Forbes Daily Briefing

It is 10 a.m. in Chiswick, a pleasant west London suburb, in late April, and Sir David Beckham has already been on set for two hours. This should have been expected: The 51-year-old retired soccer superstar is notorious for being early.

Cranes, tents and trailers clutter the driveway of a two-story brick home, giving it the outside appearance of a film studio. Inside, a few dozen crew members move through the rooms with practiced efficiency, managing cameras and lighting rigs. Beckham’s production firm, Studio 99, has set up today’s shoot for British speaker company Bowers & Wilkins. Yesterday’s shoot was for appliance maker SharkNinja. There are several more scheduled in the coming days, all in service of the machine that is David Beckham, Inc.

By Maneet Ahuja,

Editor-at-Large
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Ten years have passed since Cristiano Ronaldo first topped the Forbes list of the highest-paid athletes—a decade in which the Portuguese soccer superstar has jumped from Spain’s Real Madrid to Italy’s Juventus to England’s Manchester United and, finally, to Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr. Yet for all of those frequent flyer miles, the 41-year-old Ronaldo is right back where he started—atop the sports world’s earnings throne.

For the fourth year in a row, and the sixth time overall, Ronaldo leads the athlete income ranking, racking up an estimated $300 million over the past 12 months before taxes and agent fees. The total includes an estimated $235 million from his playing contract with Al-Nassr as well as $65 million from endorsements, appearances, licensing, memorabilia and other business endeavors.

While a forward who is rapidly closing in on 1,000 career goals is no doubt used to a big score—Ronaldo now matches Michael Jordan with his six stints atop the athlete earnings ranking and is surpassed only by Tiger Woods, who has led the list 11 times—his latest haul is historic. At $300 million, he ties boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s 2015 total for the largest that Forbes has measured since it began publishing the athletes ranking in 1990. (Of course, adjusting for inflation, Mayweather comes out ahead, at $427 million.)

By Brett Knight,

Assistant Managing Editor
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“At a time when much of the business conversation is defined by speed, scale and disruption, family businesses reflect a different model of success, one grounded in endurance, stewardship, resilience and trust,” says Byron Trott, the legendary chairman and co-CEO of merchant bank BDT & MSD Partners, in an essay for Forbes published Wednesday. “Their impact is often felt not only in revenues or valuations, but in livelihoods, institutions and the strength of local communities. That is why Forbes’ inaugural list of America’s top family businesses matters now,” says Trott, who has worked with companies founded and controlled by families with names like Koch, Pritzker, Mars and Cox. 

There’s no doubt that America’s family businesses–including the 100 largest ones featured on Forbes’ new ranking–are what Trott calls “the quiet engine driving the economy.” They account for 25% of U.S. companies, 23% of the American workforce and 23% of private sector GDP, according to what four leading academics described in a recent paper as the “middle definition” of a family business.

Family businesses are everywhere around us. The ones on Forbes’ list own grocery stores where we shop (Wegmans), hotels where we stay (Hyatt), newspapers that keep us informed (The Wall Street Journal) and cosmetics that keep us looking our best (Estee Lauder). They make some of the most popular brands in product categories like candy (M&Ms), chicken (Perdue) and concrete (Quikrete). And they’re based all over the country, in 31 different states, ranging from Arizona to Wisconsin to North Carolina.

By Matt Durot,

Forbes Staff

and Andrea Murphy,

Forbes Staff
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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed a document Tuesday giving Donald Trump, his two eldest sons and his company broad immunity for potential tax disputes with the federal government. It’s the clearest way that the president is personally benefitting from his settlement with the Internal Revenue Service, which he sued days after taking office for failing to prevent the release of his personal tax returns.

The settlement lands at a convenient moment. Donald Trump earned an estimated $1.4 billion from crypto and licensing ventures in 2025, as he turned his first year back in the White House into the most lucrative year of his life. If the president received an extension for his 2025 return, his preparers may be sorting through exactly how to present this year’s welter of income right now. Trump has never hidden the animating principle. When Hillary Clinton accused him of paying no taxes in the 2016 debates, he replied: “That makes me smart.” Also much richer. If Trump is able to conjure up theories to avoid taxes for his 2025 income, he could save more than a half-billion dollars, according to Forbes estimates. 

The conflict-of-interest underpinning all of this is so obvious that even Trump has acknowledged it. “I’m the one that makes the decision, right?” he mused in the Oval Office in October. “You know, that decision would have to go across my desk. And it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.” Trump first suggested he would send whatever judgement he received to charity, before settling on a more creative approach. The government would not pay Trump. Instead, Trump would get a pass enabling him to pay less to the government. The move harkens the old cliché—a penny saved is a penny earned—with the same result: more money in Trump’s pocket.

By Dan Alexander,

Senior Editor
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The robot, a pair of disembodied arms with crablike pincers at the end, wasn’t supposed to pick up the bag. It had been told to do a single tedious job: open plastic bags on a conveyor belt and stuff toy potted plant plushies inside them.

Then one plushie snagged halfway in. The robot paused — briefly, as if assessing its work — then did something it had not been programmed to do. It raised its other arm, grabbed the other side of the bag, gave it a quick shake so the toy slid all the way down, and then placed it back on the belt.

For a human worker that’s muscle memory. For the engineers at Generalist, a Silicon Valley startup developing robot “brains”, it was a tell: the robot wasn’t just replaying a scripted task. It was improvising.

By Anna Tong,

Forbes Staff
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