New York (CNN) — American Airlines said that rising costs, including fuel, will dent its upcoming profits.

The Forth Worth-based carrier said in a regulatory filing that its adjusted earnings per share will now be between 20 cents to 30 cents in the third quarter, which is drastically smaller than the 95 cents a share the airline was previously forecasting.

American said that fuel prices have “increased considerably” since July, when it issued its initial third-quarter guidance. The airline is paying about $3 per gallon for jet fuel. Oil prices surged 9.1% last month, according to the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index report that came out Wednesday.

Another reason for the smaller profit is the new pilot contract. Earlier this summer, the airline inked a new deal with its pilots with about $9 billion dollars in incremental compensation and benefits.

Also on Wednesday, discount carrier Spirit cut third quarter revenue by 5% from its previous forecast. It blamed rising fuel prices and “heightened promotional activity with steep discounting for travel booked” for the weeks leading into Thanksgiving weekend for the adjusted guidance.

Shares of American (AAL) and Spirit (SAVE) fell about 3% in premarket trading.

Global airlines should make nearly $10 billion in profit this year as business bounces back from the pandemic, according to a recent forecast from the International Air Transport Association. The organization said in June that it more than doubled its 2023 profit forecast for the global airline industry despite a looming economic downturn.

Airlines are expected to make $9.8 billion in net profit in 2023, up from a December forecast of $4.7 billion.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby previously told CNN that he expected the carrier to return to 2019 levels of profitability this year. The airline was holding a lot more cash on its balance sheet, however, to withstand a potential economic downturn in the near term.

“We’ve dramatically improved our relative and absolute profit margins and we’re starting to pay down debt and that gives us the firepower to really ride through a short term recession,” Kirby said.

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New York (CNN) — In a radical rebranding, Twitter owner Elon Musk has replaced Twitter’s iconic bird logo with X.

Musk made the shock announcement of his plans early Sunday. By Monday morning US time, he tweeted that X.com now points to Twitter.com.

“Interim X logo goes live later today,” he wrote, shortly before sharing a photo of Twitter’s headquarters lit up by a giant new X.

The Twitter website now features the same logo, while the familiar blue bird is gone.

Previously, Musk said he was bidding “adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”

Twitter (TWTR), founded in 2006, has used its vivid, globally recognized blue bird emblem for more than a decade.

The renaming could be seen as something of a brand overhaul “Hail Mary” for the company: Musk in recent months has repeatedly warned that Twitter, facing steep losses in ad revenue, was on the edge of bankruptcy.

Increasing the pressure, earlier this month rival social media platform Threads launched from Facebook (FB) parent Meta. It surpassed 100 million user sign-ups in its first week.

Twitter had 238 million active users prior to being taken private by Musk in October 2022.

Spats, mass layoffs

One of the world’s richest men, Musk was once best known for his innovative efforts through companies SpaceX and Tesla (TSLA) to launch rockets and build electric cars.

Now, many of the headlines he makes are for his eccentric remarks on his personal Twitter account – often sharing conspiracy theories and getting into public spats on the social media platform.

Musk overhauled the site after acquiring it for $44 billion in late October, then followed with mass layoffs, disputes over millions of dollars allegedly owed in severance and Musk’s note to employees that remaining at the company would mean “working long hours at high intensity.” He wrote: “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

The upheaval prompted organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, Free Press and GLAAD, to pressure brands to rethink advertising on Twitter.

The groups pointed to the mass layoffs as a key factor in their thinking, citing fears that Musk’s cuts would make Twitter’s election-integrity policies effectively unenforceable, even if they technically remain active.

Musk also began overseeing controversial policy changes which led to frequent service disruptions at Twitter and upended his own reputation in the process.

‘A second chance’

In June, Musk named Linda Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal marketing executive, CEO of the company.

She commented on the name change on Twitter Sunday afternoon: “It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”

As the new venture begins, it faces challenges. Musk recently disclosed that the platform still has a negative cash flow due to a 50% drop in advertising revenue and heavy debt loads.

Criticizing the exit, or pause, of such Twitter advertisers as General Mills (GIS), Macy’s (M) and some car companies that compete with Tesla, Musk has called himself a “free speech absolutist” and said he wanted to buy Twitter to bolster users’ ability to speak freely on the platform.

Musk explained his approach to free speech by saying: “Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? And if that is the case, then we have free speech.”

He added that Twitter would “be very reluctant to delete things” and that the platform would aim to allow all legal speech. Many users have worried that could mean a rise in hate speech.

Meanwhile, the initial frenzy around rival Threads appears to have come back to earth, especially as it has been plagued with spam and lacks several user-friendly features Twitter, or, now X, offers.

Adam Mosseri, who is overseeing the Threads launch for Meta, has hinted at plans to add features such as a desktop version of the app, a feed of only accounts a user follows and an edit button.

Its ability to draw advertising support is, as yet, unproven.

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New York (CNN) — “Messi mania” has reached the United States, if ticket prices are any indication.

On Wednesday, soccer superstar Lionel Messi said he’s going to join the Major League Soccer club Inter Miami, a blockbuster announcement that shocked the sporting world — more so since it followed rumors of a lucrative deal in Saudi Arabia and reports of a move back to Barcelona, the team that made him famous.

Ticket prices have soared nearly 1,000% for some games, with extraordinary prices rarely seen for MLS games, VividSeats told CNN.

It’s unclear when Messi will make his debut, but sources told the Athletic that his first fixture could be on July 21 during the Leagues Cup between Inter Miami and Mexican team Cruz Azul. A ticket on average costs $1,248 as of Thursday — a 922% increase compared to Monday’s price of $120, according to data from VividSeats.

Prices for in-league MLS games skyrocketed, too. For example, a ticket for the Inter Miami match with New York Red Bulls on August 25 now costs $983 — an 883% increase from Monday’s prices of $99. A fixture between Inter Miami and Los Angeles FC in the California city on September 3 rose 400%, with the average price increasing from $150 to $785.

Of course, buying any of these tickets comes with some risk, since a deal isn’t 100% and the Argentine’s official first match hasn’t been announced. In a statement, MLS welcomed the prospect of Messi playing in the league.

“We are pleased that Lionel Messi has stated that he intends to join Inter Miami and Major League Soccer this summer,” the league said. “Although work remains to finalize a formal agreement, we look forward to welcoming one of the greatest soccer players of all time to our League.”

It’s also a boon for Apple, which broadcasts MLS games on its fledgling TV streaming service. Messi’s deal includes an option for part-ownership of Inter Miami and a cut of revenue from new subscribers to Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass streaming service, according to multiple reports.

Apple recently dropped the price of a soccer subscription to $49 from $99 for the remainder of the season. The company doesn’t disclose viewership figures, but Apple SVP of services Eddy Cue recently said it’s doing “much better than forecasted” for number of subscriptions and viewership numbers.

CNN has reached out to Major League Soccer, Inter Miami, Messi’s representative, Apple and David Beckham, who is part of Inter Miami’s ownership team, to confirm the financial details.

Before landing in Florida, Messi previously played for Paris Saint-Germain, where he went on to win two Ligue 1 titles in his two seasons, but was unable to help the club win the Champions League for the first time in its history. Before his stint with PSG, Messi spent 17 trophy-laden years at Barcelona.

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(CNN) — Watching Super Bowl LVII in person will be cheaper than last year’s game, but it will still cost you thousands of dollars.

StubHub said that the average price customers are paying for a ticket Thursday was $6,800. The cheapest seats to Sunday’s match up between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs are selling at about $3,200 apiece.

Overall prices for the big game in Glendale, Arizona are trending down with prices dropping each day. In fact, StubHub said that ticket prices have dropped more than 10% since the teams were decided on February 12.

Attending this year’s game is costing fans substantially less than last year’s match up between the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams at LA’s SoFi Stadium. That’s to be expected, since the home team was playing in their own city and the country’s second-largest metropolitan area. Tickets were averaging nearly $10,000 each, according to StubHub.

SeatGeek, another ticket selling website, shows ticket prices for Sunday’s game slowly declining and were averaging about $6,500 on Thursday. The most expensive ticket on its website costs $30,000 and is located near the field; the cheapest is $4,200.

At an average of $445 per night, however, hotel prices in the Phoenix area will be relatively expensive, making it the second-highest level for a Super Bowl week, according to STR, a hospitality analytics firm that tracks prices. The most expensive Super Bowl was in 2016 in San Francisco when rooms averaged $451 per night.

In addition to the Super Bowl, the city is also hosting a PGA event that features golf’s biggest players, including Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. Those two events on the same weekend puts the local hotel occupancy rate to 94%, the firm said. The normal rate for a hotel room is around $160 per night, STR said.

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(CNN) — Adidas’ breakup with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, is a pricey one.

The company warned Thursday that it’s expected to lose $1.3 billion (1.2 billion euro) in revenue this year because it’s unable to sell the designer’s Yeezy clothing and shoes. Adidas ended its nine-year partnership with the rapper last October because of his antisemitic remarks.

