Business
Trump Is Eyeing Greenland. His Commerce Nominee Has Financial Ties There.
As President Trump argues the acquisition of Greenland is key to the economic security of the United States, he is flanked by wealthy investors who have eyed the island as a potentially lucrative venue for mining metals and minerals.
Among them is his commerce secretary nominee, Howard Lutnick, who has a financial stake in the island’s mining promise through an investment his financial firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, holds in a company called Critical Metals Corp., securities filings show. Critical Metals plans to start the mining process as soon as 2026, according to company executives.
Mr. Lutnick, whose Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, plans to resign as chief executive Cantor Fitzgerald, a privately held firm, if confirmed. His interests in the firm would be sold off within 90 days of his confirmation, according to his government ethics agreement, and during that period he would not participate in any matter that has a “direct and predictable effect” on the firm unless he received a waiver that allowed him to do so.
As head of the Commerce Department, which promotes the interests of U.S. businesses abroad, Mr. Lutnick would oversee all tariff and trade policy, Mr. Trump has said. That could include Greenland, if the president’s efforts to expand the country’s role on the island are successful.
It remains to be seen whether Mr. Lutnick would recuse himself entirely from policy issues related to Greenland. Neither he nor the White House responded to requests for comment.
American influence on Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, could benefit miners there, potentially enriching investors in Critical Metals and, in turn, Mr. Lutnick’s former business partners at Cantor Fitzgerald, which he ran for more than 30 years.
Critical Metals has been pushing for U.S. government financing for its project since last fall, but was told to shelve its request until the new administration arrived in Washington, according to Tony Sage, its chief executive. Mr. Sage said he regarded Mr. Lutnick and his firm as a possible conduit for discussion of future investment by the U.S. government.
“They could” be beneficial, Mr. Sage said, adding, “Having an investor, already, does help.”
Mr. Lutnick is one of several supporters of Mr. Trump who have ties to investments in Greenland and could be in position to shape the president’s thinking on the subject.
That circle includes the Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen, the tech entrepreneur Sam Altman and the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Either as individuals or through their companies, all three have donated either to Mr. Trump’s re-election efforts or his inaugural committee. Through their venture capital firms, all three are also investors in KoBold Metals, a privately held company based in Berkeley, Calif., that has explored for minerals and metals in Greenland.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Andreessen’s venture capital firm declined to comment. Mr. Altman and a spokesman for Mr. Bezos did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for KoBold Metals declined to say whether the firm, which surveyed Disko Island off the west coast of Greenland for mining opportunities in 2022, was likely to do business there in the future.
Greenland’s glaciers, freezing weather and paucity of roads and other infrastructure have long made it a difficult environment for investment. Some mining executives and investors believe that an enhanced arrangement with the United States could benefit U.S. national security and create economic opportunities for both sides.
“I think it could be a win-win for the U.S. and for Greenland, regardless of how it ends up, whether it’s just a closer working relationship or whether we provide defense or something to Greenland,” said Peter Leidel, whose private-equity firm, Yorktown Partners, holds a controlling stake in a mining project there.
The idea of purchasing Greenland has been a hobby horse for Mr. Trump for many years. During his first term, he framed it as an opportunity to expand the United States’ global footprint, and in 2019 he even privately floated the possibility of trading Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, for Greenland, according to Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s book “The Divider.” But his hopes fizzled amid objections from Denmark, the U.S. ally that oversees Greenland, and some of Mr. Trump’s advisers dismissed the idea as divisive and outlandish, according to the book.
Under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the United States continued pushing for enhanced involvement in Greenland, albeit more quietly. State Department officials traveled to the island last year to discuss its natural resources, and the U.S. Export-Import Bank expressed interest in financing a graphite mining project operated by a British company. Mining executives said they also hoped that Mr. Biden’s push for clean energy might benefit their rare-earth mining efforts, given that rare earths are essential components in electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels.
Undercutting China’s dominance in rare earths mining was also part of Biden administration’s calculus, mining executives recalled. “They made very clear that they would like this material to go to the U.S.,” said Greg Barnes, who spoke to U.S. officials before selling his stake in the Tanbreez rare-earths mine in southern Greenland to Critical Metals, the New York-based company in which Cantor Fitzgerald is invested, last summer. That concern over Chinese involvement is almost certain to loom even larger under Mr. Trump, who has long cast China as a malign influence in U.S. and global affairs.
Greenland got little or no airtime during Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign. But on Dec. 22, as he announced Ken Howery as his choice for U.S. ambassador to Denmark on his social media site, Mr. Trump called “ownership and control” of the island “an absolute necessity.” In other posts and comments that followed, he described Greenland as crucial to U.S. national security.
Denmark has so far resisted the idea of a sale. But its efforts to find advocates in Washington have so far foundered. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., undertook a brief good will tour around Greenland this month. And the elder Mr. Trump has refused to rule out the idea of taking Greenland by force.
