NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday he was working “at the absolute most amount…from morning til night, seven days a week” when asked about his recent acquisition of Twitter and his leadership of automaker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O).
“I have too much work on my plate that is for sure,” Musk said by videolink to a business conference on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali.
Musk is chief executive of both companies and also runs rocket firm SpaceX, brain-chip startup Neuralink and tunneling firm the Boring Company. Wearing a batik shirt sent by the organizers, he appeared on screen lit by candles, explaining that he was speaking from a place that had just lost power.
Tesla investors worry that Musk, a self-confessed “nanomanager” who has been personally involved in working-level decisions from car styling to supply chain issues, is distracted at a critical time for the world’s largest electric vehicle maker.
Tesla’s shares have halved in value since early April, when he disclosed he had taken a stake in Twitter. His Tesla share sales, including another $4 billion last week to bring his Twitter-related sales to $20 billion, have added to the pressure.
When asked about the complexity of industrial supply chains “decoupling” from China and the risks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Musk returned to how busy he was.
Responding to an observation that many business leaders in Asia wanted to be the “Elon Musk of the East,” Musk said: “I’d be careful what you wish for. I’m not sure how many people would actually like to be me. They would like to be what they imagine being me, which is not the same thing as actually being me. The amount that I torture myself is next level, frankly.”
Musk also said he wanted to see Twitter support more video and longer-form video so that content creators could make a living on the platform, but did not provide details. His remarks were streamed live on Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube.
Indonesia has been trying to secure a deal with Tesla on battery investment and potentially one for SpaceX to develop a rocket launch site.
Musk made no commitment to either of those but said Indonesia had a large role to play in the electric vehicle supply chain and that it would make sense “long term” for SpaceX to have multiple launch points around the globe.
It was not clear where Musk was during the Bali event. His personal jet has remained in Austin, Texas, Tesla’s headquarters since the weekend, according to @ElonJet, a Twitter account that tracks Musk’s Gulfstream G650.
“I’m just looking at this video and it’s so bizarre,” Musk said. “I’m sitting here in the dark surrounded by candles.”
Musk added he believed that the economy would make the transition to sustainable energy, adding it was “just a question of how long it takes.” He said space exploration should remain a priority “so we can understand the nature of the universe and our place in it.”
“Maybe we’ll find alien civilization or discover civilizations that existed millions of years ago, but we see the ruins of ancient civilizations. I think that would be incredibly interesting,” he said.
Reporting by Leika Kihara; Writing by Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Edwina Gibbs
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Oct 12 (Reuters) – The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has scented a new opportunity to capitalise on quirky products, launching a perfume called “Burnt Hair” that he said sold 10,000 bottles to earn a million dollars in just a few hours.
“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long!?” Musk asked on Twitter, where he now describes himself as a perfume salesman.
“The essence of repugnant desire” is the website description of his latest offering, which costs $100 a bottle and is set to start shipping in the first quarter of 2023, making good on a product Musk first touted in September.
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Previous brainwaves have included Tesla’s (TSLA.O) own-brand tequila, launched in 2020, and a pair of “short shorts” to signify Musk’s victory over investors who bet against the electric vehicle maker, now the world’s most valuable car firm.
SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk smiles at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 13, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
His Boring Company, a tunnelling firm last valued at $5.7 billion, sold flamethrowers at $500 apiece in early 2018, raising $10 million. He also sold 50,000 Boring Company hats.
Musk’s ambitions over the years have ranged from colonising Mars to creating a new sustainable energy economy, and in the process he has built Tesla, rocket company SpaceX, and smaller firms.
Last week the billionaire proposed to proceed with his original $44-billion bid to take Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) private, calling for an end to a lawsuit by the social media company that could have forced him to pay up, whether he wanted to or not.
If successful, a deal would put Musk in charge of one of the most influential media platforms and end months of litigation that damaged Twitter’s brand and fed his reputation for erratic behavior.
