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The inside details of their 14-year romance come pouring out in dueling lawsuits that show the danger of mixing work and home life.

There’s a joke about scratching the surface of the fashion industry and finding — more surface.

And as true as that can be in a world of celebrity air kisses and all-too-perfectly imperfect Instagram posts, there is plenty underneath in fashion. It’s just not always pretty.

Proving that again is the knockdown-drag out fight between Net-a-porter founder Natalie Massenet and her romantic partner of 14 years, Erik Torstensson, cofounder and creative director of the denim brand Frame.

The power couple went from all smiles at all the fashionable parties to slinging lawsuits back and forth.

It is an instance of love, family and big money mixing very uneasily. And the stakes are high.

First and foremost, the former couple are fighting over custody of their 7-year-old son. Then, according to Massenet’s suit filed last month in Los Angeles Superior Court, there’s the $95 million she spent on “expensive properties, lifestyle expenses, vacations, and more based on Torstensson’s promises to repay her in kind.” The suit suggests Torstensson is able to pay as he has a $100 million stake in Frame and “substantial positions” in Kim Kardashian’s Skims, as well as Good American, Safely and Brady.

The explosive suit dragged the whole affair into the spotlight — and in dramatic fashion.

Massenet’s suit alleged that Torstensson “confessed to her that he was a ‘liar, an alcoholic, a drug addict, a sex addict and that it had gone on for seven years.’” Backing that up, the suit included texts and images he allegedly traded with prostitutes and drug dealers.

While salacious lawsuits are nothing new, it was an unusually thorough airing of dirty laundry for the so-often refined world of fashion.

Massenet’s suit claimed Torstensson lived in a one-bedroom apartment without even a bed frame when they met.

“Early and often in their relationship, Torstensson promised Massenet that, if she funded the extravagant lifestyle that he desired, introduced him to her high-profile business contacts, and supported his business ventures, he would repay her. Torstensson made clear that whatever assets and investments were Massenet’s would remain hers,” the suit said.

“Yet, once some money began to come in, Torstensson actually diverted those funds to rent flashy private planes and art to impress his peers, rather than make good on his promises,” the suit alleged. “In reality, Torstensson planned to use Massenet’s fame and fortune to leverage his public standing, reputation, and finances, while draining Massenet’s assets on their expensive lifestyle, and then cut her out of her investment in Torstensson.”

In a statement over the weekend, Bonnie Eskenazi, Torstensson’s attorney, said: “Erik Torstensson is a talented businessman with a proven track record of success, a trusted counselor and, above all, a loving father. It is sad that Ms. Massenet would file a public lawsuit so vengeful and obviously meritless without any regard to the harm it would cause their family — and we will vigorously contest it.”

Last week, Torstensson filed a child custody suit in New York Supreme Court, accusing Massenet of being an unfit parent.

The suit has been sealed, but its contents were reported by The New York Times last week and a person familiar with the paperwork confirmed the details to WWD.

Torstensson’s suit alleged that Massenet “loved the limelight” and sought to “exert control of him.” It also claimed she “used drugs regularly,” “ingested alcoholic beverages heavily” and at times “turned violent” with him.

The suit also said she initiated the romantic relationship, turning to him on a flight and saying, “Kiss me,” while she was still married — an overture that allegedly led to the pair having sex in a car outside her London home and again in a car in Ibiza during her family’s vacation.

The two eventually took their relationship out of the backseat and went public as a blended family with her two daughters from a prior relationship and then their son.

A spokesperson for Massenet told WWD over the weekend: “Erik Torstensson filed a confidential child custody claim — under seal — in relation to his and Natalie’s 7-year-old son and simultaneously leaked it to the media. Torstensson’s improper use of the family court process is nothing more than a vindictive smear campaign in response to Natalie’s claim against him in California to settle financial matters. Natalie’s claim was filed as a last resort, after many months of trying to persuade Erik to mediate privately and thoughtfully, for the sake of their son and with respect to their 14 years together.

