What we’re reading (12/23)
“S&P 500 And Nasdaq Close Higher Friday, But Fall For A Third Straight Week” (CNBC). “The major indexes oscillated earlier in the session after the core personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of inflation, came in slightly hotter than economists expected on a year-over-year basis, indicating that inflation is sticking despite the Fed’s efforts to fight it.”
“Are You ‘Extremely Hardcore’ Or Not? How Elon Musk Is Dividing Silicon Valley’s Elite” (Wall Street Journal). “Elon Musk has sometimes seemed like the person Silicon Valley would create if venture-funded engineers figured out how to build humans in a lab: the bold innovator fearlessly disrupting one industry after another with a nerdy verve. And yet these days, Silicon Valley’s investors, leaders and commentators are profoundly divided about tech’s billionaire icon, in ways that are revealing about Mr. Musk and about the state of the industry.”
“Why Is Elon Musk Lighting Billions Of Dollars On Fire?” (The Atlantic). “Maybe you have not had the best year. But take some consolation from the fact that you did not YOLO yourself into overpaying for an unprofitable social-media platform, publicly try to wriggle out of the deal, get lawyered into ponying up, liquidate billions of dollars of stock in a down market to do so, take over a company you did not really want, shitpost your way into a revenue crisis, quit paying your bills, antagonize your super-users, wink-wink at Nazis, and decimate your staff, all the while damaging your other, more lucrative businesses. Or at least probably not, unless you are Elon Musk. Twitter’s new owner might have fared better than Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency magnate who improbably saved Musk from winning the title of Tech Fortune–Craterer of the Year. But Musk nevertheless spent 2022 lighting billions of dollars and his reputation on fire.”
“Bill Gates Shares His Plans To No Longer Be One Of The World's Richest People” (Vanity Fair). “Bill Gates said that after his recent divorce and discovering that he's going to become a grandfather for the first time, he's realized just how unimportant being one of the richest men on earth is if he can't use that money to improve the world.”
“Protester, 45, Is Charged With Disorderly Behaviour After Allegedly Shouting ‘Who Elected Him?’ During Proclamation Ceremony For King Charles” (Daily Mail). “A man has been charged after he allegedly shouted ‘Who elected him?’ at King Charles proclamation ceremony. Thames Valley Police said on Friday that Symon Hill, 45, of Church Hill Road, Oxford, has been charged with using threatening or abusive words, or disorderly behaviour…Hill is due to appear at Oxford Magistrates’ Court on January 31.”