The Boring Company did not respond to a query on how long it planned to keep the perfume listed.
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Reporting by Akriti Sharma and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez
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BEIJING, Sept 19 (Reuters) – Before the pandemic, Doris Fu imagined a different future for herself and her family: new car, bigger apartment, fine dining on weekends and holidays on tropical islands.
Instead, the 39-year old Shanghai marketing consultant is one of many Chinese in their 20s and 30s cutting spending and saving cash where they can, rattled by China’s coronavirus lockdowns, high youth unemployment and a faltering property market.
“I no longer have manicures, I don’t get my hair done anymore. I have gone to China-made for all my cosmetics,” Fu told Reuters.
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This new frugality, amplified by social media influencers touting low-cost lifestyles and sharing money-saving tips, is a threat to the world’s second-largest economy, which narrowly avoided contraction in the second quarter. Consumer spending accounts for more than half of China’s GDP.
“We’ve been mapping consumer behaviour here for 16 years and in all of that time this is the most concerned that I’ve seen young consumers,” said Benjamin Cavender, managing director of China Market Research Group (CMR).
China’s ‘zero-COVID’ policy – including stringent lockdowns, travel restrictions and mass testing – has taken a heavy toll on the country’s economy. The government’s crackdown on big technology companies has also had an outsized effect on the young workforce.
Unemployment among people aged 16 to 24 stands at almost 19%, after hitting a record 20% in July, according to government data. Some young people have been forced to take pay cuts, for example in the retail and e-commerce sectors, according to two industry surveys. The average salary in 38 major Chinese cities fell 1% in the first three months of this year, data collated by online recruitment firm Zhilian Zhaopin show.
As a result, some young people prefer to save than splurge.
“I used to go see two movies every month, but I haven’t stepped inside a cinema since the pandemic,” said Fu, an avid movie fan.
Retail sales in China rose just 2.7% year-on-year in July, recovering to 5.4% in August but still well below the mostly 7%-plus levels during 2019, before the pandemic.
Almost 60% of people are now inclined to save more, rather than consume or invest more, according to the most recent quarterly survey by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s central bank. That figure was 45% three years ago.
Chinese households overall added 10.8 trillion yuan ($1.54 trillion) in new bank savings in the first eight months of the year, up from 6.4 trillion yuan in the same period last year.
That is a problem for China’s economic policymakers, who have long relied on increased consumption to bolster growth.
China is the only leading economy that cut interest rates this year, in an effort to spur growth. China’s big state-owned banks cut personal deposit rates on Sept. 15, a move designed to discourage saving and boost consumption. read more
Addressing the rise in people’s inclination to save, a PBOC official said in July that when the pandemic eases, the willingness to invest and consume will “stabilize and rise.”
The PBOC did not respond to Reuters requests for comment; neither did China’s Ministry of Commerce.
’10 YUAN DINNER’
After years of increasingly ardent consumerism fuelled by rising wages, easy credit and online shopping, a move toward frugality brings young people in China closer to their more cautious parents, whose memories of lean years before the economy took off have made them more inclined to save.
“Amid the tough job market and strong downward economic pressure, young people’s feelings of insecurity and uncertainty are something they never experienced,” said Zhiwu Chen, chair professor of finance at Hong Kong University Business School.
Unlike their parents, some are making a show of their thriftiness online.
A woman in her 20s in the eastern city of Hangzhou, who uses the handle Lajiang, has gained hundreds of thousands of followers posting more than 100 videos on how to make 10 yuan ($1.45) dinners on lifestyle app Xiaohongshu and streaming site Bilibili.
In one minute-long video with nearly 400,000 views, she stir-fries a dish made from a 4-yuan basa fillet, 5 yuan of frozen shrimp, and 2 yuan of vegetables, using a pink chopping board and pink rice cooker.
Social media discussions have sprung up to share money-saving tips, such as the ‘Live off 1,600 yuan a month challenge,’ in Shanghai, one of China’s most expensive cities.
