Paul Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi at Lincoln Center on April 23, 2019. Paul Pelosi was attacked on Friday morning at his San Francisco home.
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Nancy Pelosi had priests perform an exorcism of her home after her husband was attacked in October.
Her daughter told The New York Times that Pelosi felt guilty as the assailant had been targeting her.
Pelosi said it would be three or four more months before her husband is "back to normal."
Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had Catholic priests perform an exorcism of her house after her husband was attacked by an assailant looking for her in October, her daughter told The New York Times.
"I think that weighed really heavy on her soul. I think she felt really guilty. I think that really broke her," their daughter Alexandra Pelosi told the paper.
"Over Thanksgiving, she had priests coming, trying to have an exorcism of the house and having prayer services," said Alexandra Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi has spoken openly about her Catholic faith.
Paul Pelosi was hospitalized with a skull fracture after being attacked at the couple's San Francisco home with a hammer.
San Francisco District Attorney
Federal prosecutors allege that David DePape, the man charged with the attack, told investigators he wanted to break Nancy Pelosi's kneecaps as an example to other Democratic members of Congress.
"The fact that they were after me, and then they hit him," Nancy Pelosi told The New York Times. "He's a strong person, athletic. This has been tough. It's going to be about three or four more months before he's really back to normal."
She told the paper that it was difficult having had her home turned into "a crime scene."
Stephen Rossetti, the exorcist for the Archdiocese of Washington, told Catholic News Agency that the exorcism of a place is "specifically used when there is a demonic infestation."
He explained that any priest could "expel demons" from a house, as opposed to an exorcism of a person, which requires permission from their bishop.
DePape has pleaded not guilty to various state and federal charges, including the attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault of an immediate family member of a federal official.
Police have released footage of the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi following authorization from a court.
Pelosi said in a statement on Friday that she has "absolutely no intention of seeing the deadly assault on my husband's life."
DePape also made clear in a new jailhouse interview, released the same day as the police bodycam footage, that his actions were politically motivated by his hatred of Democrats.
Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall, stands in front of Cosmic Girl, the modified Boeing 747.
Hugh Hastings/Getty Images
Melissa Thorpe, a Spaceport boss, spoke about the criticism she gets as a woman in the space sector.
She said people have left her out of discussions and avoided asking her opinion at times.
The space industry is male-dominated, but Thorpe said she's questioning how things are done.
Working in the space industry is no easy business. It seems it's even harder if you're a woman.
Melissa Thorpe, head of Spaceport Cornwall in southern England, spoke to Insider about reaching the industry's top ranks.
Her successes have led her to oversee Richard Branson's "Start Me Up" satellite mission by his company Virgin Orbit launch. It was due to be the first orbital space mission to launch from the UK but unfortunately failed due to a technical anomaly.
Thorpe said she didn't get into the space industry in the traditional way. Studying STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects is a common route but instead, she studied economics in London. She then went into business development, and later became a consultant for investment in Cornwall. From there, she got involved with the spaceport and eventually ended up taking the helm two years ago.
Thorpe said she loves her job, but it hasn't come without its difficulties. "I don't look like the average spaceport director," she said.
During her career, she's been left out of conversations and not asked opinions on things as much as others, Thorpe said. On top of this, she said she'd had backlash online from trolls.
"I've been questioned even as mother. It's pretty bad," she said.
One out of 5 space industry workers are women
Thorpe's seven-day job not only involves running the spaceport, but also going to conferences, traveling, and meeting with clients in different time zones. She said it was important for family life to fit into her schedule, especially after the launch attempt on January 9.
"I think when I started out I kind of almost wanted to just conform to what's out there already," she said. "But I realize actually the reason I've been successful is by being who I am and to bring a different way of thinking into things."
Thorpe said women were "really good at doing that in rooms full of men" and the only way the space industry was going to improve was if it became more diverse.
Space is a male-dominated industry. The United Nations reported in October 2021 that around one in five workers in the space industry are women. That was roughly the same amount as 30 years ago, the report said.
"What I'm trying to do is start to question the way things are being done because, you know, it hasn't really got us where we need to be yet," Thorpe said.
Erika P. Rodriguez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Sam Bankman-Fried and Anthony Scaramucci went on a Middle East fundraising tour in October.
Scaramucci told Insider he bought SBF a suit so the FTX CEO wouldn't wear a T-shirt with investors.
