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Major companies are using Clubhouse to hold court with ordinary investors.

Why it matters: Executives are using the invite-only audio app to allow the type of access that was historically only offered up to Wall Street on stodgy, suited-up quarterly earnings calls.

Driving the news: Car accessory website Carparts.com hosted a Clubhouse chat Monday night with more than 2,000 participants — the first time it specifically targeted retail investors.

The big picture: Retail trading has been super-charged since the pandemic hit, so it's no coincidence that the company wants their attention.

  • Retail traders account for nearly as much stock trading volume as mutual funds and hedge funds combined, the FT reports — a milestone helped by the Reddit-fueled trading frenzy earlier this year.

Between the lines: Companies are also trying to capitalize on the buzz of Clubhouse. Its main allure has been the ability to drop-in on conversations with influential people (including CEOs).

What's different now is using the platform for post-financial results conversations on a platform that's no doubt teeming with ordinary or would-be investors.

  • "We never found the perfect forum," Carparts.com CFO David Meniane tells Axios, explaining why it hadn't done a specific event for retail investors before.
  • "Clubhouse is a fast-growing channel and the stars really aligned."

Another example: Restaurant Brands International — which owns Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Hortons — put its CEO on Clubhouse last month, one day after it released financial results to Wall Street.

  • The invite read: "Companies have calls with investors and business media every 3 months ... [w]hy not give our customers/guests the same access to our leaders," the invite read.

Worth noting: For years, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has famously taken questions from retail investors that submit queries via third-party platform Say.

What to watch: "There is no enterprise use case more ripe for disruption by Clubhouse than the earnings call. Cant wait till @elonmusk goes first on this," Aaron Levie, CEO of cloud company Box, tweeted last week.

The bottom line: This could be a major shakeup in how companies try to target average people — that is, if Clubhouse continues to take off.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.