Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon roundup of Puck’s best new reporting. First up today, Bill Cohan gets on the horn with Bill Ackman, the singular hedge fund manager and social media fiend, to discuss his latest attempt at Wall Street immortality: converting the Howard Hughes Corporation, a fairly successful real estate developer, into his own version of Berkshire Hathaway… and becoming a next-gen Warren Buffett himself. Plus, below the fold: Dylan Byers charts Rebecca Kutler’s circuitous path to MSNBC president. Rachel Strugatz investigates fashion’s dupe market and Charlotte Tilbury’s surprising counteroffensive. And exclusively for Inner Circle members, Marion Maneker shares his tête-à-tête with Rome-based private art dealer Mattia De Luca about the highly anticipated Giorgio Morandi exhibition at Zwirner. Meanwhile, on the podcasts: Tara Palmeri huddles up with Democratic super PAC president Pat Dennis on Somebody’s Gotta Win to exchange notes on the media coverage of Trump’s cabinet noms. And on The Powers That Be, Eriq Gardner joins Peter Hamby to explore Trump’s eleventh-hour options to save TikTok and Drake’s perplexing defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group.

On Monday, the irrepressible hedge fund manager Bill Ackman unveiled his latest plan to become the Gen X Warren Buffett: turning the Howard Hughes Corporation—a publicly traded real estate developer in which Ackman and his affiliated entities own a 38 percent stake—into his own version of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s publicly traded investment vehicle. Ackman’s plan, he explained to Bill Cohan, is to increase his stake in Howard Hughes to between 61 and 69.2 percent through a combination of a new $1 billion investment from himself and his partners, and a simultaneous $500 million corporate share repurchase plan. That would allow Howard Hughes to acquire other businesses, buy stakes in other companies, issue new debt and equity securities to bolster his access to capital, and harvest the output of Howard Hughes’s cash-generating machine. But don’t pop the champagne just yet… Read Now

This week—as had long been anticipated—Mark Lazarus, the NBCUniversal Media Group chairman and prospective C.E.O. of Comcast’s soon-to-be-spun-off cable portfolio, SpinCo, announced that Rashida Jones would be stepping down as MSNBC president, and that Rebecca Kutler would take over as interim leader. Of course, Kutler’s appointment doesn’t change that much about the long-term trajectory of MSNBC, as the network ventures beyond the borders of the Comcast/NBCU empire and into the SpinCo wilderness. But Kutler’s ascension signals real programming ambition at a time when most broadcast and cable networks are simply managing decline. Kutler—Jeff Zucker’s onetime heir apparent at CNN—will now be responsible for managing that decline, along with the inevitable talent anxieties along the way. Read Now

“Dupes”—cheaper versions of expensive items that mostly look and feel the same—will always be a feature of the fashion industry. And they’re especially ubiquitous in makeup, skincare, and fragrance, where the public is often seeking a more affordable alternative to whatever highlighter or perfume is trending. To wit: MCoBeauty, an Australian cosmetic and beauty brand, will soon sell a $15 knockoff of industry-leading Charlotte Tilbury’s nearly $50 Hollywood Flawless Filter. But as Rachel reports, that hasn’t gone over well with Charlotte Tilbury—both the brand and its eponymous founder, who has been especially outspoken about this latest iteration of the dupe market. But is this actually an insidious market phenomenon, or is it finally democratizing the beauty counter? Read Now

Last fall, some 10,000 visitors attended Time Suspended, part II, private dealer Mattia De Luca’s show of Giorgio Morandi’s work, in a townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. That show was the result of De Luca’s lifelong fascination with the Italian painter and printmaker, and built upon his earlier show Time Suspended, which was held in Rome in 2022. As Marion notes in this sprawling conversation with the dealer, on the eve of a highly anticipated exhibition of Morandi’s work at David Zwirner, Morandi is a connoisseur’s artist. Here, De Luca reflects on Time Suspended, part II and the enduring appeal of an artist who made entire universes out of everyday items. Read Now

Tara is joined by Pat Dennis, president of the Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, to discuss the viability of Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees and the media’s role in exposing their inefficiencies to the American public. They illuminate the dark world of political opposition research, speculate on which of Trump’s controversial picks will make it through confirmation, and debate the effectiveness of mainstream news on the modern voter. Listen Now

Eriq Gardner joins Peter for an in-depth discussion on the looming Sunday deadline for TikTok’s ban or forced sale, exploring Trump’s potential solutions to save the app. The conversation then shifts to Drake’s baffling lawsuit against his record label, Universal Music Group, sparked by Kendrick Lamar’s now-iconic diss record “Not Like Us.” Eriq breaks down the complexities of proving defamation in creative works and speculates on the likelihood of this high-profile case ever reaching the courtroom. Listen Now

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