• Rankin Carroll emphasizes the enduring value of entertainment in marketing strategies today.
• Mars shifts focus to personalized, engaging content to better connect with consumers.
• Snickers' UEFA Euro 2024 campaign showcases Mars' innovative approach to consumer engagement.

After more than two decades at Mars, overseeing iconic brands like M&M's, Skittles, and Twix, the company's chief brand officer, Rankin Carroll, says one of the biggest mistakes marketers make today is forgetting a simple idea: entertainment still matters.

As marketers race to embrace AI, data, personalization, influencers, and new measurement tools, Carroll told Business Insider in an interview for its "CMO Insider" podcast that the industry sometimes loses sight of what consumers are actually looking for.

"I think what's critical to cut through is it's still a game of compelling stories," Carroll said. "People are still looking for content that captures their attention."

Carroll's comments come as Mars undergoes a major transformation in how it markets its brands, shifting toward more personalized advertising powered by data and technology.

Yet Carroll says all of those tools matter only if they help brands create entertainment that consumers actually want to spend time with.

Consumers don't want brands talking at them

Carroll says one of the biggest changes in marketing is the growing expectation that consumers participate in brand experiences rather than simply receive messages.

"We can get caught up in the data, we can get caught up in all the technology side of this, but at the end of the day, it's compelling stories well told in engaging ways that they can participate in," he said.

For Carroll, that is where entertainment comes in. Instead of interrupting consumers with ads, Mars increasingly wants to give them experiences they choose to engage with.

That philosophy has shaped several recent Mars campaigns.

Carroll pointed to a Snickers activation built around the UEFA Euro 2024 soccer tournament.

The campaign partnered with Meta and WhatsApp to let consumers send personalized messages to friends using an AI-powered José Mourinho character. Users entered prompts about mistakes their friends had made, and the system generated custom responses in Mourinho's voice.

Rather than simply promoting Snickers, Mars built the campaign to tap into behavior that it already understood about soccer fandom.

"We know the behavior around the Euros around football is banter," Carroll said. "You want to banter with your mates."

The result was an entertaining experience that consumers could actively participate in and share. "It just exploded," Carroll said.

Mars says personalization works best when it's entertaining

Carroll believes personalization has become an expectation, particularly among younger consumers.

"What we know is that consumers now, especially younger consumers, expect personalization from brands," he said.

But he does not view personalization as simply delivering more targeted advertisements. Instead, Mars is trying to build experiences that allow consumers to participate in the creation of content itself.

The Snickers campaign was one example. Another was the "Twix Harmonizer," a tool that allowed users to send voice notes to friends that would soften bad news through AI-generated audio.

Again, Carroll says the appeal was not the technology itself but rather giving people something entertaining to do.

"You cut through by creating an experience that they can actually participate in," he said.

Why Mars thinks many marketers are overcomplicating things

Carroll says that digital platforms have made it harder for brands to break through. Social media feeds are crowded, algorithms constantly change, and consumers have more content choices than ever.

Still, he says marketers sometimes focus too heavily on data, technology, and optimization while overlooking the importance of creating something people genuinely enjoy.

"I think that's the word that we've slightly forgotten about. Entertainment," Carroll said.

That thinking also influences how Mars approaches culture.

Whether it's Skittles creating unusual campaigns, Snickers building interactive experiences, or M&M's responding to controversy through humor, Carroll says brands need to find ways to participate in culture without losing their identities.

"We can bring something to you," he says of consumers.

For Carroll, that remains the foundation of effective marketing regardless of how technology evolves.

"At the end of the day," he said, "it's compelling stories well told in engaging ways that they can participate in."

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Modern CMOs are getting the promotion they've long wanted: job titles like CGO that reflect their revenue and growth responsibilities. The catch? They're not getting more power.

That's a sharp tension at the heart of a new study shared exclusively with CMO Insider by the brand consultancy Lippincott. The study analyzed a survey of 541 global CMOs or equivalents.

"There is more responsibility but less of that autonomy in terms of getting a strong sense of alignment across the organization," Michael D'Esopo, Lippincott CEO, told me.

Nearly 80% said bureaucracy commonly got in the way of decision-making, while 84% said it was at least "somewhat difficult" to align their management team, senior peers, and other stakeholders around a marketing vision. Fewer than half (44%) said marketing operated with high autonomy.

One unnamed CMO quoted in the report put it this way: "What often happens is that a strong, well-founded idea gets gradually diluted. Someone senior, like a CFO or CCO, adds input that doesn't align with the evidence, and people hesitate to challenge it."

Part of the issue is that many CEOs aren't confident in marketing's ability to demonstrate a financial impact.

"There is a huge trust problem for marketing in the C-suite," former Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar told me in a recent interview.

Plenty of studies over the years have suggested marketing has a credibility problem in the corner office. A report released in April from the communications firm Boathouse, for example, found only 13% of CEOs were confident in marketing's ability to demonstrate a financial impact.

Those long-held tensions are being exacerbated by technological shifts, D'Esopo said.

The abundance of AI-powered dashboards and analytics tools has made marketing performance more visible across organizations, D'Esopo said. That can help CMOs appeal to finance leaders by showcasing short-term wins, but it can also reinforce a focus on immediate results at the expense of long-term brand building.

These new tools have also boosted marketing leaders who are steeped in data. Lippincott said 35% of marketing chiefs come from performance- or growth-marketing backgrounds. Around 20% of the senior-most marketing decision-makers don't even have "marketing" in their job title, reflecting the rise of chief growth, chief revenue, and chief commercial officers, per Lippincott.

That can have both good and bad effects.

The rise of performance-minded leaders may bring more analytical rigor to balance out softer marketing metrics. However, Rajamannar said they can use a brute-force approach, likening it to "running constantly on the treadmill." It can lead to chasing the next click, lead, or conversion rather than building the underlying consumer demand.

Short-termism is also creeping into new areas, such as AI search visibility. CMOs surveyed said their companies are spending more on AI while cutting investment in websites and content — the very assets AI systems use to understand and surface brands.

So if that's the diagnosis, what's the antidote?

Lippincott said in the report that CMOs need to use the language of business growth without losing the fundamentals of long-term brand building, which may require translating marketing's impact differently for each separate stakeholder, whether that's the CEO, CFO, or the board. And organizational alignment should be treated as a growth strategy in its own right.

PepsiCo's Jane Wakely, who has possibly the longest job title in the marketing profession — executive vice president, chief consumer and marketing officer, and chief growth officer for international foods — said CMOs should stay focused on the marketing principles that don't change. New technologies such as AI and diverse data sources just give marketers more ways to achieve their goals, she added.

"If I'm reaching a billion people every day, to grow I've got to reach more than a billion — it's quite simple," Wakely said. "That is not going to change."

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Bose wants a bigger chunk of the music business.

The audio-equipment maker has created Bose Studios, an in-house content studio designed to help it shift from campaign-driven marketing, the company exclusively told CMO Insider.

One key differentiator is the launch of a new record label, Bose Records. Bose CMO Jim Mollica said in an interview that the plan isn't to go toe-to-toe with the "Big Three" label conglomerates, but rather to help break underappreciated or new artists and — crucially — not have to pay for music rights when they feature in Bose commercials. (Mollica said Bose wouldn't look to own the artists' masters, the company wouldn't take a share of their record sales or streams, and that they would be free to sign with other labels.)

Other big projects include commissioning original TV series and films "attached to some legendary Hollywood names," Mollica said. Bose is also planning a YouTube series, podcasts, and live music events — and could perhaps even buy a music media company. Some of those properties will generate their own ad revenue.

The launch of Bose Studios reflects a reality most CMOs face. Ad prices are higher, even though audiences are more fragmented and, in the case of TV, smaller. Consumers are actively avoiding advertising. Social media algorithms and the rise of AI search are disrupting the old ways that brands were discovered. Brands need to entertain to cut through.

"Our category, music, has a bunch of rituals baked into it," Mollica said. "If we have the opportunity, not to sell products, but become part of that ritual, then ultimately Bose is not an audio-equipment business anymore. We're about deepening people's relationship with music."

Much of Bose's prior marketing already focused on forging partnerships with music artists. Last year, for example, it teamed up with Blackpink's LISA to create customized earbuds, which it launched at a pop-up store in Los Angeles. This past February, it collaborated with the Grammy-nominated Twitch streamer PlaqueBoyMax, who created music on the spot during a livestream that aired during the NBA's All-Star weekend.

The record label and film productions signal Bose's expanded ambitions. Other brands, including Red Bull and Starbucks, have launched music labels in the past, though they were eventually retired.

Alexandra Annable, founder of Holl'r Music, an artist management and booking agency, said competition is fiercer than ever for emerging artists. For Bose to succeed, it might want to consider aligning itself with a specific genre, she added, pointing to Wingstop, which created its UK Freestyle Series for emerging drill, rap, and hip-hop artists.

"I think the only way brands can effectively engage with music fans is to create unique, content-led experiences, but these must be really authentic and culturally relevant," Annable said.

Steve Ackerman, a board advisor and consultant to media and entertainment businesses, said Bose Studios needs to ensure the content comes before promoting its products.

"The graveyard of branded content is littered with brands that have gone down this route and not understood what it means to be a content creator," Ackerman said. "They often defaulted to advertising agencies that don't understand how to engage with audiences; they just understand how to create content that gets in the way of the thing that audiences want to engage with."

Mollica, who previously worked at Disney and Viacom, said he understands the assignment. He said Bose Studios is not working with ad agencies and is recruiting and partnering with talent across the film, TV, podcast, and publishing industries.

"This isn't product placement; this isn't a long, 30-minute commercial," Mollica said. "These things are truly about how we are taking this authentic love of music and elevating the content that's out there today for true music fans to experience more."

• Sam Altman showed up in court as jury selection began in a civil trial between him and Elon Musk.
• Some potential jurors offered unfavorable views about AI — and Musk.
• Musk sued OpenAI, Altman, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman two years ago.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made an unexpected appearance in a California courtroom Monday as jury selection in his high-stakes legal feud with Elon Musk kicked off.

Altman, who wore a dark-colored suit and white shirt, was spotted inside the Oakland courtroom, where some potential jurors in the federal civil trial shared unfavorable views about artificial intelligence — and Musk, the world's richest man.

"Elon doesn't care about people, just like our president," one prospective juror told US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.

The man, who works in construction and described himself as a "meme junky" and a "dying breed" who still gets print newspaper subscriptions, added that he thinks Musk only cares about money.

Another prospective juror who works for the city of Oakland said he has a strong opinion about Musk. He said that he would do his "best" to approach the case without bias, even though he called Musk a "jerk" in a pre-trial jury questionnaire.

Musk was not in attendance for day one of the trial between two of the tech industry's most powerful billionaires. Since it is a civil trial, the parties are not required to appear unless they are testifying. Up until now, Musk and Altman have largely left the matter to their lawyers, aside from the occasional online jab.

The Tesla CEO sued OpenAI, Altman, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman two years ago, alleging that they intentionally "deceived" him into cofounding the company with them in 2015.

Musk alleges in his lawsuit that he poured tens of millions into OpenAI to support its founding mission as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the public's benefit, only for that mission to later be abandoned, in part, through the company's partnership with Microsoft. Microsoft is also named as a defendant in Musk's lawsuit.

The lawsuit seeks more than $100 billion in damages, along with sweeping changes to the structure of the $850 billion company behind ChatGPT. The case comes as OpenAI is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering.

Earlier Monday, Musk and OpenAI traded barbs on Musk's X platform about the case, with Musk referring to Altman as "Scam Altman" and OpenAI ripping Musk's lawsuit as a "baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor."

Musk is expected to testify in the weeks-long trial, along with Altman and other tech execs like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Some potential jurors questioned on Monday told the court that they had reservations surrounding AI.

A registered nurse said she doesn't trust AI and isn't a fan of how the rapidly advancing technology is being used in the workplace.

"It's just giving me more work to do," said the woman who explained that her employer uses AI tools to process patient records that she still has to review for errors.

One woman who works in the psychiatric patient care unit at Stanford University said she had some concerns about AI but could approach the case with an open mind.

"I personally don't use it much because I do find that I have to double check everything, and at this point, I might as well do it myself," said the woman, who was ultimately chosen to sit on the jury.

A different juror prospect, a PhD student in genetics, said she has a ChatGPT subscription and uses it, along with Anthropic's Claude, to write code and emails.

Concerns of the juror prospects were also reflected outside the courthouse, where protesters gathered to demonstrate against AI. A person in a robot suit wore a sign that said, "Altman's AI enslaver." A giant inflatable tube figure read: "Elon sucks."

By the end of Monday, nine jurors were selected for the trial. Opening arguments are set to begin Tuesday.

At one point, Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, asked the judge to dismiss a juror prospect who called Musk a "greedy, racist, homophobic piece of garbage" in her questionnaire and another who wrote that Musk is a "world-class jerk."

"Look, the reality is that people don't like him," the judge told Musk's legal team about their client. "But that doesn't mean that Americans, nevertheless, can't have integrity for the judicial process."

Video shows a man believed to be the shooter at the White House Correspondents Association dinner being detained by security on Saturday, April 25. FBI officials told Reuters the man fired at a Secret Service agent.

• TikTok advertising executive Khartoon Weiss is leaving the company.
• Weiss, who spent almost six years at TikTok, oversaw its North America ads business for the past year.
• Weiss is one of several advertising and marketing execs to leave TikTok this year.

TikTok's advertising team is undergoing another big shake-up.

Khartoon Weiss, the lead exec for TikTok's North American ads business, is exiting the company, four people familiar with the matter told Business Insider.

Weiss, who pitched TikTok's suite of ad products to marketers onstage at its NewFronts event last month, joined the company almost six years ago from Spotify. She oversaw TikTok's global agency and accounts teams before being promoted to lead the North America division of the global business solutions team in March 2025, following the departure of advertising head Blake Chandlee.

Digiday first reported on Weiss' exit.

Weiss' exit is the latest in a string of advertising and marketing team departures at TikTok.

Zuber Mohammed, TikTok's global head of consumer marketing, left the company in March. Sofia Hernandez, the global head of business marketing and commercial partnerships, and Rema Vasan, who headed up business marketing in North America, left the company last quarter.

Other teams at TikTok have also seen leadership changes this year, including the company's content division, which lost its global head of creators, Kim Farrell, in January.

Some of the executive exits have shifted control of North America teams to leaders from Singapore or China. When Chandlee left last year, oversight of the sales team, known as global business solutions, moved to Singapore-based executive Will Liu, for example.

TikTok's US team restructured in January while forming a new joint venture to transfer certain work, like US user data management, to a separate group that includes Oracle and investment firms MGX and Silver Lake. Its advertising and marketing teams remain under the control of parent company ByteDance.

As part of the structural change, Adam Presser, a trust and safety executive, became CEO of the US joint venture. Presser appeared alongside Weiss at TikTok's March NewFronts presentation to assure advertisers that the company's ads experience would not be disrupted amid internal changes.

• Ye, aka Kanye West, has been blocked from traveling to the UK, the UK government said on Tuesday.
• Ye was set to headline all three days of London's Wireless Festival, which has been canceled.
• UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the decision was made to "protect the public and uphold our values."

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has been blocked from traveling to the UK in light of his history with antisemitism.

The UK government told the BBC on Monday that Ye applied for an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) to travel to the UK but was denied on the grounds that his presence "would not be conducive to the public good."

Ye had been scheduled to headline all three days of London's Wireless Festival in July, which has since been canceled.

"As a result of the Home Office banning YE from entering the United Kingdom, Wireless Festival has been forced to cancel," the event's website reads as of Tuesday morning. "All ticket holders will receive an automatic full refund."

The government's decision comes after several of the festival's sponsors, including Pepsi and Anheuser-Busch InBev, withdrew from the event. Although neither brand explicitly cited Ye as the reason for their withdrawal, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer had recently spoken out against Ye's scheduled performances.

"It is deeply concerning Kanye West has been booked to perform at Wireless despite his previous antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism," Starmer said in a statement to the British newspaper The Sun.

After the UK government confirmed that Ye would not be allowed to enter the country, Starmer cosigned the decision in a post on X.

"Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless," Starmer wrote. "This government stands firmly with the Jewish community, and we will not stop in our fight to confront and defeat the poison of antisemitism. We will always take the action necessary to protect the public and uphold our values."

Ye did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the past decade, Ye has regularly been criticized for offensive and bigoted remarks, especially those described as antisemitic. In 2022, he peddled conspiracy theories about Jewish people controlling the entertainment industry and openly praised Adolf Hitler. Although Ye lost numerous business deals and brand partnerships in the fallout — reportedly losing his billionaire status as a result — he doubled down in 2025, when he wrote "I am a Nazi" on X and released a song titled "Heil Hitler."

More recently, Ye took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal for a public apology, linking his outbursts to a 2002 car accident and what he described as an undiagnosed brain injury. He also said his bipolar disorder caused him to lose touch with reality.

"In that fractured state, I gravitated toward the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika, and even sold T-shirts bearing it," Ye wrote. "I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change. It does not excuse what I did though. I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people."

The apology was published shortly before Ye's newest album was expected to be released. After multiple delays, "Bully" arrived on streaming platforms in late March.

Ye returned to the stage last week for a two-night stint at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Both shows were sold out and reportedly grossed $33 million, proving that despite the UK government's objections, there is still an appetite for Ye's volatility among his loyal fans.

• Savannah Guthrie opened up about her emotional struggle over her mother's disappearance on "Today."
• Guthrie told her "Today" show co-anchor Hoda Kotb that her family is in "agony."
• Authorities believe Savannah Guthrie's mom, Nancy Guthrie, was abducted from her Arizona home.

"Today" show host Savannah Guthrie has opened up about her family's "agony" during her first interview since the disappearance of her mother more than seven weeks ago.

"It is unbearable," Guthrie told her co-anchor Hoda Kotb through tears during a preview of the emotional interview that aired on the "Today" show on Wednesday.

"And to think of what she went through. I wake up every night, in the middle of the night, every night. And in the darkness, I imagine her terror, and it is unthinkable, but those thoughts demand to be thought, and I will not hide my face, but she needs to come home now," Guthrie said of her mom, Nancy Guthrie.

The rest of the interview is set to air in two parts on Thursday and Friday on the NBC morning program.

"As you'll see in the coming days, she talks about so many things. She talks about the investigation, she talks about her faith, and she talks about how she's getting through," Kotb said Wednesday.

Savannah Guthrie has been on hiatus from the "Today" show since her mother's disappearance. A "Today" show spokesperson has previously said she plans to return to co-hosting the morning show at some point.

Authorities believe that the 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her ranch-style home just outside of Tucson, Arizona, in the middle of the night.

The woman was last seen on January 31, when she was dropped off at her home after dinner at her daughter, Annie Guthrie's, house, authorities have said.

Local law enforcement and the FBI have been working to identify the masked and armed man who was captured on footage from Nancy Guthrie's missing Nest doorbell camera the night she vanished.

Early on, investigators found drops of blood on Nancy Guthrie's porch that were later confirmed to be hers.

Last month, the Guthrie family offered up a $1 million reward for the return of Nancy Guthrie, which is on top of the $100,000 that the FBI has already offered for information related to her disappearance.

In an Instagram video post announcing the reward, Savannah Guthrie acknowledged her mother may already be dead, saying, "We also know that she may be lost."