He said SBF ended up saying "nasty things" about a crypto rival that helped spark FTX's downfall.
Weeks before FTX's downfall, Anthony Scaramucci was worried that Sam Bankman-Fried's famously casual dress sense could backfire on a fundraising trip to the Middle East. Scaramucci told Insider he bought the then-FTX CEO a suit from Bloomingdale's to help impress investors.
The SkyBridge Capital founder, who sold 30% of his business to FTX, decided that Bankman-Fried needed to scrub up for their tour to Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and the FII Institute in Saudi Arabia. "I didn't certainly like elements of the way he was dressed," he said.
"I bought him a suit, frankly, to take him to the Middle East with me and told him he can't dress with a T-shirt in the Middle East," Scaramucci told Insider. "When you're in Rome, do as the Romans do."
On a panel last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Scaramucci said he had thought Bankman-Fried "was the Mark Zuckerberg of crypto — I did not think he was the Bernie Madoff of crypto." He told Insider he made the Zuckerberg comparison because the Meta CEO walked around Davos in a hoodie and T-shirt "and I probably was slightly offended by him, but he went on to create a trillion-dollar company."
Scaramucci said he was trying to help Bankman-Fried raise capital for FTX in the Middle East.
An FTX lawyer recently said Bankman-Fried's hedge fund, Alameda, had access to a $65 billion credit line from FTX. Bankman-Fried directed staff to code a "backdoor," which let Alameda draw from customer funds on the crypto exchange, the lawyer said.
The FTX cofounder has denied stealing customer funds and pled not guilty to eight criminal charges. Referring to the allegations, Scaramucci said: "I didn't realize, unfortunately, that he had an accounting backdoor. And the numbers that he was showing me and other venture capitalists and potential capital allocators were inaccurate."
"Somebody was like: 'Well, look at the way he was dressed and the way he handled himself, didn't you think he was a bozo?' And I'm like, OK, the hindsight test? Yes, of course, he's a bozo."
While videos from the FII Institute show Bankman-Fried dressed in a long-sleeve shirt and suit trousers, there were no images of him in a suit jacket. It's not clear whether the suit he's worn during recent court hearings is the same one Scaramucci said he bought for him, though it is a different style from the one he was last photographed in during a Congressional hearing last May.
Bankman-Fried and Scaramucci at Crypto Bahamas.
Vicky Ge Huang/Insider
Bankman-Fried's tour came just weeks before FTX's bankruptcy, and the SkyBridge Capital CEO directly linked the two, saying, "Our trip to the Middle East led to his immediate downfall."
As evidence, he said Bankman-Fried had bad-mouthed his rival crypto CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao of Binance. The New York Times reported in November that Bankman-Fried had also criticized Zhao in private meetings in Washington.
"So in some ways, I'm happy that we took that trip because we could still be living in a world of FTX," Scaramucci said. "He could have continued to cover it up, and I could have erroneously helped him do that by helping them raise money and building other corporate relationships."
"I had a relationship with Sam — I liked and I trusted him," he added. "And so when somebody betrays your trust like that, it's upsetting. Hopefully, he'll serve some time in jail for what he did, and the industry can move on and grow and hopefully heal from it."
Representatives for Bankman-Fried declined to comment.
Google headquarters is seen in Mountain View, California, United States on September 26, 2022.
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Multiple tech giants have all announced broad cuts from their teams since November.
More than 200,000 tech workers have been laid off since the start of 2022, per tracker Layoffs.fyi.
Here's how the severance packages for eight of the biggest tech companies stack up.
Tech giants have announced mass layoffs since the first week of November, with more than 200,000 tech workers given their marching orders so far.
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Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon, Meta, Twitter, Stripe, and Lyft are among the tech giants who have announced mass layoffs in recent months. Seven of these companies publicly announced severance packages for their laid-off US employees, while CNBC reported that Amazon offered workers a "voluntary severance" package. Here's how they stack up.
Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon, Twitter, Lyft, and Stripe did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
January 27, 2023: This story was updated with details on severance packages offered by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Salesforce.
Google is paying 16 weeks of severance at minimum, and all remaining vacation time
CEO of Alphabet and Google Sundar Pichai in Warsaw, Poland on March 29, 2022.
Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced on January 20 that the firm would lay off 12,000 employees, saying it had hired over the last two years for a "different economic reality than the one we face today."
