• Photographer Whitney Boykin rents out her home each year for the Masters golf tournament.
• Boykin, her husband, and their two kids pile into an RV while guests stay in their home.
• They spend $5,000 getting the house ready, but the eight-day booking pays their mortgage for a year.

This week, golf's greatest stars descend on the tiny city of Augusta, Georgia, in pursuit of the famous green jacket awarded to winners of the Masters Tournament.

It's also time for photographer Whitney Boykin and her family to pile into their camper to make way for the guests renting their home in North Augusta, South Carolina.

"I'm one of the rare locals who says I love Masters week. I just want visitors to see how amazing it is here," Boykin told Business Insider.

Boykin and other locals rent out their properties to golfers and visitors directly, on Airbnb, or via other platforms. In the city of Augusta alone, the number of rentals jumped from 725 in March 2024 to 1,700 in April 2024, data from short-term-rental analytics site AirDNA shows. The average revenue for rentals in the city jumped from $2,700 in March 2024 to $5,300 in April 2024, AirDNA found.

While Boykin declined to share exactly how much she makes, she said it's enough to cover the family's mortgage payments for a year. This is the seventh year the family is renting out their house for the Masters.

As of April 4, homes similar to Boykin's listed on Airbnb were available to rent from about $9,000 a week to $28,000 a week.

For Boykin, one week of sleeping in a camper with her husband, their two kids, their cat, and their dog is more than worth it. Take a look inside the home they rent out during the Masters.

Whitney Boykin and her family moved into their North Augusta, South Carolina home in December 2020.

The house, just over the state line from Georgia, has five bedrooms, three full bathrooms, two half bathrooms, and a large outdoor space designed for entertaining.

The home is a 12-minute drive to Augusta National Golf Course. But during Masters week, traffic adds up to about 30 minutes.

Boykin said she passes the Augusta National Golf Club when she drives her kids to school.

"The rest of the year, it's just not that big of a deal," she said.

Boykin said many North Augusta locals rent out their homes for the Masters and use the money to go on vacation for a week.

Area schools typically schedule spring break to sync up with the tournament.

"Everyone looks forward to this because it's great money," Boykin told Business Insider.

In the past, Boykin has used Airbnb and Vrbo to rent out the home. There is even a local rental agency dedicated to the event called the Masters Housing Bureau.

For the past two years, Boykin's family has rented their house to a Texas company that brings its employees to the tournament.

Boykin was connected with the company through a local friend.

In January each year, Boykin starts to think about getting the house ready for the Masters. The family spends about $5,000 to prepare it for renters.

"Once the Christmas lights get put away, it's time to get ready," she said.

Preparations include pressure-washing the facade, adding new landscaping, and getting the home professionally deep-cleaned.

Boykin stores all her seasonal Masters gear in a section of the attic that's off-limits to the rest of the family.

She keeps paraphernalia including flags, pillows, and golf supplies with the Masters logo locked away for most the year, along with special sets of crisp, white linens for the bedrooms.

"My kids know which sheets are Masters ones. We don't touch them," she said.

Guests arrive the Sunday before the tournament begins and pay for an eight-day stay that includes the Monday after the finals.

Local schools have extended spring break, Boykin added, with kids returning to the classroom on the Tuesday after the tournament.

Boykin likes to check on the home twice during the week to clean and make sure everything is OK.

Boykin said cleaning visits are more for her peace of mind because they've rarely had issues. Visitors in town for the Masters often try to maximize their time at the golf course.

"They're not spending a lot of time in our home," Boykin said. "They take care of our things better than we do."

Other families renting out their homes travel, but Boykin's family stays in an RV for Masters week.

Boykin's husband, who works in the car industry, is especially busy in early April.

This year, the family will park the RV at a local equestrian facility that has dozens of walking trails.

Boykin's family first stayed in a camper one year when their home was still accidentally listed for rent in July.

Out-of-towners rented their house for a youth basketball tournament called Peach Jam.

Even though the family had no plans to rent out their house for any time other than the Masters, Boykin said her husband felt it was worth it.

He drove to Myrtle Beach to pick up an RV he found online so the family could honor the booking.

Boykin added that he told her it would allow them to take "an extra vacation."

• China hit the US with a 125% tariff on imports on Friday.
• The move is the latest in a series of tit-for-tat tariff increases.
• China's finance ministry accused the US of "bullying and coercion."

China hit back at the US with a 125% tariff on imports on Friday, the latest escalation in the trade war between the two superpowers sparked by President Donald Trump's trade tariffs.

"The US's imposition of abnormally high tariffs on China seriously violates international economic and trade rules, basic economic laws and common sense, and is completely a unilateral bullying and coercion," China's finance ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The new tariffs will come into effect on Saturday, the ministry said.

Previously, China had said the tariff rate on US imports would be 84%, a level imposed on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Trump's White House clarified that the combined tariff rate being imposed on China was 145%, not the 125% that had previously been reported.

Earlier in the week, Trump announced that he would pause a large swathe of his tariffs for 90 days, though many — including tariffs on China — remained in effect.

"At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.

China's announcement of fresh retaliatory tariffs pushed European stocks lower on Friday after earlier gains.

Britain's benchmark FTSE 100 was down 0.6% at 9:45 a.m. local time (4:45 a.m. ET), having been up by close to 1% earlier. Europe's broad Stoxx 600 fell 0.9%.

US futures were trading a little lower, with the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all set to open about 0.7% lowe.

This is a developing story. Please refresh for further updates.

Two hours into a red-eye flight from Singapore to Sydney, I'm about to lose it. My 6-foot-3 frame is crammed into a seat barely big enough for a toddler. To my right, a pensioner is snoring like a buzz saw, releasing pungent plumes of a half-digested tuna fish sandwich. It brings to mind the famous quote from the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre: Hell is other people. Only I'm quite sure Sartre never had to endure the middle seat in economy.

Deeply exhausted and slightly nauseous, I reach for a YouTube video I've watched countless times, and switch from tuning out to tuning in.

"Hi there," it begins. "I'm Doctor Webber, and I'll be doing your eye test today."

For the next 10 minutes — and then longer, as I play it on repeat — a soothing female voice leads me through an ophthalmology exam, speaking at just above a whisper. Waves of goosebumps move across my body as she inquires about my family history of glaucoma and commands me to "follow the light with your eye" — though her precise words are beside the point. Once again, my sanity had been saved by ASMR.

I'm not alone in turning to the calming, repetitive blandness of ASMR to endure the misery of modern flight. About one in five travelers say they rely on audiovisual content that's designed to generate an autonomous sensory meridian response — a sort of low-grade euphoria known as "tingles" — to cope with overbooked flights, unruly travelers, lost luggage, and absurdly cramped seating. My own video of choice has half a million views, and YouTube offerings that mix ASMR with the friendly sounds of air travel — the gently whirring engines, the soothing voice from the cockpit — register in the millions.

In the past few years, the airlines have started getting in on the action. JetBlue released AirSMR, a nine-minute audio experience that captures what the narrator introduces as "the calming sounds of the airport," like rolling suitcases and a beverage being slurped through a straw. Delta, noting the popularity of the ASMR trend among its millennial and Gen Z passengers, released a 13-hour video on TikTok, to commemorate the debut of its direct flight from Los Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand. Your carrier might not be able to get you to your destination on time, but they're happy to offer you some ASMR peanuts while you're stuck on the runway.

"I've been chasing ambient noise similar to that of being in the air," one YouTube commenter gushed. "This is heaven on earth to me."

