This is like Tom Brady coming out of retirement but for people with Robinhood accounts: Roaring Kitty (real name Keith Gill), the bandana-wearing day trader who led the charge on GameStop’s historic 2000% stock gain in 2021, has returned to social media after a nearly three-year hiatus. His reemergence sent GME soaring toward its steepest single-day percentage gain since the great meme stock short squeeze.

GameStop’s stock spiked 119% yesterday and closed ~74% up thanks to a meme that Gill posted on X on Sunday, which shows a gamer locking in. The post quickly garnered millions of views, and fervent members of Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets community—day traders who have followed Gill’s word to the edge of their savings accounts—began their week by snapping up meme stocks like it’s still pandemic year one.

• More than 175 million shares of GameStop were exchanged yesterday—nearly 30 times the stock’s daily norm over the past year, Bloomberg reported. Trading was paused nine times in 90 minutes due to volatility.
• The rally cost short-selling hedge funds ~$1 billion, according to S3 Partners. About a quarter of all available GameStop shares are being held in short positions, per FactSet.

Other meme stocks also jumped yesterday, including AMC by ~78% and Reddit by 9%, because a roaring kitty lifts all boats.

GameStop the moon?

Probably not. Despite yesterday’s rise, which built on a 57% increase this month alone, GameStop’s stock is still only worth $30—a quarter of what it peaked at in 2021 before the meme stock bubble burst.

Since then, the chain store where your mom bought you FIFA 12 has struggled. GameStop reported its first yearly profit since 2018 in January, but more recently layoffs are up and quarterly revenue is down.

Roaring Kitty is being cryptic. Gill’s X account fired off more ambiguous posts (GIFs and movie clips) throughout the day yesterday. Nobody knows why yet, but Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine has some theories.—ML

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OpenAI updated ChatGPT. Move over, ChatGPT-4, it’s ChatGPT-4o’s time to shine. The “o” stands for omni, and it’s the latest iteration of OpenAI’s signature chatbot. According to the company, it’s much faster with enhanced “capabilities across text, vision, and audio.” That includes a voice assistant feature inspired by Sam Altman’s favorite movie, Her (really). And while that’s not quite as exciting as the search engine the company was rumored to be introducing before the announcement, it’s probably not a coincidence that OpenAI chose to release the new model right before today’s Google I/O developer conference, where AI is expected to be a focus.

Trump’s fixer-turned-foe, Michael Cohen, testifies. Now a star witness for the prosecution in the criminal case accusing Trump of paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels to influence the 2016 presidential election, Cohen testified that he acted under Trump’s direction and had plans to be reimbursed for the payout to Daniels. He also said that Trump was concerned with the presidential contest, not his marriage, in trying to bury news of the alleged affair, claiming Trump urged him to drag on negotiations to get past the election. He’ll continue on the stand today and be cross-examined by Trump’s lawyers.

Airlines sue to block new fee disclosure rules. Though usually competitors, Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, JetBlue, and United have teamed up, along with an industry lobbying group, to sue the Biden administration over rules that would require airlines to display all fees, including baggage, change, and cancellation fees, when you’re buying a ticket. The suit alleges that the rules exceed the Department of Transportation’s authority. The department said it plans to vigorously defend the rules.

Melinda French Gates put in her notice yesterday, saying she’ll be stepping down from her role at the helm of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation next month. After she leaves the grantmaking behemoth she co-founded with her now ex-husband, it’ll be called the Gates Foundation.

French Gates said she’ll be walking away with an additional $12.5 billion from her ex’s pocket to commit to her own charity work “on behalf of women and families.” The two divorced in 2021 but agreed to remain co-chairs of the foundation, which has a $75 billion endowment, for at least two years.

• Funded by the Gates fortune, as well as by donors like Warren Buffett, the foundation has become synonymous with billionaire philanthropy.
• Over the years, it has disbursed over $77 billion to combat diseases, advance education, and improve sanitation in low-income countries.

The divorce rattled the org, and some employees worried about Bill’s and Melinda’s diverging priorities, Business Insider reported in 2021.

Melinda’s thing…French Gates founded a separate charity called Pivotal Ventures in 2015 that promotes gender equality in the US through VC funding and grants to nonprofits.—SK

Baby’s first sweet deal. Did you know a Hello Bello diaper and wipes subscription gets you seven packs of absorbent diapers, four packs of plant-based wipes, one free item with your first order, and an additional 15% off bath and personal care products? Oh, baby! Get 30% off your first delivery + free shipping with code BREW30.

Hoops sensation Caitlin Clark will suit up to play her first regular season pro game for the Indiana Fever tonight against the Connecticut Sun in the sold-out Mohegan Sun Arena.

Clark changed how fans viewed women’s bball by breaking records and drawing historic crowds while in college at the University of Iowa. And now she’s already minting a new era for the WNBA.

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said the league is looking to double the WNBA’s $60 million TV rights deal when it ends in 2025, which would allow for player salary increases. Here are some other wins sparked by Clark’s arrival:

• The WNBA added full-time charter flights for teams this season, breaking the habit of stuffing its 6'5" players in Economy Plus.
• Ticket sales for WNBA games are up 93% on average from last year, per StubHub.
• Thirty-six of the Fever’s 40 regular season games will air nationally, compared with just one last year.

As for tonight…ESPN is broadcasting the game nationwide and will use a “WNBA Finals-level” production setup, underscoring high viewership expectations for Clark’s debut.—CC

Stat: Maybe you don’t need to touch grass? In news that may surprise anyone who uses their screen time to scroll through photos of their ex’s new partner’s seemingly perfect life, a recent global study of 2.4 million people found that being online might actually improve well-being. The research published in the journal Technology, Mind and Behaviour, whose authors say it includes more geographic diversity than most previous studies, found that people with internet access scored 8% higher on measures of life satisfaction and contentment with their social life than those without it—which is about the same positive impact people get from taking a walk outside in nature.

Quote: “It’s super disheartening and infuriating to me that my, kind of, first public foray into being a public mother was one that was deemed inappropriate.”

If all those Disney musicals weren’t enough to convince you that Times Square has firmly left behind its sleazy 1970s reputation, a new controversy over a billboard pulled for being too racy for the NYC tourist spot might do it. The advertisement in question promoted cookbook author Molly Baz’s lactation cookie recipe on behalf of the breastfeeding startup Swehl. It featured an image of Baz with her pregnant stomach exposed and two strategically placed cookies. Baz expressed disappointment that the ad was replaced with another after just three days in response to concerns relayed by billboard owner Clear Channel (it was intended to last for a week), complaining that lingerie is only allowed “so long as it satiates the male gaze.”

Read: Fast-food forever: How McHaters lost the culture war. (New York Times)