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THE HEADLINES

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WHAT THE MUSK?

Tesla

The Department of Justice is the latest group to announce an investigation into Elon Musk’s “tweet heard round the world,” announcing that he was considering taking Tesla private. At the time, the tweet sent Tesla’s stock soaring.

The DOJ opened a fraud investigation against the Model 3 maker, adding to the civil investigation already in process by the Securities and Exchange Commission. To this point, it appears Tesla has been cooperative with all requests for documentation.

Elon’s laundry list of antics (calling a Thai-cave rescuer a pedophile, smoking weed on Joe Rogan’s podcast, and dating Grimes) has spooked investors. Over the past month, Tesla shares are down 33%

Water Cooler Talking Point: “I’m patiently waiting for Elon’s biopic starring the equally unstable Shia Labeouf.”

POST-MONEY

Think back to the year 2016: Brazil hosted the summer Olympics, Donny Politics was elected President, the UK Brexit-ed the EU, and Postmates was valued at a measly $600M.

Fast forward to today: Postmates raised $300M, led by Tiger Global (kickass name), bringing its valuation to $1.2B (according to Fortune). Scott Schleifer of Tiger Global will join Postmates board of directors.

Postmates is available in over 400 cities, profitable in ninety percent of its markets, and has partnerships with Instacart and Walmart. The courier is completing millions of deliveries every month and its profit margins have improved roughly fifty percent over the past four years.

Postmate’s Publishers-Clearing-House-size-check will help accelerate growth within the US as the company looks towards an IPO in 2019.

Water Cooler Talking Point: “I’m an Uber Eats guy … and for that reason, I’m out.”

PAST DUE

iStockphoto

A long-fought class action suit against Visa, Mastercard, and other financial institutions like JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Bank of America has finally come to an end. The financial institutions have agreed to pay $6.2B to merchants who sued over fees to accept card payments at their stores.

The suit, which originated in 2012, initially awarded a sum of $5.3B to the plaintiffs. However, that settlement was deemed unfair by smaller merchants. Countless legal fees later, David and Goliath settled on the $6.2B figure. An outstanding $900M payout will settle the score … probably.

Visa, which set aside $600M on June 28th for this very outcome, will have paid out a total of $4.1B, while Mastercard has tacked another $108M onto its initial payment of $790M. Many major retailers, like Walmart and Target, had opted out of the settlement as they’re able to negotiate better rates with financial institutions and credit card companies should they not burn bridges.

Water Cooler Talking Point: “Meanwhile AmEx is raking in the cash on hand knit tchotchkes each and every Small Business Saturday. See you on November 24th.”

IN OTHER NEWS

iStockphoto

China has officially clapped back. The People’s Republic responded to US-sanctioned tariffs on $200B worth of Chinese goods with its own set of import taxes on $60B worth of US goods.

Drug mules are sh*t out of luck. Canadian based Tilray just got approval from Uncle Sam to import medical marijuana for clinical trials. The market literally blew a gasket on the news, sending shares up close to 30%.

Execs at Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest bank, are under increasing pressure for their role in what could be Europe’s largest money laundering scandal. New revelations indicate that these master’s of the universe knew about the illicit activity for almost two years before taking any action. One of the bank’s smallest branches processed almost $150B in transactions for (mostly Russian) foreign entities over 8 years. Many of the accounts were linked to characters blacklisted by Russian officials.