Hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio attended a Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert in Singapore, and posted a selfie from the packed venue along with a caption explaining why he thought the megastar should be the next president of the United States.

“@TaylorSwift for President!” the Bridgewater Associates founder Dalio wrote Thursday on Instagram.

“I just saw her at her concert in Singapore and realized that she can bring together Americans and people in most countries much better than either of the candidates, and that bringing people together is the most important thing,” Dalio wrote.

“Watching this concert with people from all over the world made me and them feel good and connected and reminded me how powerful that universal culture is,” he added. “Wouldn’t it be great if we had two candidates who could lead that culture and make smart leadership decisions too?”

While the post was likely made in jest, politicians and pundits know all too well of the record-breaking Grammy award winning singer’s powerful influence and enormous fan base.

Dalio later tweeted an update, elaborating on his frame of mind when he made the first post, and explaining it.

“Re: my Taylor Swift for president! comments, no I wasn’t drunk (though obviously I need to work on my selfies) and yes it was a joke, which is a half-truth,” Dalio wrote in the post on the social media site X.

“The half that’s true is that I think she can bring people together a lot better than either of the presidential candidates and bringing people together is one of the most important things a president should do.”

Swift’s get-out-the-vote efforts have previously spurred tens of thousands of young people to register to vote in a single day.

And the reputation she gained supporting Joe Biden’s campaign against former President Donald Trump that year have fostered right-wing conspiracy theories that she’s being deployed as a tool of the Democrats or even the Pentagon and CIA for this year’s presidential race.

While some Republican lawmakers and television pundits suggest Swift is part of a masterminded plot to achieve the Biden administration’s endgame, her fans have replied with “you need to calm down.” Swift has not made any endorsements for the 2024 election, but encouraged her 283 million Instagram followers to vote in a post on Tuesday for the Super Tuesday primaries.

Dalio, who turned Bridgewater into the world’s largest hedge fund, has previously stressed what he believes is the need for a more centrist approach to American politics. Many voters have not expressed happiness at the prospect of a Trump-Biden rematch, bracing for a potentially cruel summer and fall campaign season as the contenders’ bad blood risks stoking further polarization in the country’s politics.

“What we need is a very strong middle,” Dalio said at a financial forum in November.

“We have irreconcilable differences by sides that will not accept losing.”

He said at the time that he saw former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, as the most promising candidate. Perhaps he now hopes Swift will fill in the blank space left by Haley’s recent departure from the race.

The Eras Tour is the most profit-generating concert tour in history, spanning 152 shows in five continents over 21 months.

Since launching her tour, Swift has become a billionaire and boosted the economies of numerous cities and states, surpassing many forecasters’ wildest dreams. The U.S. Federal Reserve in 2023 cited her concerts as providing significant economic boosts to American cities, and some analysts estimated that by October of that year, the shows and subsequent gold rush of travel and spending by fans had added $5.7 billion to the U.S. economy.

In Singapore alone, six consecutive days of concerts are estimated to have added between $225 million to $300 million to the city-state’s economy in the first quarter of this year, according to a survey of economists published by Bloomberg.

It’s night. I’m at a lake near Oregon’s Mount Hood, sitting on the beach. Jazz music is playing as I write. I’m not in the real world.

Well, I sort of am. 

I’m wearing Apple’s new Vision Pro headset, which looks like a fancy pair of glowing ski goggles.

Apple’s long-awaited headset, which starts at $3,500, launches in the U.S. on Friday. It’s the company’s first major new gadget to hit the market since the Apple Watch debuted in April 2015. I’ve been testing it for nearly a week. While it has some shortcomings, it’s easily the most fun new product I’ve tried out in years.

Analysts don’t expect the Vision Pro to drive massive amounts of revenue initially. UBS anticipates Apple will ship about 400,000 headsets, leading to a “relatively immaterial” $1.4 billion in revenue this year. However, I’m convinced that if Apple eventually sells cheaper versions, we’ll see millions of people using them in the coming years.

The Vision Pro offers a new kind of experience that Apple calls “spatial computing.” You sit in your world while looking at a digital one, and then plop different apps around you. You can work, play games, watch movies or surf the web.

Thanks to very sharp displays, and a full M2 processor that’s usually found in Macs, the Vision Pro has the power to do a lot of what you’d expect from an Apple device. There’s a dedicated App Store for Vision Pro apps, but you can also install more than a million iPhone or iPad apps. Or pair it with your Mac and work while looking at a 4K display inside the goggles.

