Billionaire investor Peter Thiel is leaving Silicon Valley and maybe even the board of Facebook. Thiel, a vocal supporter of President Trump, is reportedly growing frustrated over the intolerance of conservatism in Silicon Valley. He is moving his home and investment firms from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The investor will take a step back from the tech industry and is considering leaving the Facebook board. He's been a member since 2005.
Amazon officially surpassed Microsoft in market valuation. After the market closed on Wednesday evening, Amazon's market value increased to $702 billion, outpacing Microsoft which stands at $699.2 billion. Apple and Alphabet are still ahead of Amazon in being the most valuable companies.
Microsoft is now the fourth most valuable company.
Congressman Darren Soto (D-FL) joins us from Capitol Hill to share his thoughts on the deadly high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Unfortunately, Rep. Soto has dealt with a similar tragedy before as he represents Florida's 9th district. That district includes Orlando, the site of the deadly Pulse nightclub shooting in the summer of 2016. Soto is frustrated that Congress has been unable to pass meaningful gun reform in the wake of these mass shootings. He notes how powerful the NRA's influence is over certain members of Congress.
Plus, we speak to the CEO of Celebrity Cruises and others for our Business of Travel show. Lisa Lutoff-Perlo discusses Celebrity's partnership with the Malala Fund. The new "Celebrity Edge" ship will debut later this year, and Malala Yousafzai has been named the ship's Godmother. Perlo also talks about Celebrity's diversity initiatives. She's made it her mission to hire more women. Under her watch, Celebrity named its first-ever American woman as captain.
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
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