In a statement, Adidas said its financial guidance for 2023 “accounts for the significant adverse impact from not selling the existing stock.” If the company can’t “repurpose” any of the remaining Ye clothing, Adidas said that could cost the company $534 million (500 million euro) in operating profit this year.

The company said shortly after the partnership was dissolved that it would try to sell the clothing, stripped of the Yeezy name and branding. Adidas said selling the sneakers under its own branding would save the company about $300 million in royalty payments and marketing fees.

Despite that attempt, Adidas is going to have problems repurposing his clothing, an analyst previously told CNN.

“There really are no good options for this distressed brand that sat somewhere between prestige and luxury,” said Burt Flickinger, retail expert and managing director at retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group.

Other options including destroying it or donating unsold Yeezy clothing.

Adidas said it also expects “one-off costs” of $213 million (200 million euro) because of a “strategic review” the company is currently undergoing.

“The numbers speak for themselves. We are currently not performing the way we should,” said Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden in a statement. He was named the company’s top leader in January and joined from rival Puma.

Adidas said last year that it ended its partnership with Ye because it “does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech” and said that his comments were “unacceptable, hateful and dangerous.” Adidas said they violated the company’s “values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.”

Last fall, Adidas put the “partnership under review” after Ye wore a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt in public. The Anti-Defamation League categorizes the phrase as a “hate slogan” used by White supremacist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. He also said “I can say antisemitic s*** and Adidas cannot drop me,” during a tirade against Jews on a podcast.

Adidas did not mention potential issues with its Beyoncé-led Ivy Park brand. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that sales of the once-trendy streetwear brand fell 50% last year to to about $40 million — way below its internal projections of $250 million. The partnership is “strong and successful,” Adidas told the Journal in response.

Shares of Adidas tanked nearly 10% in Frankfurt trading. Adidas stock has dropped 45% over the past year.

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(CNN) — Don’t count Bill Gates among the fans of cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

Those digital asset trends are “100% based on greater fool theory,” the Microsoft co-founder said Tuesday at a TechCrunch conference, referencing the notion that investors can make money on worthless or overvalued assets as long as people are willing to bid them higher.

Gates added that he’s “not long or short” crypto. And he mocked Bored Apes NFTs, joking that “expensive digital images of monkeys” will “improve the world immensely.”

Instead, Gates said he prefers old fashioned investing.

“I’m used to asset classes, like a farm where they have output, or like a company where they make products,” he said.

His comments come as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are crashing. Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $69,000 in November 2021. Since then, the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency has lost two-thirds of its value, tumbling below $23,000 on Tuesday. It has lost about 25% of its value since Friday.

Crypto exchange Coinbase announced that it’s laying off 18% of its employees as the digital currency market continues to crumble.

Gates has previously doubted crypto. In a 2021 interview with Bloomberg, Gates said that it was one thing for Elon Musk and Tesla to invest in bitcoin, but that doesn’t mean average investors should follow that lead.

“I do think people get bought into these manias, who may not have as much money to spare,” Gates said. “So I’m not bullish on bitcoin.”

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LeBron James is a billionaire, marking the first time an active NBA player has achieved that milestone, according to one calculation.

Forbes said that the Los Angeles Lakers star has “maximized his business,” generating more than $1.2 billion in pretax earnings. His NBA salary from three different teams during the past 19 years has amounted to $383 million, and James has “raked in upwards of $900 million in income from endorsements and other business ventures,” the magazine said.

In addition to lucrative endorsement deals with Nike, AT&T, PepsiCo and Walmart, Forbes said that James structured his deals to include equity in those brands, giving him a “cut of the upside instead of a quick paycheck.” The four-time NBA champion also has investments in fitness startup Tonal, ridesharing company Lyft and eatery upstart Blaze Pizza.

Another lucrative investment for James is TV and movie studio SpringHill Entertainment, which Forbes values at around $300 million. The studio helped produce “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” a movie he starred in that earned $163 million in box office receipts worldwide.

James has long dreamed of being a billionaire.

“It’s my biggest milestone,” he told GQ in a 2014 interview. “Obviously I want to maximize my business. And if I happen to get it, if I happen to be a billion-dollar athlete, ho. Hip hip hooray! Oh, my God, I’m gonna be excited.”

Notably, Michael Jordan is the only other basketball billionaire on Forbes’ list. He didn’t achieve that until 2014, more than a decade after he retired.

