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Tesla rival BYD is bypassing tariffs. The electric vehicle maker is building a factory in Turkey to avoid heavy Western tariffs on Chinese EV companies.
Ex-Meta scientists made an AI model that can generate proteins. It’s a “ChatGPT moment for biology.”
Novo Nordisk’s stock slid after a study said Eli Lilly’s drugs are better. The study said Eli Lilly’s weight loss drug Mounjaro is more effective than Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy.
The S&P 500 hit a new high. That’s because U.S. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell implied that interest rate cuts could be coming soon.
Boeing will face a federal investigation over its oxygen masks. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is inspecting 2,600 planes because it’s worried that masks could fail to release in an emergency.
Another nail in Twitter’s coffin
Elon Musk took Twitter, renamed it X, and ran its value into the ground. Advertisers and users have fled the social media platform over concerns about hate speech. X’s only PR person left the company. And after years of double-digit user growth, Quartz’s Britney Nguyen reported yesterday that X’s audience engagement is stalling.
It’s another nail in the coffin for the once-ubiquitous influence of Twitter. And a sign that Mark Zuckerberg’s copycat Instagram Threads could become the social media platform of choice. Another rival, Mastodon, is also on the come up.
By the numbers
1.6%: How much X’s global daily active users increased from last year
$44 billion: How much Elon Musk spent buying Twitter (now X) in 2022
71.5%: How much X’s value has fallen since Musk took over
The Oracle of Omaha might be getting too old for Sun Valley
It’s always sunny in Sun Valley, Idaho at Allen & Co.’s annual summer conference for America’s wealthiest executives, but 93-year-old Warren Buffett might be getting too old to fly fish and play golf with his fellow billionaires.
The so-called summer camp for billionaires kicked off yesterday, but Buffett and Elon Musk are missing from the guest list. Buffett’s a devoted attendee and is noted for his involvement in one of the highest-profile deals that came out of the conference in the 90s. Quartz’s Laura Bratton has more.
While we’re on the Warren Buffett train, here’s a list of Quartz reads on the Berkshire Hathaway CEO from over the years.
Quartz’s Buffett list
📈 Warren Buffett explains the futility of playing the market at age 44
📈 Warren Buffett’s big bets on oil are betraying the climate
📈 Warren Buffett gives his employees “principles of behavior” and trusts them to do the right thing
📈 Can the cult of Berkshire Hathaway outlive Warren Buffett?
More from Quartz
🔔 Non-alcoholic beer is surging as young adults and Ozempic users embrace sobriety
🔫 A United Airlines Boeing plane made an emergency landing after a wheel fell off during takeoff
❌ Apple’s ‘vague’ harassment policies are under criticism in the UK
💸 Eli Lilly’s latest deal added $200 million to a Harvard professor’s billion-dollar fortune
🕴️ Drug middlemen are hiking the price of cancer drugs and reaping huge profits
🌯 Chipotle hopes gold foil can help burrito sales
⚖️ Walmart is facing a class action lawsuit over its “deceptive” pricing
Surprising discoveries
Denmark is offering free meals to tourists who pick up trash. It’s a great time to visit Copenhagen if you’re willing to pick up some litter.
Meanwhile in Barcelona, locals are spraying visitors with squirt guns in protest of mass tourism. Denmark may be using a carrot approach to persuade tourists to vacation responsibly, but this Spanish city is grabbing sticks (e.g. squirt guns) and wants visitors to go away altogether.
The sewing needle was born 40,000 years ago in Siberia. Eyed needles made of bones, antlers, or ivory allowed ancient people to stay trendy in cold-weather clothes.
A faraway planet smells like farts and rotten eggs. Scientists studied the atmosphere of a blue planet called “HD 189733 b” and found that it’s really stinky.
Bulgarian archaeologists found a statue of the Greek god Hermes in an ancient Roman sewer. The seven-foot marble statue was probably buried by the people of an ancient city called Heraclea Sintica after the Roman Empire adopted Christianity.
Yesterday was the 14th anniversary of the biggest U.S.-Russia spy swap since the Cold War. On a hot July day in 2010, on the tarmac of Vienna International Airport in Austria, the U.S. made a very not-secret exchange of 10 Russian sleeper agents for four people accused by Russia of spying for the West.
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Our best wishes on a safe start to the second week in July. Send any news, rotten eggs, Siberian sewing needles, and Russian sleeper agents to talk@qz.com. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Laura Bratton and Francisco Velasquez.