I’m only scratching the surface of the capabilities, but here’s the gist: This is an entirely new type of computing, providing a whole new world of experiences. It feels like the future.

Here’s what you need to know:

I was skeptical when I first met with Apple to see the Vision Pro. Companies have been trying to do virtual reality and augmented reality and mixed reality or gobbledygook reality for years.

Sometimes it’s cool, but most of the time I’m done after an hour or so.

With the Vision Pro, there are three key parts that come into play. It has super sharp and colorful screens, it allows you to see the world around you by default using “passthrough” technology, and it has a fast processor.

The displays help remove the “screendoor” effect that’s common in lower-cost headsets like the Meta Quest 3. That’s where you can see the pixels as you look through a headset. You can easily read text on a website or a book on the Vision Pro. And I was able to watch movies, including in 3D, on screens bigger and nicer than any TV in my house.

The Quest 3 and other headsets also have passthrough. But Apple’s works better. It’s clearer and sharper, enough so that I can comfortably see the room around me in full color and without any lag, though I still can’t read my phone. And I love how you can turn the small digital crown, just like on the Apple Watch or AirPods Max, to adjust the volume or transport yourself into a fully 3D landscape.

Virtual travel is a nice touch. You can work or watch movies in Hawaii, by a lake, in White Sands or at Joshua Tree. They’re all relaxing environments with calming sounds and slow animations – like clouds moving across the sky — that help you feel like you’re almost there.

Navigation is easy once you get the hang of it. This reminds me a bit of the iPhone moment, when Apple launched its multitouch display that changed how we interact with phones that had largely been navigated with a stylus, touchpad or keyboard. There aren’t any controllers here. The headset uses sensors to track your eyes (and even verify when you’re making purchases online or in the App Store.) Apple has a quick setup process that aligns the headset to your eyes and then has you look at a series of dots, pinching your fingers as you go so you can calibrate. If you wear glasses, Apple also sells inserts that pop into the headset.

It’s incredibly accurate. You just look where you want to go and then tap your thumb and index finger to select a button or app. There’s a white bar at the bottom of every app, for example, that you can grab to pull and push around. You can adjust the size of any app by looking at the corner and then dragging it out or in at a diagonal angle. And you can swipe through photos or scroll websites by holding your index finger and thumb together while pulling up or down.

Likewise, you zoom in and out by holding those fingers on both hands and pulling outward or inward. You don’t have to flail your hands in front of you. The headset’s external cameras can detect your fingers down in your lap. You can be subtle.

It packs a punch.

I launched more than a dozen apps around me. There’s no point in doing more, because you can’t see it all. I loved setting it up with a browser in front of me, music next to me and a TV screen above it all. But the world is yours to customize. You can open mail and a browser or leave Slack open next to a Word document with your calendar on the other side. Put your text messages on the ceiling if you want. It’s a completely new way to multitask.

A note: My screenshots show apps askew. But, in the headset, they’re all perfectly level.

I didn’t run into any slowdowns during my time with the Vision Pro. Part of that is due to how Apple renders content. It’s technically only sharpening the areas of the screen where you’re focusing, leaving the other areas blurry. That’s why some of the screenshots here look out of focus around the sides. Inside the headset, it’s all super crisp. It’s called foveated rendering, and it allows for optimized processing.

I loved watching movies with the headset. I lounged on my couch and put up a huge screen across the wall of my living room and watched an hour of “Barbie,” and the two first episodes of “Masters of the Air” before the battery was at about 5%. Another night I watched “Greyhound.” I used the NBA app, which was updated to work on the Vision Pro, to stream four games at once, with the main game in the middle and others pinned to the sides. It’s wild.

Apple also has some specially recorded content that’s so sharp you feel like you’re standing right there next to a rendered dinosaur or a video of a rhinoceros. There’s a slightly terrifying clip with a woman walking on a tightrope between cliffs. Don’t watch if you’re afraid of heights. The clips show the type of content third parties will eventually be able record and publish to the headset. I imagine sports highlights or even sitting courtside at a live game.  

The Disney+ app is fun. You can watch movies in one of about four different 3D landscapes. I sat in a racer on Tatooine and watched a bit of a Star Wars movie, but then switched over to watch “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse” in 3D. Unlike 3D TVs and movies, which generally flopped, the effects work well in the headset. It’s neat, but I still prefer watching movies in 2D. It feels more natural to me.

FaceTime works well. You see a clear video of the person you’re calling on a screen in front of you. But they don’t see you. Or, not the real you. They see a 3D-rendered version of you called a digital Persona. It’s still in beta, and mine looked like a much older version of me. My colleague thought I looked like an 80-year-old man. My wife laughed.

You create a Persona by selecting an option in the settings menu and then removing the headset and following screens on the external display. It asks you to look up, look down, look left, look right, smile, smile with teeth, and close your eyes. Then, in seconds, it creates a 3D Persona.

It looks more human than cartoony like with other headsets. I spoke with people over FaceTime also using Personas, and it’s much easier to hold a conversation without feeling like you’re two goofy avatars trying to talk. You can hold a real meeting if necessary in your pajamas while your Persona is in work attire. Personas also carry over to other apps like WebEx.

Your Persona’s eyes can appear on the outside display. Someone will see glowing effects on the outside of the headset if you have screens up in front of you. If they begin talking to you and you’re in an immersive view – like one of the landscapes I mentioned earlier – they’ll start to fade into focus so you can see them. As you look at them, the eyes of your digital Persona become visible on the outside of the headset. It looks like you’re wearing a snorkeling mask.

In real life, I just removed the headset face when my wife came in to chat.

The built-in speakers are great. They get nice and loud and support spatial audio, so if you turn your head away from the movie in front of you, the sound stays in the same place, much like if you were watching a real TV. Music and movies sounded fantastic, with full surround sound. People can hear the audio coming out of the headset, though, so you’ll want to use AirPods in public.

I love the “spatial photos” you can capture using the cameras on the outside of the Vision Pro or with the latest iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. The camera creates a 3D version of a photo or video. I filmed my 4-month-old daughter eating and my dog’s 9th birthday, for example, in hopes that I’ll be able to come back and relive some of those moments. I wish I had recorded some of these videos when my stepfather was alive because it’d feel like he was in the room with me. Some people might see it as a gimmick, but I found it moving.

Lastly, the build quality is superb. Apple used top-of-the-line glass, screens and metals. It feels like a premium headset and it’s comfortable to wear. My only complaint is that I had to be deliberate to hold it by the metal frame. The padded inserts pop off their magnets if you try to grab them. Those could be stronger, but they were designed to be easily removed so people could share the headset by popping in their own inserts.

Apple’s apps work well. You’ll find Notes, Music, Safari, Podcasts, Photos, Apple TV+, Maps and more. Other apps include SkyGuide and Disney+ and there are Apple Arcade games. Many more are coming, as most apps haven’t yet been built specifically for Vision Pro.

The Vision Pro supports more than a million iPhone and iPad apps. But you need to search for each app individually and some of them aren’t available. Netflix and Spotify haven’t been shy about not supporting the Vision Pro, though you can easily access either using the browser. Still, there are lots of others that I couldn’t find: 1Password isn’t there, which made logging into some apps a bit of a pain. You won’t find Uber, DoorDash (but there’s GrubHub!) or Amazon. None of Google’s apps are here, including YouTube TV, though it works fine in the browser.

Popular games like Diablo Immortal and Genshin Impact aren’t available. Facebook’s apps aren’t here, so no Instagram. These are just a few I noticed.

Some work well, though. I didn’t have any issues with the X iPad app, for example. CNBC’s app worked fine. Others, like Amazon Prime Video, exist but weren’t great during initial tests. A bug showed a big box in the middle of the screen when I was watching a movie. That bug has since been fixed.

For some apps that aren’t yet available, developers are working to optimize them and eliminate bugs.

Apple Keychain was sometimes buggy in iPad apps. This is Apple’s version of 1Password, and I rely on it to enter my username and passwords. It generally works fine. But if you have two usernames for apps, like my wife and I do for Amazon Prime Video or Peacock, the app locks up when you try to select a different login. I informed Apple of the bug.

The floating keyboard is useful for search or typing quick messages, but you won’t be able to type very fast at first. You look at each letter on a digital keyboard and select it, or reach out and tap the digital keyboard. I got faster during my time with the Vision Pro, but nowhere near as quick as I am on my iPhone or a real keyboard. You can just use Siri voice-to-text to respond to iMessages or enter URLs in the browser (and launch apps). Still, you’re going to want to use a keyboard if you have to do a lot of typing.

