Capital One, the bank that turned spokespeople Samuel L. Jackson and Jennifer Garner into household names, said it’s buying Discover Financial Services in a $35.3 billion megadeal that could shake up how you choose your credit cards.

It’s a biggie:

• A combined Capital One and Discover would create the No. 1 US credit card company by loan volume, leapfrogging JPMorgan and Citigroup.
• It’s also one of the banking sector’s largest deals since the 2008 financial crisis.

Why spend $35 billion on Discover?

Discover is the rare breed that both issues credit cards and operates a payments network, which facilitates transactions between issuers and merchants. Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank said that by adding Discover, he could start building “a payments network that can compete with the largest payments networks and payments companies,” a reference to Visa and Mastercard, which dominate the industry.

Capital One has traditionally attracted subprime customers (those with lower credit scores), but it’s on the hunt for a wealthier crowd who prefer to drop their heavy JPMorgan Chase and AmEx cards at the steakhouse. Last year, it acquired digital concierge service Velocity Black, an app whose luxury offerings include swimming with sperm whales in Dominica. And in Discover, it’ll acquire a customer base with higher credit ratings.

But Discover’s been putting out a bunch of fires recently. Last year, its CEO stepped down after the company uncovered compliance issues, and Q4 profit plunged 62%.

Looking ahead…as always with bank mergers, regulators will take a close look at this deal for antitrust concerns. Capital One and Discover would become the sixth-largest bank by assets, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra (already not a merger fanboy), sounded the alarm just last week about the lack of competition in the credit card sector. Capital One hopes to get regulators’ blessing to close the deal by the end of this year or early 2025.—NF

The renewable energy market is about to get real in 2024: Infinity Fuel is inviting private investors to participate in their first capital raise.

Why invest in Infinity? The company is pioneering fuel cells that work underwater and in space. They’ve already received $50m+ in grants and contracts working with names like NASA, the US Navy, and the Air Force. Plus, they just made history by launching their tech on Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-23 and NS-24 flights.

Why now? As more of the world’s largest corporations and governments commit to zero carbon emissions by 2030, clean energy companies like Infinity will attract a bigger spotlight.

Become one of Infinity’s earliest shareholders while you can.

Make America make chips again: The Commerce Department said yesterday it’ll send $1.5 billion to chipmaker GlobalFoundries to help it build a new factory near Albany, NY, and expand semiconductor production in Vermont. It’s the largest grant yet from the $39 billion piggy bank established by the 2022 CHIPS Act to bolster domestic chip manufacturing with direct subsidies. This is just the start: Even bigger CHIPS Act grants are expected to go out to chipmakers like Intel, Samsung, and TSMC in the coming weeks. While 37% of the world’s chips were made in America in 1990, that share is now just 12%.

Navalny’s widow vows to carry on the fight. Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of Vladimir Putin foe Alexei Navalny who died in a penal colony on Friday, promised to continue her husband’s work in a video posted on social media yesterday. Saying she wants to build a “free Russia,” she asked supporters to “share with me the rage. The fury, anger, hatred for those who dare to kill our future.” Navalnaya and other relatives say that morgue officials have blocked them from seeing Navalny’s body, and a Navalny spokesperson said that his body wouldn’t be returned to the family for at least another two weeks. Navalnaya has accused Putin of murdering her husband.

War causes Israel’s economy to shrink by nearly 20%. Israel’s GDP contracted by 19.4% on an annualized basis in the final quarter of 2023, far more than forecast, as the country’s economy buckled following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and its ensuing war in Gaza. Companies were left without 300,000 reservists, who were conscripted into the military, while restrictions on Palestinians entering Israel from the West Bank led to labor shortages in sectors like construction. Consumer spending took a nosedive in Q4, down 27% from the prior quarter, while government spending surged 88%.

Do you find dating apps a never-ending hustle? Good news: People more motivated than you are doing something about it. Six fed-up users of Match Group’s platforms Tinder, Hinge, and The League filed a complaint against Cupid’s gatekeeper on the grounds that the apps are addictive and harmful to mental health, and the advertising for them is misleading.

Seemingly unaware of casinos, Krispy Kreme donuts, and the rest of the internet, the plaintiffs state, “Match benefits from users who are unable to self-regulate and disengage.” They also allege that Tinder’s co-founder admitted to building the app with the mind tricks B.F. Skinner used to turn “pigeons into gamblers.”

Their demands: A full-on class-action lawsuit, a cease-and-desist that makes Match Group stop “selling the unlawful subscriptions,” monetary compensation to app users, and a jury trial to decide how much. In a statement, Match said, “This lawsuit is ridiculous and has zero merit.”

Big picture: Several lawsuits are trying to hold tech companies accountable for online addiction in court, and this complaint is the latest. But Section 230, an internet law from 1996, shields them from an array of legal woes, so “the new slate of lawsuits are attacking tech firms under novel claims, including product liability and defective design,” according to NPR.—HVL

Of all the things that could cost you a spot in the Olympics, you might not think a G-string would be one of them.

Neither did Australian professional equestrian Shane Rose, but his plans to compete in the Paris Olympics this summer were thrown into doubt after he wore a mankini at a showjumping event earlier this month. The outfit—as made famous by Borat—sparked an investigation by Equestrian Australia, which could have blocked him from competing. He was cleared of wrongdoing yesterday, but not before riling up the staid sport.

The low-down: Rose wore a bright orange G-string at a costumed non-professional event called the Wallaby Hill Extravaganza. Complaints were filed over the appropriateness of his ’fit, though it remains unclear whether Rose violated any part of the EA’s code of conduct.

Aussies came to his defense. Fellow Olympic equestrian Matt Williams applauded Rose for doing what it takes to “entertain and strum up publicity in what is otherwise a very boring industry.” And others pointed out that wearing tiny swim briefs in sun-kissed Australia is as common as wearing a wool jumper in England. A sponsor of the Wallaby Hill event even pledged to give out mankinis to attendants of next year’s festivities.—CC

Stat: Flying over the Mid-Atlantic late Saturday was like picking up an endless supply of stars in Mario Kart. Pushed along by a 265-mph tailwind at cruising altitude, at least three commercial aircraft were flying at more than 800 mph. A Virgin Atlantic red-eye heading from Dulles to London arrived 45 minutes ahead of schedule, and an American Airlines flight traveling from Philly to Doha, Qatar, reached nearly 840 mph, which is among the fastest speeds ever recorded for a commercial jet. For the science geeks: While the planes were going faster than the speed of sound (767 mph), they did not break the sound barrier because they were still flying at standard cruising speed relative to the surrounding air, the Washington Post explained.

Quote: “An ecosystem such as SF’s that has been built over the last 50-plus years doesn’t just die because of a pandemic for a few years.”

Mo Koyfman, founder of VC firm Shine Capital, explained to the WSJ why you can leave your “San Francisco is dead” takes on the other side of the Golden Gate. Thanks to all the buzz around AI, the city is experiencing a revival from its Covid depths, with tech leaders who decamped for Austin and Miami returning to where the action is happening. While startup funding got squeezed everywhere last year, it plunged 70% in Miami and 42% in LA, compared to a 12% drop in the Bay Area.

Read: How can we better incentivize people to donate organs? (Works in Progress)

In Battle of the Bird, which comes out today, Bloomberg journalist Kurt Wagner tells the behind-the-scenes story of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and his overhaul of the platform into X. Morning Brew talked to Wagner about Jack Dorsey’s handoff of Twitter, Musk’s fight with a flight-tracking college student, the Delaware court that’s stymied him at every turn, and lots more.

Read it here.

Donate: This video will convince you to never throw anything away.

Escape: A tour of the Ritz-Carlton in the Maldives.

Listen: Begin your classical music journey with this YouTube channel.

Cook: Stop getting hosed by the bagel shop and make your own gravlax at home.

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