“This action is clearly not in the interests of their child and is typical of Torstensson’s behavior that led to the breakdown of the couple’s relationship and the recent changes to his professional roles. Natalie remains open to mediation and to the private resolution of this family matter. Throughout her life and career, Natalie has led with integrity and transparency, expecting the same in her personal relationships.”

The surface layer in fashion can be an important part of the substance. Creatives and business executives cultivate a lifestyle and then, in one way or another, seek to package and sell it either to consumers or to industry contacts. In 2017, Massenet bought a seven-bedroom, $15.5 million East Hampton, N.Y., home that Torstensson would use to entertain friends and contacts and further his businesses and investments, according to her suit.

But when life crumbles, there’s sometimes just no easy way to wrap things up and move on like there is in business.

Susan Scafidi, founder and director of Fordham Law School’s Fashion Law Institute, said the case reminded her that before pair-ups were based on romantic interest, they were financial arrangements.

“Mixing business and pleasure can be a toxic cocktail, but the prophylactic antidote is a well-drafted prenup and/or contracts memorializing even the couple’s subsequent intra-marital business agreements,” she said.

Divorces are more clearly defined in legal terms than romantic breakups.

“As I used to tell my students when I taught property, and very briefly family law, ‘If she liked it, then she should’ve put a ring on it — and executed a prenup!’ An antenuptial agreement is not an anti-nuptial agreement, or at least not necessarily,” Scafidi said.

So Massenet seems to be looking to move the dispute to the realm of business, where everything is dollars and cents and can be hashed out.

Her initial suit argued: “Torstensson is responsible for the damages he caused to Massenet, which include the millions he scammed from her, and a return on her investment in him and his ventures. While Massenet is emotionally devastated and in shock caused by Torstensson’s outrageous behavior, this is a case of a return on investment in a man who leveraged Massenet’s capital and brand to build wealth, while she bore the majority of the costs. Massenet is demanding now what any investor would — a fair, equitable return on the investments she made, value she created, and costs she carried.”

Alternative for Germany puts centre left SPD under pressure in North Rhine-Westphalia’s municipal poll, early projections show

Alternative for Germany is set to make strong gains in local elections that underlined the far right party’s advance in Germany’s western industrial heartland and presented the first poll test for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition government.

According to early estimates released by state broadcaster WDR on Sunday, AfD secured about 15 per cent of the votes in municipal elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous federal state, up from 5 per cent in 2020.

AfD, which is co-led by Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, became the second-largest party in parliament in federal elections in February after obtaining a record 21 per cent vote share, including strong results in the country’s former communist east.

But in recent years, AfD has also drawn support from voters in the western Ruhr region, an area that has witnessed high immigration and struggled with deindustrialisation.

In local elections on Sunday in North Rhine-Westphalia, AfD’s surge came at the expense of Merz’s junior coalition partner, the centre-left Social Democrats.

The SPD was projected to secure 22 per cent of the vote, according to early estimates, which would represent slippage of two percentage points compared with elections in 2020. The Green party was also set to lose ground, falling 7 points to 13 per cent.

Merz’s centre-right Christian Democrats took solace in the fact the party was able to maintain its leading place in the western state, with a 34 per cent vote share. That result would be unchanged on 2020.

Hendrik Wüst, the 50-year-old CDU state premier in North Rhine-Westphalia, said he was “grateful” that voters had kept the party in the lead.

But he acknowledged the AfD’s strong showing in traditional SPD industrial strongholds posed difficult questions for the centre-left and centre-right parties over issues including migration and welfare benefits.

“Everyone will ask themselves what are the right answers in terms of poverty, migration? Are all parts of our social systems really fair?” he told national broadcaster ARD.

Despite relaxing Germany’s debt brake and unveiling a massive €1tn spending plan for defence and infrastructure, Merz has been grappling with low public approval ratings and frustration among business leaders as the Eurozone’s largest economy continues to stagnate.

