Love triangle 🤭
Apple feat, TWTR hack, and space landing
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
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Tiktok love triangle 🤭
In the hottest news coming out of the weekend, Microsoft apparently is actively in talks with TikTok to buy out the platform. If you read our post from a couple days ago, the US was forcing TikTok to sell itself to a US buyer amidst growing concerns regarding snooping on US citizens for China.
Microsoft apparently had been part of negotiations, with many other companies pitching themselves as potential buyers too, for quite some time now. However, TikTok owner ByteDance’s CEO was not willing to relinquish 100% control. But the Trump Admin, increasingly furious with the Chinese, seemed adamant.
Moreover, negotiating nuances of the deal (we’re assuming data, control, voting rights etc.) was dragging the timeline out. So late Friday Trump hinted at banning TikTok altogether in the US via an executive order, unless TikTok sold itself to a US firm immediately. Closed door negotiations ensued. Soon after Microsoft came out with more news. Apparently with the weight of the US Gov behind its back, the company has had success in negotiating and will acquire the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand operations of TikTok by September 15.
TikTok basically had two options 1. Get banned entirely in the US - sorry. 2. Or sell 100% of US operations (data, tech, everything else) migrated to US soil (run by a US company) severing ALL ties with China.
While no price has been put on the deal yet, as time passes, the company is losing leverage. Reports say the deal could be priced now at $30 Billion - considerably lower than the $50 Billion TikTok had been valuing itself at. Here’s more.
Summary: Analysts are still struggling to figure out Microsoft’s strategy behind the deal, especially since Microsoft was steering itself to a cloud-first future. If you remember, Microsoft owns LinkedIn, Bing Search, as well as Xbox in its consumer portfolio. Sure TikTok could fit with each of those, or all of those to some extent, but not explicitly. So what exactly is Satya thinking? Leave your perspective in the comments ;)
Smartphones > Oil 🛢️
On the back of a strong second quarter business performance, Apple’s stock rode past Saudi Aramco last week to make Apple the biggest publicly traded company in the world. Gaining 10% in Friday trading, Apple is up at $1.84 Trillion market cap, against Aramco’s $1.76 Trillion.
We’re resisting our temptation to use the platitude “data is the new oil”, but it certainly may be. Apple sold some $26 Billion worth of iPhones in the middle of one of the largest economic crises we have seen. Its services business expanded 14% against last year to reach over $13 Billion during that time.
The event however marks a shifting tide and may be indicative of a much deeper structural change. One where the “hot” business of the yester eras - oil, manufacturing, infrastructure, etc. are now being unanimously displaced by technology. Read more.
Make in India win 🙌
India’s Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI), which was launched as part of the Bharat Atma-Nirbhar agenda to stimulate domestic electronics manufacturing has attracted highly lucrative bids.
Among notable regional and global applicants are legends such as Samsung, Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron - manufacturers who make Apple’s iPhone, and local smartphone makers Micromax and Lava.
The scheme will offer a range of benefits to applicants including reduced red tape, favorable taxation, and other financial incentives. So far 22 companies have applied for the program. Bidders have agreed to export 60% of their locally produced units outside of India, balancing domestic demand as well as kicking valuable dollars into India’s coffers from exports.
India’s IT Minister Shankar Prasad projects estimated $153 Billion in smartphone and electronic component production during the five-year duration. Also, the businesses have committed to create direct and indirect jobs for around 1.2 Million Indians. Bravo!
Although the Indian government hadn’t prevented any company specifically from reaping the incentives, Chinese brands such as Oppo, Vivo, Oneplus, and Realme refrained from applying for the program.
Takeaway: 12 lakh jobs and $153 Billion in goods coming out this program over 5 years is no joke. Although building a manufacturing-first economy is a multi-decade endeavour, it sure looks like GOI has done significant amounts of progress within no time, which should be unanimously applauded. Read more.
The lethal giant behind twitter hacks 🕵
What might have seemed like professional work by the most nefariously trained and lethally imaginable covert KGB spy, actually turned out to be the genius of a 17 year old in his Mama’s basement. 🙄
Cops in Florida, USA arrested and charged a minor boy with 30 felony counts of fraud for masterminding the Twitter hack which took down the accounts of global leaders. Another 19 year old British man and a 22 year old man were also charged for aiding in the attack.
The back story:
Mid July, a weird hack took Twitter down with about 45 verified accounts including those belonging to Joe Biden, Former US President Barack Obama, Billionaire Bill Gates began posting fraudulent tweets asking for cryptocurrency. Public ledgers showed about $100K was netted by the hackers.
So much effort for so little damage - why? That’s what everyone is thinking.
But worse, the hack displayed one of the biggest shortcomings of Twitter, which is increasingly being used by world leaders to literally govern their provinces. Yeah, Thanks Trump.
What happens now?
The kids will be tried, and likely sentenced. However, there could be a bright side coming to the story as well. Since this is their first time offense, the US government may also forgive them conditionally in exchange for using their genius in aiding with cybercrime fights.
Twitter however will face investigations for lax security measures. Lawmakers in Congress have already been demanding a briefing from management as to what internal failures led to the incident. Read more.
Agriculture wars? 🌱
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has identified some 14 different kinds of seeds which have been sent to people in the US from China in mysterious, unrequested packages.
Some of these packages contain seeds of flowering plants like Lavender, Morning glory, Hibiscus, Cabbage etc. as well as crop seeds. All the 50 states in the US have issued warnings about them now.
The USDA is urging people who receive the packages to not plant them and contact the state plant regulatory authority. Texas agriculture commissioner warned that the packages could contain invasive species which could cause destruction of native crops and introduce diseases in them.
Government also suspects it to be a brushing scam, which is basically when a vendor sends free packages to consumers with hopes of getting positive reviews which will improve product ratings and increase visibility online. Damn you Shopify sellers! Read more.
Tweet of the day -
Mankind made history today.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
📱 Jio 5G moves - Reliance will deploy its own voice over new radio (VoNR)technology to offer voice services on its future 5G network in the country. The telco has already developed its own technology which powers its voice over LTE (VoLTE) services nationally and handles more than 10 billion minutes of calls on a daily basis.
✈️ Kuwait suspends India air travel - the gulf country suspended commercial flights from 31 countries on the advice of health authorities, just as the Gulf state re-opened its airport to regular operations. In addition to India, countries on the barred list include, Iran, China, Brazil, Lebanon, Spain, Singapore, Egypt and Sri Lanka.
💉 Another vaccine deal- the U.S. government will pay drugmaker Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline up to $2.1 billion to develop and deliver 100 million doses of their potential coronavirus vaccine.
🤝 German healthcare acquisition - German health group Siemens Healthineers will acquire US based Varian Medical Systems Inc in a deal that values the maker of devices and software for cancer treatments at $16.4 billion, representing a 24% premium to market closing price.
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