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Beginning August 9, the “Saweetie Meal” goes on sale in the US and includes a Big Mac, four-piece Chicken McNuggets, medium fries, a medium Sprite and BBQ sauce that’s being renamed “Saweetie ‘N Sour” in honor of the meal. McDonald’s is encouraging fans to follow Saweetie’s tendency to “remix” her meals, by topping the Big Mac or nuggets with fries.

McDonald’s has created “icy new packaging” inspired by the artist’s look for the limited-time meal. Saweetie leapt to fame with her viral song “My Type,” which has more than 120 million views on YouTube. She also has 12 million followers on Instagram and about 17.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

The “famous orders platform,” as McDonald’s calls the celebrity collab meals, has been a success since its debut last year. It’s easy for the chain to rearrange existing menu items into a buzzy meal without additional work for its employees. Fast-food chains operate on razor-thin profit margins, so promotions and new items help them stand out from the competition.

That’s proven true in this case: McDonald’s credited the BTS Meal, named for the megapopular K-pop band, for helping sales grow 25.9% at US restaurants last quarter in a jump that beat analysts’ expectations.

“We saw significant lifts in McNuggets sales and record breaking levels of social engagement,” said CEO Chris Kempczinski on Wednesday’s earnings call about the promotion.

Prior to the BTS collaboration, McDonald’s partnered with artists J Balvin and Travis Scott. The Travis Scott meal was so successful, some locations ran out.

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CVS Health is tempting people who are hesitant to get the Covid-19 vaccine with lavish prizes — some of which were forbidden just a year ago.

The pharmacy chain announced Thursday that people who plan to receive or have received a Covid-19 vaccine at CVS can enter its new “One Step Closer” sweepstakes and win one of more than 1,000 prizes. Those include a seven-day cruise on Norwegian Cruise Line, VIP tickets to next year’s Super Bowl, a two-night stay at a Wyndham hotel and $5,000 cash prizes for family reunions.

“We’re grateful for the millions of people who’ve received one of the well over 17 million doses we’ve administered at CVS Health, but we have a long way to go,” said Dr. Kyu Rhee, senior vice president of CVS Health, in a press release.

The sweepstakes, which begins June 1 and ends July 10, is aimed at “working to close gaps in hesitancy” of getting the vaccine. CVS cited a survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that 17.6% of adults 18 years and over are hesitant to receive the vaccine.

To combat that, private companies are offering incentives to people that get vaccinated. Unilever gave out free ice cream, Krispy Kreme is giving away a free doughnut every day for the rest of the year and Budweiser is reimbursing beer purchases.

States are also giving away lavish prizes too. Ohio recently launched a $1 million prize that has boosted vaccination rate by 45%. New York and Maryland have also announced lotteries offering people who get vaccinated a chance to win money.

President Joe Biden is aiming to have at least one dose of vaccine administered to 70% of the nation’s adult population by July 4, a target date some officials have set for a full reopening. As of Tuesday, 50% of adults are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the CDC.

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Hundreds of prominent executives from high-profile companies, including Amazon, Google, BlackRock and Starbucks, signed a statement that opposes discriminatory legislation that makes voting harder.

The statement, printed Wednesday in an advertisement in the New York Times, was organized by Ken Chenault and Ken Frazier, two of America’s most prominent Black corporate leaders. The statement called democracy a “beautifully American ideal” and for it to work, “we must ensure the right to vote for all of us.”

“We all should feel a responsibility to defend the right to vote and to oppose any discriminatory legislation on measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot,” it continued.

The statement, which is described as “nonpartisan,” doesn’t directly address any specific legislation, notably in Georgia, Texas, and other key states where Republican lawmakers are trying to clamp down on ballot access.

Wednesday’s statement was a sign of solidarity after weeks of warring between Republicans and a smaller group of Georgia-based companies that spoke out after public pressure.

Three of those companies, including Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines and Home Depot, declined to add their names, according to the New York Times. All three are based in Georgia and were “wary because of the blowback they had received after their earlier statements on voting rights but also did not feel the need to speak again,” it reported.

It’s the latest high-profile letter from companies in the last month.

A few weeks ago, chief executives and other high-ranking leaders from more than 100 companies including Target, Snapchat and Uber, issued a public statement opposing any measures that deny eligible voters the right to cast ballots. That letter was organized by Civic Alliance, a coalition that “recognizes that a strong democracy is good for business,” according to its website.

Another letter, released in late March, from Black business executives challenged their fellow corporate leaders to be more forceful in condemning what they describe as deliberate attempts by Republicans to limit the number of Black Americans casting ballots in key states.

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