Will China let Elon Musk buy TikTok?

3D printer that works in space. “China’s TikTok”. Zuckerberg vs. Apple

together with FINMATEX

Good morning. It’s January 15th. Wikipedia’s birthday. The chaotic encyclopedia anyone can edit — and somehow, everyone trusts it. Born in 2001 with a single edit, now drowning in millions of pages, most of them wildly unnecessary. 

Also today in 2009, Captain Sully pulled off the "Miracle on the Hudson" after his plane plowed into some Canadian geese. No one died, everyone got soaked, and Hollywood obviously made a movie about it.

Hope you enjoy today’s read. It beats scrolling Wikipedia’s weird corners.

  • Johnson & Johnson spent $14.6B to grab schizophrenia drug

  • Tesla is pulling 239,000 cars in the U.S.

  • Starlink disrupts African internet scene

  • Identity security startup raises $36M

    and more…

Stock market

Crypto

US stocks closed mixed on Tuesday as investors reacted to the first of two key inflation reports this week, showing prices rose less than expected in December. Also in focus was a potential plan for the incoming Trump administration to gradually hike tariffs to ease inflation.

All eyes are now on Wednesday’s consumer price update, with inflation expected to remain sticky. The S&P 500 finished 0.1% higher, the Nasdaq dropped 0.2%, and the Dow gained 0.5%, marking back-to-back wins for the blue-chip index.

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China's Backup Plan: Sell TikTok to Elon

Image: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Chinese officials are reportedly considering selling TikTok’s US operations to Elon Musk if a ban happens. Seems like the go-to solution these days — just hand it to Elon and hope for the best. Beijing prefers TikTok stays with Bytedance, but with pressure mounting, Musk is being discussed as a fallback. Another app for his empire of chaos. TikTok dismissed the report as “pure fiction” and insists no sale is happening. The drama, however, definitely is.

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J&J spends $14.6 billion on brain drugs. Johnson & Johnson is spending $14.6 billion to buy Intra-Cellular Therapies, grabbing its schizophrenia drug Caplyta. Brain meds are making big money, and J&J wants more of it. This comes after J&J spent $13.1 billion on Shockwave Medical. Their CEO says big deals like this are “rare.” Sure. Dropping billions is starting to look pretty normal.

Tesla recalls 239,000 cars for broken cameras. Tesla is pulling 239,000 cars in the U.S. because rearview cameras keep breaking. Pretty essential feature for, you know, driving. The recall covers recent Model 3, Model S, Model X, and Model Y vehicles. Tesla says an over-the-air update will fix it. Just reboot your car and hope for the best.

Identity security startup raises $36M. Orchid Security, an identity startup that’s been hiding in “stealth mode,” just raised $36 million to fix the growing chaos around identity verification. Blame AI for making it harder to figure out who’s real. Intel Capital and Team8 led the round. Orchid’s already working with big names like Costco and Repsol, helping them keep fake identities out of their systems. Cybersecurity is booming in Israel. Startups there pulled in $4 billion last year. Turns out, making sure people aren’t pretending to be someone else is a big business.

Starlink Makes Internet Cheaper in Africa — But Only Sort Of

Image: SpaceX

Elon Musk’s Starlink is now a budget option in parts of Africa — well, sort of. In Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Cape Verde, it’s cheaper than local providers. Monthly plans range from $10 to $50, which sounds great until you realize the hardware costs up to $381. Since launching in Kenya last July, Starlink has been disrupting the local internet scene with faster speeds and better coverage in remote areas. They even offer rentals now. But here’s the kicker — only 38% of Africa’s population is online, compared to 91% in Europe. Cheap-ish internet is cute, but it’s not solving that gap anytime soon.

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Instagram braces for a TikTok ban. With TikTok’s ban just days away, Instagram head Adam Mosseri suddenly cares about original content. He posted a video saying the app will prioritize creativity and improve its tools — which, by the way, aren’t great right now. His words. TikTok creators have already started migrating their followers to Instagram. Meanwhile, Instagram execs are scrambling, holding last-minute meetings to prepare for a wave of new users. Looks like Mosseri’s plan is simple: if TikTok dies, Instagram catches the leftovers.

Space printers are happening. Dr. Gilles Bailet from the University of Glasgow made a 3D printer that works in space. No more waiting for parts from Earth. Just print stuff up there — satellites, drug labs, whatever. His printer uses special space-friendly material instead of regular filaments. It’s faster and doesn’t clog. They’re even adding electronics to prints, making space gadgets ready to go.

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Mark Zuckerberg Still Beefing with Apple

Image: USA Today

Mark Zuckerberg took another shot at Apple on Joe Rogan’s podcast, saying they’ve done nothing new since the iPhone. “Steve Jobs made it, and now they’re just sitting on it.” He accused Apple of “squeezing people” with a 30% developer fee. Bold words from a guy whose entire business model is squeezing users for data. 

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TikTok ban sends users to “China’s TikTok”. With TikTok facing a ban, users are flocking to RedNote, or Xiaohongshu in China, calling themselves “TikTok refugees.”The app hit the top of the App Store overnight. Nothing fuels downloads like panic. RedNote is a Shanghai-based social app that offers a bit of everything — videos, photos, text posts, and shopping. It isn’t owned by ByteDance, which makes it the perfect protest move. TikTokers are also threatening weeklong Meta blackouts — because if one app goes down, might as well drag the others with it.

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TikTok of the day: watch here

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