Tesla dropped an incredible $1.5 billion on bitcoin on Monday “and signaled its intent to begin accepting the cryptocurrency as a form of payment, sending prices to a record after the vote of confidence from the EV leader and recent stock-market darling” - Bloomberg and WSJ and MarketWatch and Marketplace and Law360 and Mashable and TechCrunch
Speaking of the big T, by all accounts, Elon Musk loves China, and it’s been largely loving him right back. But Chinese regulators are throwing a little wrinkle in the lovefest after complaints of “battery fires and other quality issues with the company’s electric cars” prompted them to interview Tesla execs and prod them to get their house in order - NYTimes
A new CBO study released this week suggests that raising the federal minimum wage to $15/hour by 2025 is a distinctly double-edged sword. While it could “deliver raises for 27 million workers and lift 900,000 Americans above the poverty threshold,” the move is estimated to “cost 1.4 million Americans their jobs over the next four years” - WSJ and Marketplace
Thanks to a $250 million “late-stage funding round led by venture-capital firm Vy Capital,” [which itself was aided, no doubt, by just a bit of press over the past few weeks] Reddit has managed to post a valuation of $6 billion—double its last figure from juts 2 years ago - WSJ and NYTimes and Bloomberg
As Wall Street awaits Uber and Lyft’s 2020 financial results later this week, we’ll be keeping a close eye on the companies as a barometer not only of the travel industry but also of the gig economy writ large, big swaths of which slumped again at the end of last year - NYTimes
Megamalls’ efforts to woo customers by making themselves more than a shopping destination have backfired spectacularly during the pandemic, and the theme-park-like attractions that were meant to be a “lifeline” are looking “more like a millstone” - WSJ
Video-game giant Electronic Arts is acquiring “Glu Mobile Inc. in a $2.4 billion deal aimed at expanding an area of business”—mobile gaming—in which EA’s had “mixed success,” at best - WSJ and MarketWatch
More on the what led the recently humbled HNA Group from worldwide mega success to bankruptcy in just a 5-year span - WSJ
30-year Treasury bonds hit 2% yield for the first time in a year “amid a recent surge in yields of longer-term Treasury bonds compared with short-term debt, as traders bet that government stimulus will accelerate a rebound in economic growth” - WSJ
Celebrating famed director, photojournalist, St. Paul resident, and “Godfather of cool,” Gordon Parks—including his own “fine-tuned aesthetic” - NYTimes
Stay safe,
MDR
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