Glossier Exit Theories, Zelensky’s D.C. Slog, Mooch’s Megadonor Murmurs

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon dispatch featuring Puck’s sharpest reporting.

First up today, Bill Cohan shrewdly dissects the latest twists in David Zaslav’s evolution from the toast of Hollywood to its favorite villain. With WBD’s two-year restriction on major M&A expiring next month, can Zaz rewrite the narrative?

Plus, below the fold: Dylan Byers delves into the twin dramas consuming Hudson Yards and the Beverly Hills crowd: Musk vs. Lemon and the Kassan-UTA imbroglio. Rachel Strugatz scoops how Glossier is prepping for an acquisition. Julia Ioffe relays the Blob’s anxieties over Ukraine’s ability to hold the line. Tina Nguyen chronicles TikTok’s tone-deaf influence campaign. On Somebody’s Gotta Win, Tara Palmeri and Anthony Scaramucci dig into the shifting priorities of Wall Street’s megadonors. And on The Powers That Be, Teddy Schleifer joins Peter Hamby to scrutinize Jeff Yass’s attempts to salvage his ByteDance investment, while Ben Landy and Abby Livingston offer a postmortem on the Biden impeachment inquiry.

WILLIAM D. COHAN

In two short years, David Zaslav has gone from the toast of Hollywood to its favorite villain—the caricature of an overpaid, wannabe mogul who can’t see past the next quarter’s earnings. With the restrictions of WBD’s original Reverse Morris Trust structure set to expire, can he rewrite his script? It all comes down to debt maturities and Max.

DYLAN BYERS

News and notes on the two biggest stories roiling Beverly Hills and Hudson Yards: the UTA-Kassan lawsuit and Don Lemon’s unceremonious defenestration.

RACHEL STRUGATZ

Glossier, perhaps the most iconic consumer beauty brand of its generation, felt all the feels of startup life: boffo fundraising, a market correction, and recalibrated post-wunderkind success. Now it may finally be ready for its exit.

JULIA IOFFE

Running low on ammunition and soldiers, and with U.S. aid held hostage by politics, Ukraine is struggling to withstand the Russian siege. But the outcome of the war isn’t written in stone—yet. If it can hold on until 2025, when more military capacity will finally come online, Ukraine might not win back all its territory, but it might very well not lose.