In interviews, mining executives and investors in Greenland said they weren’t banking on any particular outcome to Mr. Trump’s push for the island. But most of them said the level of interest the trans-Atlantic debate had stirred, and the resources it could draw to Greenland’s mining opportunities, was a net positive.
“The Trump presidency, I think, enhances our little investment,” said Mr. Leidel, the Yorktown Partners investor, who donated $315,000 to Mr. Trump’s re-election efforts, according to federal records. He said that his donation was motivated by a desire for the United States “to do well,” and not by any expectations around mining in Greenland.
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Business
Dark Horse Comics to close all Things From Another World storefronts
After nearly 50 years of selling all things comics, Dark Horse is closing its Things From Another World retail locations.
The publishing house, well known for series such as “Hellboy” and “The Umbrella Academy,” operated two storefronts in Oregon and maintained a flagship store at L.A.’s Universal Citywalk. The Oregon shops will close in June, and the L.A. location will close in September. The company said in a statement that these closures are a part of its efforts to “modernize.”
“This was not an easy decision, and we do not take lightly the impact it has on the people directly affected,” Dark Horse said in a statement.
As the company moves away from the retail business, the Oregon-based publisher said it plans to focus more on its creators and writers, “ensuring they have the development support, creative partnerships, and resources to bring their visions to life across film and television.” Over the years, Dark Horse has become one of the largest comics publishers in the country.
The company also recently launched a games division focused on providing creators with development opportunities in interactive entertainment.
Dark Horse added, “We believe these changes further focus Dark Horse on its successful core publishing and collectibles business and on deepening our relationship with our fans and the retail community alike.”
The structural changes came a week after Dark Horse Media, which oversees Dark Horse Comics, was rolled into a new parent company, Fellowship Entertainment. The Stockholm-listed entertainment business was formed through a company split at Embracer Group. Under this separation, Fellowship Entertainment is now home to companies such as Dark Horse Media and Crystal Dynamics, as well as IPs such as “The Lord of the Rings” and “Tomb Raider.”
Dark Horse was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson. He had initially opened Pegasus Books in Bend, Ore., in 1980, with plans to become an author. But as the retail business expanded, he instead decided to get into the publishing industry with Dark Horse. In the first few years of the company, he popularized comic series based on movies such as “Star Wars,” “Aliens” and “Predator.” Today, the company represents over 350 properties across comics, books, films, television, electronic games, toys and collectibles.
The closing of Things From Another World at Universal Citywalk marks the loss of another legacy comic store in the city. In recent years, many storied shops such as Geoffrey’s Comics in Torrance, Earth-2 Comics in Sherman Oaks and Hi De-Ho Comics in Santa Monica have all been forced to close due in part to a struggling retail market.
Business
Angry Ferrari fans say the Italian company’s new EV is too Californian
Ferrari’s first-ever fully electric vehicle triggered some fans who said it looks more like an iPhone than an Italian supercar.
The $640,000 Ferrari Luce, which was unveiled on Wednesday, looks like a distant relative of many Apple products. It was built with the help of Jony Ive, the person who designed the look and feel of the Cupertino company’s iPhone, iPod and Macintosh through 2019.
“Legend has it that if you pull the Ferrari badge off the side of the new Luce you see an Apple logo underneath,” one user wrote on X.
A meme circulated portraying the Luce with iPhone applications photo-shopped onto the top, and another showing the car upside down and plugged into an iPhone charger.
To accommodate more batteries and seats, the new EV is bigger and boxier than most classic Ferraris. Ive’s design firm, LoveFrom, which he started in San-Francisco after leaving Apple, was brought in to try to meld the traditions of Ferrari with the new functionality and form allowed by a battery-powered engine.
In a marketing video, Ferrari’s chief design officer, Flavio Manzoni, said he sees the Luce “acting as a bridge between San Francisco and Maranello,” the northern Italian city where Ferrari is headquartered.
The four-door, five-seat car comes onto the scene at a difficult moment for electric vehicles, an industry that has been battered by President Trump’s policies.
Trump has cut EV incentives for manufacturers and customers, prompting several major automakers to move away from EV efforts and focus on gas-powered options.
A luxury EV effort from Sony and Honda, a high-tech vehicle dubbed Afeela, was shut down before it ever hit the road due to Honda paring back its EV offerings.
Legacy automakers such as Ferrari face a particularly difficult landscape for launching an EV, as die-hard fans are attached to traditional, gas-powered models.
Ferraris are known for roaring engines and bold, angular designs, a far cry from the smooth, rounded exterior of the Luce.
To be sure, aggressive redesigns often attract ridicule. The early electric Mustang models were shunned by some but have become popular.
One X user posted a meme with a photo of fictional Italian gangster Tony Soprano saying, “I don’t want any California bulls—.”
The online launch page for the car emphasizes that the Luce is “100% Ferrari.”
Still, Luca di Montezemolo, Ferrari’s former chairman, told reporters on Tuesday that the automaker is “risking the destruction of a legend.”
