Martha Stewart, insider trading, and political ambition
Good morning.
Over the weekend, I watched the Martha Stewart documentary on Netflix – which she hates. I was surprised to hear my voice – presumably ripped from an earlier documentary or news report – doing part of the voiceover a few times near the start. (The producers didn’t credit me, in much the same way that the producers of The Greatest Night in Pop paid a pittance for access to tapes that my friend David Breskin recorded in the studio and ended up using them to essentially carry the whole film.)
But I digress. This is a column about Martha, who had her career and her company ripped away from her for a crime that—in my opinion—should never have gone to court. I argued at the time that the government was going after “America’s Homemaker” with a baseball bat because she’d acted on a tip from her broker that CEO Sam Waksul was selling his ImClone stock and then tried to cover the dubious crime in a panic. (I wrote a cover story on Martha for BusinessWeek as she was taking her company public.)
The person who led the investigation and brought charges against Martha was James Comey, then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Because that jurisdiction covers Wall Street, whoever occupies the role essentially acts as the federal government’s chief prosecutor of white-collar criminals. It’s been a launch pad for many ambitious prosecutors, including Rudy Giuliani. (Eliot Spitzer clerked there and took on Wall Street from Albany, as New York’s Attorney General.)
Comey, of course, was famously fired as FBI director in 2017 by the then-President Donald Trump. He also impacted the course of the 2016 election by sending an open letter to Congress, implying Hillary Clinton might be indicted for sending emails from a private server just days before that election. (She was not.)
Martha Stewart was at the top of her game with a billion-dollar brand that was a role model for multiplatform journalism and commerce. She was the original influencer and an attractive target for anyone trying to make a name for themselves. Did she suffer from hubris and a sense of entitlement? Perhaps. Did she deserve to go to jail for what she did—and forever lose the right to run her company? No.
There’s another lesson, too, in seeing how an aggressive prosecutor motivated by factors other than fairness can wreak havoc on the lives of the people they go after. I think about that as I look out at the choices being made by the incoming Administration – and hope we don’t see more people targeted for who they are, instead of what they’ve done.
More news below.
Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
Follow on LinkedIn
TOP NEWS
The Musk-ification of Bastrop, Texas
Three businesses in Elon Musk’s empire — Starlink, The Boring Co., and X — have made Bastrop, Texas, their home base, bringing new money, neighbors, and attention to the small ranch town. Fortune’s Jessica Mathews traveled to Bastrop to speak with residents and community leaders about Musk’s presence and the future of the town.
Trump appears serious on tariffs
Sources tell the Financial Times over the weekend that the incoming Trump administration is making sure candidates for Treasury secretary support the significant tariffs the president-elect campaigned on. Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick has already been endorsed by Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Chinese fast-food mogul watches customers
Joey Wat, the CEO of Yum China — the company behind the Chinese versions of KFC China and Taco Bell — credits part of KFC China’s success to her practice of sitting in the restaurants and watching what customers enjoy. Wat says the strategy has led to some of the restaurant’s most popular dishes.
AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
Tom Brady schooled an auditorium full of CEOs on how to unlock greatness, even if you’re not a natural star by Geoff Colvin
From biopharma to real estate to shipping, top CEOs insist AI is worth the hype by Jane Thier
Warren Buffett dumped Bank of America, but the stock may boom under Trump by Greg McKenna
Lightyear Capital seeks buyer for legal tech company ProfitSolv by Luisa Beltran
Despite the return-to-office push, loan delinquencies surpassed 10% for the first time in more than a decade by Alena Botros
Even if RFK Jr. fires everyone at the FDA, it won’t matter because he doesn’t know anyone with the ‘technical expertise’ to alter the rules, former chief counsel says by Sasha Rogelberg
Turns out finance bros, HR managers and entrepreneurs are exactly what you think they are, researchers find by Chloe Berger
This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Joey Abrams.
