Hi! President Trump named ex-Fed Governor Kevin Walsh as his pick to replace Jerome Powell. The dollar and treasury yields rose, while gold and silver fell — finally proving that not everything is good news for precious metals. Today we're exploring: |
- Beyond the wheel: Tesla is betting its future on AI and robots, not just cars.
- Big age: US life expectancy has hit a record high.
- Back in China: Apple just had the "best iPhone quarter in history" in the nation, per Tim Cook.
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The economics of Tesla the company are still all about cars. The economics of Tesla the stock are not. |
For years, Elon Musk has insisted Tesla isn't really a car maker. Slowly but surely, that statement is becoming more accurate. On Wednesday, the Texas-based company posted its first-ever annual revenue decline, with 2025 sales falling 3% to $94.8 billion. Behind the drop was a 10% dip in automotive revenue, as weaker EV demand pushed vehicle deliveries and selling prices lower. What helped cushion the blow somewhat was Tesla's Energy Generation & Storage segment, which covers solar gear and large batteries used to generate and store electricity for homes, EVs, businesses, and the power grid. |
A fast-growing part of Tesla, the Energy segment generated nearly $13 billion in revenue last year, up 27% from 2024, and now accounts for around 13% of the company's total sales — more than double its share just two years ago. Automotive makes up nearly three quarters (73%) of Tesla's business… but it seems Elon Musk would like at least some of that share to be replaced by robot sales. On Wednesday, Musk said Tesla will wind down production of its two priciest EV models next quarter, converting that factory space to produce Optimus (though the humanoid robot won't be commercially available until late 2027). Meanwhile, Tesla's Robotaxi service, launched last year in Austin and the Bay Area, is set to expand to additional cities. Musk also hopes that selling its Full Self-Driving software, a product which is becoming subscription-only, to Tesla car owners will further boost its fortunes. All of this reinvention, of course, comes at a cost. Tesla's operating income fell 38% from a year earlier, and the company's capex spend is set to soar to $20 billion in 2026, joining a raft of other tech companies splurging like never before. Still, that looks positively cheap compared to Meta's capex bill, which could hit as much as $135 billion this year. |
Americans can expect to live longer than ever, per the latest CDC data |
Toward the end of last year, American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and man who measures almost every aspect of his existence, Bryan Johnson, tweeted that he hopes to achieve immortality by 2039. While not everyone is as committed as Johnson to living as long as possible — what a world that would be — new data shows that Americans are certainly looking a little healthier than in previous years. The new report released on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that newborn Americans in 2024 could expect to live to 79 on average, with the life expectancy figure fully recovering from a pandemic-era dip to hit a new high. |
Improvement was seen across both males and females in the US, and the chief of the National Center for Health Statistics' Statistical Analysis and Surveillance Branch cited "improvements coming out of the pandemic" and "declines in overdose deaths" to explain the rise. Overdose-related deaths dropped over 26% in 2024 from the year before, The Wall Street Journal noted from the data. Some famous current 79-year-old Americans include: 43rd US President George Bush, Cher, Sylvester Stallone, and President Donald Trump. Of course, life expectancies change once you've already reached a few milestones — the headline figure is based on the expectation from birth. |
Live long (if you prosper) |
Though state-level data for 2024 is not yet available, the figures, as we've covered in the past, do tend to vary quite drastically across the nation, with states where personal income per capita is higher than average seeing longer life expectancies, in some cases by several years. Experts were also keen to point out that the US's life expectancy still lags behind other wealthy nations. |
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Apple is back in the big time in China |
Apple just posted record quarterly revenue and iPhone sales… and China, for years one of the company's big sore spots, was a big reason why. For the quarter ended December 2025, Apple's total revenue rose 16% year on year to $143.8 billion, with sales in Greater China — the company's third-largest region after the Americas and Europe — surging 38% to $25.5 billion. |
That marks Apple's first $25 billion+ quarter in China in four years — and its second-best quarter there on record. CEO Tim Cook credited the turnaround to the iPhone 17 lineup, calling it "the best iPhone quarter in history in Greater China" on the earnings call. The September launch of the latest iPhone drove strong store traffic growth in the region, as well as record numbers of upgrades from older models and "double-digit growth" across customers switching from rival brands. According to Counterpoint Research, iPhones accounted for more than one in five (22%) smartphone shipments in China in Q4 2025, the highest share of any brand and up 28% from the year before. The rebound comes after years of falling sales, weighed down by intensifying competition from local players like Huawei and Vivo, as well as government restrictions on the use of foreign devices by state workers. |
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- Despite strong earnings, Microsoft shares sank 10% on Thursday — the biggest single-day drop since March 2020 — predominantly due to concerns about its soaring capex.
- Money can afjord: Norway's massive ~$2 trillion sovereign wealth fund made a profit of 2.36 trillion Norwegian Krone (~$247 billion) in 2025, thanks mostly to tech and banking stocks.
- TechCreate, a Singapore-based payment software company, has seen its market cap soar from $150 million to more than $3 billion in less than 24 hours… management doesn't know why.
- Spotify said it paid out $11 billion in royalties last year ("roughly 30% of recorded music revenue," per the streaming giant), though how much actually went to artists is unclear.
- Peptide pop? Struggling meat alt company Beyond Meat has unveiled a protein soda as it attempts to move, well, beyond meat.
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- Our colleague Jon Keegan's interactive translation may help you get what MSFT's CEO means when he talks about things like the "heterogeneous and distributed nature" of workloads.
- Just dropped: Trying to chart the best month for new music and movies, by Stat Significant.
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Off the charts: Which animated kids' hit was named America's most streamed series for a second straight year — and which two shows did it beat to secure the top spot? [Answer below]. |
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