"The fact that these changes will impact the lives of Googlers weighs heavily on me, and I take full responsibility for the decisions that led us here," Pichai wrote in a memo to employees.
He wrote that the layoffs would affect roles "across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels, and regions."
When employees asked Pichai at a Town Hall meeting who would take responsibility for overhiring, he said the company's executives would take a "very significant reduction in their annual bonus."
Alphabet, the company that owns Google, said its net income slipped 26.5% to $13.9 billion in the third quarter of 2022, compared to $18.9 billion in the same quarter of 2021, per its latest earnings report.
Percentage of staff laid off: 6%
Minimum severance pay: 16 weeks salary
Additional severance pay: two weeks for every additional year at Google
Health insurance: six months from layoff date
Immigration support: provided
Other benefits: payment for 2022 bonuses and remaining vacation time, full pay and benefits for at least 60 days, job placement services
Microsoft said it would give 'above-market' severance pay, but didn't specify what that meant
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, told employees in a memo on January 18 that the firm would cut 10,000 jobs through the end of the third quarter in 2023.
Some of the layoffs would begin that day, he wrote. "It's important to note that while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we will continue to hire in key strategic areas," Nadella added in the memo.
Nadella said Microsoft would take a $1.2 billion charge in the second quarter related to severance packages and other changes in the company.
"These are the kinds of hard choices we have made throughout our 47-year history to remain a consequential company in this industry that is unforgiving to anyone who doesn't adapt to platform shifts," he wrote.
Microsoft's net income fell 12% to $16.4 billion for the quarter ending December 31, 2022, compared to $18.8 billion in the same quarter the year before, per its latest earnings report.
Other benefits: full pay and benefits for 60 days, job placement services
Salesforce is giving US employees at least 5 months of pay, health insurance, and other benefits
Salesforce chairman and co-CEO Marc Benioff speaks during the TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2019 conference at Moscone Center on October 03, 2019 in San Francisco, California.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff told employees in a letter on January 4 that his company would cut 10% of its employees, or an estimated 7,000 jobs, over a period of a few weeks.
"As our revenue accelerated through the pandemic, we hired too many people leading into this economic downturn we're now facing, and I take responsibility for that," he wrote, saying laid off employees would get a notification email within the next hour.
Benioff addressed the layoffs at an all-hands meeting two days later, but the discussion left employees flustered as the co-CEO dodged questions for two hours, Insider's Ellen Thomas and Ashley Stewart reported.
The executive told staff that more job cuts are coming, but even many top-level managers didn't know when the next round would happen or who might be affected, Salesforce employees told Thomas and Stewart.
Chief people officer Brent Hyder said there would likely be "additional reductions and eliminations of jobs."
"That's the only way I can say it, because there isn't an answer to say 'It's one and done' or 'We'll be done on this date or that date,'" Hyder said.
Salesforce's net income dropped to $210 million in the quarter ending October 31, 2022, down 66% year-on-year from $468 million in the same quarter in 2021.
Percentage of staff laid off: 10%
Minimum severance pay: five months of pay
Additional severance pay: no public mention
Health insurance: covered for five months
Immigration support: no public mention
Other benefits: unspecified career resources
Meta is offering 16 weeks of base pay to laid-off employees, with additional weeks based on how long employees worked.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Meta.
Getty Images
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday morning that the tech giant would lay off more than 11,000 employees, an anticipated move from the company after weeks of reports that it was planning job cuts.
It's the first time that Meta has conducted a broad cull of its employees in its 18-year history. Zuckerberg admitted responsibility for the cuts, saying he wrongly predicted that the market's bullish sprint during the pandemic would last longer.
"I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here," Zuckerberg wrote in a memo to employees.
The layoffs have prompted mixed reactions from outgoing employees. Some said on social media that they were thankful for their experience with Meta, while others expressed unhappiness at being fired via email or said they were let go just after returning from paternal leave.
Meta's net income in the third quarter was around $4.4 billion, down 52% year-on-year, as it focuses on Zuckerberg's vision to establish the metaverse.
In response to queries from Insider, a Meta spokesperson pointed to Zuckerberg's memo.
Percentage of staff laid off: 13%
Minimum severance pay: 16 weeks of base salary
Additional severance pay: two weeks per year of service worked, with no cap
Health insurance: six months from layoff date
Immigration support: immigration specialists to contact those on visas
Other benefits: three months of "career support" with an external vendor, including early access to job leads.
