Donald Trump took the stand yesterday in New York State Attorney General Letitia James’s civil fraud case alleging he inflated his assets to appear wealthier and take advantage of lower interest rates and insurance costs. Things got testy during the ex-president’s testimony.

The stakes are high: New York Judge Arthur Engoron already ruled that Trump, his adult sons, and their company are liable for fraud (Trump is appealing). Unlike the criminal cases pending against Trump, this lawsuit has no chance of resulting in jail time, but the trial will determine whether the judge grants James’s request for a $250 million fine and a ban on Trump doing business in New York.

There was plenty of snark and frustration to go around…

• Judge Engoron asked Trump’s lawyer to “control your client,” and later threatened to remove Trump from the stand for refusing to answer questions directly, insulting the judge, and calling the trial “unfair.”
• Trump said he had no involvement in preparing a 2021 financial statement because he was busy at the White House “keeping our country safe,” causing prosecutors to clarify that Trump was not president in 2021.

One point of contention: What are Trump’s properties, including Mar-a-Lago, really worth?

So, how do you appraise Mar-a-Lago?

During his testimony, Trump claimed it was actually undervalued in his company’s financial documents and worth as much as $1.5 billion.

This came after the judge concluded in his ruling that Trump inflated the price by 2,300% because the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser had valued it between $18 million and $37 million. Meanwhile, real estate agents have told news outlets they’d put it between $300 million and $600 million.

Why so many choices? Tax assessors typically value properties much lower than a real estate agent would. Also, because Mar-a-Lago operates as a private club, the assessor appraised it based on its annual net operating income not on potential resale or development value.

Looking ahead…Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who is not a defendant in the case, is set to testify on Wednesday.—CC

Imagine a battery that supports power using only water and air to generate electricity. It’s real…and it’s called a fuel cell.

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WeWork is officially bankrupt. WeWork, the coworking company where your friend with a startup job bragged about getting beer on tap, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New Jersey after years of struggles that began with a failed IPO in 2019. Since it nixed the IPO after investors got a look at its finances and just how much power WeWork’s eccentric founder Adam Neumann had, WeWork (which eventually went public via SPAC) has suffered from having signed on to very expensive leases in its pre-IPO rush to grow. In 2019, the company was valued at $47 billion, but it has since fallen steadily, and this year, its stock has plunged by 98%, giving it a ~$45 million value as of last week.

ChatGPT gets customizable. OpenAI is rolling out the ability to make custom versions of its AI chatbot, called GPTs, and will create a marketplace for people to sell them, the company announced at its first-ever developer event yesterday. Think of it as AI apps, with their own app store, for specific tasks. “Eventually, you’ll just ask the computer for what you need, and it’ll do all of these tasks for you,” CEO Sam Altman said in his keynote speech. The company revealed that ChatGPT has 100 million weekly users. OpenAI also previewed an even more powerful update to ChatGPT known as GPT 4-Turbo and cut prices for its software.

Actors union says studios’ “best and final” offer is not enough. Not everyone’s as bullish on AI as Altman: SAG-AFTRA said that AI was one of the “essential items” where it did not agree with the latest offer from Hollywood studios to end the actors strike. Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that a clause in the studios’ proposal regarding AI scans of highly paid actors was a major sticking point, as the studios wanted to pay for the scan but not to use it in the future.

The chances of someone doing a Fortnite dance for a robed judge are higher than usual right now. Epic Games and Google kicked off a jury trial in San Francisco federal court yesterday over the Fortnite-maker’s antitrust lawsuit against the tech behemoth.

Epic wants to sell in-game items (like skins) on Android devices without needing to pay fees to the Google Play Store. The lawsuit claims that Google…

• Hinders competitors to its Play Store, which charges developers (including Epic) 15%–30% on in-app purchases.
• Spent $1+ billion on contracts with phone-makers, app developers, and video game companies that prevented them from creating their own app stores.

Google maintains that its in-app purchase fees are justifiable compensation and almost entirely below 15%. The tech giant says that it must tightly control purchases to protect user security.

Does this sound familiar? Epic also sued Apple and made very similar claims. Apple mostly won, but Epic scored a ruling that Apple should allow developers to display link-outs to non-App Store payment methods. Plus, Google is currently embroiled in a separate antitrust case with the US government. Busy time to be Sundar Pichai.

Coming up…this trial may last five weeks and include testimony from Alphabet CEO Pichai, plus representatives from Apple, Netflix, Motorola, Android, and AT&T.—ML

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Money marvel
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None of those

Bumble and its CEO are unmatching each other: It announced yesterday that, as of January, Whitney Wolfe Herd will no longer run the female-forward dating platform she founded in 2014.

Wolfe Herd devised Bumble’s signature ladies-DM-first concept to give women control of their romantic lives sans unsolicited messages from weirdos. Then she grew it from a scrappy startup that relied on guerrilla marketing in sororities to a conglomerate with several subsidiaries that help millions of people connect. They’re not breaking up completely: She’s still the company’s largest individual shareholder and will transition to executive chair.

But it’s rough out there

Wolfe Herd’s departure comes as dating apps struggle to get singles to pay for algorithmic introductions and college students snub them.

• Tinder and Hinge owner (and Bumble competitor) Match Group’s stock tumbled earlier this month after it reported that Tinder lost paying subscribers last quarter and its Q4 revenue predictions were lower than analysts expected.
• Meanwhile, Bumble has faced rising marketing costs as it tries to compete, with its stock price falling almost 83% since its blockbuster IPO in early 2021.

Looking ahead…Slack CEO Lidiane Jones will become Bumble’s new chief executive.—SK

Stat: Here’s another reason to stay in school: It may shorten your commute. The average commute in the US is ~27 minutes, but people with college degrees now spend less time getting to work weekly than people whose schooling stopped after high school, according to a New York Times analysis of government data. The opposite was true pre-pandemic. This reflects the fact that transit schedules remain altered due to the dip in ridership caused by the pandemic, and people without advanced degrees are more likely to rely on public transit to get to their jobs.

Quote: “My name isn’t spelled with a ‘Z.’ It’s Strei-sand, like sand on the beach. How simple can you get?”

When Barbra Streisand heard Siri mispronounce her last name, she did what any person with a shopping mall in their basement would do: She called Apple CEO Tim Cook and asked him to fix it. As the legendary singer tells it, Cook was “lovely” and took care of the problem for her. “I guess that’s one perk of fame!” Streisand told the BBC in an interview yesterday while promoting her new memoir, which will undoubtedly contain many inspiring tales of personal struggles like this one.

Read: Why “follow the money” isn’t enough to stop organized crime anymore. (Vice)

Eat: Cake was once an Election Day tradition. Here’s the history (and a recipe).

Watch: Harry Potter, but make it cyberpunk.

Travel tip: These are National Geographic’s top destinations for 2024.

Say “aww”: Check out the winners of a dog photography contest.

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