Back at it. Let’s get caught up . . .
The latest in the Elon Musk/Twitter drama includes word that PE firm Apollo Global Mgmt is “considering” joining a bid by Musk to acquire the social media platform, a potential early answer to skepticism from investors about Musk’s ability to “cobble together the funds needed to buy Twitter” (as most of Elon’s wealth is “tied up in stock”) - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
Checking in with Ford CEO Jim Farley’s monumental bet on the F-150 Lightning and his Titanic-maneuvering effort to steer the storied U.S. automaker into a future in which it can compete with Tesla and other EV and silicon-valley-based companies - NYTimes
Presented without comment (but eyebrows firmly raised) for your consideration: Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort: self-proclaimed “cryptocurrency guru” - NYTimes
7 hours or so removed from Tax D-Day, an update on the White House’s plea to Congress to give the IRS the money it needs to “modernize” and “beef up its enforcement staff” - NYTimes
Some historical context, just when we need it, to suggest that the Fed’s really got its hands full when it comes to anything resembling a soft landing for a still-hot economy that’s battling major inflationary concerns - WSJ and Bloomberg
The swirling crises of war in Ukraine, a still-live pandemic, and persistent inflation pushed the World Bank to cut its forecast for global growth this year from the 4.1% originally predicted to a more-modest 3.2%, down substantially from the 5.7% global growth the World Bank estimated occurred last year - NYTimes and Bloomberg
Small groups of homeowners around the country are increasingly banding together in an effort to stamp out the surge in investor groups’ purchases of suburban housing for rental purposes. The efforts are aimed at easing what the groups claim are difficulties “for local families to buy houses” - WSJ
Meanwhile, Blackstone’s going all in on student housing with a new acquisition of sector leader American Campus Communities Inc. “in a deal valuing the company at about $12.8 billion, including debt” - WSJ
Former U.S. AG Loretta Lynch and her Paul Weiss team will lead a racial equity audit of Amazon.com to “measure any disparate racial impacts on Amazon’s U.S. hourly employees resulting from policies, programs and practices” - Bloomberg and MarketWatch
Because threats of bursting bubbles always make great headlines, even after a decade . . . . A look at 10 years of hand-wringing over a tech boom that has proved awfully hard to bust - NYTimes
Snow, wind, and 30s in late April? Lovely. You deserve some cookies. Seriously - NYTimes
Stay safe,
MDR