Twitter is offering all employees three months' salary as severance.
New Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
Muhammed Selim Korkutata/Getty Images
Twitter slashed nearly half of its global workforce, or roughly 3,700 employees, after billionaire Elon Musk purchased the platform. Musk tweeted on November 4 that he had "no choice" but to cut the jobs, writing that Twitter was losing $4 million per day.
The day before, employees received an unsigned memo saying that layoffs were incoming.
"If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email," the memo read. "If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email."
The ham-fisted approach drew heavy criticism from former employees, with some saying Twitter's layoffs were a "master class in how not to do it." Culled employees complained that they were fired with little-to-no notice. Some told Insider that they lost access to their laptops before receiving notice of their termination. Several employees are suing Twitter, saying they weren't given enough notice before being cut.
Twitter's third quarter results have not been released, but the company lost $270 million in the second quarter of 2022, compared to a net income of $66 million on year.
Percentage of staff laid off: estimated 50%
Minimum severance pay: three months of salary, roughly 12 weeks, according to Musk
Additional severance pay: no public mention
Health insurance: no public mention
Immigration support: no public mention
Other benefits: no public mention
Lyft is giving 10 weeks of pay, with veteran team members receiving more.
Logan Green, Lyft cofounder and CEO.
Noah Berger/AP Photo
Ridesharing startup Lyft's cofounders Logan Green and John Zimmer sent a memo to employees on November 3 announcing that the company was cutting 683 jobs, as it faces financial headwinds and a looming global recession.
"We worked hard to bring down costs this summer: we slowed, then froze hiring; cut spending; and paused less-critical initiatives," the memo said. "Still, Lyft has to become leaner, which requires us to part with incredible team members."
Lyft reported a net loss of $422.2 million for the third quarter of 2022, ballooning from a $99.7 million net loss in the same quarter last year.
Percentage of staff laid off: 13%
Minimum severance pay: 10 weeks of salary
Additional severance pay: four weeks of salary for employees who worked at least four years at Lyft
Health insurance: coverage through April 30, 2023
Immigration support: no public mention
Other benefits: employees will also get recruiting assistance and coaching sessions on resumes and interviews, the company said
Stripe is paying departing employees at least 14 weeks of severance.
Stripe cofounder John Collison.
Stripe
Payment platform Stripe announced mass layoffs on November 3, pointing to poor conditions in the economy.
Stripe cofounders Patrick and John Collison wrote in a memo to employees that the company needed to "match the pace of our investments with the realities around us."
"Doing right by our users and our shareholders (including you) means embracing reality as it is," they wrote.
Stripe's memo was praised publicly by some of its workers, with one employee calling it "the right decision" and lauding the Collison brothers for taking responsibility in their note.
"The leaders are taking full ownership of the consequences of their decision and truly showing compassion towards each employee by offering them a well-thought-out and generous severance package," Joe Alim, HR platform Compt's vice president of product and operations, told Insider's Rachel DuRose.
Stripe is privately held, which means its shares are not traded on a public stock market.
Percentage of staff laid off: 14%
Minimum severance pay: 14 weeks of salary
Additional severance pay: unspecified extra pay for employees with longer tenure
Health insurance: cash equivalent of six months of healthcare premiums or healthcare continuation
Immigration support: Stripe said it would work with employees on visas, and will support transitions to non-employment visas if it can
Other benefits: annual bonuses for 2022, regardless of departure date. Payment for all unused paid-time-off or leave days.
Amazon offered a lump-sum payment to employees under a 'voluntary severance' package
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy
Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images
The ecommerce giant is in the midst of laying off around 18,000 employees, including staff from its retail and human resources divisions, as well as teams that worked on the now-axed voice assistant Alexa.
Dave Limp, senior vice president of devices and services at Amazon, published a November 17 team memo pointing to "an unusual and uncertain" economy.
On January 18, company executives told staff via email that the ecommerce giant would lay off roughly 18,000 people, up from an estimated 10,000 employees before.
Amazon's severance package has not been publicly released, but the company offered some employees voluntary buyouts in November as an additional way of cutting its headcount, CNBC reported, citing internal company memos.
Staff would get three months of healthcare payments and salary in exchange for leaving the company, plus one week of pay for every six months of tenure, the outlet reported.
Employees taking up the offer had until November 29 to resign, and until December 5 to withdraw their applications if they changed their minds, per CNBC.
