Tim Cook has spoken at least seven commencement ceremonies since becoming Apple's CEO. Taylor Swift, the superstar who has been credited with boosting local economies with her concerts, spoke at New York University's commencement in 2022. Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Jamie Dimon, and others have all spoken at commencement ceremonies multiple times.
They're obviously not in it for the money (and there usually isn't any). Rather, speakers have long seen graduations as a space to offer something increasingly rare: a stage where a large audience can gather to hear a speaker impart wisdom, advice, or whatever else they want to share.
However, the appeal of giving a commencement speech appears to be fading.
Just three Fortune 50 CEOs are expected to deliver commencement speeches this year, as universities face campus protests over the Gaza war, student arrests and wealthy alumni threatening to sever ties with their alma maters over anti-Semitism.
“This just doesn't seem like the right time for CEOs to be proactively going out on campus and giving speeches in this sort of environment,” said David Murray, executive director of the Society of Professional Speechwriters.
CEOs are tired of talking. At a recent conference of executive speechwriters, Murray said one key point stood out to him: One presenter said: ““24 years, less is more.”
Murray emphasized this sentiment in a May newsletter for the Professional Speechwriters Association. “People are increasingly pushing their leaders out of the spotlight,” he wrote, describing the current situation as making “even previously mundane messages urging employees to vote” sound partisan to some.
The approach marks a dramatic evolution from when executives issued a concerted statement after the 2020 death of a Black man, George Floyd, in police custody. “They weren't rewarded,” Murray said. “They were told they were woke. Some groups said they didn't respond enough, some said they went too far. And now they've definitely reached the point where they're saying, 'We're going to comment on things that have an absolutely critical impact on our company and our business.'”
The campus reflects a divisive era. Prior to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the Gaza war, and subsequent campus protests, the City University of New York School of Law announced it would not select a commencement speaker. The school had faced backlash after a previous commencement speaker focused on support for the Palestinians. After war-related protests on campus and controversy over university administration's response, Columbia University announced it would cancel its main graduation ceremony altogether. And while many ceremonies across the country went on without interruption, some were disrupted by protests and walkouts, sometimes with protests targeting the school's chosen speaker.
Speechwriters are preparing for disruptions, said Michael Franklin, executive director of the trade group Speechwriters of Color. “A new part of the package this year is that in addition to the speeches that speechwriters will deliver, they will also have alternative transition speeches prepared in case there is a disruption,” he said.
Some executives prefer small talk to speeches. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella received an honorary doctorate from Georgia Tech this year, but he didn't give a commencement speech. Instead, he gave a five-minute speech at a special ceremony in January, left the stage to change out of his graduation robe, and returned for a “fireside chat” with the school's president, Angel Cabrera.
“They love fireside chats,” Murray said of executives. “They want to sit down and have friendly conversations and look and be attractive. They keep it short and stick to the key message.”
Kate Linkous, executive vice president of corporate reputation at Edelman, said she's also noticed more conferences replacing keynote speeches with fireside chats. “The commencement speech is one of the last great examples of the long form speech,” Linkous said.
Will the commencement speech as we know it survive? One possibility is that speakers are so focused on avoiding controversy that their speeches end up being boring. “If you try to soften anything, you end up not appealing to anybody and you end up saying nothing,” says Ben Kraus, a former speechwriter for Joe Biden and other politicians and CEO of speechwriting and strategic communications firm Fenway Strategies. His advice?
“People have been protesting graduation ceremonies for as long as there have been graduations,” he said. “If someone is disruptive, someone is going to disrupt. It's a natural feature of human communication.” Sarah Kessler
In case you missed it
The NCAA signed what could be a historic settlement. The University Athletic Association and several top conferences have agreed to a $2.8 billion pact to pay student-athletes for playing. If approved by a federal court, the plan would be the biggest step yet to dispel the notion that college stars are amateurs, but skeptics worry it leaves some big problems unresolved.
Nikki Haley opened the door for donors to support Donald Trump. The former Republican presidential candidate said she would vote for her one-time rival in November's election, appearing to reconcile with a man she lambasted during the GOP primary. That could give deep-pocketed backers like hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin an excuse to donate money to Trump, who is lagging behind President Biden in fundraising. Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman said this week he was backing Trump.
Scarlett Johansson takes on OpenAI The actress, who played an AI assistant in the film “Her,” accused the tech startup of using a voice similar to the latest version of its ChatGPT chatbot after turning down an offer from the company. The controversy reflects declining trust in OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, Hollywood's antagonistic relationship with AI, and Silicon Valley's continuing intolerance of startups asking for forgiveness rather than permission.
The Department of Justice sued Live Nation, accusing it of monopoly over live entertainment. The antitrust lawsuit accuses Ticketmaster's parent company of maintaining an illegal monopoly by locking venues and artists into exclusive contracts and threatening retaliation against rivals. It's the latest example of the Biden administration cracking down on what it sees as unfair competition and comes even as Live Nation supports some of the White House's fight against so-called “junk fees.”
The FDIC chairman said he plans to step down. Martin Grunberg has agreed to step down after losing Democratic support over reports of a toxic culture at the banking regulator. Republicans say Grunberg, who said he would step down once a successor is chosen, should step down immediately as Democrats seek to maintain their majority at the agency tasked with drafting tough new banking regulations.
Pursuing liability for bankruptcy
Red Lobster made headlines this week after claiming that its all-you-can-eat shrimp deal was what drove the company into bankruptcy. The claim was part of a so-called opening day affidavit, a legal document that bankrupt companies file to explain why they got into trouble.
These declarations are carefully and strategically crafted: “Companies typically want to present themselves as honest but hapless debtors,” Adam Levitin, a bankruptcy professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told DealBook. “They go bankrupt not because of mismanagement, but because of events in the world beyond their control.”
That's why many companies that file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy cite macroeconomic trends or strange external factors when other issues are more significant: In Red Lobster's case, it was dealing with high lease costs and the same challenges other casual-dining companies face.
The unlimited shrimp promotion, which Red Lobster's former president reportedly devised in collaboration with the chain's parent company, Thai Union, is unlikely to have been the primary cause of the lawsuit. “It's not worth the dollar amount and it's a little too indirect,” Vincent Buccola, a bankruptcy professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told DealBook. (He speculates that Red Lobster's current management may be trying to hint at the threat of future litigation against Thai Union, a charge that Thai Union denies.)
But it got DealBook thinking: What other unexpected factors are companies citing as the cause of bankruptcy?
Low Carb Diet: Interstate Bakeries, the parent company of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, filed for bankruptcy in 2004, blaming the Atkins diet craze for low-carb eating. But the company was left with about $1.3 billion in debt and analysts criticized it for a lack of innovation and high labor costs. It filed for bankruptcy again in 2012.
Twinkies ultimately had a happy ending: Investment firm Apollo Global Management and investor Dean Metropoulos acquired the Hostess brand, ushering in one of the most successful corporate transformations of recent years. After going public in 2016, Hostess was sold to J.M. Smucker last year for $5.6 billion.
Helium shortage: Party City filed for bankruptcy in January 2023, partly due to a global helium shortage caused by Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine, but the retailer is saddled with roughly $1.7 billion in debt and has yet to recover from the effects of the pandemic, which has disrupted supply chains and put a damper on festive gatherings (though its founders blame the store's high prices, too).
Party City emerged from bankruptcy in October after eliminating about $1 billion in debt and closing low-profit stores.
People fleeing Manhattan: When upscale home goods retailer ABC Carpet & Home filed for bankruptcy in 2021, it cited a “massive departure of existing and potential customers from the city” during the pandemic as one of the factors. But the company also had disputes with landlords and lagged behind in its digital expansion, which became problematic after the pandemic hit.
The retailer, which still operates its multi-colored Manhattan stores, later emerged from bankruptcy and was sold to an investment firm.
The numbers behind why Elon Musk should be paid so much
Tesla argued this week that investors should re-approve Elon Musk's $56 billion compensation package at the electric car maker's annual meeting next month.The company said the compensation plan, which a judge rejected in January, served its original purpose of incentivizing Musk to lead the company to significant growth, including by ensuring that Tesla's total shareholder return from March 2018, when shareholders first approved Musk's compensation deal, through the end of 2023 substantially outperforms other tech giants, the so-called Magnificent Seven.
“A deal is a deal. Shareholders approved the plan. Elon achieved his goals. We should honor our contractual commitments,” the company said in the presentation.
Notably, Tesla has been the worst-performing of the Magnificent Seven stocks this year, down about 28% as of market close on Friday.
Thanks for reading! See you on Monday.
We welcome your feedback, so please email your thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.