🍎 Apple Shipped $2 Billion Dollars Worth Of iPhones To The U.S. From India

In today’s newsletter I discuss how Apple shipped $2 billion dollars worth of iPhones to the U.S. from India, Starbucks is getting stricter with their dress code to try and boost sales, Jason Momoa says he’ll be back in the 3rd Dune despite dying in the 2nd movie, OpenAI may start their own social network to compete with Elon Musk’s X/Twitter, Blue Origin flies an all-female crew, and the Olympics welcomes mix-teams golf events.

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🍎 Apple Shipped $2 Billion Dollars Worth Of iPhones To The U.S. From India

The people who had the bright idea to ramp up production of iPhones in India, and then charter some cargo flights to the United States with a record-breaking $2 billion dollars worth of the phones before the tariffs went into effect back in March, should definitely get a pretty big bonus from Apple!

The ambitious move was driven by the looming threat of potential U.S. tariffs. This logistical feat saw key suppliers like Foxconn and Tata Electronics contribute significant resources to meeting the deadline, with Foxconn alone shipping $1.31 billion dollars worth of devices.

Not many multi-national companies can handle a feat like this, but Apple has diversified their manufacturing in recent years away from China out of fear that something like this could potentially happen someday.

And guess what? It turns out that someday is today!

This operation, which if they didn’t nickname it “Operation iCargo” then I’m going to be deeply disappointed, included numerous chartered cargo flights, which moved approximately 600 tons of iPhones to the United States. This move by Apple should ensure sufficient inventory of their iPhones to weather the tariff storm; at least that’s what Apple’s hoping.

I can’t imagine how much it must have cost to transport by chartered cargo flights a total of 600 tons worth of iPhones from India to the United States, but when you’re the world’s most valuable company, with a market cap of $3.037 trillion as of Tuesday, April 15, 2025, then what’s a few million dollars to save BILLIONS in tariffs.

☕ Business

Starbucks has been working on reviving their sales, and now someone has come up with the bright idea of updating their dress code to emphasize simplicity, allowing their employees, (which they refer to as “partners”) to wear solid black shirts with khaki, black, or blue denim pants.

As part of this change, Starbucks will be providing their “partners” with two free company-branded t-shirts, because nothing says individuality like a company uniform.

Starbucks’ 2025 Q1 financial results showed they had net revenues of $9.4 billion, while their comparable store sales declined by 4%, resulting in their net earnings per share decreasing by 23% to $0.69 a share.

Here’s to hoping those new Starbucks branded t-shirts help boost sales.

🍿 Entertainment

Jason Momoa has teased that his character, Duncan Idaho, may return in the third “Dune” movie despite, you know, dying in the second movie.

So how’s that supposed to work?

Jason Momoa strongly hinted that Duncan could be resurrected, and brought back by the Bene Tleilax as a “ghola”, which is sorta like a clone that is “manufactured” by growing them in an axlotl tank from cells collected from a deceased person.

Sounds super sci-fi! I’m down with that!
It seems even in the far future of Arrakis, death is less of a career obstacle and more of a plot twist.

💬 Tech

There’s rumors that OpenAI may be exploring the idea of developing and launching their own social network to take on Elon Musk’s X, formerly and forever known as Twitter to me, as well as Meta’s Instagram. There’s no love lost between OpenAI’s co-founder Sam Altman, and Elon Musk who helped to seed fund OpenAI back when it was just getting started as a non-profit. Since then they’ve been battling it out in the press, and in March 2026 they’ll take their fight to a courtroom.

If Sam Altman gets his own social network I’m sure that’ll go down just swimmingly with Elon Musk, because if there’s one thing billionaires are known for it’s getting along with each other.

🚀 Space

Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, successfully launched its first all-female crew into suborbital space on Monday, April 14, 2025, from their West Texas launch site.

The New Shepard rocket carried an extraordinary group of women, including pop superstar Katy Perry, CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn who’s known for her work on independent films including the 2024 movie “Lily”, as well as Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sanchez.

It’s not known how much Blue Origin may have charged per ticket for this suborbital space flight, but they have been known to fly some high-profile guests for free.

Now if only Blue Origin could fly a couple of politicians on a one-way flight to space for free.

⚽ Sports

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has approved a new mixed-team golf event for the 2028 Olympics to be held in Los Angeles. The golf competition will take place at the Riviera Country Club, which isn’t a great look for the Olympics if you ask me. The mixed-team event will be a 36-hole competition, played across two 18-hole rounds, featuring foursomes and fourball formats. Each team will consist of one male and one female athlete from the individual men’s and women’s competitions.

It’s just great to see golf getting even more attention, because what the Olympics really needed was even MORE golf!

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irl Media NEWSLETTER is written, edited, and published by Chris Thompson.