Yang Jun, who said she was deep in credit card debt before the pandemic, started a group called the Low Consumption Research Institute on networking site Douban in 2019. The group has attracted more than 150,000 members. Yang said she is cutting spending and is selling some of her belongings on second-hand sites to raise cash.
“COVID-19 makes people pessimistic,” the 28-year-old said. “You can’t just be like before, spend all the money you make, and make it back again next month.” She said she is now out of debt.
Yang said she has cut out her daily Starbucks coffee. Fu said she switched her makeup powder brand from Givenchy to a Chinese brand called Florasis, which is about 60% cheaper.
French luxury brands leader LVMH (LVMH.PA), which owns Givenchy, and coffee giant Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) both said sales fell sharply in China in the latest quarter. read more
China has given no signal on when or how it will exit from its zero-COVID policy. And while policymakers have taken various measures in hopes of boosting consumption, from subsidies for car buyers to shopping vouchers, far more money and attention has been directed towards infrastructure as a way of stimulating the economy.
Stability has been the key theme for China’s policymakers this year, experts say, as President Xi Jinping gears up for a third leadership term at next month’s congress of the ruling Communist Party.
“In the past, when you had economic slowdown, consumers were more likely to feel that government policy is going to fix this problem very quickly,” said Cavender at CMR. “I think right now the challenge is when you interview younger consumers they really don’t know what the future holds.”
Fu, the marketing professional, said she has deferred plans to sell her two small apartments to buy a bigger one in a better school district for her son, and has given up for now on upgrading from her Volkswagen Golf.
“Why do I dare not upgrade my house and my car, even if I have the money?” she said. “Everything is unknown.”
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Reporting by Albee Zhang and Tony Munroe
Editing by Bill Rigby
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CACERES, Spain, Aug 18 (Reuters) – A brutal summer has caused havoc for many in rural Spain, but one unexpected side-effect of the country’s worst drought in decades has delighted archaeologists – the emergence of a prehistoric stone circle in a dam whose waterline has receded.
Officially known as the Dolmen of Guadalperal but dubbed the Spanish Stonehenge, the circle of dozens of megalithic stones is believed to date back to 5000 BC.
It currently sits fully exposed in one corner of the Valdecanas reservoir, in the central province of Caceres, where authorities say the water level has dropped to 28% of capacity.
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“It’s a surprise, it’s a rare opportunity to be able to access it,” said archaeologist Enrique Cedillo from Madrid’s Complutense University, one of the experts racing to study the circle before it gets submerged again.
It was discovered by German archaeologist Hugo Obermaier in 1926, but the area was flooded in 1963 in a rural development project under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.
Since then it has only become fully visible four times.
The dolmen of Guadalperal, also known as the Spanish Stonehenge, is seen due to the receding waters of the Valdecanas reservoir in the outskirts of El Gordo, Spain, August 3, 2022. REUTERS/Susana Vera
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Dolmens are vertically arranged stones usually supporting a flat boulder. Although there are many scattered across Western Europe, little is known about who erected them. Human remains found in or near many have led to an often-cited theory that they are tombs.
Local historical and tourism associations have advocated moving the Guadalperal stones to a museum or elsewhere on dry land.
Their presence is also good news for Ruben Argentas, who owns a small boat tours business. “The dolmen emerges and the dolmen tourism begins,” he told Reuters after a busy day spent shuttling tourists to the site and back.
But there is no silver lining for local farmers.
“There hasn’t been enough rain since the spring… There is no water for the livestock and we have to transport it in,” said Jose Manuel Comendador. Another, Rufino Guinea, said his sweet pepper crop had been ravaged.
Climate change has left the Iberian peninsula at its driest in 1,200 years, and winter rains are expected to diminish further, a study published by the Nature Geoscience journal showed.
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Additional reporting by Susana Vera, writing by Anna Valderrama and Andrei Khalip; editing by John Stonestreet
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HONG KONG, July 29 (Reuters) – A huge video panel fell on the stage during a concert by popular Hong Kong boyband Mirror on Thursday, crushing one performer and trapping others, prompting a government investigation and the suspension of future shows.
