The long campaign to outlaw TikTok in America succeeded at last when the Chinese-owned video app was forced to shut down on January 18th. But the blackout lasted only a matter of hours. The next day TikTok sprang back to life for its 170m American users, issuing a message thanking an unlikely ally: Donald Trump. More
“YOU LOOK thicker” sounds like a slight. Coming from Joe Rogan, the thick-set podcasting megastar and martial artist, it is high praise. Directed at Mark Zuckerberg, the uber-nerd behind Meta’s $1.5trn social-media empire, it may seem highly misplaced. But it is true. Mr Zuckerberg does look beefier than five years ago. During the covid-19 pandemic he got into Brazilian jiu-jitsu, a rough combat sport. Now he would like to see more “masculine energy” in the corporate world, too. More
Dear friends and colleagues,A belated happy new year to you all! This is my 11th new-year message to you, but the first to come so late in January. As you know, I have been recovering from a freak accident sustained during an equine leadership course that I attended in Wyoming. I’d like to thank all of you who sent good wishes, and reassure those of you who did not that I bear no grudges towards you. More
It sold out in four days. The “Aldon Schokolade Dubai Style” was created by patissiers at a fancy hotel in the centre of Berlin. It came in 500g bars with ingredients like home-roasted pistachios and French Valrhona chocolate. Only 50 were made and they went for the princely sum of €69 ($71) apiece in November. More
Elon Musk likes to think big, from giant rockets to blockbuster pay packets and massive, if misguided, investments in social media. In Mexico’s case it was an investment, announced in March 2023, in “the biggest ev plant in the world”. Tesla’s boss said that he would spend $5bn to build a “gigafactory” in Nuevo León, a state bordering the United States, that on completion in 2026 would churn out more electric vehicles (evs) than any of his existing facilities in America, China and Germany. Almost two years later, however, Tesla has yet to break ground. Why has the mercurial Mr Musk’s interest cooled? More
THE DISRUPTIVE innovator of the global gas industry is stepping out of the shadows. On January 13th Venture Global, a privately held exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) based in Virginia, unveiled details of its planned flotation in New York. About a decade ago it sprang from obscurity and shocked incumbents in America’s Texan oil patch by using scalable, modular equipment made in factories rather than costly, bespoke techniques used by its competitors. In doing so, the upstart reduced the time required to build a massive LNG terminal by about half, to less than three years. That helped it to undercut rivals on price and win early contracts with prestigious customers including Shell, a British oil major. More
Few middle powers have the towering technological ambitions of the rich Gulf states. As they seek to shift their economies away from fossil fuels, the Emiratis want to lead the world in artificial intelligence (AI) and the Saudis want the kingdom to become home to startups in cutting-edge areas such as robotics. Those aspirations, however, are about to collide with geopolitical reality. More
In business there is no surer sign of distress than when a firm delays its financial results. That also appears to be true of business schools. Around Christmas—and in many cases behind their usual schedules—America’s top business schools published their equivalent of annual reports, which include data on the new jobs of graduates from their Master of Business Administration (MBA) programmes, typically two-year courses for students with professional experience. We have crunched the numbers. At the top 15 business schools, the share of students in 2024 who sought and accepted a job offer within three months of graduating, a standard measure of career outcomes, fell by six percentage points, to 84%. Compared with the average over the past five years, that share declined by eight points. More
