While most of us spent yesterday eating all the candy we planned to give out on Halloween, Elon Musk was busy making auto history. After Hertz ordered 100,000 of Tesla’s electric vehicles, the automaker’s share price jumped 12.7%, giving it a market capitalization of $1 trillion.

Only Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft have entered the four comma club in the US. Facebook hit $1 trillion the fastest of all (within 17 years of being founded), but Tesla is currently worth about $83 billion more than the social media company. It took Tesla 18 years after its founding to reach the milestone.

Tesla + Hertz = Largest Deal EVer

Last spring, when no one was traveling and rental cars sat idle in parking lots, Hertz filed for bankruptcy. But like a phoenix rising from the charred remains of a 2019 Chevy Malibu, the rental car company reorganized and said, “No going home, just going big.”

How big? Hertz’s purchase of the Teslas, reportedly worth $4.2 billion, is the largest EV deal in history. With it, Teslas could make up over 20% of Hertz’s entire fleet while offering the EV-curious more opportunities to test them out. Hertz Interim CEO Mark Fields said that “electric vehicles are now mainstream” and adoption has only just begun.

Zooming out on the auto race

It’s not even close. If we’re measuring by market capitalization, which is used to approximate a company’s worth, Tesla is Lewis Hamilton and the competition is your grandma.

• Tesla is worth as much as 19 other automakers, including Toyota, GM, Honda, and Nissan, combined.
• Tesla’s value is 15x higher than Ford’s, even though Ford brought in $115+ billion more in revenue last year.

Tesla’s wide lead over its rivals shows that investors believe the future of the auto industry lies in electric vehicles, and that Elon Musk’s company is poised to capture a big chunk of that market.

As for Mr. Musk...he’s shopping with the price filter set high to low. Thanks to Tesla’s surging share price, Musk’s fortune increased by $25.6 billion yesterday to hit $255.2 billion—richer than any billionaire Forbes has ever tracked.—MM

Thousands of pages of leaked research. Reports blaring of an “existential crisis.” Apple’s privacy updates hurting ad visibility. And yet, the Zuck machine keeps growing.

Facebook said Q3 revenue increased 35% from last year, and that 3.58 billion people worldwide use its apps, up 12% from the year prior. Investors sent shares up nearly 2% after hours, relieved that FB continues to grow sales and users despite its regulatory and PR nightmares.

About those PR nightmares: Dozens of publications have been releasing damning reports of the company’s practices based on documents provided by whistleblower Frances Haugen. An agitated CEO Mark Zuckerberg labeled it a “coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company” on the earnings call.

Looking ahead...Zuck knows he’s getting creamed by rivals like TikTok in engaging younger users, so he said the company will be “retooling” its products over the next few years to make “serving young adults the north star, rather than optimizing for older people.”—NF

The infinite vastness of space, now with kombucha on tap. Yesterday, Blue Origin unveiled plans to launch Orbital Reef, a private space station it describes as a “mixed-use business park,” between 2025 and 2030.

Think of Orbital Reef as a kind of “Starship WeWork”—the station’s design will feature separate quarters for living and working, enabling it to be leased out for work, research, and tourism. It would be nearly as spacious as the International Space Station and be habitable for up to 10 people.

Blue Origin isn't free soloing this project: Its primary partner is Sierra Space, a subsidiary of the Sierra Nevada Corporation (not to be confused with the pale ale). Blue Origin will launch Orbital Reef and provide its utility systems, while Sierra Space will transport cargo and crew to and from the station.

Other private space stations are also in the works. Space startup Nanoracks announced plans to help replace NASA’s orbital laboratory with its Starlab station in 2027, and Axiom plans to launch a module to attach to the ISS in 2024 (and eventually separate from it as the station is retired).—MK

Stat: Alibaba founder Jack Ma criticized Chinese financial regulators in a bombshell speech on October 24, 2020. In the year since, the e-commerce giant lost $344 billion in market cap, the biggest drop in value of any company in the world, Bloomberg reports.

Quote: “We are way off track.”

That’s how the head of the UN’s World Meteorological Organization described the findings of a new climate report, which showed that greenhouse gas concentrations hit a record high in 2020...despite pandemic lockdowns.

Read: What’s the deal with fictional influencers? (Vox)

Gone are the days of companies started in garages. Now, they begin as YouTube channels full of Call of Duty killshot videos and eventually become unicorns.

That’s the story of FaZe Clan, at least. The esports/gaming culture company will go public via SPAC at a $1 billion valuation.

Pretty influential: FaZe Clan claims to have a community of 350 million across its social channels, with 80% of the members between the ages of 13–34. And it’s partnered with basically every company under the sun hungry to reach that youthful audience: McDonald’s, DC Comics, General Mills, and Champion, to name a handful.

But FaZe’s recognizable partnerships don’t stop at brands. The company’s part-owners include Pitbull, Offset, skateboarder Nyjah Huston, and NBA stars Ben Simmons and Jamal Murray.

Last year, the company announced the creation of an entertainment studio called FaZe Studios, focused on feature films and scripted TV that gels with the “aspirational gaming lifestyle” brand.

FaZe Clan will hit the Nasdaq in 2022 with the ticker symbol (what else) FAZE.—MK

Data viz: Watch the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the US in 60 seconds.

Tech Tip Tuesday: For when charts get too cumbersome, check out this Excel hack that fits graphs in a single cell (h/t Money Scoop).

Brew’s Bookshelf: Every other week, Brew’s Bookshelf brings you a few of our favorite reads:

• Max Chafkin profiles the controversial tech mogul Peter Thiel in The Contrarian.
• For a deep dive into the US’ response to Covid-19, read Michael Lewis’s latest, The Premonition.

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Brew Mini: What do Zendaya and a cosmopolitan ingredient have in common? They both show up in today's Mini. Play it here.

Road Trip Trivia

The World Series between the Houston Astros and the Atlanta Braves starts today. On the drive from Houston to Atlanta, you will pass by two universities in the SEC. Can you name both?