At least two dancers were injured, with one in a serious condition and the other stable, local broadcaster RTHK reported. Three members of the audience were also injured, local media reported, with many fans emotional after the harrowing scenes.
“I am shocked by the incident. I express sympathy to those who were injured and hope that they would recover soon,” Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said on Friday.
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The government would investigate and review safety procedures to protect performers, staff and the public, he said.
Kevin Yeung, the city’s Culture Secretary, said the show would be suspended until the stage structure was safe. The government’s leisure bureau had already contacted the concert organiser about other stage incidents in recent days, he said in a statement.
The hugely popular cantopop group was formed in 2018 through a reality television show and had planned a series of 12 shows at Hong Kong’s Coliseum, next to the city’s Victoria harbour.
More than 13,000 Mirror fans signed an online petition asking the concert organiser to resolve the problems and ensure safety for all performers, according to the petition’s website.
MakerVille, the concert organiser which is owned by Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li’s PCCW Media Group, said it was thoroughly investigating the cause of the accident.
“We are deeply sorry that the incident caused unease to viewers or others affected.”
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Reporting by Farah Master and Twinnie Siu; editing by Richard Pullin
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KYIV, July 26 (Reuters) – A tongue-in-cheek petition to give outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Ukrainian citizenship and make him the country’s prime minister has garnered over 2,500 signatures hours after being put up on Ukraine’s official petitions site on Tuesday.
Despite losing domestic popularity and eventually having been forced to announce his resignation after dozens of ministerial departures in early July, Johnson remains a cult figure in Kyiv for his vocal support of Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s invasion.
Paintings, murals, and even cakes in Ukraine’s capital bear the likeness of the man some Ukrainians affectionately call “Johnsoniuk.” read more
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The petition, addressed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, lists Johnson’s strengths as “worldwide support for Boris Johnson, a clear position against the military invasion of Ukraine, (and) wisdom in the political, financial and legal spheres.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy walk at Mykhailivska Square, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 17, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
The petition, however, does acknowledge one negative side of such an appointment: its non-compliance with Ukraine’s constitution.
In an apparent coincidence, several hours after the petition was put up on Tuesday, Johnson presented Zelenskiy with the Sir Winston Churchill Leadership Award for what his Downing Street office described as “incredible courage, defiance, and dignity” in the face of Russia’s invasion.
Zelenskiy did not mention the new petition when accepting the award, but he will be obliged to officially respond if it receives 25,000 signatures.
Accepting the award via video link from Kyiv, Zelenskiy quoted wartime British premier Churchill, saying that Johnson “had no thought of quitting the struggle” when the going got tough.
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Reporting by Max Hunder;
Editing by Sandra Maler
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The logo for Google LLC is seen at their office in Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S., November 17, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
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July 22 (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google said on Friday it has dismissed a senior software engineer who claimed the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot LaMDA was a self-aware person.
Google, which placed software engineer Blake Lemoine on leave last month, said he had violated company policies and that it found his claims on LaMDA to be “wholly unfounded.” read more
“It’s regrettable that despite lengthy engagement on this topic, Blake still chose to persistently violate clear employment and data security policies that include the need to safeguard product information,” a Google spokesperson said in an email to Reuters.
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Last year, Google said that LaMDA – Language Model for Dialogue Applications – was built on the company’s research showing Transformer-based language models trained on dialogue could learn to talk about essentially anything.
Google and many leading scientists were quick to dismiss Lemoine’s views as misguided, saying LaMDA is simply a complex algorithm designed to generate convincing human language.
Lemoine’s dismissal was first reported by Big Technology, a tech and society newsletter.
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Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard
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ATHENS, July 17 (Reuters) – A Ukrainian cargo plane carrying munitions from Serbia to Bangladesh crashed near the city of Kavala in northern Greece late on Saturday, killing the crew members on board, Serbian authorities and Meridian airline said on Sunday.