Some of the most elaborate videos are those offered on the Whispering Wings ASMR channel on YouTube. The videos, some of which are 11 hours long, are designed to mirror actual flight paths from the point of view of a passenger and feature audio and hyperrealistic cabin visuals captured from online flight simulators. Whispering Wings even records its own pilot announcements, and pairs them with real-life communications from air traffic control. The goal is to help travelers focus on the sounds of flying that might be considered more calming, without all the crying babies and irate passengers. "I've never felt this at peace on a plane before," a commenter wrote about one Whispering Wings video, which follows an eight-hour trip from Toronto to Frankfurt, Germany.

Still, for all of ASMR's popularity among frequent flyers, the weirdness factor has kept it from going fully mainstream. "I find it's still kept quite hush-hush," says Sasha Mukerjea, an events marketer and frequent traveler who uses ASMR to relax her nerves. "Some people find the phenomena baffling."

I've been experiencing ASMR "tingles" since I was a kid. My family moved frequently before finally settling in Singapore, and I used to seek out sources of white noise as a way to relax. Once ASMR videos became available, I started consuming them like aspirin.

The specific ASMR "triggers" we respond to are as personal as our taste in food. Tuning into a certain sound — someone chomping into a pickle, say — may gross one person out while causing waves of pleasant chills in others. But while the term ASMR is relatively new, researchers say the response itself is as old as time. When we respond to soothing sounds, our brains are flooded with dopamine and oxytocin, the so-called love hormone, creating a feeling of euphoria that's been referred to as "braingasms."

"ASMR can be very helpful to decrease the stress of traveling," says Craig Richard, a professor of biopharmaceutical sciences at Shenandoah University who partnered with JetBlue on the airline's ASMR content. Still, he says, more study is needed to better understand what content works best on flights, since the increased pressure from high altitudes on the inner ear can dampen the body's receptiveness to ASMR.

ASMR videos aren't the only way to use the sounds of air travel to make the experience of air travel less stressful. I've found that tuning into even the most fleeting triggers, like the ding of the "fasten seatbelts" sign, can help induce a state of relaxation, helping to lower my heart rate and provide me with a sense of calm. As Richard explains it, these short sounds, if tied to warm memories, may trigger a kind of Pavlovian response that can stimulate ASMR by "reminding someone of pleasant travel experiences."

I remember trying this DIY version of ASMR during a flight to London. It was my first trip to Europe since the pandemic, and the indignity of modern travel seemed like a small price to pay for a vacation I'd been craving. For the first few hours of the flight, everything was hunky-dory. Then, three rows ahead of me, a baby started wailing. My iPhone was out of juice, so I couldn't reach for my tried-and-true ASMR video. I tried to drown out the noise by cranking up the volume on "Casino Royale," the in-flight movie I was watching. But not even 007, with his license to kill, could silence the ceaseless cries.

Then I noticed that the two passengers to my right were speaking slowly and softly in a language I couldn't make out. By focusing on their voices, I was able to restore my calm.

Mukerjea, the events marketer who relies on ASMR to travel, recalls a similar experience. When bad weather extended her layover in Delhi, at one of the world's busiest airports, she found herself overwhelmed by "the blistering fluorescence and relentless tide of people." So she began zeroing in on sounds that felt more calming. "Instead of getting lost in the chaos, I leaned into the rhythmic undercurrent," she recalls. As she listened to "the murmur of voices, the soft rolling of suitcases over tiled floors," the stress of yet another travel nightmare left her body.

Once in the air, Mukerjea favors what the ASMR community calls "unintentional" videos — those not specifically tagged as ASMR. "I avoid overly refined ASMR videos and prefer something more real: walking tours through quiet villages, the crunch of gravel underfoot, and sounds of the wind rustling through a harvest field," Mukerjea says. "These natural sounds pull me beyond the cabin, making my journey feel less confined."

Like every quirky subculture, ASMR airheads revel in meeting a fellow traveler. "Every time someone finds out about ASMR and comments on one of my videos, there is a sense of intense relief and happiness to finally find fellow people that 'get it,'" says Ilse Blansert, whose YouTube channel boasts millions of views. "It really feels like it unites us and makes us closer, because we had this incredibly human experience in common."

My own embrace of ASMR has improved not only my flights but also the rest of my vacations. My ability to identify triggers in the wild, and then to dial into them as a way to reduce my stress, is something I often lean on as I explore new places and experiences. It's also made me a better travel companion to my wife, who's much more easygoing than I am.

In 2023, our honeymoon in Japan coincided with a ferocious heat wave. Pounded by hundred-degree temperatures, we bravely — some would say stupidly — decided to take a three-hour midday walk in Kyoto's Arashiyama Bamboo Forest. Airless and humid, the heat was even worse in the park than in the city. I found myself bathed in green light and heavy sweat as the sun knifed through the leaves, wishing I could be anyplace cooler.

I was starving, cranky, and seconds from snapping at my new bride — not a great start to the honeymoon. Then, out of desperation, I turned to ASMR. I stopped listening to my heavy, annoyed breathing and zeroed in on the wall of sound that I'd been ignoring for hours: the steady chorus of the cicada. Almost like magic, I was hit by a wave of goosebumps — and gratitude for the music of the moment. I came to a standstill and just listened, appreciating for the first time the bamboo forest that towered 65 feet above our heads.

"Why have you stopped, hon?" my wife asked. "Tired?"

"No," I said. "Just tingling."

Daniel Seifert is a freelance writer. He lives in Singapore.

• Americans who secretly work multiple remote jobs are finding ways to reduce their tax burdens.
• Some said establishing an S-Corp and maxing out their 401(k)s are among their top tax strategies.
• Others contribute to charities or deduct business expenses from their incomes.

Damien has secretly worked multiple remote jobs, earning six figures on and off for years. To reduce his hefty tax burden, he's used several strategies, including maxing out his 401(k).

Damien, who works in IT support, is on track to earn $386,000 this year from three full-time remote jobs, two of which are 1099 contractor roles. The earnings from his contract positions flow to an LLC he established in 2022, which he elected to be taxed as an S Corporation. This helps him reduce the amount he owes in self-employment taxes, he said.

"Tax wise, it's a substantial difference," said Damien, whose identity was verified by Business Insider but who asked to use a pseudonym, citing a fear of professional repercussions. "I would have to guess it's tens of thousands of dollars that I'm saving."

Damien is among the Americans who have secretly juggled multiple remote jobs to boost their incomes and who have found strategies to reduce their tax burdens. Others make charitable donations and deduct business expenses from their incomes. Over the past two years, BI has interviewed more than two dozen "overemployed" workers who've used their additional earnings to travel the world, buy weight-loss drugs, and pay down debt.

Six job jugglers shared their experiences on the condition that pseudonyms would be used, for fear of professional repercussions. BI has verified their identities and earnings.

To be sure, what works for these job jugglers may not make sense for everyone. Tax professionals can provide advice for specific situations.

S-corps and business deductions help job jugglers reduce their taxes

John, who works in IT, earned more than $300,000 in 2023 secretly working two remote jobs. His earnings from one contract job flow into his S-Corp, which he also uses to deduct business expenses, reducing his taxable income.

Business expenses include software subscriptions to ChatGPT, online programming courses, and the home office deduction, which allows him to deduct $5 per square foot of his home office.

"If I needed a new computer desk or chair, I'd run that through my business," said John, who is based in California.

