A seasoned restaurant executive is putting down the burrito to lead the largest coffee chain on Earth, Starbucks announced yesterday, in a surprise but welcome C-suite shake-up that electrified the green siren’s stock.

It’s mister steal your boss. Chipotle will scoop its final serving of guac under six-year CEO Brian Niccol at the end of the month. He starts as Starbucks’s CEO and executive chairman on Sept. 9, replacing the coffeehouse’s current leader, Laxman Narasimhan, after ~16 rough months at the helm. Investors anticipate a successful corporate makeover:

• Starbucks’s stock pole-vaulted 24.5% yesterday, a record one-day gain that netted the company $21.4 billion in value and erased its year-to-date losses. $SBUX hadn’t spent a day in the green since February.
• Meanwhile, Chipotle logged the biggest decline in the S&P 500 yesterday, dropping 7.5%.

The activist investor firm Elliott Management—which has urged changes at Starbucks since buying a $2 billion stake last month—applauded the move as a “transformational step,” likely toward reviving the company’s sales and operations. Starbucks execs said discussions about a new CEO didn’t involve activist investors.

What Niccol inherits, and what he brings

The world’s most popular coffee chain is stumbling amid lower traffic:

• Sales fell 2% in the US and 14% in China (its second-largest market) last quarter.
• On Monday, $SBUX was down 22% from when its freshly ousted CEO took over in March 2023, defying 36% gains on the S&P 500 over the same period.
• Starbucks has lowered its annual outlook twice this year.

Silver bullet? In addition to masterminding Taco Bell’s “Live Más” era, Niccol rescued Chipotle from its post-E. coli sales slump and expanded online ordering before the pandemic, which helped grow the company’s market value from $8.9 billion in 2018 to $76.5 billion as of Monday. Despite price increases, Chipotle has also had better sales growth in recent quarters than other chain restaurants, including Starbucks.—ML

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The UAW filed labor charges against Trump and Musk. The former president and tech CEO’s glitchy X conversation on Monday generated millions of views—and at least one lawsuit. In a suit filed with the National Labor Relations Board, the United Auto Workers union accused the two billionaires of threatening workers. During the convo, Trump praised the practice of firing workers who go on strike (which is illegal), calling Musk, who gutted Twitter in 2022 and reportedly threatened Tesla staff against unionizing, “the greatest cutter.” The charges are unlikely to have any legal ramifications, but they do serve the purpose of getting the UAW’s pro-worker message out during a crucial election season. The union endorsed Kamala Harris for president last month.

Your kids go back to school soon, but their phones might not. The national effort to ban cell phones in schools got another boost yesterday when California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote an open letter to school districts, urging them to restrict the use of smartphones in class. Newsom cited evidence that excessive phone use is linked to mental health problems. Other states like South Carolina have already passed limited phone bans, while New York City—the US’ largest school system—is reportedly mulling a ban starting next year.

Abortion is on the ballot in Arizona. The AZ secretary of state confirmed that a measure to establish a fundamental right to abortion in the state’s constitution received enough signatures to appear on the ballot in November. Arizona joins several states like Florida and New York with similar measures, but it might be the most consequential yet, given its status as a battleground state in 2024. Democrats are hoping the abortion measure will drive up turnout for the presidential election, as well as the state’s critical Senate race.

One of the country’s largest offshore wind farms, Vineyard Wind, is generating nothing but bad PR after a turbine broke and shards of it fell into the ocean off the coast of Massachusetts last month.

Debris from the massive blade washed ashore in nearby Nantucket, known for its affluent, beach-loving second-homers. Many Nantucket residents have since soured on the first commercial-scale offshore wind development in the US, which is intended to power 400,000 homes.

• Federal regulators have shut down construction and power generation at the site indefinitely, pending an investigation.
• Vineyard Wind’s turbine supplier, GE Vernova, said a manufacturing error caused the break.

Machine-heavy efforts to remove debris and dismantle the broken blade are ongoing, with Vineyard Wind saying it hopes to restart operations soon.

Industry fallout

In the wake of the accident, calls from environmental activists, fishers, and other offshore wind energy skeptics to delay or scrap future projects have intensified, adding to existing industry headwinds.

Several offshore wind contracts along the Atlantic coast have recently been canceled amid ballooning costs and high interest rates. And the prospect of Donald Trump—who’s famously an offshore wind hater—returning to the White House looms large.

But…some industry analysts say that the rare accident is merely a snag for projects like Vineyard Wind, which remain a major part of efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.—SK

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Another day, another chaotic brand collab banking on being the hot topic in your group chat. Two cult favorites, goth water brand Liquid Death and ice cream chain Van Leeuwen, are teaming up to create a hot fudge sundae-flavored sparkling water.

The canned water company will sell 10,700 eight-packs of the limited edition tallboys in its TikTok Shop, on Amazon, and at Van Leeuwen locations. The partnership marks Liquid Death’s first collaboration with another company, and Van Leeuwen’s first time releasing a product that isn’t ice cream with another company.

But they aren’t strangers to working with others. Van Leeuwen has created viral ice cream flavors like ranch with Hidden Valley, mac & cheese with Kraft, and espresso with pop star Sabrina Carpenter.

• Liquid Death has historically relied on stunt product marketing, like selling skateboards covered in paint mixed with Tony Hawk’s blood.
• The company’s antics snagged it a $1.4 billion valuation in March after a $67 million funding round led by investors including Live Nation and actor Josh Brolin.

Shock strategy. Liquid Death might be the cool new alt brand, but a weirdo collab for attention is the most traditional thing it has done. The move is straight from the “unhinged, chronically online marketing era” playbook of other big companies, like Crocs and Burt’s Bees.—MM

The Dallas Cowboys may not have made a Super Bowl in 28 years, but it’s hard to argue with the investment: Owner Jerry Jones bought the NFL team in 1989 for $150 million, and now they’re the first pro sports franchise to be worth more than $10 billion, per Sportico. If you shaved $52 million off their valuation for every one of the 48 points the team gave up to the Green Bay Packers in their playoff shellacking last year, they’d still be the most valuable franchise in the NFL. The regular-season specialists generated $1.2 billion in revenue in 2023 alone, 50% more than the No. 2 Los Angeles Rams and a world record for one season. The average NFL team is now worth nearly $6 billion, up 15% from last year.