There’s also the battery pack that plugs into the headset with a proprietary plug that you twist in. I don’t mind it. I thought the pack worked fine, but it would be a lot easier if it was just embedded into the headset, though that would add weight.

I’d buy the Vision Pro right now if I had an extra $3,500. I’d even consider trading in my iPad Pro and MacBook Pro to offset the cost since the headset gives me a lot of the same capabilities. But that’s not an option.

You’ll definitely love it for movies. I think a lot of people will also really enjoy being able to read the news and browse the web while having a huge TV screen open and lounging on their couch. Some may find they can work in it. I did. It’s fun.

Apple’s real opportunity will materialize when it finds a way to mass produce the Vision Pro at closer to $2,000, or less. Until then, it may be a niche product. But the experience blows everything else out of the water. It’s Apple’s most exciting product in years and it’s the best example yet that this will become a new way of computing.

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Dan Hornberger has been a fan of the National Football League’s Philadelphia Eagles for as long as he can remember. As an adult, his office has team memorabilia lining the walls.

Last year, the devout supporter went to five home games, about an hour-and-a-half drive from his house. This year, however, Hornberger’s only on track to attend two games as costs soar.

“I’m a huge fan,” Hornberger, 40, said. “Ultimately, what it comes down to is just outright refusal on my part to pay those kinds of prices.”

Sports prices have surged this fall, according to federal data. That’s made game tickets the latest victim of “funflation,” a term used by economists to explain the increasing price tags of live events as consumers hanker for the experiences they lost during the pandemic.

Admission prices for sporting events jumped 25.1% in October 2023 from the same month a year prior, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index data. The category saw the highest annualized inflation rate out of the few hundred that make up the inflation gauge.

CPI as a whole rose a relatively modest 3.2% on an annualized basis. The index tracks the prices of a broad basket of items including milk, jewelry and airline fares.

“We’ve seen this through the entire leisure and hospitality sector,” said Victor Matheson, a professor and sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross. “People are getting back to things that they enjoy doing and are willing to pay a bunch.”

Part of the reason consumers may be seeing higher ticket prices for their favorite sports teams is because of the increasing use of dynamic pricing models, Matheson said. These structures allow ticket-selling platforms to fetch more or less per ticket, depending on demand for the event at any given moment.

There’s also an alignment of attention-grabbing sporting events taking place this fall. Beyond the typical major-league seasons, the Formula One race in Las Vegas last week and the announcement of soccer legend Lionel Messi’s move to the Inter Miami team this summer have boosted enthusiast spending.

But a large reason for the eye-popping 25.1% jump is because of how low prices were a year ago, Matheson said. Teams slashed ticket values in 2022 in a bid to win back fans who had grown accustomed to watching at home.

Sports ticket prices were 14.2% higher in October than in November 2019, a smaller gain than the entire index’s 19.6% increase, a CNBC analysis of CPI data shows. Much of the upward pressure on admission costs has come this year, underscoring the role of funflation as consumers shift their attention from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé concerts to NFL and Major League Baseball games.

“We’re seeing a gigantic bounce back in prices,” Matheson said. 

NFL and National Hockey League sales have approximately doubled in 2023 compared with the prior year, according to ticket platform StubHub. NBA sales were up nearly 60% at the start of the season compared with the last, while college football has seen an increase of around 50%.

To be sure, not every sport this year has seen the same price growth. StubHub said ticket prices across the top 10 sporting events were 15% higher in 2022 than they were in 2023.

Matheson said tamer inflation overall should help cool sector-specific growth. A return to a more normalized entertainment spending routine following the post-pandemic experience boom can also help quell demand and prices, he added.

Rodney Paul, director of the sports analytics program at Syracuse University, said interest in attending games should be somewhat stable even if the economy worsens. That’s because a sizable portion of the consumer base is well-off enough to afford pro-sports tickets — which he said is essentially a luxury item — and should be able to better weather a downturn given their financial status.

But Paul said a meaningful change to the state of the economy could push fans who are less financially stable to cut back on extraneous expenses, in turn hurting demand. Cash-strapped consumers may justify spending more than they’d like to this year by reminding themselves they didn’t splurge as much or at all on game tickets during the pandemic, Matheson said.

Part of the financial stress comes from the resale market for tickets, some sports enthusiasts say. The rising price of parking and food inside of the stadium also have to be factored in to the financial calculation of fans such as Hornberger and Sara Weddington.

Weddington was able to save enough enough to attend a Kansas City Chiefs game last season, but she said it feels out of the question this year as prices have climbed. The long-time resident of the Kansas City area said she feels for people who have never gotten to see a game before recent cost increases.

“To have such a monumental part of the community be so out of reach for a lot of people is really upsetting,” the 23-year-old said. “Not being able to go to a game is like going to a candy store and not being able to get any candy.”

Still, Paul of Syracuse University said sports have taken on a new meaning in the post-pandemic world. As people increasingly work from home, he said there’s a larger need for in-person social spaces — and those who can afford it are more willing to shell out.

“There’s a real craving for that kind of feeling of togetherness that the sports world brings,” he said. It’s “a really exciting experience that maybe is even more exciting now because people had lost it in the past.”

— CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report.

Like hurricanes, blizzards or wildfires, Taylor Swift is now prompting an airline to waive ticket-change fees.

The popstar said she was postponing a show in Argentina’s capital scheduled for Friday until Sunday because of heavy rain, writing on X, the platform formerly called Twitter: “due to the weather being so truly chaotic it would be unsafe to try and put on this concert.”

The Chile account of LATAM Airlines, the largest carrier in South America, reached out to customers on X: “#AttentionSwifties: we know your planes changed so starting today we are updating our flexibility policy for those with flights from Buenos Aires” for Saturday or Sunday.

The Chie-based carrier said it is waiving both ticket-change fees and differences in fare if travelers can fly anytime until Nov. 17 after Swift’s show at Argentina’s largest stadium was postponed.

Some customers complained to LATAM on social media, however, that they were having trouble finding seats and that the carrier told them about the waiver too late. The airline didn’t immediately comment on whether it is adding additional flights.

Airlines routinely add extra flights for events like high-profile concerts, conferences like CES, or sports.

But a change fee waiver when a concert is canceled or is postponed is very unusual, industry executives told CNBC, and is also a sign of how much her tour drives bookings. While it might be a new era for airline waivers, The Eras Tour has impacted other industries like hotels.

Japanese game developer Capcom is well known for video games like Resident Evil, Marvel vs. Capcom, and Street Fighter — but it doesn’t want to just capture gamers’ hearts, but moviegoers’ as well.

At the Tokyo Game Show in Chiba, Japan, its chief operating officer Haruhiro Tsujimoto told CNBC that Capcom’s strength in games is that it is able to sell both new and old titles alike.

Tsujimoto pointed that Capcom releasing new game titles almost every year to already existing franchises, such as Street Fighter and Resident Evil, “indicates that we have a strong and high quality catalog.”

The company is planning to release a sequel to action role-playing game Dragon’s Dogma after over 10 years. It was featured at the Tokyo Game Show but an official release date has yet to be confirmed.

Tsujimoto told CNBC’s Will Kouloris the approach is “one of our major strategies,” and that it “leads to the continued sales of our brands that we have released in the past.”

Capcom is no stranger to the film industry, having seen a live action movie Street Fighter made in 1994 and Resident Evil made into seven films since 1997.

“Capcom was one of the first companies to collaborate game business with cinema business,” Tsujimoto pointed out. “We have experienced the synergistic effects of doing so, whereby movies sell well and games sell well, when a game is made into a movie.”

As such, the company is deepening its foray into the film industry by setting up Capcom Pictures in Hollywood in 2022, and this film production company will aim to produce more films there.

“Our company will continue to evolve further in the future. Our strategy is to continue to develop both game production and film production, and to take digital entertainment to new heights by having these businesses not only compete but also encourage each other.”

While generative artificial intelligence has being touted as the next major step in the tech industry, having the potential to create text, pictures, and even videos, it may not come to the game development industry so soon.

Tsujimoto said that integrating AI in game development is a “tricky situation” where “a lot of issues need to be addressed before we can actually integrate generative AI to our operations.”

On Wednesday, Hisashi Koinuma, president and chief operating officer of Koei Tecmo Games echoed the same view.

He told CNBC that challenges still remain when utilizing generative AI in game development.

“We are still in the process of researching and studying how and to what extent generative AI, including rights-related issues, will benefit game production, and how much it will contribute to making better games.”