To reduce his taxable income further, John said he donates to charitable organizations and makes significant 401(k) contributions.

Harrison also has an S-Corp, but his tax situation is more complicated. Harrison has six full-time remote jobs as a quality assurance professional in the IT sector and estimates he'll earn roughly $800,000 this year. He's built a team of seven workers who help him complete his duties.

Three of Harrison's jobs are contract roles, and he said the income for these flows into his S-Corp, which he said helps reduce his taxable income.

Lisa Greene-Lewis, a CPA and tax expert with TurboTax, said that S-Corps can help people legally reduce the amount they owe in self-employment taxes. Individuals are required to pay themselves a "reasonable" salary — which is subject to employment taxes — but then can take additional distributions from profits their companies generate that are not subject to these taxes. But she said there are limits to an S-Corp's tax benefits.

"In the eyes of the IRS, you could not pay yourself a majority of your business income to avoid more self-employment taxes," she said, adding, "If you pay yourself too little, the IRS could determine the amount they think you should be paid based on your business profit."

She added that S-Corp owners tend to have more tax prep-related expenses and must file a business tax return by March 1st, rather than the April 15 deadline for personal tax returns.

Despite the tax benefits that come with his S-Corp, Harrison said he tends to owe a significant amount of money in taxes. But he said he's still coming out ahead financially.

"Making more and paying more in taxes is better than making less and paying less," he said.

Some job jugglers accept their higher taxes

Adam earns roughly $170,000 annually secretly working two remote security risk jobs. He plans on reducing his taxable income this year by contributing $23,500 to his 401(k) — the maximum amount allowed by the IRS — and donating about $1,200 to charitable organizations.

However, not every job juggler is taking significant steps to reduce their taxable income. Daniel earns about $250,000 annually working two remote IT gigs in the finance industry. He said his main focus is withholding enough in taxes to ensure his tax payment isn't too steep.

"I've never had an issue with paying taxes," he said.

Kelly is on track to earn nearly $300,000 this year secretly working two full-time remote jobs as an engineer. She said her taxes aren't too complicated and finding ways to lower her taxable income isn't something she thinks too much about.

"I don't mind paying taxes on both jobs even if I owe," she said.

Do you have a story to share about secretly working multiple jobs or discovering an employee is doing so? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at jzinkula.29.

• The markets jumped after Trump paused his tariff plans — but the IPO window is still closed for now.
• Experts told BI the public markets won't reopen for IPOs until volatility drops significantly.
• Companies like Klarna and StubHub delayed their IPO plans after last week's tariff announcement.

After a brutal week for public markets, the major indexes jumped Wednesday when President Donald Trump said he would pause his plans for tariffs on most countries.

But industry insiders say the IPO market isn't out of the woods.

"People that are saying 'let's thread the needle' are desperate," a healthcare banker told BI on condition of anonymity. "Anybody can jump out of a window."

Tech companies and investors have been anxiously awaiting what they hoped would be a big year for public market debuts after a multiyear IPO drought. Trump's announcement last week that nearly 90 countries would face reciprocal tariffs ranging from 10% to 50% on their imports to the US shattered those hopes.

Some companies gearing up to IPO, including Klarna and StubHub, delayed their plans after the reciprocal tariffs announcement. Hinge Health was also considering a delay, Business Insider reported, although the physical therapy startup hoped to push through the market volatility to enact its IPO plans.

When Trump abruptly paused most of the tariffs on Wednesday, the public markets soared, with the S&P 500 posting its biggest single-day gain since 2008 at 9%.

But it's the market volatility that's giving bankers and analysts pause. Even if the stock market improves, as it did Wednesday, the whiplash of its rapid fall and rise in the past week isn't inspiring confidence.

Indeed, the S&P 500 tumbled by nearly 4% on Thursday as Wall Street reacted to the additional tariffs Trump still plans to levy on China.

Only a sustained period of market stabilization will be enough to reopen the IPO window for most companies, experts told BI. A temporary tick-up in stock prices just won't cut it.

Why volatility is such a deal killer

Bankers, who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak with the press, said they're watching one major metric as they advise companies on their next steps toward the public markets: the volatility index.

The index, which has the ticker VIX, is designed to measure the 30-day expected volatility of the stock market. VIX values of 30 or above generally signal high volatility, while values of 20 or below signal more stability.

Market volatility doesn't necessarily correlate with lower all-time public market valuations. But high volatility makes it much harder for public investors to price a potential IPO, like trying to hit a moving target, bankers said. Plus, the volatility makes those investors less confident that the company's stock won't tank after the IPO, they said.

Matt Kennedy, a senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, said the index would need to settle below 25 for several consecutive weeks for IPO activity to meaningfully pick up. Other sources told BI they'd want the index to stay below 20.

Right now, that target looks far away. At its peak Thursday, the index leaped 52% to 54 points.

"The volatility certainly isn't encouraging companies to start the roadshow now. Whether the stock market goes up or down over the next couple of weeks, there will be very few quality companies going public," said Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida.

Even if the market stabilizes, expect discounts

If the market ticks back up and volatility remains low for multiple consecutive weeks, some public investors may be willing to put funds toward IPOs again. But they'll expect a significant price cut, Kennedy said.

"Any sensible investor would still demand a pretty substantial discount to buy IPOs in this market," he said. "After all, if we get more turbulence, IPOs will be the first to sell off."

Bankers said that if companies are willing to accept that discount, they may still be able to go public in the second quarter of this year, provided that the market stabilizes further.

Still, Kennedy said the market slump has undoubtedly pushed many companies' IPO plans back into the later quarters of this year, at the earliest.

The slump may also further encourage companies to stay private for longer and look for payouts elsewhere, Ritter said.

"The volatility and valuation drops in public markets will be good for EquityZen, Nasdaq Private Market, Forge Global and other secondary markets, where companies that would be otherwise going public will say, we're going to let our companies sell stock on these venues, and the markets are going to have higher volume as a result," he said.

• New York-based Noto has raised $3.8 million to modernize tutoring centers and lesson-based businesses.
• Noto's platform uses AI to cut admin by automating billing, scheduling, and payroll.
• Check out the 44-slide pitch deck that helped Noto land its seed round from Base10 Partners.

Noto, a startup that provides software to automate tasks like billing and payroll for educational businesses, has raised $3.8 million in seed funding led by Base10 Partners.

AJ Ding and Steve Wang founded the startup after they spent last summer knocking on the doors of small firms across New York City, and they kept hearing the same story: business was booming, but operations were a mess.

"We ended up interviewing about 150 businesses over two weeks, walking around six hours a day," Ding, Noto's cofounder and CEO, told Business Insider.

The pair said many of the lesson-based businesses they visited — including tutoring centers, music schools, and driving schools — still ran on sticky notes, Google Sheets, and outdated software systems.

Owners were "drowning in admin," Ding said.

Ding told BI that Noto's platform, which launched in September 2024, is designed specifically for lesson-based businesses and their unique operational challenges. They include managing parent-child-instructor relationships, shifting schedules, and complex billing rules.

Noto uses large language models to draft lesson reports, reschedule classes, and summarize parent communication. The goal, Ding said, isn't to replace tutors but to free up their time.

Ding, a second-time founder and Yale-trained statistician, previously built an AI recruiting platform. His cofounder, Wang, was the founding engineer at Nitra, a software company for doctors' offices backed by A16z.

"The lesson-based business segment has been chronically underserved by technology," Caroline Broder, a partner at Base10, said.

