of GameStop AMC. We saw during the same time. The main problem with SPACs is that they're so tilted in favor of the people who create them. They have such more profit-making ability. They don't really have to put that much skin in the game, and it's tilted all the way against the regular investor. So you see people like Chimath, who's this billionaire venture capitalist, he was kind of the symbol of the SPAC boom. His SPACs failed. Like, his SPACs were so, most of his SPACs were so bad.

They had Virgin Galactic, a bunch of other ones that have kind of fell so much in value recently. But he still made $750 million from SPACs. Meanwhile, regular investors are left holding the bag. Yeah, the problem is the incentive structure because it's very favorable terms for, like you said, there are creators known as sponsors. they get to put up a small amount of money to kind of cover the expenses, but then they get the option of getting a 20% stake at really, really big discounts. Meanwhile, it's just not a very efficient way of going public because once you subtract the bankers' fees, the sponsors cut, the lawyers' fees, early investors' fees, the SPAC might only

have 50 cents for every dollar invested. So, again, remember, the purpose of going public is to raise money for a company to use, and if you're going public in a way that only gives you 50 cents on the dollar, not very efficient use of capital. No. So the SEC says, now, hey, if you're going public, you need more disclosures. You need to do it the traditional way. None of this loophole spec stuff where you don't have to, like, ground your projections in reality and you can rip off regular investors. So I think a lot of people on Wall Street kind of waiting for this to happen because whenever you see celebrities getting into a particular thing, I mean, A-Rod had one, Jay-Z had one,

Shaq had one. Every celebrity getting in there, that is a tell-tale sign we're at the time. I remember the Shaq Spack. Those were the days. All right, finally, it feels like we're in the depths of winter, but the telltale signs of spring are all around us. The sun is setting well after five. Masters commercials are playing on the TV. And Chipotle is hiring a ton of workers to prepare for burrito season. Yes, that is a thing. Chipotle announced yesterday it aims to recruit 19,000 new employees ahead of its busiest stretch for sales, March through May, which it calls burrito season.

That's a 27% jump from last year's burrito season push. when it hired 15,000 new employees. Chipotle isn't just going after any employee, though. It's targeting a specific demographic, Gen Z. To get Gen Z to work at your establishment, you're going to have to throw them some very Gen Z-specific perks. For Chipotle, that includes a 4% match toward their 401k if they make student loan payments,

covering six free mental health counseling sessions, and offering access to a high-tech credit card known as the Tesla of banking. So Chipotle is throwing in all these perks to recruit young workers, in a restaurant industry that has perennally suffered from high turnover and labor shortages. I mean, burrito season gets me fired up. To me, that is the real first sign of spring. Seeing how many workers, DePoli is going to hire for burrito season is the new Groundhog Day. If it's above 15,000, that means we're getting an early spring below six more weeks

a winter. So we're getting our early spring this year, baby. Also, is there another company with such a large Gen Z labor force? Gen Z workers make up 73% of its restaurant. workforce, which, again, I genuinely am wondering if a company has a higher percentage of Gen Z workers. So I haven't gone to Chipotle recently, but have you gone in and noticed that a bunch of youngans? It's just a bunch of Youngens.

Because youngens do love Chipotle. They still identify with the brand. And then these perks are pretty decent, honestly. I think the credit card is the most interesting to me because it helps build and boost credit scores immediately, which is something that if you're working as fast food worker or a fast casual worker, you might not think about right out of the gate. Like, you're just trying to make a buck, and it's probably one of your first or second jobs. And so allowing them to build and boost credit, I do think is a perk beyond maybe like these mental health counseling sessions that has a real

tangible impact on your financial future. Do you buy burrito season, though? Yeah, I think so. I guess it's, I guess the justification or the reasons behind it is that it's warmer, people are going outside. The sun's, you know, the sun's out a little more in the day. You're more likely to go get a burrito if it's sunny out. I also think another key factor here is Cholololet's a lot in these college towns. Right. And I think a lot of, you know, a lot of students are away during January. They come back in February and, you know, they go to these stores over the course of the spring semester when they're studying for exams. But it's not exactly what you'd think ahead of the summer of people stuffing themselves with, you know, Koso-filled burritos. It just feels wrong

to eat a burrito in the winter for some reason. I don't know. It's just what it's dark outside. It just feels better when it's more about. I don't feel any seasonality to my burrito consumption, but we have to wrap it up there. Hope you all heard something to spark a conversation today. Toby, what is our swing thought for this rainy Thursday? Today's swing thought is quote, what good is the warmth

of summer without the cold of winter to give it sweetness from the famous author John Steinbeck? Honestly, I don't even agree with this one though. Living in Florida and not freezing during the winter is pretty nice, but for anyone living through a dark cold winter right now, try to keep the sweet summer to come

in mind. As someone who has experienced all four seasons my whole life, I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Steinbeck there. If you have any feedback on the show or just want to say, good morning. Please write into our email Morning Brew Daily at morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is back as our

editor and producer. Samantha Bellas and Raymond Lou are associate producers. Fan favorite Yuchinawa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Minino is on audio. Hair and makeup has decided to only work on Mondays. Must be nice. Devin Emery is our chief content. officer in our show is a production of Morning Brew.

Great Saturday, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. All. Pay off your home, travel for life. Drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29th. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at Yamava.com must be.

21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion.