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Even though marijuana is legal in 38 states, the drug’s status at the federal level means most banks and payment processors have policies forbidding them from working with cannabis companies. That means an industry that is expected to generate nearly $35 billion in sales this year is forced to do business mostly in cash.
That’s where Kevin Hart—no relation to the comedian—saw an opportunity. The 65-year-old cofounded fintech startup Green Check, which developed a compliance software product that now verifies the legitimacy of about 40% of legal marijuana sales in the U.S. annually.
“We make sure banks bring good money in and keep bad money out,” says Hart.
FIRST UP
The Charging Bull is seen in the Financial District in New York City.
Mairo Cinquetti/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The S&P 500 ended above 5,800 for the first time ever Friday, with major indexes getting a boost from positive third-quarter earnings reports from banks JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. JPMorgan chief financial officer Jeremy Barnum declared his company’s performance confirms the U.S. economy has achieved a “soft landing.” The S&P’s performance could also forecast the result of the upcoming presidential election: Historically, if the index rises leading up to an election, the incumbent party has almost always retained the Oval Office.
Boeing said it will cut about 17,000 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, in the coming months—the latest sign of trouble for the aerospace company as it deals with billion-dollar losses and an ongoing factory strike. Boeing also announced production and delivery changes Friday, saying it will delay deliveries of its new 777X long-range airplane until 2026 and stop producing its 767 freighters, planes primarily used for shipping goods, by 2027.
BUSINESS + FINANCE
Tesla stocks dropped more than 8% Friday, hours after the automaker showed off its Cybercab self-driving taxis at an event that left Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas “disappointed with the substance and detail of the presentation.” The drop led to about $60 billion in lost market capitalization, which is more than the total market value of auto rivals Ford ($43 billion) and General Motors ($54 billion).
TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance was fined a record $370 million by Ireland’s data privacy watchdog back in 2023, and new corporate filings suggest the social media giant expects to face more regulatory fines. The company has explicitly set aside $1 billion to cover future fines from European privacy regulators.
MORE: TikTok’s executives were aware that its app is highly addictive, improperly redacted documents from a Kentucky lawsuit reveal. Internal TikTok research showed it can take less than an hour to become addicted, and that features added to help limit use are a “way to improve public trust,” but don’t effectively reduce users’ screen time.
TECH + INNOVATION
Workout tracking app Strava is one of a number of tech companies that recently integrated AI into its platform—with results that its paying subscribers say are “nonsensical,” with “no context” and a “bullshit word salad of stats.” Like many AI tools, Strava’s Athlete Intelligence sometimes hallucinates or makes the wrong assumptions, and the company’s CEO acknowledged the feature is in an “early beta stage” and not meant for experienced athletes.
A successful test launch of SpaceX’s Starship on Sunday morning marked a major milestone for Elon Musk’s aerospace company after it caught the ship’s rocket booster with mechanical arms near where it was launched in Texas. The Starship is supposed to be a fully reusable system that can take both cargo and people to space, catching the Super Heavy—which previously landed in the Gulf of Mexico—is an important step toward that goal.
AI/R Group, a digital services conglomerate that helps clients including Toyota, BP and Nestle deploy AI, is planning for an IPO in the second half of 2025. CEO Alexis Rockenbach told Forbes that the company has made some $350 million in revenue so far this year, up from more than $250 million in 2023.
MONEY + POLITICS
Forbes’ analysis of billionaire backers of the two primary presidential candidates found 76 billionaires supporting Vice President Kamala Harris and just 49 supporting former President Donald Trump. However, many more billionaires could still financially support a candidate, but their donations won’t be learned until after the election.
Trump vaulted past Harris to become the bookmaker’s favorite to win next month’s presidential election, following a surge in bets in his favor last week. According to the Election Betting Odds tracker, which consolidates betting numbers from five major markets—bookmakers now give Trump a 53.6% chance of winning in November, compared to Harris’ 45.8%.
DAILY COVER STORY
The Cops Seized His $86,900 Life Savings For No Reason. They Picked The Wrong Marine
Marine veteran Stephen Lara is fighting the “civil forfeiture” program that gives state and local cops an incentive to grab your assets–even when you’ve committed no crime.
Institute for Justice
TOPLINE On February 19, 2021, retired Marine Stephen Lara was making the 1,400 mile drive from Lubbock, Texas to Portola, a small California town near Reno, Nevada, where his teenage daughters lived with his ex-wife. Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, Lara, now 42, was laid off from his job in California and moved in with his parents in Lubbock to save money.
Lara had driven this four-day round trip dozens of times, but on this day he was pulled over by the Nevada Highway Patrol on I-80 about an hour outside of Reno, ostensibly for following and passing a tanker truck too closely. He wasn’t issued a traffic ticket or warning, let alone arrested or charged with a crime.
Yet the encounter ended with the officers seizing Lara’s life savings—some $86,900 in cash he had in a Ziploc bag—and sending the money to the DEA for potential “civil forfeiture.” What that means is that despite the fact Lara was not charged with a crime, the feds could legally keep his money, kicking back $69,520 of it to the Nevada Highway Patrol as a sort of finder’s fee.
More than six months later, Lara got his cash back—but only after The Institute for Justice (IJ), a libertarian not-for-profit law firm, sued the DEA on his behalf. Now, with IJ still representing him pro bono, he’s asking Nevada courts to rule that the state’s constitution, which protects property rights, bars the Nevada Highway Patrol from participating in the “equitable sharing” civil forfeiture program run by the feds—something almost all states now do.
WHY IT MATTERS Earlier this year, Lara won a preliminary round in his Nevada case when a trial judge rejected the highway patrol’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. A trial is scheduled for next June. If he ultimately wins, it could set an important precedent and inspire legal challenges in other states.
MORE New Police Tech Can Detect Phones, Pet Trackers And Library Books In A Moving Car
FACTS + COMMENTS
Spirit Halloween, the holiday megastore that each year sets up shop in empty retail spaces across the U.S., recently announced that it will open a collection of Spirit Christmas pop-up shops in the Northeast:
10: How many Christmas stores the company plans to open, featuring opportunities for photos with Santa, life-sized gingerbread villages and more
1,525: The number of Spirit Halloween stores in operation this year, a record for the company
‘It’s entertainment, it’s tradition, it’s creating moments and memories with family and friends.’ — Steven Silverstein, CEO of Spencer Spirit Holdings Inc., on the experience of visiting a Spirit Halloween
STRATEGY + SUCCESS
Have you ever found yourself staring at the empty text prompt field for ChatGPT, stumped about how to fully harness the much-hyped capabilities of generative AI? Forbes has a new, free newsletter series on AI Life Hacks, that will bring hands-on prompt engineering tips to your inbox over a one-week course. You can sign up here.
QUIZ
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is a staple of Halloween playlists, so the King of Pop typically sees a streaming boost in the month of October. But a different Jackson hit is currently ranked higher than “Thriller” on Billboard’s Global 200 chart, what is it?
A. “Beat It”
B. “Billie Jean”
C. “Smooth Criminal”
D. “Man In The Mirror”
Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire.