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• Disney’s new “Moana” movie fell flat in its box-office debut.
• The movie avoided controversy, but didn’t excite audiences.
• It also faced competition from “Toy Story 5” and “Minions & Monsters.”

“Moana” bellyflopped in its box-office debut, and the miss should provide Disney film executives with some hard-earned lessons.

Disney’s new live-action remake about the uber-popular Polynesian princess failed to bring audiences aboard, with a $43 million domestic opening that was only slightly above the disastrous start for the “Snow White” remake last year.

“‘Moana’s’ performance this weekend certainly has everyone questioning the animation-to-live-action strategy often employed by Disney,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends at media research firm Rentrak.

The Mouse House has used sequels and remakes as an easy, low-risk way to generate tons of cash, though a flop for one of its most popular movies means this strategy may be losing luster with fans.

“Disney invented this live-action phenomenon based on their animated films, and they’ve had remarkable success with them,” said box-office analyst David Gross in a Sunday report. “But this opening isn’t close to Disney’s past remakes.”

Unlike the ill-fated “Snow White” adaptation, this “Moana” movie had no notable controversies, and it didn’t make polarizing creative choices like last May’s successful “Lilo & Stitch” remake (which brought in over $182 million in the US in its debut).

Here are the three key reasons “Moana” sank in its box-office opening weekend, according to analysts.

1. It’s all too familiar

The new “Moana” is “an almost shot-for-shot (and line-for-line, in some cases) remake of a five-star masterpiece,” Business Insider’s Gabbi Shaw wrote in a review of the live-action remake.

By mimicking the original “Moana,” Disney avoided angering audiences who might not have wanted to see major changes to the hit. But by declining to reimagine “Moana,” the live-action remake may not have excited fans either.

“The central conundrum with all of these remakes,” Shaw wrote in her review, is that Disney fans or parents with Moana-crazed kids could have simply put on the “superior animated film” instead of bringing the whole family to a theater.

Though controversy-free, the new “Moana” movie was something that “nobody was talking about, for better or worse,” said box-office analyst Scott Mendelson.

2. Too much ‘Moana’

Disney may have given audiences another “Moana” movie too soon.

The original animated film came out 10 years ago, and Disney struck gold with a billion-dollar “Moana 2” sequel in 2024.

Although the “Moana” movies are beloved, as they consistently rank among the most-watched films on streaming, kids may already be getting their fix of the princess from the comfort of their couch.

“This story wasn’t ready to come back, and audiences are not rushing to see it,” Gross said.

Analyst Shawn Robbins, the director of movie analytics at Fandango, said the timing of this “Moana” film missed the sweet spot.

“This live-action take arrived at least half a decade too early if the goal was for the box office to benefit from nostalgia and a generational hand-me-down to kids who didn’t see the original film in theaters or weren’t born yet,” Robbins said.

3. It faced stiff competition, including friendly fire

Another factor in the “Moana” remake’s slow start was that there are plenty of family-friendly films in theaters right now.

“The marketplace is a bit oversaturated with PG-rated family fare,” Dergarabedian said.

Disney decided to release the new “Moana” three weeks after its own smash-hit “Toy Story 5” and a week after “Minions & Monsters” from Universal, though that film has so far slightly underwhelmed.

Those films and the World Cup may have kept audiences elsewhere, Robbins remarked.

However, seeing movies isn’t always a zero-sum game. Mendelson said that family-friendly hits can spur rival movies, since kids see trailers in theaters and get excited.

“If people had wanted to see ‘Moana,’ they would have seen ‘Moana,'” Mendelson said.

• Jamie Dimon said he’s not sure if he’ll be CEO in three years, weeks after the succession race heated up.
• Dimon said there’s little to no chance he’ll run for political office once he steps down.
• Instead, the 70-year-old said he’ll likely write a book, teach, or pursue media.

Last month, JPMorgan gave the world a better idea of who might succeed Jamie Dimon as CEO. And Dimon just gave a better idea of what he might do once that successor takes the job.

Dimon, who has led JPMorgan since 2006, said that in addition to doing business “with people I like,” he’ll probably write a book about management or the financial crisis. Known as one of Wall Street’s more outspoken CEOs, Dimon said he might take on public-facing roles, though he kept the details sparse.

“I may teach somewhere, because I like teaching, and I might do something around a media-related thing,” he told Axios in an interview that aired on Saturday.

Many have speculated that Dimon might have his eyes set on the White House, but he said there’s “pretty much no chance” he would run for office.