Camcom’s Tsujimoto, however, highlighted that generative AI can be utilized in terms of improving efficiency in workforce and development — but the company is still in the process of researching its use for game development

The COO said that this will not be done by reducing the number of developers, but by improving the efficiency of Capcom’s development through more efficient allocation of personnel while utilizing generative AI.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Dragon’s Dogma 2 was featured at Tokyo Game Show 2023, but the game’s official release date has yet to be confirmed. An earlier version of the story misstated the fact due to translation issues.

While other toy companies struggle with an inflation-fueled sales slump, Lego is building positive results brick by brick.

The privately held Danish toymaker saw revenue rise 1% during the first six months of this year, reaching 27.4 billion Danish krone, or about $4 billion.

Meanwhile, publicly traded rivals such as Mattel, Hasbro, Funko and Jakks Pacific have all reported double-digit revenue and sales declines so far this year.

“I think what makes me very satisfied is this fact that we continue to outgrow the industry,” CEO Niels Christiansen told CNBC. “The good thing for us is that every year over the last four or five years, we’ve been outgrowing the market by 10 percentage points … that means we’ve been taking market share consistently and that has continued, that’s super important.”

Toy companies across the industry saw massive gains during the Covid-19 pandemic, as parents looked for ways to keep their kids occupied during lockdowns. Adults, too, returned to the toy aisle to stave off boredom.

Lego built on pandemic-era growth, boosted by a diverse slate of products that cater to kids and adults alike, while outperforming the industry and zapping up market share.

Of course, the company has not been immune to macroeconomic pressures, particularly higher costs for material, shipping and energy.

Net profit for the first half of the year reached 5.1 billion Danish krone, or about $742 million, down 17% from the same period in 2022.

Raw material costs were a major expense for the company during the first half of the year, but Christiansen said he expects that to lessen going forward as prices come down.

Lego has offset some of the higher shipping costs by placing manufacturing plants near key markets. For example, the U.S. gets its Lego products from a factory in Mexico. That supply chain will shorten in the next two years as the company opens a new plant in Virginia.

Additionally, Christiansen said strong demand for Lego’s eclectic selection of building sets has helped narrow the gap. Consumer sales grew 3% during the first half of the year.

Christiansen pointed to the strength of Lego’s brand and its diverse product line that hits on a variety of “passion points” for its strong performance so far in 2023. These products range from themed sets of Star Wars to buildable muscle cars and cityscapes.

The company is growing its portfolio to around 750 products this year. About 48% of that portfolio will be new, Christiansen said. That’s on par with previous years and is part of the company’s strategy for having fresh and relevant sets for all consumers.

The company also has been reaping the benefits of opening stores in new markets, particularly in China. So far in 2023, the company opened 89 shops worldwide, with 54 of those in China. The region is newly exposed to the iconic building bricks and physical locations have helped show adults and children how to play with Lego.

“We believe we will end the year at a single-digit growth rate,” Christiansen said. “I believe we can continue to outpace the market.”

Disney has abandoned plans to open up a new employee campus in Lake Nona, Florida, amid rising tensions with the state’s governor.

Citing “changing business conditions” and the return of CEO Bob Iger, Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney’s parks, experiences and products division, penned a memo to employees Thursday, announcing that the company will not move forward with construction of the campus and will no longer be asking more than 2,000 California-based employees to relocate to Florida.

“This was not an easy decision to make, but I believe it is the right one,” D’Amaro told employees.

Many Disney employees balked at the company’s relocation plans when they were first announced in July 2021 by former CEO Bob Chapek. While some left the company, or transitioned to other posts within Disney that would not require a move to Florida, others held out hope that the plan would fizzle out after a postponement. The campus was originally slated to open in 2022-2023, but was later delayed to 2026.

Disney is headquartered in Burbank, California, but operates a number of satellite offices across the country and the world.

D’Amaro said employees who have already moved to Florida may be able to relocate back to California.

“It is clear to me that the power of this brand comes from our incredible people, and we are committed to handling this change with care and compassion,” he said.

Disney’s announcement comes amid a bitter feud between the company and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The company filed a lawsuit accusing DeSantis and the new board members of its special district of carrying out a campaign of political retribution against the entertainment giant.

DeSantis targeted Disney’s special district, formerly called the Reedy Creek Improvement District, after the company publicly criticized a controversial Florida bill — dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics — that limits discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms.

The special district has allowed the entertainment giant to effectively self-govern its Orlando parks’ operations for decades. The district was ultimately left intact, but its five-member board was replaced with DeSantis picks and renamed the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.

