TheChek News Flow

Role would have sweeping power over environmental agencies and rules in an attempt to boost fossil fuels

Donald Trump is considering tapping North Dakota’s Doug Burgum to be his new “energy tsar”, which would give the oil state’s governor sweeping power to slash environmental regulations and boost US fossil fuels output.

Burgum, a billionaire businessman who ran in the Republican primary race this year before endorsing Trump, is the president-elect’s preferred candidate for the role, said people familiar with the discussions. Former energy secretary Dan Brouillette is also a contender.

Trump is weighing the reappointment of officials from his first term to senior energy roles as he looks to battle-hardened veterans to overhaul rules on everything from vehicle emissions to oil and gas leasing.

The new energy tsar role and its powers are not yet finalised, but people familiar with the plans said it would co-ordinate Trump’s deregulatory agenda across a patchwork of agencies including the Department of Energy, Department of Interior, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and Environmental Protection Agency.

The energy tsar role would likely replace the “climate tsar” — or National Climate Advisor — established by Joe Biden’s White House, underlining the stark shift in emphasis by the new administration.

Among other Trump administration veterans being considered for a return to Washington are former interior secretary David Bernhardt and former EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler, said people familiar with the thinking of Trump’s transition team.

In a sign Trump is prioritising experience in his second term, Brouillette, Bernhardt and Wheeler are all seen as contenders to return to their previous positions.

Wheeler declined to comment. The other candidates did not respond to requests for comment. Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for the Trump-Vance transition team said the president-elect would make cabinet decisions “soon” and the appointments "will be announced when they are made”.

The president-elect has vowed to gut at least 10 regulations across the federal government for every new one created and said he would appoint Tesla chief executive Elon Musk to helm a new efficiency commission “tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms”.

Rules governing climate and energy are set to bear the brunt of the regulatory bonfire.

Trump has railed against the EPA’s car emissions rules, calling them “the insane electric vehicle mandate”, and is also likely to remove curbs on oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

Cynthia Lummis, US senator for Wyoming, and Katherine MacGregor, former deputy secretary of the interior, are both also seen as candidates to lead the interior department. Paul Dabbar, a tech executive and former DoE official, is also seen as a contender for energy secretary.

Lumis, McGregor and Dabbar also did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the roles, but a spokesperson for the senator said she would work to help Trump roll back Biden’s “egregious public lands policies”.

Burgum was previously considered a top contender to be Trump’s vice-president and was with Trump at his final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Monday and on election night at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Brouillette last week stepped down as head of the Edison Electric Institute, the leading US utility lobby group “to broaden my focus to the overarching issues facing our global energy landscape”.

Neobank in talks with investors about selling €200mn in existing shares amid weak IPO market

French fintech Qonto is talking to investors about a sale of existing shares that could value it at €5bn, the latest of such deals as companies seek to reward employees and early backers in the face of a weak market for listings.

The neobank has been exploring selling at least €200mn in stock held by employees and early investors and has held discussions with several funds, according to people familiar with the matter.

Qonto, already one of France’s most valuable technology companies, is seeking a valuation of about €5bn, the people said. But they cautioned that no price had been set yet, and said it was unclear if any agreement would be reached. 

Qonto was last valued at €4.4bn during a 2022 funding round in which it raised €486mn from investors including Tiger Global, TCV and Tencent. The company declined to comment on the latest share offering.

The sale would make Qonto the latest fintech company to turn to the secondary market at a time when exits for founders and investors are difficult because the IPO market remains tepid.

A successful deal would make Qonto one of the few European fintechs to increase their valuation in recent years after higher interest rates and shifting investor sentiment battered the sector, ending a period of hypergrowth that had pushed fundraising levels to a record in 2021.

Revolut, Europe’s largest tech company, in August closed a $500mn sale of employees shares, with its value growing from $33bn to $45bn. Other UK fintechs Monzo and GoCardless are also targeting similar deals.

David Sainteff, partner at Global Founders Capital, said several European fintechs were well-positioned for secondary sales because they had reached a more mature stage, had developed scale and lenders were benefiting from higher rates.

“Since 2021, many early employees have recognised that opportunities for liquidity events may be limited and IPOs postponed,” Sainteff said. “We’re likely to see more and more employee share sales at successful companies, as these firms will need to attract, retain and motivate top talent.”

