The bottom line

The biggest U.S. corporations set CEO pay records in 2018 for the fourth year running. The median compensation for an S&P 500 CEO rose to $12.4 million, up 6.6 percent year over year and the highest level since the financial crisis of 2008.

The Wall Street Journal

Sixty percent of male managers say they are uncomfortable mentoring and socializing with junior-level women, an increase of 32 points from the previous year, according to a new poll. The survey found that 36 percent of all men purposely avoided mentoring or socializing with a female colleague because they were “nervous about how it would look.”

Axios.com

The IRS audited just 6.66 percent of the 16,000 tax returns filed by people with more than $10 million in adjusted gross income last year, down from 14.52 percent in 2017 and the lowest rate since records began in 2008.

Qz.com

A stainless-steel, 3-foot-tall bunny sculpture by Jeff Koons sold for $91.1 million, an auction record for a living artist. The buyer was art dealer Robert Mnuchin—father of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin—who bid on behalf of his client, hedge-fund billionaire Steve Cohen.

Artnet.com

The 31 most prominent nonprofit hospitals generated $68.5 billion of revenue last quarter; their combined net margin of 16.4 percent has nearly tripled since 2018. While rural hospitals are dying, many large hospital systems in cities and suburbs are swimming in cash.

Axios.com

Investors short-selling Tesla stock have profited by $3.88 billion this year, after losing $1.4 billion in 2018. Tesla bears are up more than $1 billion in May alone after shares fell 20 percent.

Bloomberg.com

Uber drivers go on strike—for two minutes at a time

Frustrated Uber and Lyft drivers at Washington’s Reagan National Airport have organized a simple way to cause artificial price surges, said Sam Sweeney in WJLA.com. “Every night, several times a night,” dozens of drivers gather in the airport parking lot and “simultaneously turn off their ride-share apps for a minute or two to trick the app into thinking there are no drivers available.” This creates a price surge, and the drivers turn the apps back on to lock in the higher fare. “We work as a family, like a team together,” one driver said. One person running the operation will monitor the rising prices in real time. The price increase typically ranges from $12 to $19 above the normal fare. Drivers say they are fighting back after “three years of pay cuts,” accusing the ride-sharing companies of raising fees so much that airport pickups are not worth it “without pumping the surge up.”

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May 24, 2019 THE WEEK