FirstFT: Boeing chief admits ‘our mistake’ after 737 Max mishap

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Boeing’s chief executive Dave Calhoun acknowledged “our mistake” after one of its 737 Max aircraft lost a section of its fuselage in flight last week.

Calhoun was speaking at a company-wide safety meeting at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Washington, where it builds the 737 Max. The meeting was broadcast to employees worldwide but closed to the media.

“We’re going to approach this, number one, acknowledging our mistake,” Calhoun said, according to excerpts shared by the company.

“We are going to work with the [National Transportation Safety Board] who is investigating the accident itself to find out what the cause is . . . I trust every step they take.” Read more of Dave Calhoun’s remarks to employees.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Republican debate: CNN will host former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida governor Ron DeSantis in Iowa for a debate between the Republican primary candidates ahead of the state’s caucus next week. Donald Trump is set to appear at a separate town-hall meeting hosted by Fox at the same time.

• Results: Homebuilder KB Home will report its latest quarterly results, which are expected to show a drop in revenue and profits compared with a year ago, as high mortgage rates have strained the US housing market by keeping out prospective buyers.

• Monetary policy: New York Federal Reserve president John Williams will speak about the 2024 economic outlook in the New York City suburb of White Plains.

• Davos: The World Economic Forum publishes its Global Risks Report ahead of its annual meeting in Switzerland, which starts on Monday. Join the FT as it provides on-the-ground analysis and expert insight from Davos.

Five more top stories

1. Exclusive: Chinese companies are resorting to repurposing Nvidia gaming chips to develop artificial intelligence tools after Washington blocked US exports of high-performance processors in October. Thousands of gaming graphics cards are being stripped of their core components in factories and workshops every month, before being installed on new circuit boards. Qianer Liu has more details on the rough workaround.

2. Launches of funds claiming environmental, social or governance attributes have plunged in the past six months, with just six new funds citing ESG factors compared with 55 in the first half of 2023 and an annual average of almost 100 between 2020 and 2022, according to data from Morningstar Direct. Here’s why the label has lost its popularity.

3. Security fears have reduced container shipments through the Suez Canal, with the number of vessels at the mouth of the Red Sea on their way to or from the waterway down 90 per cent in the first week of the year compared with the start of 2023. The data from Clarksons, a London-based shipping services company, shows the scale of disruption to world trade by attacks on ships by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Here are more findings.

4. A federal appeals court has appeared sceptical of Donald Trump’s argument that he is immune from criminal prosecution for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election while serving in the White House. The former president attended the oral argument before the three-judge panel in Washington yesterday, just days before the start of the US presidential primary process. Here’s what the judges had to say.

5. A wave of gang violence has rocked Ecuador after the disappearance of a powerful drug gang boss from jail, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency. President Daniel Noboa declared a 60-day nationwide state of emergency following the escape of feared leader of the Los Choneros gang, Adolfo Macías, better known by his alias Fito. Here’s more on the upsurge of violence gripping the Andean nation.

The Big Read

Large initial public offerings have outperformed the wider stock market over the past year, fuelling hopes that volumes of new listings will finally pick up pace again after a prolonged downturn. Gains for companies such as insurance group Skyward Specialty and biotech company Rayzebio more than offset losses for high profile tech flops like Instacart. US capital markets correspondent Nicholas Megaw crunches the numbers.

We’re also reading . . . 

• ‘Baby Macron’: Gabriel Attal, France’s youngest-ever prime minister and protégé of the president, faces stiff challenges in his new role, including a resurgent far right.

• Liberalism: Freedom is under threat in the west and elsewhere, but it must be defended, writes Martin Wolf.

• AI ‘death calculator’: A Danish algorithm can now predict the premature end to a person’s life more accurately than actuarial tables used by insurers, writes Anjana Ahuja. Could this be a good thing?

Chart of the day

Just after 4pm in Washington yesterday, a post on the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s official X account led to a surge in the price of bitcoin. But the post, which declared that the regulator had granted “approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges”, was false and later deleted. Here’s more on what happened.

Take a break from the news

Personal stylist Anna Berkeley offers some tips for refreshing your winter wardrobe without having to invest in new clothing. Anna has myriad suggestions for breathing new life into worn garments.

Additional contributions from Tee Zhuo and Benjamin Wilhelm