Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Tesla hits $1 trillion

Barely four months out of bankruptcy, rental car giant Hertz decided to go big. It put in an order for 100,000 Teslas, a first step in an ambitious plan to jump-start the company’s fortunes while electrifying its rental-car fleet. Shares of Elon Musk’s automaker soared so high that it’s now a $1 trillion company. The man himself, already the wealthiest person on the planet, just got $36 billion richer. For some perspective, consider this: Musk is now worth more than Exxon Mobil. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the coronavirus pandemic and the progress of global vaccination efforts.

But Musk’s good fortune wasn’t enough for some. Cathie Wood’s flagship fund is still underwater for the year even as its top holding broke into 13-figure territory. Tesla comprises about 10% of the $21 billion ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund. While the Tesla spike helped lift it on Monday, the ETF is still down about 2% for the year.

Cathie Wood Photographer: Bloomberg Daybreak/Getty Images

The news for punch-drunk social media giant Facebook keeps getting worse. In March, a group of researchers inside the company compiled a report for its chief product officer, Chris Cox. The paper included a series of charts and data highlighting a grim trend that seemed to be accelerating: Facebook was losing popularity with teens and young adults. Facebook’s investors, however, seem to have been left in the dark.

Few people could have predicted the downward spiral for Alibaba Group when founder Jack Ma delivered his now-famously blunt criticism of China’s financial system. Yet one year on, the technology titan has lost a whopping $344 billion in market capitalization, the biggest wipe-out of shareholder value globally.

Inflation breakevens crossed an important line Friday, John Authers writes in Bloomberg Opinion. Was it also an important line for Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the central bank? 

Not enough is being done to slow the disaster. Despite years of largely unfulfilled pledges and promises, the United Nations—on the eve of a critical summit in Scotland—said the Earth is on track for catastrophic levels of global warming. The result will reshape the planet.

Artists work on a mural near the Scottish Events Centre earlier this month, the venue for the COP26 United Nations Climate Summit starting Oct. 31. Photographer: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Europe

China says it has driven Covid-19 cases back to zero three times over the past five months, but outbreaks are flaring more frequently than ever before, raising questions about how long the nation can persist with a strategy that’s leaving it increasingly isolated. Papua New Guinea urgently needs help from the international community as a surge in cases there overwhelms the Pacific country’s health system. And the virus is more likely to cause rare neurological conditions than vaccines, a study shows. On Sunday alone, there were more than 306,000 new confirmed infections and over 4,200 fatalities. Here’s the latest on the pandemic.

Bitcoin’s surging popularity hasn’t changed one of its original attributes: Its ownership is still concentrated in just a few hands. 

• The SEC is a lot closer to policing the $131 billion stablecoin market.
• These Chinese companies pollute more than entire nations.
• U.S. issues new vaccination and testing rules for travel and entry.
• Biden’s economic agenda package may be back on track again.
• Kremlin-sponsored hackers are still attacking global tech networks.
• Solar energy growth rate slows, thanks to the supply chain crisis. 
• Polish leader raises specter of “World War III” in spat with EU.

Michael Jordan’s earliest known regular season game-worn Nike shoes sold at a Sotheby’s auction in Las Vegas Sunday for $1.47 million, breaking a record for sneakers sold at auction. The shoes were worn in Jordan’s fifth NBA game in his rookie season in 1984, the same year that Nike and Jordan created his signature line of shoes and clothes. 

Michael Jordan during an NBA game in Chicago in 1993.

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