Merz has promised an “autumn of reforms”, vowing to overhaul welfare benefits and the pension system by allowing workers to continue working beyond the country’s retirement age.

But tensions inside Merz’s coalition, and the SPD’s poor electoral results in North Rhine-Westphalia, may make it harder to push through ambitious reforms.

Era of ‘invisible’ submarines ending with next-gen tech that could prevent one in 20 from escaping attack

A new defence industry study from China suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) could soon make it extremely hard – even nearly impossible – for submarines to survive in a future naval conflict.

The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Electronics Optics & Control and led by senior engineer Meng Hao with the China Helicopter Research and Development Institute in August, unveiled for the first time an advanced AI-driven anti-submarine warfare (ASW) system capable of hunting even the quietest submarines through intelligent, real-time decision-making.

According to the research, the new ASW system could reduce a submarine’s chance of escape to just 5 per cent, meaning only one out of every 20 submarines would likely escape detection and attack.

As global powers intensify their race to put AI into military use, the study suggests the era of the “invisible” submarine – long a cornerstone of naval deterrence – may be coming to an end.

Instead of relying on old search patterns, the AI system acts like a smart commander in the ocean.

It uses data from sonar buoys dropped by helicopters, underwater sensors, radar and even ocean temperature and salt levels to build a live picture of what is happening under the sea.

Then, it quickly decides where to look, how to adjust its equipment and how to respond when a submarine tries to escape by zigzagging, going silent or releasing fake signals to throw off the hunters.

In computer simulations, this AI system was able to find and track enemy submarines about 95 per cent of the time, no matter how hard they tried to hide.

Even when submarines used hi-tech decoys or drones to distract the searchers, the AI kept up and stayed on their trail.

Submarines have long been viewed as the ultimate asymmetric weapon: able to deliver nuclear strikes, gather intelligence or sink carrier groups while remaining nearly undetectable.

The US Navy, for instance, maintains that large fleets of nuclear submarines could be a deterrent to the rapidly growing PLA Navy in a future conflict.

The US nuclear submarine fleet consists of about 70 nuclear-powered submarines as of mid-2025, according to openly available information.

These submarines could blend into the background noise of the ocean and they could carry cutting-edge drones to distract the hunters.

In traditional anti-submarine warfare, a quiet submarine equipped with advanced decoys has a survival chance as high as 85 per cent, making them “one of the biggest threats” to China’s surface fleets, according to Meng’s team.

But AI could make the strategy outdated.

“The ultimate success rate keeps stable at around 95 per cent,” Meng and his colleagues said.

The system operates on a three-layer architecture: perception, decision making, and human-machine interaction.

First, the AI fuses real-time data from sonar, radar, magnetic anomaly detectors and oceanographic sensors to build a dynamic picture of the undersea environment. It accounts for shifting variables like water temperature, salinity and background noise – conditions that traditionally hinder sonar effectiveness.

Then, in the decision layer, a multi-agent reinforcement learning model pits AI “hunter” agents such as helicopters and sonobuoys against simulated “prey” agents, including submarines and unmanned underwater vehicles.

Through thousands of simulated engagements, the AI learns optimal tactics, such as forming sonar barriers, executing coordinated sweeps or concentrating sensors in high-probability zones.

Critically, the AI does not just detect submarines, it anticipates their behaviour. In simulations, it recognised evasive tactics like “silent running” or zigzag manoeuvres and adjusted search patterns accordingly.

Even when submarines deployed decoys or operated in complex acoustic environments, the AI maintained a high detection rate, according to the researchers.

The project team also built large language model-based assistant interfaces to coordinate different AI agents’ interaction with human operators, translating complex sensor data and AI-generated strategies into plain-language recommendations.

It dramatically reduced cognitive load during high-pressure missions, they said.

The researchers say this technology could still get even better.

Future versions could team up with drones in the air, ships on the surface and unmanned vehicles underwater, creating a complete “three-dimensional” hunting network.

The AI could also keep learning during real missions, getting smarter with every deployment.

