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While the high cost of eggs has been a persistent issue in President Trumps second term, a different kind of egg price is now raising eyebrows around America. Over the weekend, CNN reported that the Trump administration is soliciting corporate sponsorships for this years White House Easter Egg Roll. For anywhere between $75,000 and $200,000, companies can now have their logo prominently displayed during the April 21 event, along with further branding opportunities. Its only the latest sign that this presidency is quite literally open for businessand coming so soon after a recent Tesla infomercial on the South Lawn, it may have completed the NASCAR-ification of the White House. According to a pitch document shared by the New York Times that appears to be from event-planning company Harbinger, which produced the egg roll throughout Trumps previous term, the White House is offering initial planning and event day execution for companies who are hungry for brand exposure this Easter. Sponsors will reportedly have a chance to nab naming rights for key areas or elements, splash their logos on event signage and custom-branded baskets, snacks/beverages, or souvenirs and also offer custom on-site activation for participating children to use while making social media content. (The White House and Harbinger have not confirmed the authenticity of the document. Fast Company has reached out to the White House and Harbinger and will update if we hear back.) Partnerships between the White House and corporations are not exactly unheard of. The Biden administration, for instance, partnered with McDonalds in 2021 to encourage Americans to get vaccinated, while Barack Obama hosted the first White House Maker Faire in 2014, featuring STEM tool kits provided by LEGO Systems. Brands have even been involved in the Easter Egg Roll before, though the White House has reportedly been careful about logo use and appearing to endorse a business. A gauche avalanche of logos stands to turn this years adorable White House event into something more like last Decembers College Football Playoff’s Vrbo Fiesta Bowl at State Farm Stadium. At the $200,000 levelthe Platinum sponsorship packagebrands can get prominent logo placement and all the bells and whistles mentioned above, along with 150 tickets to give away, a chance to participate in press interviews, and four tickets to an exclusive brunch hosted by Melania Trump. (Oh, and theres a meet-and-greet with the Easter bunny on offer. Literally.) While not every brand can afford such a sponsorship, either from a liquidity position or because their customers wouldnt stand for it, plenty will jump at the opportunity. Considering it reportedly costs between $375,000 and $500,000 to sponsor a lower-tier college bowl game, and somewhere in the range of $25 million for one of the majors, the publicity value of an egg roll sponsorship is kind of a steal. Theres also the unspoken promise of what else brands might get out of their sponsorship. Although any excess funding raised from egg roll sponsors will reportedly go toward similar future White House events, it also potentially buys a big, public, double-thumbs-up from Trump himself. Beyond the crass commercial opportunity, though, sponsorship also comes with a tacit understanding that these brands may find themselves in good standing with the presidents team and his supportersand perhaps even receive further access or influence for their efforts. The pitch document from Harbinger suggests flat out that brunch with the First Lady also comes with exclusive access opportunities. There were similar chances to curry favor with Trump during his first term. At least 11 foreign governments patronized the moguls properties in his first year as president, during which he bucked his predecessors tradition of severing ties with their businesses while holding office. Domestic forces also dumped funds in Trumps coffers at the time. Between 2017 and 2020, private-prison operators, payday lenders, and other interest groups hosted fundraisers and galas at his hotels, clubs, and resorts. Meanwhile, Essential Consultants, a company run by Trumps then-attorney Michael Cohen, also brought in huge sums of money from such companies as AT&T, Swedish pharma giant Novartis, and Korea Aerospace Industries. Exactly what insights AT&T got for its $600,000 is unclear. Perhaps not so coincidentally, though, the company was waiting on a decision at the time from the Justice Department over a proposed merger with Time Warner. (The decision ultimately went AT&Ts way.) In Trumps second term, any pretense around his impartiality to donations has all but vanished. At the very least, its been frozenmuch like the anti-bribery statute keeping U.S. corporations from bribing foreign officials, which Trump suspended earlier this year. The vulgar display of the Tesla endorsement that found Trump morphing into a Troy McClure-style celebrity pitchman to help out his largest donors sinking stock? Thats just the tip of the iceberg. Ever since the election, Trump has signaled loudly, if not clearly, that his White House is accepting gratuities. Earlier this year, members of the tech Broligarchy, including Metas Mark Zuckerberg and Amazons Jeff Bezos, donated to Trumps inauguration fund before appearing alongside him at the eventwith Bezoss Amazon going a step further and dishing out a reported $40 million for a Melania Trump documentary, from which she stands to personally net at least $28 million. At the same time, the president has reportedly been holding million-dollar-per-seat candlelight dinner fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago, and any interested party can potentially also get his attention just by pumping money into Trump’s official memecoin. The White House Easter Egg Roll Proudly Presented By [Your Brand Here] is only the latest opportunity for corporations and their owners to show fealty to the president. Its also a bellwether of what future White House events might look like. If enough companies chip in, giving the event more brand logos than Jeff Gordons jumpsuit, well, perhaps Netflix and Amazon will eventually be duking it out to win exclusive broadcast rights for The White Houses A Very Trump Christmas Spectacular. For now, the president has merely told all interested parties: Gentlemen, start your engines.
