Forbes Daily: Most Eligible Billionaires

Good morning,

Happy Valentine’s Day.

If you’re reading this, it might be too late to put the science of Valentine’s Day gift giving to the test—unless, of course, you’re trying to make sense of the gift that special someone in your life got you this year.

And if you’re feeling unlucky in love this holiday, take comfort in knowing you’re not the only one. Even members of the elite three-comma club have trouble finding love sometimes. Forbes intern Gabriela Lopez Gomes has that story for you down below in our Wealth section.

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BREAKING NEWS

As officials largely remain vague about the flying objects that have been shot down recently over North America, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested there may be “some sort of pattern” between the three unidentified objects removed from airspace in the past few days.

At least three people were killed in a shooting at Michigan State University on Monday night, while another five are in critical condition at a nearby hospital.

The death toll from the powerful earthquake that shook southern Turkey and northern Syria last week surpassed 35,000 on Monday as rescue workers continued to pull survivors from the rubble of collapsed buildings.

BUSINESS + FINANCE

After nearly seven years of companies consistently directing money to China, they’re pulling capital out of the country. Over the last six months, foreign direct investment into China has gone negative for the first time since 2016.

Morgan Stanley’s investment chief warned the market’s latest upswing is starting to resemble a bear market rally last summer that ultimately ushered in new lows for major indexes, coming as stocks stage a comeback ahead of a critical CPI report (expected today).

WEALTH + ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Even the world’s richest people can be unlucky in love. From Elon Musk and MacKenzie Scott to Kim Kardashian and Tyler Perry, these billionaires are still looking for a Valentine. This Valentine’s Day, Forbes takes a look at America’s most eligible billionaires.

A group called He Gets Us ran two ads during the Super Bowl game in an effort to spread the word about Jesus. One of the donors behind the ads is a craft chain billionaire worth nearly $15 billion. Here’s our 2012 profile on Hobby Lobby founder David Green, who is also a big bankroller for the Museum of The Bible in Washington, D.C.

TECH + INNOVATION

Forbes learned that Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin, moved $37 billion of its reserves to an offshore bank called Capital Union in 2021, coming after it settled with New York regulators over claims that it had falsely misrepresented its assets.

SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT

Ted Lerner, the self-made billionaire real estate magnate and owner of the Washington Nationals, passed away at the age of 97 on Sunday in his Chevy Chase, Maryland home. His death comes a few years after he oversaw the team’s meteoric rise to its first ever World Series title. (Photo: Stephen Voss).

Elon Musk and billionaire Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch sat together in a suite at the Super Bowl on Sunday, and when Twitter users started speculating what the two moguls were discussing, the platform’s CEO offered a one-word reply: “Dogecoin.” The tweet caused the digital asset to spike as much as 6%.

Daily Cover Story

How A TikTok Ban Would Work—And How TikTok Could Fight Back

TOPLINE Over the past two months, U.S. lawmakers have accelerated calls to ban TikTok, the most popular app in the world, or to force its China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to an American company.

Those calls come as the federal government and more than half of states have banned the use of TikTok on official government devices, while some universities have also prohibited students from using the app on school devices.

Of course, there is no guarantee that the government will try to ban TikTok, but if it does require or threaten a ban, Forbes outlines a few different ways it might do so—and a few legal challenges TikTok might mount in response.

WHY IT MATTERS “More than 100 million Americans use TikTok today, and many have incorporated the platform into their professional lives and businesses,” says Forbes Technology Reporter Emily Baker-White. “If the platform is banned, it will cause enormous shifts in the U.S. media ecosystem, and a prolonged court battle will leave those shifts in limbo, challenging creators, advertisers and regular users to consider alternatives to the most popular app in the world.”

MORE TikTok’s China Problem

FACTS AND COMMENTS

When the Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LVII on Sunday night, it was a familiar feeling for the billionaire Hunt family that owns the team. Aside from being one of America’s richest families, here’s who they are.

$20.5 billion: How much the Hunts are worth altogether.

11: Number of Hunt family heirs who landed on the first-ever Forbes 400 list of richest Americans in 1982.

$3.7 billion: Forbes’ valuation of the Kansas City Chiefs last year. The team is perhaps the best investment the Hunt family has ever made—that amounts to an astonishing 14,799,900% lifetime return.

STRATEGY AND SUCCESS

So-called “romance scams,” where villains woo victims before taking their money, are thriving online, and companies and agencies who monitor these operations expect them to tick up around Valentine’s Day. The Federal Trade Commission advised that nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam last year, resulting in $1.3 billion in losses. Here are the warning signs to watch out for to avoid falling for this ruse, and what you can do if you’ve already been conned.

Video

FanDuel CEO Amy Howe Talks ‘Explosive’ Business With The NFL, Sports Betting, And Competition From Fanatics

QUIZ

Who did the Biden administration say is not involved with the four aerial vessels that the U.S. military destroyed over North America in recent days?

A. China

B. Russia

C. The CIA

D. Aliens

Check if you got it right here.

ACROSS THE NEWSROOM

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BEYOND THE NEWSROOM

• Register for the 2023 Forbes Equal Pay Day Forum, an in-person event where business leaders will explore how to close systemic gaps. The event takes place on March 15 from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. E.T. in New York City.
• Coming up: The Forbes Under 30 Summit Africa is coming back for a second time to the world’s greatest growth market. From April 23-26, join some of the greatest minds from around the world in Gaborone, Botswana for this can’t-miss event. Register now.
• Save the date: The 2023 Forbes CIO Summit, a hybrid event, will take place in Dana Point, California on April 11-12. Join us as top CIOs discuss fostering resiliency in their organizations to navigate current challenges like the pandemic, new supply chains, labor shortages, a crypto crash and more.

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