After an ill-fated multi-year effort to develop a self-driving car, Uber (which spent “hundreds of millions of dollars” on the project) is “handing the autonomous vehicle effort over to a Silicon Valley start-up”—Aurora—along with a $400 million investment. The ride-hailing company is “likely to license whatever technology Aurora manages to create” in the space - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
MSNBC has named Rashida Jones its new president. Jones joined the network at its founding in 1996, “commands loyalty from many of [its] on-air personalities,” and “will become the highest-ranking Black woman in the television news industry” when she replaces Phil Griffin in February 2021 - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
Texas-based Northstar Mortgage has inked a $91 million deal with the CFPB and state regulators to resolve “claims of compliance violations and other operational failures dating back years” primarily centered on “mortgage servicing misconduct” and a failure to identify and honor loan modification agreements – Law360
Tesla is looking to cash in on its high stock price with a planned sale of common stock in which it hopes to raise as much as $5 billion. Should the company net that much, it would the company $12 billion richer this year based on stock offerings alone - Bloomberg
Following a Times report on videos of “child abuse and nonconsensual sexual violence” on the website Pornhub, Visa and Mastercard announced on Monday that they “would investigate their financial links to MindGeek,” the site’s parent company - NYTimes
We’ll be keeping a particular on Apeira Capital, which is raising $150 million for a first fund that aims “to bring a hedge-fund form of long-short investing to venture-backed startups.” Because of the difficulties inherent in actually shorting startup stocks, Apeira “would generate what are basically contracts between two parties that would have definable triggers—such as an initial public offering, mergers or acquisition, or shares hitting a specific price” in order to exercise its short positions - WSJ
Bob Dylan put a price on his creative genius this week, and it’s $300 million, thanks to a sale of his entire songwriting catalogue to Universal Music Publishing Group - WSJ and Bloomberg and Marketplace
Target’s getting in on the chicken supplier price-fixing game, too - WSJ
With her March criminal trial growing ever closer, Theranos founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes is pulling out all the stops to keep from producing “witness interviews and other documents relating to allegations that she and her partner sold blood-testing technology they knew didn’t work,” arguing that the materials are protected by “her attorney-client relationship with Boies Schiller Flexner LLP,” longtime outside counsel for both Holmes and her company – Law360
Dish Network will pay $210 million to resolve a long-running TCPA dispute over alleged telemarketing violations as part of a settlement with the DOJ and four states. The total is the “largest civil penalty ever paid for telemarketing violations” under the FTC Act - WSJ and Law360
TikTok will keep on ticking, thanks to the White House’s failure to act after the deadline for the divestiture of the app’s U.S. business “came and went without fanfare” and “a second federal judge blocked proposed restrictions on the app” after finding the “administration likely acted arbitrarily and capriciously, overstepping its authority” – Law360 and WSJ
Any other Mando fans with a soft spot for the original trilogy will likely have gotten a kick out of last Friday’s reappearance of the legendary bounty-hunter, Boba Fett, who was [until quite recently, by most, at least] thought lost to the Sarlacc. Here’s how an actor with strong Fett ties made it back on screen - NYTimes
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