With the new funding, Noto plans to grow its engineering team, hire a business operations lead, and improve the platform's AI capabilities, including AI onboarding, rolling out student-facing insights, and AI-assisted admin agents.

Check out the 44-slide pitch deck Noto used to raise $3.8 million from Base10 Partners.

• Secretary of Education Linda McMahon referred to AI as "A1" during a panel this week.
• A.1.'s marketing team jumped in to savor the moment.
• The brand created an image of a bottle with a new label: "For education purposes only."

Linda McMahon may have meant artificial intelligence — but steak sauce brand A.1. heard opportunity.

After the Secretary of Education repeatedly referred to artificial intelligence as "A1" on a panel this week, the brand jumped in to savor the moment.

"You heard her. Every school should have access to A.1.," the brand wrote in a Friday Instagram post, alongside an image of their iconic bottle slapped with a new label: "For education purposes only."

The big slogan across the graphic read: "Agree. Best to start them early."

McMahon made the slip while speaking at the ASU+GSV Summit, a conference on the future of education and work. She was on a panel discussing the role of AI in the workforce — but things took a saucy turn.

"You know, AI development — I mean, how can we educate at the speed of light if we don't have the best technology around to do that?" she said. The former CEO of WWE used the correct abbreviation for artificial intelligence, before pivoting into the world of condiments.

McMahon said she heard about "a school system that's going to start making sure that first graders, or even pre-Ks, have A1 teaching in every year." McMahon continued: "That's a wonderful thing!"

"Kids are sponges. They just absorb everything," she added. "It wasn't all that long ago that it was, 'We're going to have internet in our schools!' Now let's see A1 and how can that be helpful."

McMahon and A.1. did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

It's the latest example of a brand seizing a quick moment of fame on social media.

Coffee Mate's marketing team sprang into action after the season finale of "The White Lotus," creating a semi-viral post that played off a key moment from the show.

The coffee creamer brand worked with the hit HBO series on two limited-edition flavors ahead of the latest season: piña colada and Thai iced coffee. An executive said his team had no idea that piña coladas would be featured on the hit show's finale on Sunday night.

• President Donald Trump says he doesn't need Elon Musk in his administration.
• Trump said the Tesla and SpaceX CEO is still around because he likes Musk.
• Trump previously said he expects Musk to leave government "in a few months."

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he doesn't really need to have Elon Musk in his administration.

"Elon has done a fantastic job. Look, he's sitting here, and I don't care. I don't need Elon for anything other than I happen to like him," Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

Trump said on Thursday that he had recently purchased a Tesla vehicle as a "show of support" for Musk.

"I don't need his car. I actually bought one, and they said, 'Oh, did you get a bargain?' No. I said, 'Give me the top price.' I paid a lot of money for that car," Trump said.

Trump's purchase took place during a White House event last month, where he was seen trying out a red Tesla Model S with Musk.

"He's done a fantastic job but he hasn't been treated properly," Trump said of Musk on Thursday.

Musk, who was at the meeting, was seen smiling and nodding to Trump's remarks.

Musk has been spearheading cost-cutting efforts at the White House DOGE office. In an attempt to slash spending, DOGE has laid off thousands of government workers and shuttered foreign aid programs. These rapid cuts have sparked fear and chaos across the government.

Musk said at the Thursday Cabinet meeting that DOGE will cut nearly $150 billion in spending for the 2026 fiscal year.

But these broad cuts at DOGE and the turmoil that comes with them have also hit Musk's business interests. Tesla showrooms nationwide have been the target of protests, and Tesla owners have said their vehicles have been defaced.

"If you read the news, it feels like armageddon. I can't walk past the TV without seeing a Tesla on fire. What's going on?" Musk told Tesla employees during an all-hands meeting last month.

"Listen, I understand if you don't want to buy our product, but you don't have to burn it down. That's a bit unreasonable," Musk added.

Musk has been one of Trump's biggest supporters. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO spent at least $277 million supporting Trump and other GOP candidates in last year's elections.

But Musk appeared to break with the administration after Trump announced sweeping tariffs on over 180 countries last week.

Musk called for a "free trade zone" between Europe and the US during a meeting with Italy's League Party on Saturday. Musk also criticized Trump's top advisor, Peter Navarro, saying he was "dumber than a sack of bricks" after he called Musk a "car assembler."

Last week, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News in an interview that Musk would stay on as an advisor even after he completes his work with DOGE.

Trump said on April 3 that he expects Musk to leave his administration "in a few months" but said he wants Musk to stay on for "as long as possible."

Musk is now working for the administration as a special government employee. Per federal law, such employees cannot work for more than 130 days in a 365-day period.

"Elon Musk and President Trump have both publicly stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete," the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, wrote in an X post on April 2.

Musk and the White House did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

• "The Last of Us" season two picks up five years after the events of the first.
• It sees Ellie embark on a mission of revenge after a tragedy.
• Viewers are encouraged to consider whether trauma defines the characters.

"The Last of Us" season two picks up five years after the first: Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and Joel (Pedro Pascal) have a strained relationship after he lied to her about saving her from the Firefly hospital, and Abby (Kaitlyn Dever), a Firefly soldier, seeks revenge against Joel for murdering her father.

This sets the scene for some of the most emotionally devastating TV in recent memory. The show masterfully explores how trauma, violence, grief, and love shape each character, bringing viewers closer to Joel and Ellie in particular.

It's done with astounding elegance, allowing the shock and horror to bleed into intimate moments.

That being said, viewers hungry for jaw-dropping set pieces won't be disappointed. One assault from an army of the infected, which can be seen in the trailers, is a pulse-pounding fight for survival for Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and the other residents of Jackson, Wyoming. It easily rivals battles in "Game of Thrones" and "House of the Dragon."

The characters also spend plenty of time skulking around shadowy corridors, fearing they will be hunted by the infected, which brings delicious tension. But much like the first season, the threat of the infected just sets the scene: The real meat of the story comes in the character dynamics and how they have each been changed by their post-apocalyptic world.

Let's address the elephant in the room: Fans of the beloved video games that the show is based on may think they know what's coming in season two.

Regardless of what does or doesn't happen, fans should know that the adaptation by showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann is uncompromising.

Bella Ramsey delivers one of the most powerfully raw performances of the last few years, as Ellie edges closer to becoming something truly dangerous on her rage-fueled quest to Seattle.

But Ellie is too skillfully developed as a character to only be vengeful. The show spends time carefully crafting a beautiful connection between her and Dina, played by "Alien: Romulus" star Isabela Merced, who has difficulties of her own. When this dynamic takes a backseat, it's used as a clever tool to challenge Ellie's lust for blood.

Although Ramsey is the driving force of the season, Merced, Pedro Pascal, and Gabriel Luna are there to provide a balance between the trauma, revenge, and those pesky plant zombies.

Pascal, in particular, shows that he's capable of being more than the grizzled badass he has played in "The Mandalorian," "Gladiator II," and "Narcos."

Joel's character is expanded through soft, quiet moments, which will no doubt make audiences emotional. If these are the types of performances that Pascal can deliver, then his career is only going to become more interesting.

Ultimately, trauma is used in the season to lead the audience to question whether its main characters are defined by the horrors they've experienced. While some are able to process it and move on, others are completely consumed by it.

Either way, the audience gets one of the most beautifully written seasons of TV of the year, and it's only April.

• Gwyneth Paltrow is reflecting on the lessons she learned while trying to blend her family.
• "If I look back at my mistakes as a stepmother, I should have just treated them both like my kids way faster," Paltrow said.
• Navigating the stepparent dynamic was difficult and often felt "full of minefields," she said.