Drone images from the scene showed smouldering debris from the Antonov An-12 aircraft strewn in fields. Greek authorities said there were eight crew members on board and a Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman said they were all Ukrainian citizens.
Ukrainian-based airline Meridian, which operated the aircraft, said all the crew members were killed in the crash. read more
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Serbia’s defence minister said the plane was carrying 11.5 tonnes of products, including mortar and training shells, made by its defence industry. The buyer of the cargo was the defence ministry of Bangladesh, he said.
Denys Bogdanovych, Meridian’s general director, confirmed Serbia’s account of events. “This is not related to Ukraine or Russia,” Bogdanovych told Reuters by telephone.
Witnesses said the aircraft came down in a ball of flames before exploding on impact in corn fields around midnight local time. Earlier the pilot had reported engine trouble and had requested an emergency landing.
Greek authorities could not provide information on the aircraft’s cargo or the crew. The special disaster response unit and army experts were dispatched to the scene, while local authorities issued a ban on people moving in the area.
Serbia’s defence minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said the cargo included illuminating mortar shells and training shells. It had taken off at 1840 GMT Saturday from Nis in Serbia.
“The plane carried 11.5 tonnes of products made by our defence industry. The buyer was the Bangladesh defence ministry,” Stefanovic said.
He said the plane’s cargo was owned by Serbian company Valir, a company registered to perform foreign trade activities of armament military equipment and other defence products.
Greek state TV ERT said the aircraft’s signal was lost soon after the pilot requested an emergency landing from Greek aviation authorities due to an engine problem.
Amateur video footage uploaded on ertnews.gr showed the aircraft in flames descending fast before hitting the ground in what appeared to be an explosion.
“I wonder how it didn’t fall on our houses,” one witness, Aimilia Tsaptanova, told reporters. “It was full of smoke, it had a noise I can’t describe and went over the mountain. It passed the mountain and turned and crashed into the fields.”
A senior source at Jordan’s civil aviation regulatory commission denied initial reports that the plane was headed to Jordan. The source said that its flight itinerary included a stopover in Jordan’s Queen Alia international airport at 9:30 pm (0630 GMT), to refuel, state news agency Petra reported on Sunday.
It was also due to stop in Riyadh and Ahmedabad in India before heading to Dhaka, Serbia’s defence minister said.
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Reporting by Renee Maltezou, Ivana Sekularac, Tom Balmforth, Max Hunder, Michele Kambas, Thanasis Elmazis, and Yasmin Hussein; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Jane Merriman
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SEOUL, June 17 (Reuters) – For Jung Ki-young, a South Korean software engineer, Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O) decision to retire its Internet Explorer web browser marked the end of a quarter-century love-hate relationship with the technology.
To commemorate its demise, he spent a month and 430,000 won ($330) designing and ordering a headstone with Explorer’s “e” logo and the English epitaph: “He was a good tool to download other browsers.”
After the memorial went on show at a cafe run by his brother in the southern city of Gyeongju, a photo of the tombstone went viral.
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Microsoft scaled down support for the once omnipresent Internet Explorer on Wednesday after a 27-year run, to focus on its faster browser, Microsoft Edge.
Jung said the memorial showed his mixed feelings for the older software, which had played such a big part in his working life.
“It was a pain in the ass, but I would call it a love-hate relationship because Explorer itself once dominated an era,” he told Reuters.
He said he found it took him longer to make sure his websites and online apps worked with Explorer, than with other browsers.
Tombstone of Internet Explorer browser, set up by South Korea’s software engineer Jung Ki-young, is pictured at a rooftop of a cafe in Gyeongju, South Korea, June 17, 2022. Jung Ki-Young/Handout via REUTERS
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But his customers kept asking him to make sure their websites looked good in Explorer, which remained the default browser in South Korean government offices and many banks for years.