And lighter, faster versions could be installed on smaller combat robots, allowing more platforms to make quick decisions without needing to send data back to a central base.

American pursuit of long-term human missions to the moon hampered by budget cuts to bioregenerative technologies, paper says

Scientists have found critical gaps in Nasa’s development of space life support systems that could prevent the United States from competing with China in the pursuit of long-term manned space exploration and habitation.

While Beijing and Moscow have joined forces to establish a lunar research base, Washington’s limited support for bioregenerative life support research puts its space competitiveness at risk, a team of scientists including Nasa researchers has found.

The team said that past research and policy decisions – such as funding and programme cuts – had created “critical gaps” in Nasa’s current space habitation capabilities.

“Now on the verge of returning to the moon, Nasa needs to develop the critical capabilities required to build and operate a lunar outpost,” the team said in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal npj Microgravity on August 16.

The paper was written by researchers from Purdue University, Northeastern University, Utah State University, the University of Utah, and Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre and Ames Research Centre.

The existing approach to space life support systems in the US, including for the International Space Station (ISS), involves resupply trips to transport water, food and other consumable materials.

Long-term human missions past Earth’s orbit to the moon or Mars are limited by the massive costs and logistics issues associated with resupply launches, along with safety concerns about the impact of radiation and microgravity on the human body, the team said.

“If we were to execute a Mars mission right now, we would be facing many unknowns,” said D. Marshall Porterfield, corresponding author of the paper and a professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue.

“The most significant of it is what’s going to happen to the human body in that radiation environment,” said Porterfield, who from 2012 to 2016 served as division director for space life and physical sciences at Nasa headquarters, where he oversaw the development of science for future human exploration.

Bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS) – or artificial ecosystems that leverage biological organisms to recycle and generate resources like oxygen, food and water – offer a better solution for long-term human missions in deep space.

These systems, also referred to as BLiSS, use plants, animals and microorganisms to create a sustainable, closed-loop environment that can provide essential survival needs such as food and waste management.

“The lack of availability of BLiSS technologies and systems – both at the governmental and commercial levels – currently limits the objectives of human-crewed lunar exploration programmes,” the team wrote.

Porterfield said that the US had the “completely wrong model for how we need to go to space”, with a focus on being a logistics transporter rather than a logistics provider.

A bioregenerative approach was the focus of earlier Nasa research, including the development of sustainable agricultural systems for space exploration in the 1990s, which helped to birth the controlled environment agriculture industry.

That next phase for Nasa was the Bioregenerative Planetary Life Support Systems Test Complex (BIO-Plex), a facility which aimed to evaluate life support systems that could supply food, water and a breathable atmosphere for future space missions.

In 2004, it was discontinued and physically demolished after a large-scale study led to budget cuts and a shift in research priorities, the team said.

“The budgets for Nasa to develop these bioregenerative technologies were cut and never restored,” Porterfield said.

Remaining bioregenerative technologies research is now facing further funding cuts under the Trump administration’s 2026 budget, he added.

While US support for bioregenerative life support research waned after the early 2000s, the team said that this research had been “embraced and advanced” by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) over the past two decades.

The team said that published BIO-Plex plans “supported CNSA’s efforts to swiftly establish a bioregenerative habitat technology programme for an operational human lunar outpost and, subsequently, to demonstrate its viability”.

The Lunar Palace 1 at Beihang University in Beijing is China’s first integrated experimental facility for a permanent artificial closed ecosystem life support system, which includes cabins for vegetation, facilities for waste disposal, dining and bedrooms, according to the university.

“Besides the Chinese efforts, there are currently no other official programmes pursuing a fully integrated, closed-loop bioregenerative architecture for establishing lunar or Martian habitats, or even for sustaining long-term human presence in space,” the researchers said.

They added that recently published plans from CNSA showed that the country “has surpassed the US and its allies in both scale and preeminence of these emerging efforts and technologies, especially as compared to Nasa’s current programmes”.

