By Kishor Napier-Raman and Tom Cowie
Regular consumers of News Corp’s content would know that corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is just the kind of thing that sends its columnists and presenters into paroxysms of fury.
In fact, just last week, Sky News ran a piece from reporter Caroline Marcus declaring the ABC’s own DEI measures “radical activist rubbish”. But forget the after-dark bluster.
When it comes to turning 15 minutes of fame into a financially viable career, Raygun has all the right moves.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Next week, the Australian arm of the Murdoch media empire is set to host its third annual diversity, equity and inclusion event. And you know the company is taking it seriously because it’s secured the services of Australia’s most successful cultural export of 2024 just for the occasion. We’re talking, of course, about Olympic breakdancer Rachael “Raygun” Gunn, whose routine at the Paris Games spawned a million memes, and who has now clearly arrived on the motivational speaker circuit.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Olympian Rachael Gunn (aka Raygun) as our special guest, who will share her journey and explore the powerful role that community, connection and belonging have played in her life, as well as the importance of staying true to yourself,” an email invite seen by CBD read.
We were desperate to know whether that might include busting a few moves, but neither News Corp nor Raygun’s people got back to us.
As this masthead reported, Raygun has recently signed with Born Bred Talent, and is hoping to turn her 15 seconds of virality into something more permanent, already starting to ink a few brand deals.
“If I get an opportunity that resonates with my values and personality, then yeah, let’s work together,” she told our colleague Thomas Mitchell last week.
We sure didn’t think that would bring her to Holt Street for a pep talk on diversity. But viral fame leads people to some strange places.
Jeddah plane
Some times you have to kiss the ring, whether it’s that of a billionaire or the all-powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India.
CBD’s eyebrows were raised at the news that cricket legends Ricky Ponting and Justin Langer were spending just one day in the Seven commentary box of the first Test in Perth against India before jetting off to the Indian Premier League’s mega-auction, which is being held in Saudi Arabia because money.
What would Richie Benaud make of it all, we wonder?
Anyway, we hear that there is another event taking place out west in a mining town that means Punter and JL can’t just skip the match entirely and go straight to Jeddah to sharpen their bidding paddles.
Seven West Media chairman Kerry Stokes is hosting a party at Crown in Burswood on Thursday night, bringing together sport and media identities, including Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley, to toast the start of the men’s red-ball season.
It’s an important time for Seven, as Friday heralds the first Test match of the network’s new $1.5 billion rights deal with Foxtel taking it to 2030.
That brought an end to acrimonious legal action between CA and Seven over the quality of the white-ball competition, the Big Bash League.
Thanks to the IPL, things will get off to a chaotic start.
Sharing the love
What’s good for Donald Trump is good for the world’s richest manbaby Elon Musk. And what’s good for Musk is good for Tesla’s Australian chair Robyn Denholm, the woman who has the enviable job of nodding politely while the company’s squillionaire CEO posts questionable memes on social media platform X and taking the odd bit of ketamine.
Thanks to Musk’s very public bromance with the president-elect, who appointed the Tesla boss to co-lead his Department of Government Efficiency, the electric car maker’s stock has skyrocketed 38 per cent since election day.
And like Musk, Denholm is also riding the Trump Bump. Thanks to an impeccably well-timed share sale, she’s $US35.3 million ($53 million) richer. According to a recent filing, last week, Denholm exercised 112,390 stock options that were set to expire next year, as part of a trading plan she set up in July this year. How very fortuitous.
It is far from Denholm’s first fortuitous sale of Tesla options. She once described the $US280 million windfall she made from selling Tesla stock in 2021 and 2022 as delivering her “life-changing” wealth.
But in January this year, those comments were picked up on by Delaware Chancery Court judge Kathaleen McCormick, in a scathing ruling voiding Musk’s obscene $US56 billion pay package, as evidence that Denholm was too close to the chief executive. Tesla is seeking to overturn that ruling, while Musk has effectively declared war on the state of Delaware.
In her judgment, McCormick accused Denholm of taking a “lackadaisical approach” to corporate governance at Tesla. Denholm hit back in a recent FT interview.
“That is crap,” she said.
“I had to look up that word … I will tell you, anybody who knows me knows that I am not lackadaisical, now that I know what that word means.”
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