Disney filed its suit in late April after the new board voted to undo development contracts that the company said it struck to secure its investments. The company has since updated that lawsuit to include newly passed legislation targeting its monorail system as further evidence of retaliation by the governor.

Iger has publicly lambasted DeSantis and the Florida government, noting that Disney has created thousands of indirect jobs, brings around 50 million visitors to Florida every year and is the state’s largest taxpayer.

In a statement later Thursday, representatives for DeSantis called the decision to nix the Lake Nona campus “unsurprising.”

“Disney announced the possibility of a Lake Nona campus nearly two years ago. Nothing ever came of the project, and the state was unsure whether it would come to fruition,” DeSantis’ office said in the statement.

D’Amaro reiterated in his memo that the company still plans to invest $17 billion in Florida over the next 10 years, including the addition of around 13,000 jobs. The company currently employs more than 75,000 people in the state.

Disney declined to provide specific updates on that investment, but has previously announced plans to update park attractions, expand existing parks and add more cruise ships to its fleet in Florida.

“I remain optimistic about the direction of our Walt Disney World business,” D’Amaro told employees.

A perennial favorite among holidaymakers, Greece consistently ranks among the top 10 vacation destinations in Europe.

But now it wants tourists to get to know lesser-known locations across its thousands of sprawling islands.

“We’re moving beyond sea and sun. We want to prolong the tourism season in both time and space,” Olympia Anastasopoulou, secretary-general for tourism policy and development at Greece’s Ministry of Tourism, told CNBC Travel.

For that, the country is investing in its more remote locations, including Syros, Amorgos and Milos, as part of its “All you want is Greece” campaign.

To ease overtourism, popular hot spots such as Mykonos and Santorini are being repositioned as shoulder season destinations.

“It’s our goal for those islands to expand more in seasonality, too. We would like it for the tourism flows to be expanded in other months,” said Eleni Mitraki, director of tourism promotion at the Greek National Tourism Organization, noting the season could run March through November.

The plans coincide with the expansion of direct flights from the United States to Greece in March 2023.

Currently, Germany and the U.K. represent Greece’s largest inbound tourism markets by revenue, followed by the United States, France and Italy. However, Anastasopoulou said further growth from other markets, most notably Canada and India, is expected.

Here are CNBC Travel’s top picks to get you off the beaten track in Greece.

Rock climbers’ paradise

Located within Greece’s Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea, Kalymnos is famous for its sponge-diving — underwater diving to collect natural sponges from the seabed — which brought considerable wealth and recognition to the island in the previous century.

More recently, the island has become a world-renowned location for rock climbers, with more than 3,000 climbing routes spanning the numerous crags, caves and overhangs of its rugged landscape.

Kalymnos’ tourism season peaks in the fall with the Kalymnos Climbing Festival. But adventure junkies can get their kicks year-round, with a host of other activities including scuba diving, hiking and boating.

How to get there: Kalymnos can be easily reached by boat from nearby Kos, with crossings taking 45 minutes by ferry and 25 minutes by speedboat. In high season, it’s also accessible by plane from Athens. 

Haven for history buffs

Ios, also known as Io or Nio, is located between Santorini and Naxos, and was once seen exclusively as a party destination. But the Cyclades island has revamped its image over recent years to embrace its historical and natural attributes.

Home to one of Greece’s most ancient archaeological settlements, the Skarkos monument, Ios also boasts a strong connection to the Greek epic poet, Homer, who is said to have favored the island and, potentially, ended his days there.

Alongside history, visitors to Ios can also explore its plentiful beaches, and hiking and diving spots, before tucking into some of the local cheeses for which the island is famed.

How to get there: There is no airport in Ios. The island can be accessed by ferry or speedboat from both Athens and the other Cyclades islands. It can also be reached by helicopter from Santorini.

Movie lovers’ delight

Skopelos became famous as the filming location for the hit musical rom-com “Mamma Mia,” and has since emerged as a popular destination for weddings, honeymoons and movie tours.

Part of the Skopelos archipelago in the northwest Aegean Sea, the island combines stunning beaches and picturesque villages with a host of diving, yachting and cycling routes.

Legend has it the island was founded by the son of the Greek god of wine. And though many of its vineyards were destroyed by pests in the 1940s, small-scale, domestic production continues to this day. Meanwhile, natively grown plums, almonds, chestnuts, figs, citrus fruits, olives adorn the local cuisine.