Qonto was founded in 2016 by entrepreneurs Alexandre Prot and Steve Anavi with the aim of providing better financial services to other entrepreneurs.

It provides a suite of services including invoice management for more than 500,000 small and medium companies in France, Spain, Italy and Germany. The fintech does not have a banking licence but provides credit through partnerships with other institutions.

Qonto’s growth has been fuelled by entrepreneurs, sole traders and small companies, but it has in recent years sought to attract bigger clients, as well as offering software services.

The group has also embarked on a European expansion, announcing earlier this year that it would launch in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal. 

Ahead of this weekend’s Nascar championship race in Phoenix, Jordan’s team is chasing a title, even as his lawsuit alleging anticompetitive behavior in the car-racing empire is ongoing

An entire generation of NBA players found out the hard way that when Michael Jordan wants something, he usually gets it.

Now, another sport is learning the same lesson: Nascar.

This weekend in Phoenix, a racing team owned by the NBA legend will be gunning for a Nascar Cup Series championship, which would give Jordan yet another major title. But that’s just the start of his pursuit to shake up this insular sport, which has been run by the same family since 1948. While his driver chases a title on the track, Jordan is also suing Nascar and its chairman Jim France in a bid to topple what he views as an unfair, anticompetitive business model.

“The France family and Nascar are monopolistic bullies,” Jordan’s team, 23XI Racing, alleged in an antitrust lawsuit filed alongside another team in federal court last month. “And bullies will continue to impose their will to hurt others until their targets stand up and refuse to be victims.”

The lawsuit escalates a bitter dispute with the series over revenue-sharing. Jordan’s team says Nascar has abused its position as the country’s leading stock-car racing series to impose terms that make it economically impossible for some teams to operate. Jordan’s outfit, co-owned by driver Denny Hamlin, is joined in the suit by another Nascar team, Front Row Motorsports.

In a court filing, Nascar’s lawyers called the suit “meritless.”

“Everyone knows that I have always been a fierce competitor, and that will to win is what drives me and the entire 23XI team each and every week out on the track,” Jordan said. “I love the sport of racing and the passion of our fans, but the way NASCAR is run today is unfair to teams, drivers, sponsors and fans.”

The racing teams’ lawyer, Jeffrey Kessler, has a long track record of upending professional and college sports through litigation. He says that every one of those cases has come down to having someone willing to stand up and challenge the established order.

And Jordan, 61, has the celebrity and still-burning competitive fire to do just that.

As an athlete, Jordan was unwilling to give an inch, and his multi-billion-dollar fortune built largely from his empire of basketball shoes and apparel has given him the financial standing to go head-to-head with an entire league.

Jordan comes by his passion for motorsports honestly. Growing up in racing-mad North Carolina, he attended events as a child. While his 13 years as an owner of Charlotte’s NBA franchise were marked by disappointingly poor results, he has quickly realized a level of success as a Nascar owner.

After his driver Tyler Reddick won a playoff race in Miami last month to qualify for the championship, Jordan heaped praise on him in a way he was rarely able to do with his NBA employees.

“Little kid drove his ass off,” Jordan said of the 28-year-old in the No. 45 car. “I’m proud of him.”

But over his short tenure as a Nascar owner, Jordan quickly identified what he viewed as unfairness baked into Nascar’s business model. His complaint against Nascar says that at least four teams who signed the league’s charter agreement did so under duress, but are too afraid of retribution from Nascar to speak openly about the situation.

The suit casts Jordan, once the most famous and celebrated athlete in all of American sports, in a strange new role: the bombastic and feather-ruffling antagonist to the league itself. In many ways, he is taking on a role similar to the one that Al Davis, the late owner of the NFL’s Raiders, played in rattling pro football.

In 1980, Davis sued the NFL after it blocked his attempt to move the Raiders to Los Angeles from Oakland and eventually beat it in the courtroom. Then he beat the rest of the league on the field as his team won the Super Bowl after the 1983 season.

Jordan, too, is aiming to take down the competition on both fronts. As he left a hearing this week, Jordan left no doubt about his intentions.

“I’m looking forward to winning a championship this weekend,” he said.

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