Elon’s Civil War & A Hollywood Reckoning

Maverick’s Hoop Dreams, Greta’s Netflix Win, Red Carpet Sponsor Woes

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon compilation of Puck’s best new reporting. First up today, Matt Belloni, Peter Hamby, and John Heilemann offer their broad-spectrum reflections on the catastrophe in Los Angeles: Will soon-to-be-president Trump do anything to rectify the crisis? What’s Hollywood’s role in helping the city recover? And is Karen Bass’s political career truly cooked? Plus, below the fold: John Ourand chronicles Maverick Carter’s fever dream of launching an NBA-adjacent international basketball league. Tara Palmeri gets the dirt on MAGA’s Elon Musk agita. Matt breaks more news about Greta Gerwig’s big Netflix concession. And in her Inner Circle-exclusive send, Lauren Sherman reveals a potent source of anxiety consuming the fashion industry in the aftermath of the L.A. fires. Meanwhile, on the podcasts: NBC News’ Jacob Soboroff joins Dylan Byers on The Grill Room to recount his experience covering the fires, which claimed his childhood home. On The Town, Matt and Digital Futures’s Warner Bailey consider the underappreciated role that assistants play in the Hollywood ecosystem. On Impolitic, John and Scott Galloway discuss Biden’s farewell warning about the tech-industrial complex. On Fashion People, Lauren chats with Brother Vellies founder Aurora James about how she’s mobilizing to support Black-owned businesses affected by the fires. And on The Powers That Be, Bill Cohan connects with Peter to speculate on Musk’s self-indulgent foray into politics.

HOLLYWOOD

Matthew Belloni

Peter Hamby

John Heilemann

L.A., to Hell and Back

The devastating fires in Los Angeles have become a story defined by politics (local and national), the media, tech platforms, powerful moguls, and Hollywood itself, given the number of entertainment people who have been impacted. To chew over all the angles, Matt rang up two of his Puck partners—Peter Hamby, who lives in Venice Beach, and John Heilemann, who grew up in L.A.—for a frank conversation about next steps. The trio discussed who in Hollywood might emerge as a leader in the recovery, whether the new administration in Washington will help or hinder that effort, and which political careers will crumble in the aftermath. Read Now

SPORTS

John Ourand

Maverick Ball

When Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund launched LIV, its PGA competitor, a little more than three years ago, professional golf was ripe for disruption. Now, the industry is buzzing about the next sport that could see a LIV-style competitor. Many sports media executives and investors have pointed to professional basketball, given that so many of the sport’s top young stars hail from outside America. Proponents of this theory received a boost when Maverick Carter, LeBron’s longtime wingman and business partner, shocked the sports world with the news that he was attempting to raise $5 billion to take on the NBA. Is this a new LIV, basketball’s version of F1, or something more quixotic? Read Now

WASHINGTON

Tara Palmeri

Can Elon & Trump Go the Distance?

Veiled animosity toward Elon Musk is one of the few things uniting the left and right these days, after Musk enraged the MAGA base with his vow to “fight to the death” to expand the H-1B visa program and bring more high-skilled foreign tech workers to America. Indeed, between the H-1B visa scrape and Steve Bannon’s attempt to drive a wedge between Musk and Trump’s MAGA loyalists, many inside Mar-a-Lago are wondering just how long this political and ideological tryst can last. While Musk sits at the epicenter of power, there’s a strain of suspicion toward him among Trump’s original disciples—specifically, the white working-class coalition, which are a different breed than the Musk-led legion of supporters who converted for Trump in 2024. Many believe that the world’s richest man is undercutting the people who keep the trains running in Trumpworld, and yet Musk’s wealth and staggering influence has insulated him from a reckoning with the broader MAGA faithful… at least for now. Read Now

HOLLYWOOD

Matthew Belloni

Greta Gerwig’s ‘Narnia’ Release Plans Finally Revealed

Netflix co-C.E.O. Ted Sarandos has finally and officially agreed to an exclusive Imax run for Greta Gerwig’s big-budget Narnia movie, based on the beloved books by C.S. Lewis. The film will hit about 1,000 Imax screens worldwide on Thanksgiving Day 2026, and will not appear on Netflix until Christmas. Plus—and this was a key concession—Netflix has committed to marketing the Imax release like a typical theatrical tentpole and identifying Narnia as a “Netflix/Imax” title from the outset. This is a big, precedent-setting deal months in the making. But which other filmmakers will demand and receive the “Greta treatment”? Read Now

FASHION

Lauren Sherman

The Fires, Fashion & The Red Carpet

Lauren investigates an intriguing source of drama consuming the fashion industry in the aftermath of the tragedy in Los Angeles: the anxiety that Hollywood’s A-listers won’t R.S.V.P. for the upcoming shows in New York, Milan, Paris, and London. The fires, Lauren notes, have impacted an already scrambled fashion calendar, and are likely to dampen movie star attendance in Europe—a significant setback for designers and fashion houses that increasingly depend on high-profile celebrities to sustain the evolving fashion-celebrity symbiosis. “The big houses are concerned,” one C-suite luxury executive confided. Read Now

MEDIA

Dylan Byers

Inside the L.A. Firestorm

NBC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff joins Dylan to share his unique experience covering the devastating Los Angeles fires, which destroyed his childhood home in Pacific Palisades. Then, as Trump’s inauguration looms with ambitious deportation plans, Jacob provides an inside look at his extensive reporting on immigration at the border. Listen Now

HOLLYWOOD

Matthew Belloni

Is Hollywood Assistant Life Still Insane?

Matt is joined by Warner Bailey to talk about one of the most underdiscussed yet crucial pieces of the Hollywood ecosystem: the assistant. Warner surveyed tens of thousands of currently employed assistants in the entertainment business to answer questions about their current salary, how the job has changed over the years, whether they’d want to be their boss one day, whether they’ve ever been asked to do something against their morals, and who the most frightening agent in Hollywood is. Matt wraps up the show with box office predictions for the opening weekend of Wolf Man and One of Them Days. Listen Now

WASHINGTON

John Heilemann

Scott Galloway: Oligarchy or Bust

John is joined by Scott Galloway to discuss the impending tech bro tableau at Donald Trump’s inauguration and Joe Biden’s warning about America’s incipient transformation into an oligarchy. Galloway—professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, host of the Pivot and Prof G podcasts, and bestselling author—argues that the U.S. isn’t just turning into an oligarchy but a kleptocracy as well; that Mark Zuckerberg’s rollback of content moderation and other safeguards on Facebook will be far more socially damaging than what Elon Musk has done to X; and that Musk is all but guaranteed to crush Steve Bannon in the escalating battle between the two men. Scott and John also wax lyrical about the joys of Great Dane parenthood and the brilliance of David Lynch (R.I.P.). Listen Now

FASHION

Lauren Sherman

Fashion and the Fires

Lauren rings up her old pal, Brother Vellies founder Aurora James, to discuss how James’s nonprofit, the Fifteen Percent Pledge, is mobilizing to support Black-owned businesses affected by the fires, and what fashion brands can do for people out in Los Angeles. Aurora is also the vice chair of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. In recent years, she also partnered with investment fund VMG on the Parity Collective, which funds Black startups. All that said, she knows her stuff and has some great insights into what’s happening out here. Lauren also rounds up the best of this week’s Line Sheet, from the Proenza Schouler bombshell(s) to Charlotte Tilbury’s dupe war. Listen Now

WASHINGTON

Peter Hamby

William D. Cohan

The Powers that Be Daily, Starring Peter Hamby

The Musk-Trump Bromantasy

Bill Cohan joins Peter to speculate on the longevity of the Musk-Trump bromance, as the two titanic egomaniacs seem destined for an inevitable clash. They also delve into how long Musk’s self-indulgent foray into the political arena can persist, given the weight of his responsibilities running a multitude of high-maintenance companies like Tesla, X, SpaceX, and others. Listen Now

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