The US government invested heavily in science and technology programmes during the space race with the former Soviet Union, including the creation of Nasa.

But the tensions of the Cold War did not stop scientific cooperation in space between the two, which eventually led to the ISS programme that included the US, the Soviet Union – later Russia, Europe, Japan and other partners.

This changed in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea, which spelled the end of decades of successful cooperation.

The only remaining joint space programme between the two countries involves fulfilling their obligations to the ISS, which is scheduled for decommissioning in 2030.

In 2011, the US Congress passed the Wolf Amendment, which prohibits Nasa from using government funds to cooperate with CNSA and China without congressional approval.

Country’s defence minister calls Russia’s behaviour ‘reckless’ after second breach of Nato territory in a week

A Russian drone entered Romania’s airspace and was tracked by its air force for nearly an hour before leaving, the country’s defence minister said on Sunday, condemning Moscow’s second breach of Nato territory within a week.

The incident on Saturday came three days after a swarm of about 19 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, prompting Nato fighter jets to shoot them down in the most serious incident between the US-led military alliance and Moscow since the all-out invasion of Ukraine.

The Polish incident pushed Nato to launch a new operation to bolster its eastern defences.

Romanian defence minister Ionuț Moșteanu said the country’s air force had tracked a Russian-made Geran drone flying over the east of the country on Saturday.

“Romania condemns Russia’s reckless behaviour, which threatens regional stability,” the minister said. “Together with our Nato allies, we remain vigilant and ready to defend every inch of allied airspace.”

In a separate statement on Sunday, Moșteanu said the government had analysed the situation and received a briefing from the pilot leading the F-16 formation that engaged the drone, but decided not to eliminate it.

“The pilots had the permission to shoot down the drone, but in the moments they had direct contact they assessed the collateral risks and decided not to open fire,” he said. “It’s a decision of professionalism and responsibility.”

The new Nato mission, called Eastern Sentry, began on Friday evening and will run for an undisclosed amount of time involving military assets from countries including Denmark, France, Germany and the UK.

“The Romanian army will continue its preparation and supply plans and the Eastern Sentry initiative announced on Friday by Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte will lead to the increase of defence and deterrence capacities on the eastern flank,” Moșteanu said.

Most European nations see the Russian breaches of Nato countries’ airspace as a direct challenge from Moscow, but the US has questioned whether Wednesday’s breach of Polish airspace was intentional.

US President Donald Trump has suggested the Polish incident “could have been a mistake”, prompting a sharp rebuke from Poland’s PM Donald Tusk, who wrote on X on Friday: “We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake. But it wasn’t. And we know it.”

Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavský on Sunday said the Romanian incident reinforced the idea that Russia’s breaches of Nato airspace were not accidental.

“Russia continues to provoke,” Lipavský wrote on X. “Last night, it was Romania. I do not believe in Russian ‘mistakes.’ As Nato allies, we remain vigilant. Russia must pay a concrete price for its provocations against Nato. That is why [the Czech Republic] supports further sanctions [on Russia].”

Romania has been alarmed by Russian attacks on Ukrainian facilities very near its border with Ukraine along the Danube delta.

These have occasionally led to drones or debris landing on Romanian soil, but the Black Sea nation had not, until Saturday, had to deal with a sustained presence of a drone in Romanian airspace before.

The league has instituted new rules to keep megabillionaires from using their bottomless pockets to tilt the NBA’s competitive balance. An imbroglio involving the Los Angeles Clippers owner could amplify the issue.

Earlier this week, a handful of the richest people in the world convened at a five-star hotel in midtown Manhattan to discuss typical titans-of-industry fodder: overseas expansion, the future of media, yadda yadda. But there was an elephant in the room: Did a billionaire in their ranks secretly siphon millions of dollars to an NBA star through a now-bankrupt tree-planting startup?