Launched in 1995, Explorer became the world’s leading browser for more than a decade as it was bundled with Microsoft’s Windows operating system that came pre-installed in billions of computers. read more
But it started losing out to Google’s Chrome in the late 2000s and became a subject of countless internet memes, with some developers suggesting it was sluggish compared with its rivals.
Jung said he had meant to give people a laugh with the gravestone, but was still surprised about how far the joke went online.
“That’s another reason for me to thank the Explorer, it has now allowed me to make a world-class joke,” he said.
“I regret that it’s gone, but won’t miss it. So its retirement, to me, is a good death.”
($1 = 1,292.2600 won)
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Reporting by Minwoo Park and Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Andrew Heavens
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June 12 (Reuters) – It might look and smell like McDonald’s but now it’s Vkusno & tochka. The golden arches are gone, the filet-of-fish is simply a fish burger. The Big Mac has left Russia.
A new era for Russia’s fast-food and economic scene dawned on Sunday as McDonald’s (MCD.N) restaurants flung open their doors in Moscow under new Russian ownership and with the new name, which translates as “Tasty and that’s it”.
The rebranding of the outlets, three decades after the U.S. burger giant first opened in Moscow in a symbolic thaw between East and West, is once again a stark sign of a new world order.
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The fortunes of the revamped chain, which McDonald’s sold when it exited the country over the conflict in Ukraine, could provide a test of how successfully Russia’s economy can become more self-sufficient and withstand Western sanctions.
On Sunday, scores of people queued outside what was once McDonald’s flagship restaurant in central Moscow. The outlet sported a new logo – a stylised burger with two fries – plus a slogan reading: “The name changes, love stays”.
The queue was significantly smaller than the thousands of people who thronged to the original McDonald’s opening there in 1990 during the Soviet era.
Vkusno & tochka’s menu was smaller and did not offer the Big Mac and some other burgers. A double cheeseburger was going for 129 roubles ($2.31) compared with roughly 160 under McDonald’s and a fish burger for 169 roubles, compared with about 190 previously.
The composition of burgers has not changed and the equipment from McDonald’s has remained, said Alexander Merkulov, quality manager at the new company.
Sergei, a 15-year-old customer, saw little difference.
“The taste has stayed the same,” he said as tucked into a chicken burger and fries. “The cola is different, but there really is no change to the burger.”
Employees take part in preparations before the opening of a new restaurant, following McDonald’s Corp company’s decision to sell its restaurants in Russia to one of its local licensees that will rebrand them under a new name, in Moscow, Russia June 12, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina
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MUCH DIFFERENCE?
The flagship Moscow restaurant is among 15 rebranded outlets that will initially open in and around the capital on Sunday. Oleg Paroev, chief executive of Vkusno & tochka, said the company was planning to reopen 200 restaurants in Russia by the end of June and all 850 by the end of the summer.
The chain will keep its old McDonald’s interior but will expunge any references to its former name, said Paroev, who was appointed Russia McDonald’s CEO weeks before Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24.
“Our goal is that our guests do not notice a difference either in quality or ambience,” Paroev told a media conference in the restaurant. He said the chain would keep “affordable prices” but did not rule out slight rises in the near term.
McDonald’s closed its restaurants in Russia on March 14 and said in mid-May it decided to leave the market.
“For three months we did not work,” said Ruzanna, manager of a Moscow branch that will open in July. “Everyone is very pleased.”
Alexander Govor, the new owner of the chain, said up to 7 billion roubles ($125.56 million) would be invested this year in the business, which employs 51,000 people.
“The corporation asked me to, first of all, keep the headcount, to provide people with work. That’s what I’m going to do,” he added.
Govor said the company was looking for new suppliers of soft drinks as Coca Cola (KO.N), which has said it was suspending its business in Russia.
Moments after the press conference finished a man stood up in front of the cameras holding a sign that read “Bring back the Big Mac”. He was swiftly escorted out by restaurant staff.
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Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Pravin Char
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