Gwyneth Paltrow says she waited too long to fully embrace her stepchildren as her own.

On the April 8 episode of her "Goop" podcast — which featured her husband, Brad Falchuk, as a guest — Paltrow spoke about the work that went into blending their families.

Paltrow has two kids with her ex-husband Chris Martin, whom she divorced in 2016 after 13 years of marriage. In 2018, she married Falchuk, who has two kids from his previous marriage.

"We traversed through some really rough things," Paltrow told Falchuk. "One of the most profound lessons that I've learned from my relationship with your daughter — which is now so fantastic — is there was a testing going on. She was testing me at the time to see at what point I would reject her."

To overcome that initial friction with her stepdaughter and avoid being seen as the "evil stepmother," Paltrow says she decided to embody a maternal essence.

"I was going to be that presence for her, always loving and forgiving in the face of, you know, if she acted up, and show her that ultimately I was so there for her that she would not question my intentions or think that I was there to take you away from her," Paltrow said to her husband.

But it wasn't easy and she often had to remind herself to be the adult if they ran into conflict.

At the same time, Paltrow was worried because she felt like she didn't have "jurisdiction" to tell her stepkids how they should behave.

"I thought that in my case, if I assert my boundaries or my expectations around manners, or anything like that, it will exacerbate the situation," Paltrow said.

It was difficult navigating the stepparent dynamic, which often felt "full of minefields," she said.

"If I look back at my mistakes as a stepmother, I should have just treated them both like my kids way faster," Paltrow said. "Like I was too worried about everyone's feelings, in a way."

During the Visionary Women's International Women's Day Summit in 2024, Paltrow said that being a stepmother was one of her "biggest learnings as a human being."

"And my area of growth personally came from the initial difficult relationship I had with my stepkids, and now they're like my kids," she said, per Us Magazine.

Parenting experts previously told Business Insider about the common mistakes that stepparents make when trying to connect with their stepkids.

One mistake is trying to compete with the stepkids' biological parents.

"Instead, speak directly to the child about their parent and encourage the relationship between the child and parent. This will help make clear that this isn't an either/or situation," Sarah Epstein, a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in family dysfunction, told BI.

Another mistake is trying to discipline stepchildren before building a relationship. Clinical psychologist Dr. Kasi G. Patterson told BI it would be better to let the biological parent handle it first.

Only after a trusting relationship has been developed will the kids learn to view both parents — biological and stepparent — as authority figures and "can accept discipline from each of them," he said.

A representative for Paltrow did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent by BI outside regular hours.

• "Yellowjackets" season three ended with a few big reveals.
• Sophie Nélisse, who plays young Shauna, has a pivotal role in the finale ending.
• Nélisse said she's enjoyed playing young Shauna as a villain, but still has empathy for her.

Warning: Major spoilers ahead for the "Yellowjackets" season three finale.

Shauna went off the rails in a major way in "Yellowjackets" season three, but at least one person is still rooting for her: Sophie Nélisse, who plays teen Shauna.

The third outing of the Showtime hit survival thriller, which aired its finale Friday, follows a high school girls' soccer team that gets stranded in the wilderness after the plane crash. The show simultaneously tracks the survivors' adult selves 25 years later as their traumatic experiences come back to haunt them.

While each of the survivors has plenty of trauma (because, well, the cannibalism), none have been through the wringer quite as much as Shauna, who was responsible for her best friend Jackie's death in season one and then lost her baby in a stillbirth in the wilderness. These events have led to Shauna going down a dark, violent path in season three.

The episode, fittingly called "Full Circle," takes us back to where it all began: the scene from the pilot where the girls, in makeshift masks, hunt down one of their own, who falls into a pit. Fans have been wondering for three seasons who "Pit Girl" and the group's leader, the "Antler Queen," might be. "Full Circle" gives viewers those two big reveals, establishing that Mari was the girl who was chased and fell into a pit, and Shauna was the Antler Queen pursuing her.

While the "Yellowjackets" cast was heartbroken to lose Mari (Alexa Barajas), they were also excited to finally get answers. The Antler Queen twist wasn't exactly shocking to Nélisse, who said she saw the writing on the wall a few episodes back as young Shauna started wresting leadership away from Natalie (Sophie Thatcher), but she was still happy to finally see it play out.

She also wondered if Shauna's new leadership role will quell the fury and grief she's been driven by all season long. "Is that enough to soothe her need for vengeance and power?" Nélisse told BI.

Given that the others were actively plotting against Shauna after she forbade them all from leaving the wilderness when a pair of scientists and a guide stumbled upon their bloody bacchanal, keeping the group from mutiny will also be a challenge.

"I'm curious to see how long she can hold that power," Nélisse added.

Nélisse thinks Shauna is bisexual, but she's not sure Shauna and Jackie were more than friends

One of the subtler apparent revelations in the finale happens when a drunken Travis confronts Shauna before the girls leave to hunt down Mari. He tells her that "none of this is even real." He suggests that he's experiencing the thoughts of those who have died there, including his younger brother Javi and Shauna's dead best friend Jackie.

Travis tells Shauna that Jackie's thoughts are his favorite: "The slumber party makeouts? The jealousy? The betrayal?"

Whether that was a drug-induced hallucination or not, it certainly seems to suggest that something sexual went down between Shauna and Jackie, further complicating a relationship that was already complicated by Shauna's affair with Jackie's boyfriend Jeff, who ultimately married Shauna and has a daughter, Callie, with her. That, paired with the season three storyline that sees Shauna embark on a toxic relationship with fellow survivor Melissa, is pretty strong evidence that Shauna and Jackie probably hooked up at one point before the crash.

When I brought it up to Nélisse, she seemed surprised by that reading of the moment. She said she didn't take it that way but loved the theory. Though she tries to avoid looking at TikToks of the show, she's well aware that many viewers think there was something more than friendship between Shauna and Jackie, at least on Shauna's side.

"There's not an answer, actually, for that one. A lot of people have been hinting that there was sexuality between Jackie and Shauna," Nélisse said. "But the creators seemed, from our discussion, to say that there wasn't, but that there is just this really complex relationship. It's such a fine line to walk on."

"I think it's up to people's interpretation," she added.

Nélisse has no idea what will happen to Shauna in 'Yellowjackets' season 4, but she has some hopes

According to Nélisse, the cast only gets the scripts for an episode about a week before filming. That means they're not privy to the long game the show is playing in advance of individual revelations, and they don't have the answers to ongoing mysteries like what's going on with Taissa and whether there is actually something supernatural in the wilderness.

"Every season has felt almost like a complete different character to me," Nélisse said of playing Shauna. "I think what's fun is that I get to play somewhat of the villain [in season three], but at the same time, with all of her background and all of her trauma and all of her luggage that she's been carrying."

Nélisse says Shauna's baggage helped her contextualize some of her character's less popular decisions.

"Although everything that she does is maybe not excusable, you understand the why behind it. So I have a lot of empathy for her," she added. "It's been just really fun to be able to tap into something a lot darker. But at the same time, still caring for her and rooting for her, in a way."

So can Shauna go any darker in a not-yet-confirmed season four? Nélisse isn't sure, but she kind of hopes so.

"Part of me wants her to go even crazier, but I'm like, she needs to calm down."

The "Yellowjackets" season three finale is now streaming on Paramount+.