“I’m very hard-pressed to think I should be doing something like that,” he said with a light laugh, adding that he’s never been a part of a campaign. “I’m a banker. I’m a New Yorker. I’m 70 years old. I’ve had a couple of health problems.”

Dimon underwent emergency heart surgery in 2020 and battled throat cancer in 2014.

He added that politicians and their families face tremendous public scrutiny, and, besides, he could have a significant impact from his current position. Dimon has recently spearheaded geopolitical projects at JPMorgan, like a $1.5 trillion effort to boost US dominance and security, and a sweeping “American Dream Initiative.”

That doesn’t mean Dimon and his colleagues won’t also weigh in on political issues in the more traditional sense — JPMorgan launched a series called “From the desk of” in May, where senior leaders share their opinions on public policy.

Though it’s hard for some to imagine the end of the Dimon era at JPMorgan, a new leader may step up in the next few years. When asked whether he’ll still be CEO in three years, Dimon said he didn’t know, repeating his common refrain that it’s up to the board and that he plans to stay on as executive chairman. In the past, he’s been known for saying he’ll be in the job at least five more years.

Troy Rohrbaugh and Doug Petno recently emerged as the frontrunners to succeed Dimon after becoming co-presidents of JPMorgan in June.

• Jay-Z concluded his star-studded three-night residency at Yankee Stadium on Sunday.
• The final show, titled “Extra Innings,” featured musicians from across the rapper’s long career.
• Beyoncé, Usher, and Rihanna were among the guests brought onstage.

On Sunday, New York City’s Yankee Stadium was certainly a concrete jungle where dreams are made of — at least, for the thousands of Jay-Z fans who waited hours to see the rapper take the stage for the third and final night of his residency there.

A four-hour delay caused the show to kick off around 12:15 a.m., instead of the scheduled 8 p.m.

In a joint statement, Roc Nation and Yankee Stadium told Business Insider that “hundreds of individuals in large groups — who did not have tickets to tonight’s performance — stormed over peaceful ticketholders, and in some cases, breached security,” which led to the gates being closed for “an extended period of time.”

For many, it was worth the wait, as friends, family, and longtime collaborators joined one of New York City’s most beloved musicians onstage, including Beyoncé, Rihanna, Usher, Pharrell Williams, Jeezy, Fat Joe, and more.

Here are all the stars who showed up for Jay-Z’s third and final Yankee Stadium show.

Rihanna

Rihanna performed her song with Jay-Z, “Run This Town,” before launching into her own hit, “B**** Better Have My Money.”

Usher

Taking a quick break from his own tour, Usher stopped by Yankee Stadium to perform “Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love)” and “Throwback.”

Beyoncé

Mrs. Carter was on hand to perform one of their biggest hits as a couple, “Drunk in Love.”

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A post shared by Roc Nation (@rocnation)

Pharrell Williams and Malice

Williams performed a medley of songs, including “Excuse Me Miss,” “I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me),” and “Allure,” before bringing out his protégés, Clipse, the duo consisting of Malice, seen here, and Pusha T.

Pusha T

Pusha T and Malice, as Clipse, performed “Grindin’.”

Teyana Taylor

Taylor took over for Mary J. Blige in a performance of “Can’t Knock the Hustle.”

Jeezy

Jeezy joined Jay-Z onstage to perform two of their collaborations: “Seen It All” and “Go Crazy.”

Jermaine Dupri

Dupri rapped “Money Ain’t a Thang” with his longtime collaborator.

Fat Joe and Jadakiss

Knicks summer wouldn’t be complete without a performance of “New York” by these two.

The-Dream

The-Dream subbed in for Frank Ocean’s vocals on the chorus of “No Church in the Wild.”

Swizz Beatz

Swizz Beatz and HOV performed another long medley of some of their best work, including “On to the Next One,” “Ruff Ryder’s Anthem,” and “Welcome to the Jungle.”

• Meta announced that it is supercharging its Louisiana data center, known as Hyperion.
• The project has led to year-end bonuses of up to $50,000 for local teachers, Meta said.
• The campus will now grow to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity and cost more than $50 billion.

Meta is scaling up what was already slated to become its largest AI data center, a Louisiana campus that the tech giant says has fueled “life-changing returns” for local teachers and businesses.

The company behind Facebook and Instagram said in a blog post on Monday that the Richland Parish data center, known as Hyperion, will now grow to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity, bringing the project’s cost to more than $50 billion.