How to get there: Skopelos is reachable by ferry or speedboat from the port city of Volos on Greece’s mainland. Services run year-round, with additional routes from other islands added in high season.

Hiking retreat

One of biggest islands of the Cyclades and just two hours from the Greek mainland, mountainous Andros has a varied landscape of forests, waterfalls, beaches and local vegetation, making it ideal for an outdoor escape.

Visitors can explore the island via its large network of hiking trails, or try their hand at windsurfing or scuba diving, before sampling the local cuisine.

Arts and culture fans can check out Andros’ collection of monasteries, galleries and museums, including the Archaeological Museum of Andros and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

How to get there: There is no airport in Andros. The island can be reached by ferry from Rafina port on the outskirts of Athens.

Isle of innovation

One of the Dodecanese islands, Astypalea has a rich ancient history. But it is positioning itself firmly in the 21st century with the goal of becoming the first sustainable and smart island of the Mediterranean sea.

As part of a deal with the Greek government and Volkswagen, Astypalea plans to implement islandwide, zero-emission mobility by 2030, with traditional vehicle rentals to be replaced with electric cars, e-scooters and e-bikes. Elsewhere, charging points and renewable energy sources will also be added.

Tourists arriving on the so-called Butterfly Island can also enjoy its natural landscape, home to beautiful beaches, rocky hillsides and diverse flora and fauna, as well as its picturesque villages of bougainvillea-clad white houses.

How to get there: Astypalea is accessible from Athens by both ferry and plane.

Island-hopping

Surrounded by a necklace of 24 islets with dozens of blue-green beaches, Lipsi in the Dodecanese is considered the Polynesia of the Aegean Sea and an eco-paradise.

With a rich expanse of flora and fauna protected by the European Union, the island is home to diverse wildlife, including Mediterranean monk seals and sea turtles. Dolphins are also common in the area, and a new Aegean Marine Life Sanctuary for dolphins is set to open soon on the island.

Holidaymakers can enjoy days spent boating, diving, beach-dwelling and hiking, before tucking into seafood dishes and experiencing local festivals, such as August’s wine celebration.

How to get there: Lipsi is only accessible by ferry or speed boat, with regular services running from Athens and Leros.

Divers’ delight

Alonissos, part of the Sporades group of islands, is a diver’s paradise and the site of Greece’s first underwater museum. Featuring “Parthenon of the Wrecks,” one of the biggest Classical-era shipwrecks dating back to 425 B.C., the site offers recreational divers a unique insight into the region’s history.

The island is also home to the National Marine park of Alonissos and Northern Sporades, currently Europe’s largest marine protected area, giving visitors the opportunity to see a vast array of plants and animals.

Kayaking, hiking and cycling are among the other activities available on the island, while museums and a local theater group showcase the island’s arts and culture scene.

How to get there: Alonissos can be accessed either by plane or by ferry from the ports of Volos, Agios Konstantinos and Kimi.

Taylor Swift responded to her fans Friday after Live Nation‘s Ticketmaster said a general public sale of tickets to the superstar’s “Eras” tour would be canceled because there weren’t enough tickets to meet high demand.

“It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse,” Swift wrote in a message posted on Instagram. She did not mention Live Nation or Ticketmaster in her statement.

“I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could. It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them,” she wrote.

Separately, The New York Times reported Friday that Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into parent company Live Nation’s practices. The probe predates the Swift ticket sale this week, according to the report. The Justice Department declined to comment.

Live Nation, Ticketmaster and the company’s largest shareholder, Liberty Media, also didn’t immediately comment about Swift’s Friday statement or the Times’ report on a Justice Department investigation.

Ticketmaster announced the cancellation hours after Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei defended Ticketmaster on Thursday. Maffei blamed a surge of demand from 14 million users, including bots, for site disruptions and slow queues for presales earlier this week.

“It’s a function of Taylor Swift. The site was supposed to open up for 1.5 million verified Taylor Swift fans,” Maffei told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “We had 14 million people hit the site, including bots, which are not supposed to be there.”

Maffei said Ticketmaster sold more than 2 million tickets on Tuesday and demand for Swift “could have filled 900 stadiums.”

The “Eras” tour is set to kick off in March 17 in Glendale, Arizona.

Read Swift’s full statement:

-CNBC’s Sarah Whitten contributed to this article.