• Lawyers for Michael Jeffries say he is incompetent ahead of his October sex trafficking trial.
• At a hearing Tuesday, a defense expert said the ex-CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch is severely impaired.
• She also alluded to a prison tape, in which Jeffries said doctors "better find me incompetent."

Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Michael Jeffries was recorded on prison tape last year saying doctors 'better find me incompetent," a defense psychologist testified on Tuesday.

The testimony came as Jeffries sat in a federal courtroom in Central Islip, New York, for the start of a three-day mental competency hearing.

Jeffries, 81, is fighting sex-trafficking charges that allege that while helming the international retail giant, he used his wealth and power to abuse dozens of aspiring male models.

His lawyers are hoping to prove he is mentally incompetent to stand trial alongside two co-defendants — long-term romantic partner Matthew Smith and a third man in their employ. Jury selection is scheduled to start on October 26.

Federal prosecutors maintain Jeffries is competent. It's a conclusion they say is supported by their own doctors and more than 100 of Jeffries' phone calls with Smith.

The calls were recorded last year, during the ex-CEO's four-month stay in the mental health unit of a federal prison in North Carolina.

Defense lawyer Brian H. Bieber raised one potentially damaging tape early in Tuesday's hearing. He asked his first defense expert if there is a tape in which Jeffries is "hoping for a good outcome?"

The witness, Jacqueline C. Valdes, a clinical neuro-psychologist, said yes, and referenced a recorded conversation where Jeffries says, "You better find me incompetent," in reference to his prison mental health examiners.

"He was just saying things without a filter," Valdes explained, addressing US District Court Judge Nusrat Choudhury. "It's just another example of the disinhibited behavior I was talking about earlier," Valdes told the judge.

Other examples include Jeffries using "words like bitch'" in conversations with prison mental health workers, Valdes said. "He was repeatedly described as being a little too personal," she told the judge.

"It happened with me," during her examinations of Jeffries earlier this year, she added. "He was sometimes jocular, sometimes too personal in his interactions with me."

Defense lawyers have argued that Jeffries has a ten-year history of severe cognitive impairment from advancing Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia, a progressive neurodegenerative condition.

Jeffries' erratic behavior is symptomatic of his illness, and could cause him to "blurt out" self-incriminating statements in front of the judge or prospective jurors, the defense has argued.

On Tuesday, Valdes said Jeffries' inappropriate behavior is part of a spectrum of dementia symptoms made worse by the lingering effects of a fall during a trip to South Africa in 2018, four years after his retirement.

Even before his October 2024 indictment, Jeffries was prone to hallucinations, wandering, delusional thinking, and "acting out his dreams," symptoms she said have been helped somewhat by medication.

Smith told her during a 2023 interview that Jeffries was "found in a neighbor's yard, sitting in his underwear and being unable to move," Valdes said.

Now free on $10 million bail, Jeffries sat quietly at the defense table throughout Tuesday's testimony, his mouth set in a tight frown. He turned his head to look at whoever spoke, and kept his hands clasped in front of him or fiddled with a pen.

Speaking with others is Jeffries' strong suit, Valdes told the judge, again referencing the prison tapes.

"He can converse," she testified. "Language abilities are actually his strongest ability."

But scans show evidence of brain atrophy and other markers of dementia, she said, and he tests extremely low in memory and comprehension.

Last year, he appeared flummoxed when asked to name as many fruits and vegetables as he could, she said, calling his response "on the bottom 3% for his age." His recall of a list of 16 words was at the bottom 1% for his age, she said.

Federal prosecutors counter that in December — after his release from four months of examinations and treatment at Butner — their own doctors found Jeffries could understand his charges and assist in his defense, the criteria for competency to stand trial.

They plan to call three of their own psych experts to testify during the hearing — and to play sections of last year's prison tape in court.

Jeffries, Smith, and employee James T. Jacobson have all pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges. They face mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years and as much as life in prison if convicted.

