e.l.f. Beauty CEO on how to reach Gen-Z women

I spoke with Amin for Fortune’s Leadership Next podcast, which I am co-hosting this season with my colleague, Kristin Stoller. As part of our far-ranging conversation, Tarang talked about the importance of building the brand online. Its 2019 ‘Eyes Lips Face’ song was a viral hit on TikTok. Said Amin: “When we looked at TikTok, we noticed that there was a lot of dancing, there was a lot of music, so we composed our own song. We did our hashtag challenge and that ended up getting something like 2 billion views.”

 “We noticed that almost 70% of our consumers play video games or watch other people play video games so having a female empowerment platform with popular female gamer Lufu on Twitch did great. We created an entire branded experience on Roblox and just celebrated our 20 millionth visit.”

He also focused on building the right team, giving them stock and creative freedom: “One of the first moves I did when we bought the company was make sure that our employee base reflects the community, so I’m very proud that 74% of our team are women, 75% are Gen-Z or millennial, 44% are diverse.” Regardless of where you stand on DEI, you have to appreciate the excellence of its “So many Dicks” campaign about the dearth of women and the preponderance of men named Richard, Dick or Rick on corporate boards. 

You can listen to the full episode here, including the biggest mistake Amin has made along the way—underestimating the power of “mega-influencer brands” like Fenty, Huda, and Kylie Jenner. 

More news below.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady, diane.brady@fortune.com, LinkedIn.

Top news

Trump pressures Ukraine. Kyiv “may make a deal. They may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday. But we’re going to have all this money in there and I say, I want it back,” the president told Fox News, describing what he says is an agreement for Ukraine to give the U.S. $500 billion in rare earth minerals. Not clear: How much of this is real and how much is bluster.

Israel will restart the war in Gaza if Hamas does not release hostages by Saturday.

The Fed is not in a hurry. “With our [interest rate] policy stance now significantly less restrictive than it had been and the economy remaining strong, we do not need to be in a hurry to adjust our policy stance,” Fed chair Jay Powell told Congress on Tuesday. “We know that reducing policy restraint too fast or too much could hinder progress on inflation.”

Musk defends DOGE. In a rambling Oval Office session in front of reporters, Elon Musk defended the work of his DOGE group in checking government spending. He claimed he has found social security payments being made to people who are 150 years old, although he presented no evidence to demonstrate that. The president also signed an order to require federal agencies to “hire no more than one employee for every four employees that depart."

Trump v the judges. The president claimed federal judges are blocking his attempts to uncover corruption in government spending. Musk, Vice President JD Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Eli Crane have all suggested the power of judges to check the White House should be restricted. That could set up a titanic constitutional problem for the Supreme Court, which has already ruled the president enjoys immunity from many “official” acts.

Remember the guy who threw away $750 million in Bitcoin? Now he wants to buy the dump where he thinks it’s buried.

From Fortune

Altman gets candid about Elon
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described former friend Elon Musk as not “a happy person” following his rejection of Musk’s unsolicited, $97.4 billion offer to acquire OpenAI. When asked if Musk’s bid came from “a position of insecurity,” Altman claimed that “probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity.” Fortune

Powell shrugs off possibility of Trump firing Fed board members
In an appearance before the Senate banking committee on Tuesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell made clear that any attempt by President Trump to fire Fed board members is “pretty clearly not allowed under the law.” The question was posed by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who referenced Trump’s recent dismissal of Kennedy Center board members. Fortune

JPMorgan employees petition for hybrid work
A group of JP Morgan Chase employees calling themselves the “JPMC Workers” released a petition on Sunday requesting that the bank maintain its hybrid working model. The petition, addressed to JP Morgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, comes after the bank informed staff in January that they would be required to return to the office five days a week. Fortune

The markets 

• The S&P 500 closed up barely at 6,068.50 yesterday. The Nasdaq Composite was down slightly, however. S&P Futures were down 0.15% premarket. Asia and Europe are up this morning. In China, the Hang Seng Tech index went up 20% over the last month after DeepSeek caused investors to look again at Chinese tech stocks. In the U.S., investors are waiting for this morning’s inflation report, due at 8.30 a.m. ET. It is expected to be above the Fed’s 2% target.

From the analysts

• Saxo on Tesla: “Sales have plunged in Europe, China, and California, while competitors like BYD and Volkswagen are gaining ground. Elon Musk’s political controversies are becoming a liability – Tesla’s brand favorability is at an all-time low, and his polarising views are alienating core customers, particularly in environmentally conscious markets. Tesla remains the worst-performing stock in the ‘Magnificent Seven’ – down 25% from its December peak,” per Jacob Falkencrone.
• Ark Invest on AI: “Recently, OpenAI’s Deep Research accurately answered 26.6% of the questions on Humanity's Last Exam [the benchmark test of the most difficult academic questions possible] ... Upon the Exam’s release in January, the best performing models were OpenAI's o1 and DeepSeek's R-1, each scoring ~9%. If subsequent model iterations were to follow … Humanity’s Last Exam could be saturated within the next 12 months, effectively surpassing expert level technical knowledge and reasoning capability,” per Frank Downing.
• Wedbush on Musk v Altman: “Altman is the golden boy of the AI Revolution but Musk has massive power in the Beltway and this chain of events is likely just the start of a bigger soap opera … OpenAI has a very strong market position which poses a risk to other tech players including Musk. We would expect the OpenAI Board to formally reject this bid,” per Daniel Ives and team.
• Goldman Sachs on copper tariffs: “...markets are pricing over 90% probability of a 10% import duty on copper by March 2025 (or a 35-40% probability of a 25% tariff). Our baseline forecast includes a 70% probability of a 10% tariff on copper imports by the end of 2025,” per Eoin Dinsmore and team.

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