Good morning. Who cares if Elon Musk buys Twitter, the whole thing is stupid and annoying, let’s all do our best to ignore it. So it’s the US economy, and more on Russian oil, below. Also, we’re taking Monday off. While we’re away, try other good FT Newsletters, like Moral Money (sign up here) and
In aviator shades and a brightly coloured jacket, Natalia Sindeyeva is not a person to let life’s troubles stand in her way. The 50-year-old was treated successfully for breast cancer in 2020; today she puffs happily on miniature cigarettes from a heated tobacco device. A competitive dancer, she is in Istanbul to take part in
My personal style signifiers are minimalist, comfortable clothing – black jackets, sometimes by Issey Miyake, and always T-shirts. My clothes are like my own designs: spare and simple. The last thing I bought and loved was a Danish chair for my furniture collection. The design is human and intimate. I have Mies van der Rohe and Hans
Bookings for UK holiday parks and cottages in far-flung locations have been hit by holidaymakers’ concerns over rising fuel prices even though operators have reported a last-minute surge in reservations for the Easter weekend. Promises of unseasonably warm weather and travel chaos at airports have prompted a rise in late bookings for UK destinations, according
‘Zero to IPO: Over $1 Trillion of Actionable Advice From the World’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs’, by Frederic Kerrest In 2011, as co-founder and chief operating officer of a failing business and facing bankruptcy, Frederic Kerrest received some advice from one of his board members who had been through it all before. Acting on it saved
Russia’s defence ministry has said the Moskva naval missile cruiser, its flagship vessel in the Black Sea, has sunk, dealing a significant blow to Moscow’s offensive in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian officials said on Thursday that the Russian vessel had been hit by one of their anti-ship missiles, causing an explosion on board. The Pentagon assessed
BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink’s pay increased 21 per cent to $36mn last year, after the asset management group reported record profits as a tide of money flowed into its funds. The bumper 2021 pay award for BlackRock’s 69-year-old founder includes cash and equity incentives, as well as a $1.5mn base salary. The world’s biggest
Elon Musk has made an offer to buy Twitter with a bid that values the company at $43.4bn, a move that could turn the Tesla chief executive into a social media mogul. Musk’s offer of $54.20 a share comes days after he took a 9 per cent stake in the company, becoming its largest shareholder
Wall Street banks detailed billions of dollars in potential losses from the war in the Ukraine this week, while warning that they saw no end in sight for the market turbulence unleashed by the Russian invasion. Industry analysts and executives described the losses as manageable, but expressed worries about the potential for spillover effects of
A US jury has convicted an Isis fighter accused of abducting hostages from the US, Europe and elsewhere in Syria, some of whom were gruesomely executed for propaganda videos. El Shafee Elsheikh, a former British citizen, on Thursday was found guilty of all counts in the case, including hostage-taking resulting in death and conspiracy to
Brazilian oil major Petrobras sought to end weeks of turmoil on Thursday by appointing a new chief executive, after two previous bosses were removed within a year following tensions with President Jair Bolsonaro. The state-controlled company said its board had elected José Mauro Coelho, a public sector official specialising in the energy sector, as chief
Pakistan’s military establishment has dismissed ousted prime minister Imran Khan’s claims that he was the victim of a US-led conspiracy, and described his visit to Moscow on the day Russia invaded Ukraine as “embarrassing”. In rare public comments on Thursday, Major General Babar Iftikhar, the army’s spokesperson, denied Khan’s assertions that Pakistan’s national security committee
Belvedere Island, Marin County, $60mn Where On the southern tip of Belvedere Island in the San Francisco Bay. San Francisco airport is a 45-minute drive via the Golden Gate Bridge, in clear traffic. What A dramatically positioned three-bedroom home spread across four floors with a detached one-bedroom guest house. The building follows the contours of
Hurrah for Mario Draghi, prime minister of Italy. A decade ago, he promised to do “whatever it takes” to protect the euro, an iconic phrase that shaped policymaking in subsequent years. Now he has produced another pithy salvo. Last week, he was challenged about what Italy might do if the EU boycotted Russian energy, given
A former Coca-Cola manager who received bribes of more than £1.2mn as part of a corrupt scheme to award contracts to favoured companies has been given a suspended jail term of 20 months by a London court. Noel Corry, 56, who worked at soft drinks bottler Coca-Cola Enterprises UK Ltd (CCE), pleaded guilty to five
Zora Neale Hurston was one of the great provocateurs of 20th-century American letters. Active from the 1920s to the 1950s, Hurston was best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which fascinated readers with its vivid depiction of black female sexuality. Richard Wright, the black American author of the bestselling 1940 novel
The writer is founder of Sifted and a former FT Moscow bureau chief On a trip to Silicon Valley a while ago, I had back-to-back meetings with the founder of a fintech firm, the head of a start-up incubator and a senior executive at a virtual reality company. By chance all had one characteristic in
Jane Hume, Australia’s minister for financial services, argued in a speech last month that the rapidly growing crypto industry had the potential to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and boost Australia’s economic growth by more than 50 per cent. But if the country voted for the opposition Labor party at the May 21
The government of Rwanda on Thursday confirmed that it had signed a “bold new partnership” with the UK under which some people seeking refugee protection in Britain will be transferred to the central African country while awaiting processing. The announcement comes ahead of a speech in which Prime Minister Boris Johnson will pledge to tackle
Let us see if Elon Musk has learnt anything. Four years ago, the Tesla chief executive loosely offered to take his electric vehicle company private, at one point misleadingly posting a tweet that he had “funding secured” for such a transaction. This message flouted US securities law sufficiently for US regulators to require Musk’s social
Remember Alphawave? In 2021, the once Toronto-based semiconductor IP company IPO’d on the LSE to great fanfare, with some drawing comparisons between its capital-light business model and previous stock exchange darling ARM. The valuation, at £3bn for a company with just £40mn of trailing revenues, matched the hype. Then it all went a bit pear