Ferrari shares have fallen about 8% since the launch of the Luce, signaling investors’ concerns that the car won’t resonate with customers.
Business
Donald E. Newhouse, newspaper publisher and heir to media empire, dies at 96
NEW YORK — Donald E. Newhouse, president of one of the largest family-controlled publishing companies in the nation and a former board chairman of the Associated Press, died Tuesday. He was 96 and died at his home in New Jersey, his family said.
During his career, Newhouse served as president of the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., and head of Advance Publications’ newspaper group, which he navigated into the internet age.
“You reveled in his company. He filled you with energy and humor when you felt doubtful and weak,” said Anna Wintour, the global editorial director of Vogue and Conde Nast’s chief content officer.
“He was scrupulous about not interfering in editorial business, but if you turned to him for counsel, he invariably offered judicious advice,” she said in an obituary released Tuesday night by the Newhouse family.
Newhouse, who lived in New York, spent nearly 50 years overseeing the 35 newspapers of Advance Publications, the media business started by his late father, Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr., in 1922. His older brother, S.I. Newhouse Jr., was chairman of the company and oversaw Conde Nast magazines. He died in 2017.
Louis D. Boccardi, retired president and chief executive of the AP, said Newhouse was an extraordinary chairman for the cooperative.
“His voice was never the loudest in the room, but it was often the wisest,” Boccardi said. Newhouse was instinctively private, but behind that, Boccardi said, was a generous man, at home anywhere and curious about everything.
“He could come across as self-effacing and deferential, but in Don’s skilled hands those were qualities that made him an enormously strong and effective leader,” Boccardi said. “You don’t often see the adjective ‘warm’ attached to a titan of industry, but it applied to him.”
A man who didn’t chase the spotlight
Newhouse, born in 1929, was known for staying out of the public eye. A reporter once asked him to list the biggest chances he took in his career. The answer: “Inviting your questions.”
The usually reserved Newhouse did step into the spotlight when he took on the role of chairman of the Newspaper Assn. of America from 1993 to 1994 and then chairman of the AP board of directors from 1997 to 2002. He had served on the AP board for nine years before becoming its chairman.
“He was a smart and shrewd businessman but as thoughtful and kind a man as you’ll find. Being in his presence was always a joy,” said Doug Clifton, editor of one of Newhouse’s papers, the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, from 1999 to 2007.
Newhouse attended Syracuse University but never graduated, heading into the family’s newspaper business instead. He would regularly visit his newspapers but left the ultimate authority of running them to his publishers.
“Each of our newspapers operates independently, with publishers who are strong, who set policy for their individual organizations and who have the authority and responsibility of carrying out the policies they set,” he said in 1993 when taking over as chairman of the newspaper association.
Newhouse was known for spending money to make sure that papers got the best stories. Jim Willse, editor of the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., from 1995 until 2010, said he would give “us all the resources we needed to make the Ledger really special.” Willse said Newhouse loved newspapers and newspaper people.
“He especially enjoyed it when we’d have a story about some politician caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or a spicy feature about stuffed shirts behaving badly,” Willse said.
Newhouse’s philosophy of spending money to produce quality coverage and a hands-off approach toward his editors led to many successes, including multiple Pulitzers.
Many of those newspapers were able to thrive and remain profitable because they dominated their market, but Newhouse said he was very much aware of what he called the “dramatically changing media landscape” and how people get their news.
“The 15th-century revolution was epitomized by the printing of the Gutenberg Bible; ours by Ted Turner’s cable news network and by web-based news sites — news in real time from anywhere to everywhere,” he said in 2004 at the rededication of a communications school named after his father at Syracuse University.
Three years later, he told one of his papers, the Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y., that newspapers can survive “by producing content that is relevant, interesting, accurate and entertaining for newspapers and the internet.”
He steered through financial struggles
Yet the papers did ultimately struggle financially.
Advance was known in the industry for a pledge that employees who weren’t in a union would have jobs regardless of economic downturns or technological advances. In 2009, the company announced that the pledge would be withdrawn.
The company also moved away from daily publishing of several papers. In 2012, it announced that the Post-Standard; the Times-Picayune in New Orleans; the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Penn.; and the Birmingham News, the Press-Register of Mobile and the Huntsville Times, all in Alabama, would cease daily publication and would only offer print editions on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Those changes were accompanied by hundreds of layoffs.
“His conservative approach left both the papers and its employees somewhat unprepared for the realities of the internet,” said Thomas Maier, who wrote a 1994 biography of the family.
Newhouse’s eldest son, Steven, spearheaded the company’s growth on the internet and on mobile devices. Steven Newhouse is currently co-president of Advance Publications.
“My dad spent his life in the newspaper business and was devoted to it, built it up and enjoyed many good years. When it became more challenging, he was first in line to work through, finding solutions to keep the local journalism franchise going,” he said.
Newhouse is also survived by another son, Michael, daughter Katherine Mele and grandchildren. His wife, Susan, died in 2015.
Mayerowitz writes for the Associated Press.
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