Wal-Mart Raises Wages, and Bitcoin Plunges on S. Korean Ban Talks
Wal-Mart announced it would raise its starting wage to $11 an hour, thanks to the newly passed tax reform. The company will also expand maternity and paternal leave benefits and give some employees a $1,000 one-time bonus.
And South Korean regulators say they may ban trading in Bitcoin, sending the price of cryptocurrencies plunging. Officials raiding exchanges in the country over tax evasion.
Plus we spoke to one of the original designers of the iPhone to get his thoughts on what Apple can do to stave off smartphone addiction. And Hyundai makes an investment in Singapore's Grab to get into the southeast Asian ride-hailing market
Oracle soars as it cashes in on the AI boom, Plus: Starbucks shares continue to fall under its new CEO, and does anybody actually want a new iPhone Air?
Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.