The website that Mark Zuckerberg started in his dorm room turns 20 tomorrow, and it’s already received the biggest birthday present in market history.

Meta’s stock rose 20% yesterday to a record $474.99, adding $197 billion to the Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp parent company’s valuation (which is now $1.22 trillion). It’s the most market value any US company has ever gained in a single day, according to Bloomberg.

Here’s what drove the surge:

• Meta released an absolute banger of a Q4 earnings report on Thursday, showing that it tripled its profits compared to the same period the year before and recorded its fastest rate of revenue growth since 2021, which indicates a comeback for online advertising, CNBC reported.
• The company also announced that it will begin paying out 50-cents-per-share quarterly dividends for the first time and is planning a $50 billion share buyback. Investors say these are good signs for the company’s outlook and cash reserves, marking its transition into a mature business.

The stock rally is going to pay for a lot of hoodies: As the owner of ~350 million shares of Meta, Zuck added $28.1 billion to his net worth yesterday and stands to gain ~$700 million each year from the dividend.

The ‘year of efficiency’ paid off

Two years ago today, Meta was in a completely different situation. The company recorded the largest single-day crash in stock market history—wiping out ~$250 billion in value—and Zuck was burning money trying to make the metaverse a thing, which worried shareholders.

He decided to make some major changes and labeled 2023 the “year of efficiency”—doubling Meta’s operating margin and reducing expenses by consolidating offices and laying off 22% of workers.

Looking ahead…investors are especially interested in Meta’s GPT-4 competitor, LLaMA, according to CNBC. And with the company’s current success, they may be okay with Zuck continuing to prop up his metaverse/VR division, which lost $16.1 billion last year and seeks to compete in a space that Apple’s Vision Pro may soon dominate.—ML

Lithium is essential for batteries in electric cars, renewable energy storage, and even smartphones. That’s why demand for lithium is projected to grow 20x by 2040.

So when EnergyX revealed that their technology could extract 300% more lithium than traditional methods, investors everywhere took note—General Motors included.

GM is the lead investor in EnergyX’s $50m funding round. And you can join them. That means you have the unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a company just as they’re set to unlock the US lithium supply.

Don’t miss your chance: EnergyX’s $8/share price is changing on Feb. 8. Lock in your $8/share price by becoming an EnergyX shareholder here.

The job market is hotter than the Last Dab. The US economy added 350,000 jobs in January—about double what economists had expected. The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%, meaning it’s been below 4% for two years and, according to CNN, you’d have to go back to when President Nixon was in office to see it stay that low for that long. While that’s good news for working Americans and job seekers, it probably means Jerome Powell and Co. won’t be in any rush to cut interest rates since it doesn’t appear the economy is cooling down.

US launches retaliatory strikes on Iran-backed militias. Yesterday, the US began a series of airstrikes, hitting targets in Iraq and Syria in response to the drone attack in Jordan that killed three US soldiers. The strikes are likely to continue for days as the Biden administration tries to balance its efforts to hit back at Iran-supported militant groups without escalating the conflict in the Middle East into a larger war or engaging Iran directly. The US has pinned the blame for the Jordan attack on Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Iran-backed militias.

DA prosecuting Trump in Georgia admits relationship with colleague. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis admitted yesterday to a “personal relationship” with Nathan Wade, the prosecutor she hired to run the case accusing former President Donald Trump of interfering with the 2020 presidential election. This came a month after one of Trump’s codefendants claimed she and Wade had an improper relationship and asked that Willis’s entire office be removed from the case. Despite the admission, Willis insisted that it should not disqualify her and that she reaped no financial benefit from hiring Wade.

Watch and learn, Kim Jong Un: The self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator,” El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, is expected to win reelection in a landslide tomorrow.

Bukele is best known globally for making bitcoin legal tender in his country and for having the Central American nation host flashy events, like last year’s Miss Universe pageant. But that’s not why the millennial hypebeast has a 71% lead, according to one poll.

Tough on crime

Bukele owes much of his popularity to a brutal, draconian crackdown on violent gangs that had plagued the nation for years:

• At least 70,000 suspects (over 1% of El Salvador’s population) have been thrown behind bars under an ongoing state of emergency that doesn’t require due process.
• Homicides in El Salvador dropped almost 70% last year, and now other countries in the region want to replicate Bukele’s iron-fisted measures.

But Bukele isn’t just fighting crime. He’s also alarming democracy watchdogs by changing the country’s election system and filling its top court with loyalists who have reinterpreted the Constitution to allow him to run for a second term.

The economy isn’t doing so hot…the nation’s $120 million bitcoin portfolio looks like it might finally be in the green, and El Salvador’s tourism industry is growing. But economic growth is slow, and nearly half the population experiences food insecurity.—SK

If you didn’t have a Spotify subscription, you used to have to rely on your loudest cousin to recap episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience. You still can if you want to, but when the streamer renewed its deal with its top podcaster for $250 million, according to the WSJ, there was one big change: It will no longer be exclusive to Spotify.

That means last year’s most popular podcast on Spotify will also be available on Apple, Amazon, and YouTube.

Joe Rogan isn’t the only host to break out of Spotify’s audio box. Alex Cooper, host of the platform’s second most popular podcast, Call Her Daddy, just signed a new deal that allows her show to stream on other platforms, too.

Spotify is ready to start sharing. Spotify is scrapping its exclusivity model to garner a wider audience for shows and snag more ad revenue. This is…ironic, considering union leaders for Gimlet and Parcast blamed the platform’s exclusivity model for starving its podcasts of audience growth when the company conducted layoffs in 2022.

Bottom line: Spotify’s podcast arm has a history of hemorrhaging cash, but CFO Paul Vogel is expecting the business to break even this year.—MM

Stat: The latest industry being transformed by AI? Government lobbying. No, lobbyists aren’t having ChatGPT draft pitches to Congress (that we know of), but they are getting plenty of cash from companies that want a say in how the tech is regulated. More than 450 organizations got involved with federal AI-related lobbying last year, representing a 185% spike from 158 in 2022, according to data that OpenSecrets analyzed for CNBC. This could be an example of AI creating jobs, as the organizations pushing AI agendas disclosed that they spent a combined $957 million lobbying on issues pertinent to their business, AI included.

Quote: “There’s sadness in leaving, but I’m just too curious about what’s next.”

Sam Waterston will soon cut his last deal as Jack McCoy. The veteran actor announced yesterday that he’s exiting Law & Order after 400+ episodes. Waterston, whose last episode will air on Feb. 22, was a part of the OG L&O franchise since its fourth season in 1994 and returned for the more recent reboot. He’ll be replaced in his fictional district attorney role by actor Tony Goldwyn, but those are some big eyebrows to fill.

Read: Fat, sugar, trash: All the weird things that may fuel planes by 2050. (Washington Post)

Watch: This video of new NYC garbage trucks proves that sometimes the soundtrack is everything.

Imagine dragons: The best fantasy novels of all time.

Burger business: A map of how much a Big Mac costs across the US.

Avoid the crowds: Where to travel this year and still have elbow room.

Every season is recruiting season: Join HR pros to hear insights for a smoother road to hiring this year at HR Brew’s virtual event.