More workers across the country no longer have to fear bumping into their boss on a night out, but it has nothing to do with their familiarity with the chill neighborhood spots—it’s because the higher-ups are in a different city.

There’s been a rapid increase in long-distance direct reporting since the hybrid/remote work transition as managers concentrate in pricey cities and workers migrate to more affordable metros, according to a new analysis of 1.3 million US workers from payroll company ADP.

According to ADP:

• Thirty-one percent of the people in the study reported to someone living in a different city as of July 2023. That number hovered between 22% and 23% from 2016 to 2020.
• Cities with the highest-value housing markets saw the fastest rise in the number of higher-ups managing nonlocal workers over the past three years.
• Emerging managerial hubs include San Francisco, Boston, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, remote workers further down the chain of command have left the expensive cities they don’t have to live in anymore and relocated to secondary markets like Las Vegas, San Antonio, and Houston.

Not everyone’s happy about it

ADP researcher Issi Romem said the pandemic’s push to remote work expedited the slow-growing phenomenon of “domestic offshoring,” which is when companies hire for lower-paying jobs in lower-income parts of the country and for higher-paying jobs in higher-income areas.

Romem warns that bundled with high housing prices and crawling new construction, this phenomenon could further exacerbate geographic wealth concentration and make some major cities fully inaccessible to anyone who isn’t a manager or above.

Nearer on the horizon…companies are going to have a heck of a time trying to implement return-to-office now that workers have a taste of zip code freedom, one economist told Fortune.—ML

Did you know it takes 10k iPhone batteries’ worth of lithium to make one EV? With over 350m EVs projected to be sold globally by 2030, demand for lithium will soar. Current extraction methods are too slow and inefficient to keep up.

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

They’ve inked deals with top lithium producers like POSCO (who’s building a 100k ton/year plant), secured a $50m strategic investment from GM, and won a $5m DOE grant. They’ve even acquired a 90k-acre mining asset with ~5.5m tons of lithium.

Now, EnergyX is accepting shareholders for a limited time. Become an EnergyX shareholder here.

Columbia suspends student protesters against the war in Gaza. Protesters defied an afternoon deadline set by Columbia yesterday to break up their encampment and agree to follow school rules through the end of the semester, so the school said it began suspending students involved. However, the school did not call in police to clear the area, as the university’s leaders appeared to be trying not to repeat the escalation that occurred after protesters were arrested previously. Protests also continued at several other schools inspired by Columbia, including Cornell, which also suspended some participants, and the University of Texas at Austin, where police arrested demonstrators.

Paramount is bringing the drama as it tries to get acquired. In potential fodder for a future streaming sensation, the politics are heating up at Paramount Global, which announced yesterday that CEO Bob Bakish was stepping down to be replaced by a trio of execs in the “Office of the CEO” as the company weighs a merger with Skydance Media. Bakish had been considered an ally of controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, who is looking to offload the debt-laden company, but broke with her over Skydance’s offer, which he opposed. Ousting Bakish was seen as a way of trying to move the deal forward.

FDA to regulate lab tests. The FDA wants to make sure that if someone is analyzing your blood and urine, it’s worth your time, so the agency finalized regulations yesterday to govern the $10 billion lab test industry. Tests designed by laboratories have long gone without government scrutiny, but the FDA said the time has come to ensure these tests are accurate—though the new standards will be phased in over several years. There are currently about 80,000 medical tests available from ~1,200 labs, per the FDA, and those will mostly be grandfathered in. Still, the industry has pushed back, saying the regulations will inhibit innovation, and could sue to block the rules from taking effect.

Forget anything you heard about business travel being dead: In less than 24 hours, Elon Musk managed to replace talk of Tesla’s recent stumbles with hope for its role as a harbinger of the autonomous vehicle revolution.

Thanks to Musk’s surprise visit to China this weekend, there’s optimism that Tesla’s Full-Self Driving software, or FSD, could finally take off in the company’s second-largest market. While there, Musk handled two huge roadblocks to Tesla’s expansion in the country, proving that not all meetings could be emails after all.

• Musk reached a groundbreaking deal for Tesla with Chinese tech company Baidu, allowing Tesla to use its navigation and mapping services.
• Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y received data-security clearance, ending restrictions that prevented Teslas from entering certain areas of the country.

Tesla’s sales in China have been slipping in the face of fierce competition from domestic EV-makers from which customers have received better self-driving capabilities, but these moves could help level the playing field.

Consider this a lifeline. Tesla recently reported its first quarterly revenue decline since 2020 in addition to missing delivery targets, but investors are throwing those worries out the window like an apple core on a road trip: Tesla’s stock soared more than 15% yesterday.—CC

Never travel the old way again. What makes Wander.com different? They operate 100% of the homes on their platform—so you know you’ll enjoy inspiring views, hotel-grade amenities, dreamy beds, top-tier cleaning, and 24/7 concierge service. Take $250 off your booking when you create an account…and enter to win a free Wander trip.

Shoppers these days increasingly resemble nomadic hunters and gatherers, roaming the land in pursuit of affordable foodstuffs. Inflation is making Americans hit more stores on a typical grocery run, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Grocery prices shot up 21% over the past three years, squeezing household budgets and forcing cost-conscious consumers to use Catan-level strategizing to fill their fridge. Industry observers say shoppers trek to stores in less affluent neighborhoods and shop around for deals.

• The average American bought food at 20.7 stores in the year leading up to February, up from 16.8 in the same period in 2019 and 2020, per Numerator.
• Couponing is in again, with roughly two-thirds of those recently surveyed by Advantage Solutions saying they rely on coupons, up from 33% in 2021.

The thrifty trend has pushed retailers to specialize in select products and double down on store-brand items, which tend to be cheaper, experts told the WSJ.

Who wins? Aldi. Long known as a bargain hunter’s emporium, the German chain beats even Walmart’s prices by prioritizing volume over variety and keeping its overhead low. Aldi’s foot traffic rose 26% in March compared to last year, faster than at Trader Joe’s and grocery giant Kroger, per Placer.ai.—SK

Stat: Chocolate may not be on its way to becoming a bigger luxury flex than watches or handbags after all, as cocoa prices appear to be coming out of their extra-dark phase. Since hitting a record high on April 19, the price of cocoa futures has slumped more than 20%, per Bloomberg. Prices plunged in both New York and London yesterday, creating the commodity’s biggest intraday price drop since 1960 in New York and settling at its lowest price in a month, Bloomberg reports. Driving the slump are traders pulling out as margin requirements have climbed, but some agriculture watchers caution that the bean shortage that caused the high prices remains ongoing.

Quote: “It’s not over until the money is in the bank.”

WeWork told a bankruptcy court that it has found a path forward—one that doesn’t include founder and known shoe-skeptic Adam Neumann. The co-working operator has struck a deal that would let it exit bankruptcy with $450 million in financing and give majority ownership to software provider Yardi, spurning a competing offer from Neumann. Neumann could still challenge the deal, which his attorneys say WeWork reached without engaging with his bid. The judge presiding over the case said he wouldn’t interfere with WeWork’s creditors’ decisions on what negotiations are best for them but that it’s not over until the fat check sings.

Read: Insiders say Bill Gates is still pulling the strings at Microsoft. (Business Insider)