Mere months after an announced major investment in start-up electric truck company Nikola (and the subsequent claims that the company had “exaggerated its capabilities), General Motors announced this week that it had restructured its agreement with Nikola. While, GM will still supply hydrogen fuel cells to Nikola’s heavy-duty trucks, it will “no longer make an electric pickup truck for Nikola or take an 11 percent stake in the company—once valued at $2 billion” - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and TechCrunch
Bitcoin rather quietly (by its standards) hit a new milestone on Monday, pushing past its previous peak of $19,783 (more than 3 years ago now), as buyers are increasingly treating the digital currency as an “alternative asset, somewhat like gold,” this time around - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
Are antitrust regulators currently circling Facebook (and other Big Tech companies) waiting for the right moment to strike? They are. Was that threat enough to stop Zuck from snapping up customer relationship manager start-up Kustomer? It was not. Facebook announced the planned acquisition on Monday as part of a deal that values Kustomer at close to $1 billion and “could provide businesses and customers more support for interactions that occur on Facebook and its other apps, such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger” - NYTimes and WSJ
The Government Accountability Office is out with a new report warning that the Labor Department’s “weekly reports on jobless claims have published ‘flawed estimates of the number of individuals receiving benefits each week throughout the pandemic’” and thus have threatened “policy makers’ ability to effectively respond to the economic fallout” from the pandemic - WSJ and Law360
The Nasdaq will formally ask the SEC today for “permission to adopt a new requirement for the 3,249 companies listed on its main U.S. stock exchange: have at least one woman and one ‘diverse’ director and report data on their board’s diversity”—a move echoing a European actions and a recent California law imposing a minimum number of minority directors on companies headquartered in the state - NYTimes
DoorDash announced more details this week about its forthcoming IPO, including its plan to sell 33 million shares at between $75 and $85/share that would give the company a valuation of potentially more than $32 billion - WSJ and TechCrunch
Your Daily Dose phrase of the day: “Bleak Friday,” the new moniker for the dismal in-person Black Friday performance most retailers turned in last week. While online sales skyrocketed on the traditional busiest shopping day of the year, a surging coronavirus meant that foot traffic was down considerably at malls and city shopping districts - NYTimes
The latest on President-elect Biden’s picks for top economic positions in his incoming administration - NYTimes and Bloomberg
FCC Chair Ajit Pai is stepping down in January - NYTimes and Law360
The FTC is suing to block CoStar Group’s “plan to buy bankrupt online rental property marketing company RentPath Holdings Inc. for $588 million” over concerns that the deal “would cause too much concentration in the market for listing services for large apartment complexes” – Law360
Now admittedly, I’m a backyard rink and pond hockey guy myself, but even without years on the ice, you’ve gotta be wowed by this particular brand of outdoor mountain-top puck - NYTimes
Stay safe,
MDR
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