Hi! Pandora’s box office: The new trailer for “Avatar: Fire and Ash” was released yesterday, and director James Cameron has said its run time will be even longer than the 162-minute original movie and the 192-minute 2022 sequel. Today we’re exploring: |
- TikTok, shopped: The platform is only worth $14 billion, per the Trump-backed deal.
- Emission statement: China just made a big commitment to cutting its carbon pollution.
- Hyperscaling: America is very close to spending more on building data centers than offices.
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TikTok US is worth only $14 billion, according to the Trump-backed deal |
So, we finally have a TikTok US deal, as President Trump signed an executive order yesterday to push forward an agreement requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok’s US operations. But rather than settling many questions, the price tag is raising more of them, with some analysts calling it “the most undervalued tech acquisition of the decade” and “daylight robbery.” The deal would create a new US-based joint venture, majority-owned by American investors; Oracle, Silver Lake, and the Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX are slated to hold 45% of the company — split roughly 15% each — according to CNBC. Meanwhile, Chinese parent company ByteDance’s stake will be capped at 19.9% to comply with national security rules, with the remaining 35% in the hands of new investors and existing ByteDance backers, including General Atlantic, Susquehanna, and Sequoia. So, what is the world’s most addictive app, which counts more than 180 million active users in the US, worth? Some $14 billion, per Vice President JD Vance — far below earlier projections of up to $50 billion. Though not an apples-to-apples comparison, as these other sites have global user bases, TikTok US would be by far the cheapest among its peers, whose latest valuations all top $14 billion. |
The discount valuation stands out even more when measured against sales: Snap trades at 2.5x, Pinterest at 5.9x, and Reddit at 25.3x their trailing 12-month revenues, while TikTok US is priced at roughly 1x its estimated annual US revenues of $10 billion to $20 billion. Earlier today, news broke that ByteDance might also get a licensing fee on all revenue TikTok US generates from using its algorithm, and that the Beijing-based company would probably get 50% or more of the overall profit of the US operation — which could explain the lower valuation. |
China, the world’s largest carbon polluter, has pledged to cut emissions for the first time |
While roughly 100 countries have been making commitments to lower fossil fuel emissions at the United Nations climate summit in New York, one nation’s pledge matters most. In a video statement yesterday, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that the world’s largest carbon-polluting country — responsible for over 31% of global CO2 emissions — would aim to reduce its emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035, as reported by the Associated Press. This is China’s first-ever commitment to an absolute emissions reduction target. Furthermore, Xi pledged that the country will increase its wind and solar power sixfold from the level reported in 2020, helping to cement its contradictory position as both the world leader in renewables as well as the biggest polluter. |
From a global perspective, China’s commitment is pivotal. The country produced a massive 11.9 billion tonnes of carbon emissions in 2023, per data from the Global Carbon Budget — more than the next five top carbon-polluting nations combined. |
China’s landmark pledge comes as countries scramble to submit new climate plans by the end of the month in preparation for COP30 in November. As part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, world leaders are making further commitments to reduce fossil fuel emissions in an effort to cap the long-term global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, there’s also been some notable opposition, with President Trump doubling down on his anti-climate stance in his address to the UN on Tuesday. Indeed, Trump moved to withdraw the US — the second-largest carbon polluter globally — from the Paris agreement on his first day back in office earlier this year. |
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The AI infrastructure debate’s heating up, as spending on data centers set to outpace office construction |
Depending on who you ask, the AI data center boom is either an obscene waste, or isn't fast enough. Just yesterday, famed investor David Einhorn cautioned that there’s a “chance that a tremendous amount of capital destruction is going to come through this cycle.” Sam Altman, however, thinks that OpenAI’s hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of spending will “look slow” in hindsight. It’s hard to get your head around just how quickly the data center boom is taking off, but a viral chart from Joey Politano helps provide context. According to Census Bureau data, construction spending for data centers in the year to July has reached an annualized rate of $41 billion — nearly exceeding the construction costs of all private offices in the US. |
That’s a whopping 2,200% increase since July 2014. With such an attractive alternative, investors are increasingly choosing to build data centers rather than offices, a trend accelerated by the shift towards remote work. Considering the Census Bureau's annual spending data covers until the end of July, the data likely does not include the latest construction plans, including the following, to name but a few: |
The scale of these projects suggest that it's only a matter of time before these two lines cross. |
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- BYD sold almost 1,000 more cars than Tesla in Europe last month, with the Chinese behemoth’s sales in the region up 244% from last year.
- AI could use some help here: Meta has been in talks with Google to use Gemini to boost its advertising business.
- Tok of the town: 1 in 5 American adults now get news from TikTok, compared with just 3% in 2020, according to a new Pew survey.
- Toys ‘R’ Us, the zombie brand of all zombie brands, is opening 20 new seasonal holiday stores and 10 permanent flagship branches around the US by the year’s end.
- Amazon paid $2.5 billion to settle a case with the FTC, after the regulator alleged the company tricked users to sign up to Prime and made it difficult to cancel.
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- Desperate measures: The inconsistency in women’s clothing sizes across different brands.
- Sweet creams (are made of this)... Mapping the most uniquely popular coffee creamer flavors by state.
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Off the charts: Which personal fashion styling service saw shares slump yesterday, as fewer users flock to the platform to update their wardrobes? [Answer below]. |
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