CNN Arbitrage, Hoffman vs. Bernie, D.C.’s Ukraine Pivot

Welcome back to the Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to what’s new at Puck.

Today, Teddy Schleifer zeroes in on the reticent wealth manager-cum-fixer running Elon Musk most byzantine financial affairs. Plus, how Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman is quietly bankrolling an effort to de-wokeify the left.

Then, below the fold, Brian Morrissey reveals the unlikely co-conspirator behind CNN+’s downfall. And Julia Ioffe joins Peter Hamby on the latest episode of The Powers That Be to discuss her new reporting on D.C.’s secret beef with Zelensky.

Of course, Elon Musk didn’t do it alone. His public takeover of Twitter was facilitated in part thanks to the quiet efforts of Jared Birchall, the intentionally low-profile chief executive of Elon’s family office, Excession LLC. Family office heads can control billions in deployable capital, but they often remain totally anonymous. And given that they are investing the fortune of some larger-than-life figure, they tend to have Scottie Pippen alpha-adjacent personalities. Many family office employees don’t even identify where they work—not that it is actually a secret to anyone in finance, but the culture of wealth management is rooted in discretion. (You’ll see “UHNW Family” or just “Family Office” as their employer on LinkedIn.)…