The announcement offers a new data point for Wall Street investors watching Meta closely for updates on its AI spending plans. The company’s capital expenditures have ballooned in the last two years, largely due to AI infrastructure costs.

As part of its announcement, Meta touted the project’s local economic impact, saying that the increased tax revenues tied to the data center have recently led to year-end bonuses of up to $50,000 for Richland Parish teachers.

That’s 400% higher than what teachers received last year in the rural Louisiana parish that’s home to about 20,000 people, according to Meta.

Sheldon Jones, the parish’s school district superintendent, said in a statement shared by Meta that the influx of money has been “life-altering for our teachers and their families” and was “transforming our schools.”

“Last year, our teachers received a $10,000 bonus, this year that check was over $50,000,” Jones said, adding, “Meta’s investment has made Richland Parish a destination for education as well as industry.”

Jones did not immediately respond to a request by Business Insider for further comment.

The Hyperion project, according to Meta, is among the largest investments in AI infrastructure worldwide.

Meta said in its Monday post that local Louisiana businesses have received more than $1.6 billion in contracts from the company since it broke ground on the 4 million-square-foot site in December 2024.

“With this expansion, we will be investing over $1 billion in local infrastructure improvements, including roads, water and wastewater systems,” said Meta.

It added that the company “pays the full costs of the energy, water, and related infrastructure the data center uses so consumers aren’t paying the cost.”

The project’s expansion marks a dramatic escalation from last year when Meta and investment firm Blue Owl Capital put the data center’s price tag at about $27 billion with plans for more than 2 gigawatts of compute capacity.

Once operational, Meta says the data center will create more than 1,000 jobs.

While Meta has highlighted the project’s economic benefits, the rapid buildout of AI data centers by Big Tech has become a flashpoint, with critics raising widespread concerns about energy demand, water consumption, and the strain on local infrastructure.

• Palantir CEO Alex Karp said AI could be about to create a huge wealth disparity.
• “That’s a problem for society,” he told Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner.
• Karp also said the overselling of AI by the companies that make it is “disconcerting.”

AI is making a lot of people rich. You might not be one of them, says Palantir CEO Alex Karp — and that’s the problem.

In an interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner, Karp said AI will likely raise living standards broadly, but the scale of gains at the very top will be wildly disproportionate to gains elsewhere. Axel Springer is Business Insider’s parent company.

Karp said that AI wealth disparity is the “biggest problem in this country.”

“While it will raise the standard of living of the average person, the people involved are likely to get 10, 100 times wealthier than they already are,” Karp said on an episode of Döpfner’s “MD Meets” podcast that aired Monday.

In past technological revolutions, Karp said, the gap between winners and everyone else was far narrower: “The person at the bottom, maybe their salary doubled, and the person at the top became five times wealthier, but it was very unusual to be a billionaire 40 years ago.”

“You now have a revolution where, you know, I could become 20 times wealthier than I am now,” he added.

AI is creating a “complete decoupling” between ordinary economic gains and a small class of people who attain “unimaginable wealth,” he said.

‘They’re telling you your life is going to suck’

Karp said that even if AI doesn’t cause massive job losses, it doesn’t stop people from worrying about it, as some of the people behind the technology have made those cuts seem inevitable.

“The people running the lab companies, who are the leaders, told you it’s true,” Karp said. “They’re telling you your life is going to suck. And they’re also getting very wealthy, and you don’t find them very likable.”

While he didn’t name any executives, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman have warned about AI causing job disruption. Recently, they have softened their positions.

Karp’s comments come as anxieties around AI are boiling over into public backlash. Gen Z has shown resentment toward the technology, while the data center boom is also being met with hostility from communities and politicians.

It’s also not the first time Karp has spoken critically of the AI industry. He ripped into the leading labs earlier this month in a CNBC interview where he said “something has gone completely wrong” with the AI market.

Karp told Döpfner that while he believed AI would make a lot of people’s lives better, he was skeptical of any framing that AI would be a “plethora of good things” that everyone would profit from.

“The overselling of AI in this country is really, really, really, somewhat disconcerting, but it’s also depressing because you don’t have to do it,” Karp said, describing AI as a “natural resource” with both positive and negative potential.

He also had some choice words about those leading the AI race.

“These are like very oddly-shaped-IQ specimens that you probably wouldn’t want to have over for dinner,” he said. “And if they were over for the dinner, you have nothing to talk to them about. And, by the way, vice versa.”

• Sen. Lindsey Graham died on Sunday at the age of 71.
• The senator’s office confirmed his death after a “sudden illness.”
• Graham was key in shaping Trump-era policies like lower corporate tax rates and tariffs.

Republican lawmaker Lindsey Graham, who died on Saturday at the age of 71, had a major influence on corporate tax rates, tariff policies, and defense spending.

Graham’s office said in a statement on Sunday that the four-term senator died after a “brief and sudden” illness. Graham, an ally of President Donald Trump, had just returned from a trip to Kyiv, where he had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In his 23 years in the Senate, Graham helped shape a protectionist, national-security-driven approach to trade and business-friendly policies that lowered corporate tax rates. His interventionist foreign policy views also translated into support for increased defense spending. Billions of dollars in military spending ultimately flowed to his home state of South Carolina.

Here’s how the late lawmaker impacted American businesses and the US economy.

Corporate taxes

Graham was instrumental in pushing corporate tax cuts through Congress over the last decade. He was a major supporter of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

During Graham’s unsuccessful 2016 run for president, he made cutting corporate taxes a central part of his campaign. During a Republican primary debate in 2015, Graham argued that the corporate tax rate should be lowered to prevent businesses from relocating overseas and to help create jobs for middle-class Americans.

“The best way to grow the middle class is to make it a good place to create a job,” he said during a debate at the time.

During Trump’s second term, Graham, who chaired the Senate Budget Committee, helped clear a path in Congress for the president’s 2025 tax-and-spending package, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, which made permanent many of the corporate tax cuts the two leaders spearheaded in 2017 and restored or expanded other business-friendly policies.

Nine days before his death, the senator published a statement celebrating the first anniversary of making those tax cuts permanent.

“One year ago, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law, delivering the largest tax cut for working and middle-class families in American history,” Graham wrote. “As the Senate Budget Chairman, I was proud to lead this effort alongside my Senate and House Republican colleagues. We also ended taxes on tips and overtime and delivered no taxes on Social Security benefits for over 35 million seniors.”

Fair trade

While a broad supporter of free trade policies, Graham broke from some other Republicans in his calls to use tariffs to punish countries that, in his view, operated unfairly.

In 2005, during his first term in the Senate, Graham called for aggressive tariffs against China for manipulating currency and stealing intellectual property. His views helped influence Trump’s own tariff policies, which became a pillar of his administration’s strategy in his second term.

Graham, like Trump, argued that tariffs should be used as leverage over other governments. Graham supported using tariffs to force countries like Mexico and Canada to increase border security, both as a way to manage illegal immigration and stem the flow of fentanyl into the country.

Trump’s sweeping tariffs ultimately caused some headaches for American businesses, which struggled with supply chain uncertainties and rising prices. And the Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to unilaterally issue sweeping tariffs on US imports was illegal.

In response to that ruling, Graham said it was “undeniable” that the tariffs were having their intended effect.

“One of the chief reasons that our border is so secure is President Trump threatened to put tariffs on countries that were allowing illegal immigrants to pour in through our southern border and held them accountable for the problem,” Graham wrote in a statement. “When it comes to finding fentanyl and other dangerous products coming into the country, President Trump has used tariffs extremely effectively.”

Defense spending

Graham was one of the Senate’s most vocal advocates for increased defense spending.

After the Trump administration outlined its initial 2027 budget plans, which included a total request for $1.5 trillion for the US military, the largest single-year military funding in modern US history and a near 45% increase from the previous year, Graham called Trump “second to none” on national security.

“President Trump’s budget is truly historic when it comes to defense spending. It is the most robust increase in defense spending in many years, and it is more than justified by the threats we face throughout the world,” he wrote in a statement in April.

Graham’s support for robust defense spending stemmed from his interventionist views on national security. He supported the Iraq war and opposed the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He supported Ukraine and called for sweeping sanctions and tariffs on Russia, as well as any country buying Russian oil. He also backed military support for Israel and the continuing war on Iran.

His support for military spending also benefited his home state of South Carolina, which grew a large military footprint during Graham’s time in the Senate. In 2024, South Carolina received nearly $7 billion in military spending through things like payroll, contracts, and construction, according to the Defense Department.

A 2022 state-commissioned study found that the military supported over 250,000 jobs in the states and generated an annual economic impact of some $35 billion.

Federal defense dollars have supported major bases, nuclear-weapons work, and aviation manufacturing in South Carolina. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Graham pushed money toward construction and military programs that helped secure and expand bases like Fort Jackson and Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.

In 2023, Graham said his work to bring military spending to South Carolina “will pay dividends for our state for years to come.”