Good morning. Even though our bid to buy Warner Bros was rejected, we’ve got some other exciting news brewing.

Be sure to check in with us on Wednesday.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

This week prediction market Kalshi removed a MrBeast employee from its platform for insider trading, marking the first time Kalshi has publicly shared details on an investigation. 

Here’s what we know:

Predicting the prediction market: Beast Industries CEO Jeff Housenbold told CNBC that he put company-wide policies in place three months ago that prohibit prediction market activity related to MrBeast content. He suspended the accused employee while Beast Industries investigates.

“The prediction markets are going to have to self-police, but I don’t think that’s sufficient,” Housenbold said. “The government’s going to have to figure that out, the private sector’s going to have to self-police, and the prediction markets are going to need to put policies in place—but it is ripe for abuse.”

Why it matters: Prediction market platforms are opening the door for anyone to bet on anything (from Taylor Swift’s wedding date to Pinterest’s acquisition), giving people the opportunity to use insider information to their advantage. As Kalshi seeks to legitimize themselves, this case might set a precedent for how creators engage in prediction markets.

“Patron of the arts” used to be a term for museum benefactors and theater investors. Could creators be the next artform worth patronizing?

We asked Emily Kirkpatrick, the fashion creator behind newsletter and YouTube channel I Heart Mess, about her own patron.

But first, how she got here:

Enter: Kirkpatrick’s patron, Ruth Ann Harnisch, a former journalist turned creative philanthropist who personally sponsors Kirkpatrick’s YouTube channel. Harnisch approached Kirkpatrick to pay for content after being a longtime reader of the newsletter. With Harnisch’s contributions and AdSense, Kirkpatrick’s revenue is an even split between Substack and YouTube.

In a brand deal-driven world, Kirkpatrick said she receives no brand deals because of her commitment to honest critiques—even though many brand professionals subscribe to the newsletter.

“Of course, I would love Miu Miu to have an ad on something, but it's not going to stop me from critiquing a Miu Miu dress if I don't like it,” Kirkpatrick told us. “[Fashion brands] want to buy your silence to a certain extent, or buy your enthusiasm.”

Big picture: Paid memberships are integrated into every major platform, and creators raising funds is hardly a new concept. Benefactors could provide a third path of support for creators that brands deem “unsafe.”

The creator economy is expected to grow 18% in 2026, to $43.9 billion, according to a new report from Influencer Marketing Factory. Yet amid that growth, the agency found that among 1,000 US creators, only 16% are making more than $50K per year.

Despite low earnings overall, 51% of creators reported their income has increased year-over-year.

So where is all the money going? 2026 has been marked by landmark creator deals with networks like Fox, Amazon, and Fortune 500 brands.

Our own Samir Chaudry gave us his take on why wealth is concentrating at the top.

“It’s largely driven by who today’s biggest advertisers are,” Chaudry said. “As Fortune 500 and blue-chip brands move deeper into creator marketing, their budgets are getting bigger, but their tolerance for complexity isn't.

They don’t want to manage 50 creators at $10K each. They want one partner at $500K, $1M, or $3M.

That shifts opportunity toward two types of creators:

Everyone else still has monetization paths, especially in the $10-25K range of short-form brand deals. But those deals reward lean operations, not scale. Independent creators can be highly profitable. They just won’t capture the same dollars flowing into the ecosystem.

So as brand spend grows, creator income grows too, just unevenly. Bigger checks are being written. They’re just being written to fewer creators.”

Tell us: Do you think we’re seeing the end of the middle-class creator? Hit reply and tell us your thoughts.

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The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.