Sparks Fly as Musk Moves Fast to Remake Twitter
Workers flee the world’s biggest iPhone plant in China to escape a Covid lockdown. Video footage posted online purportedly showed Foxconn employees jumping the fence surrounding the Zhengzhou factory, after an unknown number of Covid cases were reported there. It was one of the most dramatic acts of rebellion yet against China’s zero-Covid policies.
A blockbuster deal. In April, Elon Musk made an unsolicited bid worth $44 billion for the social media platform, saying he wanted to turn Twitter into a private company and allow people to speak more freely on the service. Here’s how the monthslong battle that followed played out:
Tesla had reportedly weighed buying a stake in a major miner of battery materials. The electric carmaker had been in talks for up to a 20 percent stake in Glencore, which produces cobalt and nickel, according to The Financial Times. The talks have since cooled, in part because Tesla was unsure of whether Glencore’s coal mining was compatible with its environmental goals.
Hong Kong tries to reopen for business
Hong Kong wants to show the world it’s still a global financial center. After its status was pummeled by a political crackdown and crippling Covid-19 restrictions, the city is hosting a summit with leading bankers this week, The Times’s Alexandra Stevenson reports for DealBook. David Solomon of Goldman Sachs, James Gorman of Morgan Stanley and Rob Kapito of BlackRock top the speaker list, bringing some shine back to Hong Kong’s tarnished reputation.
A successful summit is critical for the city. An exodus of professionals has shrunk the labor force to a decade low; its economy is heading for a recession; and its stock market is having its worst year since 2009 as it faces a drought of new listings.
But C.E.O.s keep dropping out. Jon Gray, the chief operating officer at Blackstone, is the latest to pull out after testing positive for Covid; the firm’s C.F.O., Michael Chae, will go instead. C.S. Venkatakrishnan, the Barclays C.E.O., canceled his plans to travel to Asia, the bank said, and Jane Fraser, Citigroup’s C.E.O., said she wouldn’t go after contracting Covid last week.
Even Paul Chan, Hong Kong’s finance secretary, looks set to miss out after testing positive during a trip to Saudi Arabia. He said he would return to Hong Kong “at the earliest opportunity,” though an in-person summit appearance seems unlikely.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/business/dealbook/elon-musk-twitter-lebron-james-advertisers.html