The billionaire on the minds of NBA team owners at the regularly scheduled meeting of the league’s Board of Governors was Steve Ballmer—former Microsoft CEO, current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers and one of the world’s ten richest people. At issue was whether Ballmer circumvented the NBA salary cap by funnelling cash to Clippers player Kawhi Leonard by investing in the startup, Aspiration, which aimed to reduce carbon emissions by planting trees. Leonard signed an endorsement deal with the company, but doesn’t appear to have ever done any actual endorsement work for Aspiration, whose co-founder recently pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges.

Last week, the journalist Pablo Torre broke the news of these allegations about Ballmer on his podcast. Then he expanded his reporting this week with new details that a Clippers minority owner, Dennis Wong, allegedly wired nearly $2 million to Aspiration just nine days before the startup sent an overdue check for $1.75 million to Leonard.

Ballmer has denied he violated the NBA’s salary cap rules. Spokespersons for the Clippers did not respond to requests for comment.

If true, the allegations—which the NBA is investigating—go to the very integrity of sports ownership. To participate in that elite club, owners agree to abide by the same spending limits on player salaries. Without such rules, the richest owners in the league could simply buy up all the top players and tip the scales of competition.

That risk is magnified by the ever-widening gap between the wealthiest and least-wealthy, which has more than tripled over the past six years, according to our analysis of Forbes’ estimates of the wealth of team owners. The biggest reason for that growing gulf is Ballmer, who has become so wealthy that he makes other team owners look almost poor by comparison.

Indeed, Ballmer is the richest owner in all of U.S. pro sports, with a net worth estimated by Forbes at $152 billion as of Thursday, up from $118 billion just six months ago. That increase is largely due to his sizable stake in Microsoft, which has seen its shares rise 22% this year as it rides the artificial intelligence boom. Ballmer has said that about 80% of his investment portfolio is Microsoft stock.

His net worth is more than four times that of the next-wealthiest NBA ownership group—the Dallas Mavericks’ Adelson-Dumont family ($36.7 billion)—and stratospherically richer than the NBA owner with the smallest purse to still make the Forbes wealthiest people list—the Golden State Warriors’ Peter Guber ($1.5 billion).

Since 2019—the year Leonard signed with the Clippers in free agency—the gap between the wealthiest and least-wealthy NBA owners among those who made the Forbes list has more than tripled to over $150 billion in 2025. Over the same period, NBA valuations have exploded: The Brooklyn Nets sold to Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai in 2019 for $2.35 billion, a then-record for any U.S. sports franchise. This year, the Los Angeles Lakers became the first-ever $10 billion sports club, its valuation in a pending sale to Guggenheim Partners CEO Mark Walter.

While the league has embraced owners from a lot of different backgrounds and wealth levels, they’ve also put new rules in place to keep the deepening pockets of owners from skewing the league’s competitive balance.

The current league’s collective bargaining agreement—the document that governs the salary cap and was signed by owners and the players’ union in 2023—was constructed with more progressive, if somewhat confusing, spending rules. In effect, owners are allowed to spend over the player salary cap to certain thresholds but will incur a range of painful penalties for doing so, including the loss of some draft picks and limitations on player trades.

Speaking on Wednesday about the revelations in Torre’s reporting on the Clippers, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that “the stakes have gotten much higher, the salaries much higher, the team values are much higher,” he said. He conceded the league could do more to monitor potential conflicts when companies like Aspiration sponsor players who have an existing relationship with the team. “Maybe there needs to be a new level of scrutiny on some of these things,” he added.

Which brings us back to Ballmer, at the center of it all—the lone centibillionaire in the roster of NBA owners. Leagues like the NBA increasingly need to cater to the wealthiest of the wealthy, as they require a network of deep-pocketed individuals to continue to buy in at escalating prices. (Also in the planning stages: a potential NBA league in Europe.)

But if Ballmer or any of his Clippers associates are confirmed to have circumvented the salary cap, Silver may have to confront sanctioning the highest-profile techie in the sports world.

