From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
ROBINHOOD IPO FIZZLES
Online brokerage firm Robinhood had one of the worst public debuts for a company of its size in more than a decade, as critics lambasted the investing app and co-founder Vlad Tenev fell under investigation for failing to register with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a top Wall Street regulator. The stock started trading at $38 per share, already on the low end of its range, before plummeting 10 percent and ending the day around $34 per share, bumping up to $35 on Friday. Big-name investors such as Michael Burry and Warren Buffett criticized the company, which has presided over the recent boom in retail investing, for encouraging excessive risk-taking.
TECH EARNINGS MIXED
Tech earnings were a mixed bag this week. For Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's first quarter at the helm, the e-commerce giant reported another $100 billion quarter but missed sales expectations for the first time in a long time. Shares dropped 7 percent on the news. At Facebook, digital ad spending fueled a 56 percent pop in revenue, even as the company warned of a longer-term slowdown due to headwinds in the changing ad targeting business. Google parent company Alphabet, meanwhile, crushed Wall Street expectations, with a 69 percent jump in total ad revenue.
EVs: GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS
EV companies saw rallies, IPOs, and fraud charges this week. Tesla's stock soared Thursday on the news that the infrastructure package coming out of Congress could include $7.5 billion to build 500,000 electric vehicle chargers throughout the country. Lucid Motors also made its public debut via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, as reservations for its electric luxury sedan stack up and CEO Peter Rawlinson hopes to vie for the status of the "Next Tesla." In the meantime, a federal grand jury charged Trevor Milton, founder of electric truck company Nikola, with three counts of criminal fraud for lying about multiple aspects of his business.
ACTIVISION WALKOUT
Stocks of Activision Blizzard slumped this week as employees staged a walkout after California filed a lawsuit against the video game company alleging widespread discrimination and sexual harassment of women and other marginalized groups. The workers demanded better working conditions and an end to the abusive practices. CEO Bobby Kotick issued a statement calling the company's response so far "tone deaf."
MCWINNING
Chicken sandwiches and celebrity-sponsored meals powered an earnings beat at fast-food giant McDonald's this week. The company reported a 25.9 percent jump in same-store sales, crediting its new Crispy Chicken Sandwich and its "famous orders" promotion, which pairs meals with big-name pop stars. The latest promotion brought together an order of McNuggets and special sauces with K-pop group BTS. Next on the docket is hip-hop star Saweetie, whose "Saweetie 'N Sour" will include a Big Mac, four-piece Chicken McNuggets, medium fries, a medium Sprite, and BBQ sauce.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
