In today’s newsletter I ask the question: Is the classic American summer vacation at risk from rising gas prices? Google partners with the private equity firm Blackstone to launch an AI cloud infrastructure and data center company, Scarlett Johansson is joining the cast of the new sequel 'The Batman Part II', Martha Stewart launches a new AI startup named Hint (because of course she is), Sir David Attenborough turns 100 and gets a bug named after him, Christie's auction house in NYC just sold $1.1 billion dollars worth of art in a single night, the wildly popular digital puzzle game Wordle is coming to a TV near you, and David Beckham has officially entered the history books as the first British athlete to become a billionaire.

Let’s get into it!

The iconic American summer vacation and the time-honored classic road trip are facing a massive roadblock this summer as rising gas prices at the pump threaten these traditions. Gas prices have shot up by more than 50% since the War in Iran began, and the surge at the pump is making millions of families rethink their summer travel plans. Hitting the open road is something Americans look forward to all year long, but paying to fill up the gas tank is giving most consumers sticker shock and taking a huge bite out of household budgets. The rising costs are putting a serious squeeze on wallets and leaving many families wondering if they can still afford that summer vacation they spent all winter dreaming about.

Each year, the travel industry generates $1 trillion dollars in economic output, and a huge chunk of that money is spent during the hot summer months. The average American household typically budgets around $2,500 for their summer getaways, but the surging cost of gas is forcing everyone to rethink their plans.

The massive jump in prices for a gallon of gas at the pump is due to the ongoing instability in the Strait of Hormuz where a huge portion of the world’s oil supply passes through a waterway that is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. Roughly 21 million barrels of oil flow through the narrow waterway each day, or at least they used to until Iran imposed a blockade, then the U.S. said, “Hold my beer,” and imposed its own blockade….which makes no sense since the whole goal is to open up the Strait of Hormuz, but I digress. To put things lightly, the oil markets have been freaking out. And now American consumers are freaking out at the pump.

Just one day before the War in Iran began, the national average for a gallon of gas was sitting comfortably at $2.98. That price spiked within 24 hours of the start of the conflict, and now the national average has risen 50% to $4.53 a gallon. The average American family SUV holds roughly 18 gallons of gas, so to completely fill up that tank it’ll now cost around $81.54, up from $53.64 just 2 months ago. Those extra dollars add up really fast when you’re driving hundreds of miles on your summer vacation.

This spike in the price of gas could not have come at a worse time for Americans, as the summer vacation season is just about to kick off. Taking a summer vacation is a time-honored tradition, and a recent survey showed that 63% of households plan to travel on vacation this summer. Some Americans are instead choosing to stay close to home as costs continue to rise, with an estimated 173 million Americans opting for staycations this summer. Data shows that the global staycation market is valued at roughly $369 billion and is expanding at a CAGR of 7.8% as more people are choosing to stay close to home instead of traveling during the summer. But staying at home isn’t exactly cheap either. Research shows that families typically spend less than $600 on staycations, which can help them save up over the course of a few years for a larger getaway to such destinations as Disney World or a cross-country road trip.

The big question is: Will Americans be forced to cut back on their summer vacations and decide to do their own versions of staycations, or will Americans still hit the roads en masse this year to make the summer travel season one of the busiest ever? It is a tough choice when you consider the financial reality facing households this year. Families are looking at their bank accounts and weighing the heavy cost of fuel against the deep desire to get out and enjoy what they’ve been working hard for all year. A traditional week-long road trip to visit some national parks would typically require driving around 1,000 miles and would have burned through roughly $250 in gas, but now families have to budget close to $400 just to cover those same gas costs. Some American families are choosing to just bite the bullet and pay the higher prices by relying on their credit cards. Total credit card debt in the U.S. is now approximately 5.9% higher than it was during the same period a year ago thanks in large part to the War in Iran and the effect it has had on fuel costs.

The iconic American summer vacation is definitely under pressure this year as rising gas prices threaten to alter Americans' travel plans. With gas prices having spiked by more than 50% since the start of the War in Iran, Americans are looking in their wallets and wondering if they can still afford to take that summer vacation they’ve been dreaming about all year long. And that’s leaving everyone asking the big question: Should they still go away on summer vacation, or join the estimated 173 million Americans choosing a staycation this summer?

Google is partnering with the private equity firm Blackstone to launch an AI cloud infrastructure and data center company. The joint venture is designed to challenge the industry dominance of rival chipmakers like Nvidia, AMD, and Intel by offering businesses an alternative ecosystem to run their AI data centers. Blackstone is bringing a massive initial equity investment of $5 billion dollars to get the operation off the ground, and their investment could reach as much as $25 billion dollars when the project is up and running. Google will supply the partnership with its highly coveted custom hardware, including their proprietary Tensor Processing Units (TPU’s), which are custom built for machine learning tasks. The partnership will build a state of the art 500 megawatts of data center to power their AI cloud infrastructure and data center company.

Both Google and Blackstone certainly have the deep pockets they’ll need to compete with the big dogs of the chip industry. Google parent company Alphabet sits at a massive market capitalization of nearly $4.68 trillion dollars, and the Blackstone Group manages around $1.27 trillion dollars in total assets under management, making it the largest alternative asset manager in the world. So yea, I’d say they can afford it.

Hollywood superstar Scarlett Johansson will be walking the gritty streets of Gotham City on the big screen, alongside heartthrob Robert Pattinson, as she joins the sequel 'The Batman Part II'. The announcement has set the Internet on fire! Scarlett Johansson is joining the Batman series, in addition to her roles on other series including the 9 Marvel movies, 2 Jurassic Park movies, the 2 Sing movies where she lent her voice to punk rock porcupine named Ash.

The new 'The Batman Part II' movie will focus on Bruce Wayne’s internal struggles as he tries to become a symbol of hope for Gotham rather than just an avatar of vengeance. Scarlett Johansson will play the role of Gilda Dent, wife of Harvey Dent who is Gotham City's idealistic district attorney.

The first installment of 'The Batman Part II' brought in an insane $772 million dollars at the global boxoffice, with $369 million dollars in domestic box office totals and $402 million dollars internationally. Some box office analysts, and amature movies experts like me, estimate that 'The Batman Part II' could bring in more than $1 billion dollars at the global box office, and the addition of Scarlett Johansson to the cast is a pretty good way to ensure the new Batman movies puts butts in seats and breaks records.

The legendary broadcasting icon Sir David Attenborough is celebrating his 100th birthday. The world renowned naturalist was celebrated by international scientists who honored his legacy by naming a newly identified insect genus after him, because nothing congratulates someone for their lifetime achievements like having a bug named after them. The tiny creature is a highly unique type of parasitic wasp that scientists dug out of a dusty museum collection that someone had discovered four decades ago and then forgot about.

David Attenborough got his start in television during the early 1950s when he joined the British Broadcasting Corporation as a trainee producer, despite the fact that he didn’t even own a TV at the time. He quickly made a name for himself by creating the groundbreaking documentary series “Zoo Quest”, which introduced viewers to exotic animals filmed in their natural habitats. David Attenborough made a name for himself with his comforting, hushed narration style that has brought the natural world to life for generations of viewers. Over a career spanning more than 70 years, David Attenborough worked for the BBC where he introduced color TV to the United Kingdom, and oversaw legendary programming for the BBC like “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”. David Attenborough hosted the Life collection, which has included such highly acclaimed series as “Life on Earth” and “The Living Planet”, which have attracted global audiences of more than 500 million people. Today David Attenborough is universally recognized for his distinctive whispering narration style and his tireless environmental advocacy work which earned him 2 knighthoods, and a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prizes. Put simply, David Attenborough is a legend, and a national treasure to the entire world.

The queen of home lifestyles, Martha Stewart, is starting a new chapter of her career with the launch of her new AI startup Hint. The company is an AI-native home management platform that builds a digital profile of your home, and then uses advanced data models to analyze public property records and weather patterns to manage home maintenance schedules before they become costly repair issues. Martha Stewart co-founded Hint with Yih Han Ma who’s the company’s CEO, along with AI engineer Kyle Rush as CTO.

Martha Stewart’s new startup blends her decades of household and lifestyle expertise with the hottest trend in tech: AI. Hint has already raised $10 million dollars in funding from Montauk Capital, which also incubated the company, as well as from venture capital firms Slow Ventures, Tusk Venture Partners, Amplo, Energy Impact Partners, Hannah Grey VC, and the founder of “The Points Guy” Brian Kelly.

Martha Stewart has an estimated net worth of $400 million dollars, and she’s probably best known for building a massive lifestyle empire called Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, which is centered around cooking, home decor, and gardening. She became the first self-made female billionaire in the U.S. when her company IPOed on October 19, 1999.

Now Martha Stewart is back in the spotlight at age 84 with the launch of her new AI startup Hint, which proves that age is just a number, and not something that could ever hold back the queen of home lifestyles.

The luxury auction house Christie's just had a very good night. At a recent auction in New York City Christie's sold an astonishing $1.1 billion dollars worth of art in a single night. The auction included masterpieces from the private collection of late media mogul Samuel Irving Newhouse. A fierce bidding war broke out, you know the kind where people in the audience wave their hands in a dignified manner in complete silence. Imagine a barely audible golf clap, and you’ve got a good picture of how wild things got.

Hollywood actress Nicole Kidman starred in a promotional short film before the event to help build excitement, and it looks like it worked to the tune of $1.1 billion dollars in sales.

The biggest sales was a masterpiece by abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock entitled Number 7A, which sold for an eye-popping $181.2 million dollars to an anonymous buyer, because of course it did. A gold toned bronze sculpture by Constantin Brancusi titled Danaide sold for a staggering $107.6 million dollars after the promotional video showed Nicole Kidman dancing around the artwork.

The 2nd night of Christie's auction saw the sale of a twentieth century painting by Mark Rothko titled No. 15 sell for $98.4 million dollars. In less than 1 hour the auction house brought in more than $630 million dollars!

Check out this video of Nicole Kidman dancing seductively around a gold statue in a not-creepy-at-all way.

The wildly popular digital puzzle game Wordle is making the jump from your phone to a TV near you. NBC has announced they are bringing a game show version of Wordle to prime time. Savannah Guthrie, co-host of NBC’s TODAY show, will host the new game show. The game show is being executive produced by late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon through his production company Electric Hot Dog.

Software engineer Josh Wardle originally created the simple word puzzle game Wordle as a private game to play with his wife Palak Shah during Covid. The project absolutely exploded in popularity during the globally pandemic, before the New York Times purchased the game from him in a reported 7-figure deal. Today users around the world have solved more than 4 billion puzzles in the last year alone.

The TV game show version of Wordle will transition the solitary internet game into a high energy team competition. Teams of contestants will face off in a massive arena against each other to test their speed and intelligence against five letter word puzzles for a chance to win huge cash prizes. Casting has already begun, with production scheduled to start this Summer in the UK, and the show anticipated to debut this Fall in the United States. Jimmy Fallon’s production company, Electric Hot Dog, is already planning to expand the TV version of Wordle globally to create local language versions of the TV show worldwide. Phew.

David Beckham has officially entered the history books as the first British athlete to become a billionaire. The legendary former soccer star, along with his famous Spice Girl wife Victoria Beckham, have reached a combined net worth of $1.6 billion dollars, up from just $665 million dollars only 12 months ago. Why the massive jump in net worth? You can thank the MLS’s Inter Miami FC for that.

Sir David Beckham, as he’s officially known in the UK after being knighted by King Charles III in a ceremony at Windsor Castle on November 4, 2025, is now one of the wealthiest British citizens in the world.

How did David Beckham and Victoria Beckham make their fortune? Most of David Beckham’s net worth comes from his soccer career, but when he signed with the MLS’s LA Galaxy in 2007 he included a clause in his contract that allowed him to buy a MLS expansion team for $25 million dollars. In 2018 he exercised that option, and co-founded Inter Miami FC along with brothers Jorge Mas and José Mas, who built their family’s fortune in Miami’s telecommunications and construction industries.

The rest of David Beckham and Victoria Beckham’s fortune comes from a diverse mix of fashion, corporate endorsements, and luxury real estate that the couple own. Victoria Beckham herself has built a serious business empire of her own through her fashion and beauty label that today generates more than $133 million dollars a year in revenue. The family also owns an international real estate portfolio including an $80 million dollars mansion in Florida, and a $66 million dollars residence in London. Together, the couple ranks as the second richest sports figures in the United Kingdom, trailing only former racing executive Bernie Ecclestone, the former owner of Formula 1. Now that’s rich!

Was this email forwarded to you? Did you not hate it?

Then consider subscribing to The Business Behind The News. The only newsletter that brings you the business behind the news, with a healthy dose of sarcasm - all delivered to your inbox once a week in an easily digestible 5-minute read.

The Business Behind The News is written, edited, and published by Chris Thompson.