• Jeffrey Epstein victims and Bank of America reached a settlement in a class-action lawsuit.
• The terms haven't yet been publicly disclosed.
• JPMorgan paid $290 million and Deutsche Bank paid $75 million for similar lawsuit settlements.

Bank of America settled a proposed class-action lawsuit from Jeffrey Epstein accusers who alleged the bank facilitated the now-dead pedophile's sex-trafficking operation, court records show.

Lawyers for the bank and a group of Epstein accusers told the judge overseeing the case during a pretrial conference last week that they "reached a settlement in principle," according to a Monday update to the case's docket.

The terms of the settlement were not made public.

US District Judge Jed Rakoff, who is overseeing the case, gave a March 27 deadline for the parties to file public documents laying out the settlement's terms, and an April 2 hearing to decide whether to approve them.

"The women entrapped and abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell started a monumental reckoning with their brave voices and fearlessness," Sigrid McCawley, an attorney at Boies Schiller Flexner representing the Epstein accusers, said in a comment. "The road to justice for these women has been long and trying. Today's resolution of the case against Bank of America is one more step on the road to much deserved justice."

A representative for Bank of America declined to comment. In previous public statements and court filings, the bank denied wrongdoing.

The settlement scuttles a scheduled deposition for Leon Black, the billionaire ex-CEO of Apollo Global Management, which was set for March 26.

The accusers' lawsuit had alleged that Black's more than $150 million in transfers to Epstein — which Black has said was for financial and estate-planning services — facilitated Epstein's sex-trafficking. Bank of America should have paid closer attention to Black's accounts and any transactions related to Epstein, the lawsuit said.

Black has separately been asked to testify before the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating Epstein, on May 13.

JPMorgan agreed to pay $290 million, and Deutsche Bank agreed to a $75 million payout, to settle similar lawsuits brought by the same group of lawyers representing Epstein victims.

Rakoff previously tossed a parallel lawsuit the attorneys brought against BNY — formerly Bank of New York Mellon Corp. — but allowed portions of the case against Bank of America to move forward.

In an earlier court hearing, Rakoff said he would be disappointed if the cases against BNY and Bank of America didn't go to trial.

"I don't want to discourage you from settling," the judge said. "There are some of my colleagues that think settling is always the way to go. But I'm much more selfish and I would love to see two very good trials."

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Pump problems

Surging gas prices are already wreaking havoc on the economy.

The Iran war has sent oil prices skyrocketing, with the impact being acutely felt at the pump. The average price of gasoline jumped to $3.63 a gallon on Friday, according to AAA, up from $2.93 last month before Middle East tensions escalated.

Gas is now above $3 a gallon in every US state for the first time since 2023. (BI's Dan DeFrancesco and Joe Ciolli broke down what happens next for oil prices in a recent live Q&A).

What started as oil-market jitters is now hampering household budgets and impacting everything from gig work to office attendance.

Uber and Lyft drivers told us they're getting more selective about which rides they accept as gas prices rise. That's because Uber and Lyft control fares, meaning drivers can't raise prices when their operating costs go up. Some gig drivers are rejecting shorter, lower-paying trips that burn fuel and instead are chasing longer fares that make the math work.

Meanwhile, EV drivers are having a moment. As gas-powered drivers wince at the pump, electric vehicle owners are taking what some have called a "victory lap." Charging costs haven't surged in step with oil prices. This is giving EV drivers, including those on rideshare platforms, a meaningful cost advantage.

Higher gas prices are also playing a role in the return-to-office debate. For people who drive to work, pricier fill-ups mean less money in their pockets for everything else.

"When gas prices spike, commuting effectively becomes a pay cut," one chief operating officer told us.

While a few employers say they're softening their RTO stances amid rising gas prices, the vast majority are unlikely to change their in-office requirements, particularly in a cooling job market where many workers lack the leverage to push back.

Still, average gas prices are a far cry from their record high above $5 a gallon in June 2022, months after the Russia-Ukraine war began.

But the latest increase is a reminder of how quickly surging gas prices can ripple through the economy.