Apple walks away

Apple is said to be canceling a decade-long bid to build an electric car, abandoning one of the most ambitious forays in the history of the company. Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000 employees working on it. The decision to ultimately wind down the initiative is a bombshell, ending a multibillion-dollar effort called Project Titan that would have vaulted Apple into a whole new industry. The tech giant started working on a car around 2014, setting its sights on a fully autonomous electric vehicle with a limousine-like interior and voice-guided navigation. But now its all over. —David E. Rovella

Canadian pension funds have been among the world’s most prolific buyers of real estate, starting a revolution that inspired retirement plans around the globe to emulate them. Now the largest of them is taking steps to limit its exposure to the most-beleaguered property type—office buildings.

As fears about US commercial real estate roiled German banks this month, their message was clear: don’t worry, the vast majority of our property exposure is domestic. But that may not prove to be a comfort. While the country has so far avoided the rapid market corrections that rattled America, experts argue that reflects arcane accounting practices shielding German lenders and investors from taking immediate hits. Relatively modest adjustments and benign provisions obscure the fact that they are more exposed to commercial real estate than most of their European peers and extended loans more aggressively.

For the better part of a decade, Bryan Riggsbee did what countless other finance chiefs had done when their companies needed money—he borrowed it. Late last year, the chief financial officer at Myriad Genetics took a different tack—selling shares. For CFOs everywhere, what used to be a no-brainer—issuing debt—has turned into a much more calculated decision given sky-high interest rates.

Congressional leaders expressed confidence they could avoid a partial government shutdown after meeting with President Joe Biden, as time runs out to reach a deal. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said lawmakers are on track to approve spending bills to keep agencies open past the March 1 deadline. But the two leaders remain far apart on approving billions of dollars for Ukraine, Israel and the US-Mexico border, with Schumer describing the discussion as “one of the most intense I’ve ever encountered.”

Brazil’s instant-payment system has quickly become a hit at home, with more than 160 million users since it was launched by the central bank in late 2020. Now the plan is to take it global. As policymakers from the Group of 20 nations meet in Sao Paulo this week, Brazil’s central bank is discussing how to make cross-border payments faster and cheaper. It considers its own free-transfer system, known as Pix, part of the answer. Pix now surpasses credit and debit cards as the preferred method of payment in Brazil, sparking interest across Latin America, Europe and Africa.

Swisscom is said to be in advanced talks to acquire Vodafone Group’s Italian business after fending off competition from billionaire Xavier Niel. The Swiss telecom company is hashing out final terms of a deal and could reach an agreement as soon as the coming weeks. It has been discussing an offer of around €8 billion ($8.7 billion) for Vodafone Italy, which would mostly be paid in cash.

Alibaba Group led the largest single financing round for a Chinese artificial intelligence startup, the latest in a string of sizable investments that suggest the e-commerce firm is again deploying capital in the hunt for growth. Alibaba joins Tencent Holdings and Microsoft in placing big bets on generative AI, the technology that powers ChatGPT. Alibaba’s new chiefs, Joseph Tsai and Eddie Wu, have pledged to turn around a flagging company hammered by two years of regulatory scrutiny and an economic downturn. Part of that is its new investment into game-changing technologies such as AI.

For the sake of this review, let’s suspend whatever we think of Elon Musk. A truck this unusual deserves attention unencumbered by the distractions of its creator. The vehicle itself needs no introduction: Tesla has been collecting deposits since 2019 and started delivering the trucks in November. The company hasn’t said how many are out there, but we know that Serena Williams’ husband owns one, as does Pharrell Williams. Contrary to the standard practice for most automakers, Tesla has not lent out the truck for mainstream press reviews. So we rented one.

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