☕️ Tick tock

How Taylor Swift sparked geopolitical tensions... March 09, 2024 [View Online]( | [Sign Up]( | [Shop]( [Morning Brew]( PRESENTED BY [EnergyX]( Good morning. Tomorrow is the start of daylight saving time, which means a) an extra hour of light in the evening and b) if you start your karaoke version of Matchbox Twenty’s “3AM” at exactly 1:59:03am on Sunday, you will have the entire bar screaming about being lonely right as the time changes. —Cassandra Cassidy, Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Abby Rubenstein, Neal Freyman MARKETS Nasdaq 16,085.11 -1.16% S&P 5,123.69 -0.65% Dow 38,722.69 -0.18% 10-Year 4.089% -0.3 bps Bitcoin $68,504.93 +2.35% Nvidia $875.28 -5.55% *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 2:00am ET. [Here's what these numbers mean.]( - Markets: Stocks [tumbled]( yesterday, giving the Dow its worst week since October as Nvidia’s seemingly unstoppable rally…stopped. Meanwhile, bitcoin notched [another record]( hitting $70,000 for the first time before the volatile cryptocurrency retreated. - Government: The Senate [passed]( vital funding bills just barely ahead of a shutdown deadline, ensuring the government can stay open—at least for now. But they still need to pass more before March 22.  TECH [The clock may be going ticktock on TikTok]( [Illustration of TikTok as a candle with Congress putting it out]( Francis Scialabba The only thing more perturbing than TikToker Reesa Teesa’s video series account of her ex-husband’s torrid double life is the fact that you may soon have to go to YouTube to watch it. A congressional committee voted unanimously on Thursday to advance a bill to the House that would be tantamount to a ban on TikTok, jeopardizing the future of the app used by 170 million Americans. - US lawmakers have long expressed concerns about TikTok’s influence and accused the app’s parent company, ByteDance, of being linked to the Chinese Communist Party (which both TikTok and ByteDance deny). - But the committee became extra motivated to fast-track the bill after TikTok encouraged users to call their representatives and ask them not to ban the app. This resulted in a flood of calls and what may be the greatest social media [backfire]( since Elmo asked, “How is everybody doing?” What the bill says: The [bipartisan bill]( aims to “protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications.” Practically, the bill gives ByteDance two choices: Find a US company to buy TikTok within six months or shut it down. Video app-turned-political pawn Yesterday, President Biden said he would sign the bill if it got through Congress—even though the president’s reelection campaign [joined the platform]( last month. The legislation has to get passed first, though, and previous efforts to address TikTok have stalled. A bill that would have allowed the Commerce Department to ban tech from outside the US died in the Senate last year. Still, experts are cautiously optimistic about the new bill since it’s more targeted at TikTok. But TikTok still has supporters. The ACLU called the bill an effort to score “cheap political points during an election year.” Former President Trump posted on Truth Social, “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” in an apparent 180 after signing an executive order in 2020 that intended to ban TikTok.—CC   PRESENTED BY ENERGYX [One founder is unlocking lithium’s 20x potential]( [EnergyX]( We need better technology to meet the 20x demand for lithium by 2040. That’s exactly what Teague Egan and his company [EnergyX]( deliver. They developed technology to extract lithium faster, cheaper, and cleaner. It can extract 300% more lithium than legacy methods. Now the world is taking note. [GM is investing in EnergyX](. Steel giant POSCO is too. The Department of Energy even awarded EnergyX $5m to extract American lithium. Teague and EnergyX aren’t slowing down, either. They acquired 90k acres of lithium reserves—enough for EnergyX to produce 40k metric tons of lithium a year. And you have the opportunity to share in their growth potential as an investor. [Join 12k+ people by investing in EnergyX](. WORLD [Tour de headlines](#) [Sign that says “now hiring”]Francis Scialabba US companies are still hiring. The US added 275,000 jobs in February, according to the government’s latest [jobs report]( which dropped yesterday. That’s more than was expected, signaling a still-hot labor market. But elsewhere, there were signs of cooling: The unemployment rate rose to 3.9%, and wage growth slowed down. This makes the report something of a choose-your-own-adventure tale for those hoping to use it to guess what Jerome Powell might be thinking about cutting interest rates. No evidence of UFO sightings, Pentagon says. The truth may still be out there, but we haven’t found it yet, according to a new 63-page Pentagon report that assessed government activities related to “unidentified anomalous phenomena” and found [no evidence]( that aliens have been to Earth or that it’s been covered up. Rather, suspected UFOs from 1945 to now have turned out to be “ordinary objects and phenomena and the result of misidentification,” including test flights of government spy planes in the ’50s and ’60s. But for those who still want to believe: The military is developing portable UFO detection kits to collect better data. ⚕️Wegovy got approved to treat heart problems. Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster weight-loss drug scored [FDA approval]( to be prescribed to lower the risk of heart attack, stroke, and even death from cardiovascular causes for adults with obesity. This additional approval may help broaden insurance coverage for the drug, which is costly and not always covered. But it might still be hard for patients to get, as it’s in short supply. Novo Nordisk is also seeking a similar approval in Europe. AUTO [Surprise EVs give Rivian a much-needed speed boost]( [Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe presents R3 car]( Phillip Faraone/Getty Images Electric-car maker Rivian made tech lords smile with teeth when it unveiled its new mid-price car and then surprise-revealed two more handsome new models this week. Within 24 hours, Rivian said it [received]( 68,000+ reservations for its $45,000 R2 SUV, a competitor to Tesla’s Model Y. The unexpected releases—a compact SUV called the R3 and its high-performance version, the R3X—aren’t available for preorder yet, but their sleek designs and intriguing [additional features]( are generating shut-up-and-take-my-money buzz. Rivian’s stock soared 17.25% this week in response, but time is [not on its side]( By the time R2 deliveries begin in 2026, more electric SUVs will be on the market (including one from Volkswagen Group). Then there’s the burning cash of it all. Rivian, which is backed by Amazon: - Is losing $43,000 on each first-generation car it builds, per a recent earnings report. - Could need $2.5 billion more to survive until R2 production gets going, a Jefferies analyst estimates. - Lost $5.4 billion last year and doesn’t think it will sell many more cars in 2024 than it did in 2023, scaring some investors. Cost-cutting collateral: To save ~$2.3 billion, Rivian announced yesterday it’s [postponing the construction]( of an R2 factory outside Atlanta that would’ve created thousands of jobs.—ML   TOGETHER WITH INCOGNI [Incogni]( Spammers begone. Between phishing attacks, robocalls, and emails pretending to be from a wealthy, generous prince, spam trickles in from pretty much everywhere. Enter Incogni. [Use code MORNING for 55% off]( a one-year subscription and a 30-day money-back guarantee to [eliminate spam calls, texts, and emails]( protect your sensitive deets with Incogni. ENTERTAINMENT [How TSwift’s concerts caused geopolitical tensions]( [Taylor Swift performing.]( Ashok Kumar, TAS24/Getty Images Right about now, Taylor Swift is [wrapping up]( her sold-out Singapore concerts, and besides boosting demand in the country for sequined leotards and friendship bracelets, this six-show leg of her Eras Tour created geopolitical strife. Why? The leaders of neighboring countries were miffed about the exclusive deal Singapore cut with the singer to be the only Southeast Asian country she visited. This kind of agreement, known as a “radius clause,” is common in the music industry but rarely extends outside of a country. - Thailand’s prime minister accused Singapore of paying as much as $3 million per show to keep “Sparks Fly” within its borders. - Singapore said the actual price it paid was much lower, but refused to reveal the number. Even at the highest estimates, it was a good investment: Swifties who flocked to Singapore are expected to have spent up to $300 million on food, lodging, and other tourism-related purchases while visiting, likely juicing the country’s GDP by [.02 percentage points]( this quarter, according to Bloomberg. And other nations are taking notes…neighboring countries have gotten over the beef but have already started updating their playbooks so they can follow Singapore’s lead and snag the next big tour.—MM   GRAB BAG [Key performance indicators](#) [Images of a United plane that rolled off the runway into the grass]@xJonNYC, @VickiO_theDO via X Stat: The person responsible for resetting the “days without a safety incident” sign back to zero at Boeing’s headquarters has been busy. This week alone, there were three headline-grabbing [mishaps]( involving the company’s planes, per Bloomberg. The most recent one was yesterday when a United Airlines plane rolled off the runway into the grass after landing in Houston, forcing the evacuation of its 160 passengers and six crew members (no one was hurt). Before that, another United plane lost a tire after takeoff while a third had flames coming from its engine—luckily, no one was injured in those situations, either. Quote: “I suspect this pizza topping ‘fact’ may have been inserted as a joke or to test if I was paying attention, since it does not fit with the other topics at all.” That’s not quite, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that,” but Anthropic’s Claude 3 Opus chatbot made waves this week when an engineer revealed that the AI model [appeared to know]( it was being tested. The engineer [posted on X]( that during a “needle-in-the-haystack” evaluation where a sentence about pizza toppings was inserted into documents about other topics, Opus was asked to find it. Not only did the AI locate the right sentence, but it also flagged that it was unrelated to the rest of the text…and correctly surmised why. Read: America’s incredible—and incredibly unequal—restaurant comeback. ([The Atlantic]( NEWS [What else is brewing](#) - [Apple]( reversed its earlier decision to block Epic Games’s developer account in Sweden. Permitting the account will let the Fortnite-maker create its own app store for European iPhones. - [OpenAI]( reinstated Sam Altman to its board and said it has “full confidence” in his leadership following the conclusion of an investigation into what led to his brief ouster as CEO in November. - [Eli Lilly’s]( Alzheimer’s drug donanemab has run into an unexpected delay in getting FDA approval. - [Donald Trump]( posted a $91.63 million bond to keep E. Jean Carroll’s attorneys from trying to seize his assets as he appeals a ruling that he owes her $83.3 million for defamation. - [Akira Toriyama]( who created the best-selling anime Dragon Ball, has died at age 68. His work was so popular that it once caused a [diplomatic incident]( between Japan and Mexico. - [Rupert Murdoch]( is engaged to Elena Zhukova, a retired scientist who is reportedly the former mother-in-law of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. It’s the sixth engagement and will be the fifth marriage for the 92-year-old media mogul. - PSA: Don’t forget, the [clocks “spring forward”]( one hour at 2am for daylight saving time. RECS [Saturday To-Do List graphic] Watch: How NYC police horses [get their shoes](. Clean up: What you can use [vinegar to clean]( and what you can’t. Go behind the music: How ’90s bands [got their names]( Toad the Wet Sprocket included. Bet on it: Make things more interesting at your Oscar party with our [Academy Award prop bets](. Real impact, real returns: Invest in the only real estate portfolio built to create wealth for you and its residents. [Roots]( is up 16% in the last year, and investments start at $100. [Build your wealth]( *A message from our sponsor. GAMES [The puzzle section](#) Brew crossword: Today’s clever crossword will have you chuckling to yourself. [Play it here]( for the laughs. Open House Welcome to Open House, the only newsletter section that sees the vision. We’ll give you a few facts about a listing and you try to guess the price. [Renderings of Miami Penthouse.]Renderings by The Boundary Today’s [penthouse]( isn’t finished yet, but most real estate promises totally pan out. The listing is in the iconic, soon-to-be redeveloped Shore Club, an Art Deco hotel in Miami originally built in the 1930s. Amenities include: - 10,500 square feet inside - 7,500 square feet of terraces - Private rooftop pool The penthouse is in a pending sale that would shatter Ken Griffin’s current record residential sale in the city. How much is it on the verge of being bought for? SHARE THE BREW [Share Morning Brew]( with your friends, acquire free Brew swag, and then acquire more friends as a result of your fresh Brew swag. We’re saying we’ll give you free stuff and more friends if you share a link. One link. Your referral count: 0 [Click to Share]( Or copy & paste your referral link to others: [morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=4904f90a]( ANSWER $120 million Word of the Day Today’s Word of the Day is: miffed, meaning “peeved.” Thanks to Kendall Hinkley from Biddeford, ME, for the suggestion, which did not annoy us at all. Submit another [Word of the Day here](. ✢ A Note From EnergyX This is a paid advertisement for EnergyX’s Regulation A+ offering. Please read the offering circular at [(. 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