• US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth axed $5.1 billion in IT and consulting contracts.
• This includes contracts with companies like Accenture and Deloitte.
• He said the terminations "represent $5.1 billion in wasteful spending" at the DOD.

The US's defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, just ordered the termination of IT and consulting contracts with companies like Accenture and Deloitte, calling it "wasteful spending."

In a Department of Defense memo, Hegseth said he would cut a Defense Health Agency contract "for consulting services from Accenture, Deloitte, Booz Allen, and other firms that can be performed by our civilian workforce."

Also on the chopping block is the Air Force's contract with Accenture to "re-sell third-party Enterprise Cloud IT Services," which Hegseth says the government can "already fulfill directly with existing procurement resources."

In the memo, Hegseth also said he was terminating 11 other contracts for "consulting services" that support "non-essential" activities, like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), climate matters, and the Pentagon's COVID-19 response.

Hegseth said the terminations "represent $5.1 billion in wasteful spending" at the DOD and would result in nearly $4 billion in savings.

The savings would be reallocated, Hegseth said, to serve "critical priorities to Revive the Warrior Ethos, Rebuild the Military, and Reestablish Deterrence."

He did not specify in his memo which Pentagon projects this money would go to.

In response to a request for comment, the DOD directed Business Insider to an X video of Hegseth talking about the terminations.

"By the way, we need this money to spend on better healthcare for our warfighters and their families, instead of $500 an hour business process consultant. That's a lot of consulting," Hegseth said in the video.

Hegseth also expressed his gratitude to Elon Musk's cost-cutting outfit, the Department of Government of Efficiency. DOGE has been slashing federal spending across various agencies, whether it be by laying off thousands of federal workers or shuttering foreign aid programs.

"So we want to thank our friends at DOGE. We want to thank all the folks here that have helped us unpack this, reveal it, and we're excited to make these cuts on behalf of you, the taxpayer and the warfighters at the Department," Hegseth said in his X video.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO referenced the Defense Department's $841 billion budget in an op-ed he wrote with Vivek Ramaswamy for The Wall Street Journal in November. Ramaswamy, who was co-leader of DOGE at the time, left DOGE in January.

"The Pentagon recently failed its seventh consecutive audit, suggesting that the agency's leadership has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800 billion is spent," the pair wrote.

Last month, Hegseth announced that the Defense Department was terminating over $580 million in programs, contracts, and grants that DOGE had identified as wasteful spending.

Representatives for Accenture, Deloitte, and Booz Allen did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI.

• "The Pitt" is the latest word-of-mouth viral TV series.
• Max has already renewed the show for a second season.
• Here's what to know about the cast, plot, and potential release date.

"The Pitt" has become a surprise hit for Max, inspiring the streamer to renew the series to return next year.

The critically acclaimed medical drama is part of a recent wave of procedural shows from major streamers. These shows are popular on network TV channels and feature the professional lives of medical, emergency service workers, and cops.

"The Pitt" season one had an interesting twist on the usual medical show model, focusing on the medical staff of a fictional Pittsburgh hospital during a single, extended 15-hour shift. Each episode covered one hour of that shift.

Max told the Wrap, a week after "The Pitt" premiered in January, that the series had one of the most-watched premieres for the streamer since it launched in 2020. Word-of-mouth helped build the audience even further, as chatter on social media about the intense drama encouraged more people to watch.

Taking heed of the show's viral success, Max announced in February that it had ordered another season.

Here's what we know so far about season two.

Season two will be set on the Fourth of July, one of the busiest days for hospitals.

Season one introduces Dr. Robby and his Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital dayshift team, which includes two bright-eyed medical students, an arrogant intern, and multiple resident doctors.

While the workday is already chaotic from the start, the drama intensifies when there's a mass shooting at a festival near the hospital.

Robby is barely keeping it together already, still dealing with trauma from working at the hospital during the pandemic. When his stepson's girlfriend dies on his watch due to injuries from the shooting, he breaks down and is consoled by one of the medical students.

The team pulls through with only six deaths out of the 112 patients that come to the hospital. Dr. Jack Abbott, a night-shift doctor, talks Dr. Robby down from quitting — or jumping off the roof.

There are other unresolved stories at the end of the finale. Dr. Langdon was caught stealing drugs, Dr. McKay got in trouble with the police for breaking her ankle monitor to help save the multiple shooting victims, and there are a few patients still in critical care that have to be passed on to the night shift team.

Season two may not even address or resolve these story threads.

R. Scott Gemmill, the show's creator, said during a Deadline Contenders TV panel event in April that season two would be set 10 months later than season one, during a Fourth of July weekend. It will still keep the 15-hour shift model.

Holidays are some of the busiest days for hospitals, and the Fourth of July has one of the biggest spikes in hospital visits of the year, partly due to incidents with fireworks. Fans are expecting even more chaos than season one.

"The Pitt" season two is expected to premiere in January 2026.

Casey Bloys, the chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content, told Vulture in March that they plan to have the series out in January 2026, so fans won't have to wait more than a year to see new episodes.

"This model of more episodes cuts down on the gap between seasons. On the platform, we have shows like 'House of the Dragon,' 'The Last of Us,' and 'White Lotus,' which, because of how they're made, can take two years to make," Bloys said. "What I love about something like 'The Pitt' is, I can get 15 episodes in a year."

Noah Wyle, who plays Dr. Robby and is an executive producer, told Esquire in April that the writing room is already meeting to develop a script for season two.

Variety reported that the series will start shooting season two in June.

There may be a new cast for season two.

Since Wyle is an executive producer and star of the show, he will likely return as Dr. Robby, but the rest of the cast's fate is uncertain.

Ten months is a long time and may mean certain doctors and nurses have left or transferred hospitals.

The medical students Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell) and Victoria Javadi (Shabana Azeez) will have finished their rotation and likely return to school. Dr. Langdon (Patrick Ball) was on the edge of being fired, and Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa) considered quitting in the finale.

Alternatively, certain characters could be on other shifts this time round.

At the Deadline Contenders event in April, Wyle said they are casting new actors to join the series.

"We're calling all pros," he said. "We want people who are good at memorising dialogue and really good with props and are used to working in a company, an ensemble."

Wyle did not clarify if this casting was for a main role as a doctor or a guest appearance as a patient.

• Zillow said it's banning listings that are initially selectively marketed to the public.
• The policy targets the selective sharing of listings before they appear on sites like Zillow.
• Now listings that are made public must be widely shared within a day in order to appear on Zillow.

Zillow announced a new policy Wednesday that it said was motivated by one principle: "A listing marketed to any buyer should be marketed to every buyer."

Under the company's new listing access standards, homes that are listed for sale but only to a limited group — or not made visible to all potential buyers via the common channels — will not be allowed to appear on Zillow.

The policy is a response to a push by some real estate brokerages to selectively share their listings, rather then make them widely visible from the jump, such as on sites like Zillow or Redfin, as Business Insider's James Rodriguez reported Wednesday.

For instance, Compass, the largest real estate brokerage in the US by sales volume, uses a marketing strategy that includes listing properties on a "Coming Soon" page before listing them more widely on sites like Zillow.

Zillow's new policy means that in order for a listing to ever appear on the site, it needs to be submitted to a local database of homes for sale called a Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, and published on sites like Zillow within a day of being initially marketed, on a brokerage's own site, on social media, or via a yard sign.

"Our standards are straightforward: If a listing is marketed directly to consumers without being listed on the MLS and made widely available where buyers search for homes, it will not be published on Zillow," the company's statement said.

