From global politics to corporate megadeals and domestic economic shifts, Friday’s headlines capture major developments.
Trump slams India-Russia-China summit ties. Thailand gets its third PM in two years amid political chaos. Musk eyes $1 trillion Tesla pay package tied to massive growth targets.
US jobs market stalls with only 22,000 August additions, unemployment hits four-year high, boosting Fed rate cut expectations.
A glance at the biggest stories capturing attention today.
Trump targets India-China-Russia axis
US President Donald Trump stirred the geopolitical pot on Friday as he said that India and Russia appear to have been “lost” to China following their recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin.
He posted a photo of the three leaders together and basically said the US had “lost” both countries to China.
His social media post was classic Trump sarcasm: “Looks like we have lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!”
It is the kind of comment that shows just how isolated the US has become from some major powers while China works to build its own coalition.
The summit was pretty significant because you had Xi, Putin, and Modi all standing together and talking about resolving their differences. That is not something you see every day, especially when these countries have their own tensions with each other. Read full report here
Thailand gets third PM in two years
Thailand just got its third prime minister in two years, with Anutin Charnvirakul winning a parliamentary vote on Friday that wasn’t even close.
He grabbed 63% of the votes, easily beating the candidate from the influential Shinawatra family’s Pheu Thai party.
This whole mess started when Anutin’s Bhumjaithai party pulled out of the previous coalition, which basically collapsed the government and threw Thailand into another political crisis.
It’s becoming a pattern as the country can’t seem to keep a stable government for more than a year or two.
What’s interesting is how Anutin managed to put together a winning coalition. He teamed up with the progressive People’s Party, but they extracted some serious promises in return.
They want a referendum on constitutional changes and new elections within just four months. So Anutin might have won, but he’s got a pretty short leash.
Elon Musk’s $1 trillion challenge
Tesla just unveiled what could be the biggest CEO pay package in corporate history – potentially worth $1 trillion for Elon Musk over the next decade.
But here’s the catch: he only gets paid if he delivers some absolutely massive goals that would transform Tesla into something completely different from what it is today.
To earn the full payout, Musk would have to grow Tesla’s market value from around $1 trillion now to at least $8.5 trillion. That’s not just ambitious as it’s almost unimaginable.
Plus, he needs to hit some crazy operational targets: 20 million cars delivered annually, 1 million robotaxis on the road, and 1 million humanoid robots produced.
The plan basically ties Musk’s compensation directly to Tesla becoming a dominant force in both electric vehicles and robotics.
If he pulls it off, his ownership stake in Tesla would grow significantly, giving him even more control over the company’s direction. Read full report here
US unemployment hits four-year high
The job market hit a serious rough patch in August, with employers adding just 22,000 new positions, way below the 75,000 economists were expecting.
That’s a dramatic slowdown from what we’ve been seeing in recent months, and it gets worse when you look at the revisions.
Turns out June was actually worse than anyone thought, with the economy losing 13,000 jobs.
That’s the first monthly decline we’ve seen since 2020, which really puts things in perspective about how much the labor market has cooled off.
The unemployment rate jumped to 4.3%, which is the highest it’s been in nearly four years.
Healthcare managed to add some jobs, but federal government positions got cut along with several other industries, showing the weakness is pretty broad-based.
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