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E-Commerce
OpenAI is introducing image generation directly within ChatGPT. Powered by its flagship multimodal model, GPT-4o, the chatbot can now create visuals straight from the chat interface. The feature will initially be available to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Team, and free users. Enterprise and Education tier users will get access soon. Today we have one of the most fun, cool things we have ever launched . . . native images in ChatGPT, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at the beginning of a video stream Tuesday. Altman acknowledged that the feature had been highly anticipatedespecially since competitors like Google Gemini have offered integrated image generation for some time. ChatGPT now allows users to generate images based on prompts, conversations, and uploaded files. Users can create brand new images or transform existing images. OpenAI says the world knowledge trained into the GPT-4o model allows ChatGPT to better understand the contexts in which images are used. It is also better at following prompts rendering text within images, OpenAI says. Users can refine images by prompting the model with natural language. For instance, when designing a video game character, the model can maintain visual consistency across multiple iterations as the user makes adjustments. OpenAI says it expects people to use the tool work-related visuals that require precision (such as diagrams, infographics, branded content), text-heavy images (instruction posters, business cards), photorealistic images with accurate lighting and textures, and visuals that benefit from conversation context. By simplifying the process with a single multimodal model that handles all image generation tasks, OpenAI is positioning ChatGPT as a go-to tool for both personal and professional image generation.
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E-Commerce
A once-every-four-years report card on the upkeep of America’s infrastructure gave it a C grade on Tuesday, up slightly from previous reports, largely due to investments made during former President Joe Biden’s administration. The report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which examined everything from roads and dams to drinking water and railroads, warns that federal funding must be sustained or increased to avoid further deterioration and escalating costs. We have seen the investments start to pay off, but we still have a lot of work to do out there, said Darren Olson, chair of this years report. He said decrepit infrastructure from poor roads that damage cars to delayed flights to power outages that spoil groceries hurts people and the economy. By investing in our infrastructure, were making our economy more efficient, were making it stronger (and) were making ourselves globally more competitive, he said. Its especially critical that infrastructure can handle more extreme weather due to climate change, said Olson, noting hurricanes that devastated the East Coast and parts of Appalachia last year. The U.S. saw 27 weather disasters last year that cost at least $1 billion, second-most since 1980. The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provided $550 billion in new infrastructure investments, but is set to expire in 2026. Another $30 billion came from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, including for projects focused on clean energy and climate change, the engineering group said. President Donald Trump’s administration has targeted some of Bidens green policies. Public parks improved to a C-minus from a D-plus, for example, thanks in part to significant investments over several years. Recently, however, the Trump administration moved to slash National Park Service staffing. In 2021, the U.S. earned a C-minus overall. The investments made since then are just a fraction of the $9.1 trillion that the civil engineers group estimates is needed to bring all of the nations current infrastructure into a state of good repair. Even if current federal infrastructure funding were maintained, there still would be a $3.7 trillion gap over a decade, according to the report. The bill to upgrade and maintain the nations roughly 50,000 water utilities, for example, is $625 billion over the next two decades, according to the federal government. The grade for drinking water was C-minus, unchanged from four years ago. Many communities already struggling to maintain old, outdated drinking water systems also face new requirements to replace lead service line s and reduce per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively known as PFAS. The bipartisan infrastructure bill helped complete or start a lot of really important projects, said Scott Berry, director of policy and governmental affairs at the US Water Alliance. But the gap has widened so much over the last couple of decades that a lot, lot more investment is going to be needed. The bill also provided billions to help the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers upgrade inland waterways, which move roughly $150 billion in commerce every year, improving the grade from a D-plus to a C-minus. Barges on the Mississippi River, for example, carry enormous amounts of coal, soybeans, corn and other raw materials to international markets. But critical infrastructure like locks and dams many built more than a half-century ago and requiring regular maintenance and repair is often invisible to the public, making it easy to neglect, said Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition. And when big projects are funded, it too often comes in stages, he said. That forces projects to pause until more money is appropriated, driving up costs for materials and labor. If we really want to make the taxpayer dollars stretch further, you have got to be able to bring a greater degree of predictability and reliability in how you fund these projects, he said. The report’s focus on engineering and money misses the importance of adopting policies that could improve how people use and pay for infrastructure, according to Clifford Winston, a microeconomist in the Brookings Institutions economic studies program. You fail to make the most efficient use of what you have, said Winston. For example, he noted that congestion pricing like that recently adopted by New York City charging people to drive in crowded areas places the burden on frequent users and can pressure people to drive less, reducing the need for new bridges, tunnels and repairs. Roads remain in chronically poor shape, receiving a D-plus compared to a D in the last report, despite $591 billion in investments since 2021. Two categories, rail and energy, received lower grades. Disasters like the derailment of a train carrying dangerous chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio, in 2023 lowered rails previous B mark to a B-minus. The energy sector, stressed by surging demand from data centers and electric vehicles, got a D-plus, down from C-minus. Engineers say problems in many sectors have festered for so long that the nation must figure out how to address the shortcomings now or pay for them when systems fail. On Wednesday, a delegation of engineers will visit Washington to talk to lawmakers about the funding impacts and the importance of continuing that investment, said Olson, who said the needs are a bipartisan issue. When we talk about it in ways of how better infrastructure saves the American family money, how better infrastructure supports economic growth, were really confident that … there is strong support, he said. ___ The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Tammy Webber and Michael Phillis, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
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