Zillow also said the practice of selectively sharing listings hurts consumers and creates confusion in the marketplace.

"It's a bait-and-switch move, where agents or brokerages try to get the best of both worlds — dangling a listing to gain more business, only to turn around and market it widely later," the statement said, adding: "Consumers should not have to wonder whether the home that might be perfect for them is hidden behind a gate they didn't know existed."

• Waymo robotaxis will begin mapping out limited parts of Tokyo.
• Nihon Kotsu, a Japanese taxi company, will manually drive the cars.
• Waymo sent us a photo of one of the first 25 robotaxis that will be a part of the mapping process.

Waymo has arrived in Tokyo.

The Alphabet-owned robotaxi company announced on Wednesday that its Jaguar I-PACE vehicles will begin mapping out seven central wards of Tokyo — Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, Chūō, Shinagawa — which represent some of the city's major commercial hubs.

The cars, however, won't be driverless yet.

Nihon Kotsu and GO, two of Japan's largest taxi platforms, will manage the fleet and manually drive the vehicles. This will help the Waymo cars gather data and learn the country's unique driving patterns, such as left-hand traffic.

"Initially, the Nihon Kotsu drivers will manually drive the car, just like you or I would with our hands on the wheel and no autonomous driving enabled," Sandy Karp, a spokesperson for Waymo, told Business Insider in an email. "Waymo will use the information from these driving missions to begin adapting and validating its autonomous driving technology for operation in Japan."

Waymo will begin the mapping process with 25 vehicles, Karp said.

The spokesperson sent BI a photo of one of the vehicles backing out of a shipment container at an undisclosed port in Japan earlier in March. In the photo, a Nihon Kotsu crew member watches the Waymo as it pulls out of the container.

Karp said the vehicles have since been moved to a depot and are "getting upfitted with some adjustments" to comply with local laws and regulations, including new vehicle signage and an additional blindspot mirror attachment.

Yasuharu Wakabayashi, president of Nihon Kotsu, said in a statement that the company's drivers have trained in the US and are "well-prepared to begin introducing Waymo's vehicles to Tokyo."

"We anticipate that autonomous robotaxis will help address driver shortages in the future," he said. "We view this initiative as the first step toward building an ideal ecosystem that unites people and advanced technology."

Waymo's approach to a fully autonomous driver system includes mapping out a specific area with its vehicles before it can launch to the public without human supervision.

This differs from other autonomous vehicle-focused companies like Wayve or Tesla, which rely more heavily on end-to-end learning models for its self-driving software. This essentially allows the car to learn to drive in its environment on the go without the need to map out an area beforehand.

Proponents of this approach argue that end-to-end learning allows for a more efficient ability to scale. Waymo's director of product management, Vishay Nihalani, told BI at a recent autonomous vehicle conference in Los Angeles that as Waymo's driver continues to learn, the robotaxi will require less time to map out any given city.

Waymo has also sought partnerships with third parties, including rideshare platforms, to help manage its fleets in some cities.

In Austin and Atlanta, for example, Uber manages Waymos's fleet, which includes vehicle maintenance and depot operations. In San Francisco, Waymo maintains the vehicles on its own.

According to the company, Waymo now provides more than 200,000 paid passenger weekly trips.

The service now operates in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and Silicon Valley geofenced areas.

• Coachella attendees told Business Insider they've been waiting up to 12 hours to get into the campgrounds on Thursday.
• Festivalgoers said the process hadn't taken more than two hours in previous years.
• Sources told BI that people had to pee on the road, ran out of gas, and have yet to hear from Coachella officials.

Coachella 2025 is off to a slow start.

Attendees of the festival, which takes place every April in Indio, California, told Business Insider they'd spent up to 12 hours waiting to get into the campsite on Thursday — and some still haven't made it in.

"I made a joke earlier that I didn't know Fyre Festival tickets were included in admission this year, but that's honestly how I feel," Adam Roberts told BI while waiting in his car. "I feel duped."

Festivalgoers, who paid at least $800 each to attend, said they hadn't heard any news on the delays despite receiving updates in the official app and Instagram promoting partnerships with Amex and Nobu.

Representatives for Coachella didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

'I've never seen lines this long'

BI spoke to several seasoned Coachella veterans who have repeatedly camped at the music festival. None said they had seen anything like what they experienced on Thursday morning.

Hailey Maxwell was heading to her fifth Coachella when she arrived in Indio around 3 a.m. PT. While the official website states that camping opens at 9 a.m. on the Thursday before the festival — which runs from Friday to Monday — Maxwell said that typically hasn't been the case in the past.

"They usually open the gates around 3:15 to 3:30 a.m. every year, which is why people wait around the area," Maxwell said. "We're usually at the campsite before sunrise. I'm not even to the security checkpoint yet."

Maxwell had been in line for nine hours when she called BI from her car around 12:30 p.m. PT.

"The directions were the same they had on the website in past years, but this time, they're directing people a different way," she said. "There was no traffic control, so nobody knew where they were going. It took us four hours just to travel half a mile."

Oliver and Kayla Standring, who arrived in line at 8 a.m. PT, told BI they instantly knew it would be bad.

"I've camped another four times at Coachella, and usually it's a pretty smooth process," Oliver Standring said, adding that it's taken "two hours max" in years past.

A lack of toilets and food

Festivalgoers told BI that one of the biggest issues was the lack of restroom access while they waited.

"It's the middle of the desert; there isn't a bush to hide behind," Kayla Standring said. "I had to open both of the car doors to block myself, then the girls in the car behind us saw, and they started doing that. I started a revolution for the women."

"People are peeing in cups," said Roberts, who arrived around 4:30 a.m. PT. "It's been eight hours; people gotta do what they gotta do."

Many attendees said they'd stopped drinking water so they wouldn't have to keep peeing on the side of the road. But that means getting more dehydrated in the desert heat.

"It's already really hot outside," Maxwell said. "My car is air-conditioned, but if it weren't, I would be dying. I know people's cars are overheating, and some people have already run out of gas."

Kayla Standring said she saw people walk a mile to the closest Rite Aid to get supplies while Zoe Bush and her friends used DoorDash to deliver food to their car.

"I have gone five years now and have never had it be even remotely bad. It's always smooth sailing," Bush told BI. "But our group drove eight hours from the Bay Area and are currently running on two hours of sleep."

Zero communication

When Kayla Standring asked a security guard what was happening, she said he told her to "download the Coachella app" to find out. However, every festivalgoer who spoke to BI said they hadn't received any communication from Coachella staff and that there was also a lack of signs or traffic control on the ground.

Attendees have flooded one of Coachella's most recent Instagram posts — promoting a Nobu omakase experience — to demand answers. They have also tried to take matters into their own hands, whether seeking solutions via Reddit boards or contacting city officials.

"People in my group were calling the police and letting them know what is happening because, at this point, it's a health hazard," Maxwell said. "So the Nobu thing felt really out of pocket to post and not at all address what's happening."

"I've done many music festivals. People understand that sometimes things happen, but no communication is what makes it frustrating," Roberts said.

Mixed feelings

As attendees prepare for the three-day festival, the start of this year's Coachella experience has left some feeling defeated while others are trying to keep up their morale.

Kelly Jensen, who was stuck in line from 2 a.m. to 2 p.m., finally made it to the campground, but she said the ordeal was "literal hell."

"It was truly the worst experience ever and also super disappointing because of how much money we spent to be at an event that we really loved," Jensen, who has been to Coachella four times, told BI. "We finally got in, but no one has energy to start setting up camp."

"Given this experience, I would never camp again — and camping is a big part of these experiences," Roberts said. "I'm sure once we get there, things will be better, but this is absolutely not the way to start the event."

• TikTok is letting go of some US staff on its e-commerce team, five employees told BI.
• The cuts are hitting its governance and experience team, which handles Shop marketplace safety.
• TikTok made cuts to its global trust and safety team earlier this year.

TikTok is letting go of some US e-commerce staff today as part of a restructuring of its governance and experience team, five employees at the company told Business Insider.

E-commerce governance and experience, called GNE for short, is a global team that handles marketplace safety for users, sellers, and creators within TikTok Shop. The group manages tasks like seller compliance, monitoring product listings, and protecting intellectual property.

Business Insider wasn't able to immediately learn the scale of the job cuts.

A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment.

TikTok's broader US e-commerce team has been under pressure from global leadership this year after failing to meet performance expectations in 2024. The organization's top executive, Bob Kang, called out the team during a company all-hands meeting in February, BI previously reported. Some employees in the group received low scores during annual performance reviews in March, leading to performance-improvement plans and, in some cases, exits with severance.

This month's layoffs follow a February round of cuts to TikTok's global trust and safety team, which Reuters first reported. This group handles tasks like content moderation on a broader set of user videos that don't necessarily involve shopping.

The job cuts arrive at a moment of flux for TikTok as it reckons with a 2024 law that required its owner ByteDance to divest from its US app. After ByteDance failed to comply, TikTok briefly shut off in the country. President Donald Trump has since directed his attorney general not to enforce the law.

Trump said this week the company was close to reaching a deal to address the divestment requirements, but it fell apart after the US levied new tariffs on China. The Chinese government, like the Trump administration, would need to approve the deal. TikTok may become a bargaining chip amid broader trade negotiations.

A ByteDance spokesperson told BI on Friday that it was in discussions with the US government regarding a potential solution for TikTok in the US, but an agreement had not been executed, and any agreement would be subject to approval under Chinese law.

• Matt Bomer still thinks he made the right call in turning down "Barbie."
• Bomer previously revealed he'd auditioned to play a Ken but pulled out. He starred in "Maestro" instead.
• He told BI he wouldn't have had the same experience on "Maestro" if he had to fit in filming "Barbie."

Matt Bomer had a jam-packed 2022, filming the acclaimed historical romance drama "Fellow Travelers" and the Oscar-nominated "Maestro." It could have been even busier if he'd squeezed in playing a Ken in "Barbie," but he has no regrets about turning that down.

Bomer previously revealed to Vanity Fair that he'd auditioned to play one of the Kens in Greta Gerwig's smash hit, but ultimately walked away from the opportunity because it would've required too much time away from his family (Bomer shares two children with his husband, Simon Halls) along with his other booked roles.

The movie went on to gross over $1 billion worldwide and became a cultural sensation. But looking back, Bomer is still confident in his decision to focus fully on Bradley Cooper's Leonard Bernstein biopic "Maestro," in which he played Bernstein's lover David Oppenheim. The actor told BI that it would've been too difficult to squeeze in "Barbie" between his intensely collaborative time on "Maestro."

"Even though my part in 'Maestro' was smaller, Bradley was so collaborative with me from the get-go," Bomer said of Cooper. "And it was such an immersive experience that to have just flown in from London to film my scenes [in 'Barbie'] really quick and fly back to London — I feel like 'Maestro' wouldn't have been the same experience for me."

Bomer describes his "Maestro" experience as life-changing, saying it shaped the way he works as a dramatic actor "for probably for the rest of my career on film."

"It was a way of working that I'm really grateful that I got to be exposed to," he said. "I wouldn't have, I think, if I were trying to just squeeze it in."

After Bomer's string of emotionally intense roles in 2023, he's taking a breather. Now, he can be seen in a less heavy role Hulu's in "Mid-Century Modern," a half-hour sitcom about three gay men who are longtime friends living together in Palm Springs. Bomer plays Jerry Frank, a handsome and good-natured but slightly dim-witted flight attendant.

"Mid-Century Modern" is a classic comedy that has shades of "Golden Girls," but it has dramatic moments, too, particularly related to Bomer's character Jerry's backstory. Jerry was a closeted Mormon whose ex-wife cut him off from their daughter (played by Billie Lourd, who happens to be the goddaughter of Bomer's husband in real life) after he came out as gay.

Bomer praised how the show can "go a little Norman Lear and handle some of the heavier stuff," particularly with his character, but his main goal was to create something fun and not that serious — both for himself and for viewers.

"I hope it brings a lot of joy to a lot of people," Bomer told BI. "That's what we wanted. That's what I know I needed. I needed to laugh and come to work and laugh, and I hope it brings a lot of laughs to folks out there as well."

"Mid-Century Modern" is now streaming on Hulu.

Donald Trump loves Fox News, and Fox News loves Donald Trump. It's a long-standing symbiosis, rarely interrupted. But on Wednesday morning, Trump's favorite network pushed back on his tariff push. He changed course a few hours later.

• A tourism helicopter crashed in the Hudson River Thursday, killing three adults and three children.
• A family visiting from Spain was on the helicopter, said NYC Mayor Eric Adams.
• Recent airline crashes have increased awareness of aviation safety; the cause of this crash is not yet known.

A tourism helicopter crashed into the Hudson River near Manhattan in New York City on Thursday afternoon, killing all six people on board, including three children.

Four of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene, and two were taken to the hospital, where they died, Mayor Eric Adams confirmed at a press conference on Thursday evening.

At least some of the victims included a family visiting from Spain, Adams said.

Authorities responded to initial calls at 3:17 p.m. local time, an NYPD spokesperson told Business Insider.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the helicopter involved was a Bell 206, a popular and versatile model, and that the National Transportation Safety Board would lead the investigation.

The NTSB said in a post on X that it is "launching a go-team" to investigate the crash Thursday night.

Videos of the crash posted on social media appeared to show the helicopter's rotor disconnected from the rest of the aircraft, spinning mid-air as the cabin plunged into the water.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, though officials said that it appeared the helicopter, which officials said was operated by New York Helicopters Tour Company, lost control.

The helicopter company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a post on X, Jersey City's mayor said the main body of the aircraft has been recovered from the river and is in an Army Corps of Engineers building.

"Recovery operations have been secured for the night. Major parts of the aircraft have not been recovered so dive operations by the NYPD and NJSP will resume tomorrow morning," wrote Steven Fulop.

"The pier is being secured by PA," he added.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a post on X that she joins "all New Yorkers in praying for those we've lost and their families."

In an earlier statement on X, NYC Mayor Eric Adams called the crash "heartbreaking and tragic." He urged bystanders to avoid the area near Pier 40 in Manhattan.

Calls to the helicopter's registered owner, a Louisiana firm, were unanswered.

A recent spate of plane crashes has heightened awareness of aviation safety, but Thursday's incident appears to have no relation to the airline crashes for now.

The Hudson River sees heavy helicopter traffic between area airports and tourist flights over sites like the Statue of Liberty. Pilots are required to use corridors and specific flight rules designated by the FAA.

It's not the first time a helicopter has crashed into the rivers near New York City. In 2018, five people died after a helicopter made an emergency landing in the East River and flipped upside down, trapping the passengers inside.

And in 2019, a helicopter crash-landed on the roof of a skyscraper, killing the pilot.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.