As such, the NBA has tapped white-shoe law firm Wachtell Lipton to helm an independent investigation of Torre’s reporting, a standard practice by sports leagues amid any alleged misconduct. Silver told reporters that as commissioner, his “powers are very broad” to hand down suspensions, fines, or removal of the Clippers’ draft picks, if the investigation yields conclusive proof of cheating.

Heavy emphasis on the “if.” Silver said that the burden of proof is on the league to demonstrate wrongdoing by Ballmer and the Clippers. “We and our investigators look at the totality of the evidence,” he said. “As a matter of fundamental fairness, I would be reluctant to act if there was sort of a mere appearance of impropriety. The goal of a full investigation is to find out if there really was impropriety.”

Ballmer, for his part, told ESPN this week he welcomed the NBA investigation and said he was “conned” by the Aspiration founders, to whom he made a $50 million investment during an early funding round, and to whom he introduced Leonard. Aspiration allegedly later signed Leonard to a $28 million “no-show” endorsement contract.

(The Athletic on Friday reported that a former Aspiration CEO denied that Leonard had a no-show deal and that his contract called on the Clippers player to participate in various Aspiration projects. His contract also allowed Leonard to opt out of those efforts, according to The Athletic.)

Before Aspiration-gate, there had long been a sense within NBA circles that any criticism of the Clippers is essentially punching down: Los Angeles’ second team toils in the shadow of their glittering crosstown rival, the Lakers.

Lately, Ballmer has demonstrated his willingness to lift the Clippers out of their second-class status by spending big in ways that aren’t limited by the collective bargaining agreement. At the start of last season, he presided over the opening of the Intuit Dome, a new state-of-the-art home court for the Clippers that cost $2 billion—and is currently set to host the 2026 All-Star Game. And this spring, he paid to fly a coterie of Clippers fanatics to attend playoff games on the road.

Indeed, if there’s one constituency that doesn’t mind having an uber-rich owner it’s the fans of pro sports teams. For example, fans of the New York Mets—another second banana team in a major U.S. city—have largely embraced their owner, the formerly embattled hedge fund manager Steve Cohen (net worth: $23 billion), as “Uncle Steve,” since he bought the team in 2020.

Ultimately, the outcome of the Aspiration-Clippers investigation will be a test of the guiding principles of U.S. sports ownership, one of the most exclusive clubs in the world.

As Commissioner Silver himself said, the “mere appearance of impropriety” may not be enough for sanctions within this cohort. But if the investigation yields a smoking gun, Silver has a difficult choice to make: discipline the richest owner in sports, or risk undermining the integrity of the league.

The majority of the planned bid for Warner will be made up of cash

Paramount Skydance PSKY 7.62%increase; green up pointing triangle is preparing a majority cash bid for Warner Bros. Discovery WBD 16.70%increase; green up pointing triangle that is backed by the Ellison family, according to people familiar with the situation.

The bid will be for the entire company, including its cable networks and movie studio, the people said. Warner said late last year it planned to restructure into two operating divisions, one focused on the legacy cable-television business and the other on streaming and studios.

Warner Bros. had a nearly $33 billion market capitalization early Thursday, prior to The Wall Street Journal’s report on the potential bid, more than double that of Paramount Skydance. A bid hasn’t yet been submitted and the plans could still fall apart.

Warner shares rallied in premarket trading Friday. They jumped nearly 30% on Thursday afternoon after The Wall Street Journal’s report on the potential bid, while Paramount Skydance shares rose nearly 16%.

By preparing a play for the company before Warner’s planned split, Paramount Skydance is attempting to pre-empt a potential bidding war for the studio and streaming unit that could include deep-pocketed technology companies such as Amazon.com and Apple.

If successful, such a deal would bring together two of Hollywood’s most storied studios and the parent companies of streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+. Warner is home to “Barbie,” DC Comics, Harry Potter and TV shows such as “The White Lotus,” as well as cable networks CNN, TBS and TNT.

The scale of the potential combination could bring antitrust and regulatory scrutiny.

Skydance, run by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, weeks ago closed its deal to merge with Paramount, wh