From the Twitter-Musk deal to lockdown fears in Beijing – Here is your April 26 news briefing

From the Twitter-Musk deal to lockdown fears in Beijing – Here is your April 26 news briefing
Elon Musk’s twitter account is seen through the Twitter logo in this illustration taken, April 25, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Twitter OKs Musk’s buyout

Elon Musk landed a deal on Monday evening to buy out Twitter and take it private for a whopping US$44 billion. That’s not just loose change, even for the world’s richest man. Investors will get US$54.20 for each share of the company that they own, which is a 38% jump from the price of Twitter stock the last business day before Elon announced he’d bought stock.

As for the question of what’s next with Twitter, it seems so far that the answer lies with Musk and with him alone. But the Twitter board has said that they think this deal “is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.” The White House doesn’t seem too happy, though, saying that while they won’t comment on an individual transaction, social media platforms have too much power.

Lockdown fears in Beijing

Beijing
FILE PHOTO: A worker in a protective suit collects a swab from a resident at a makeshift nucleic acid testing site during a mass testing for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Chaoyang district of Beijing, China March 14, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang

Beijing has been watching Shanghai city residents experience some of the harshest lockdowns yet imposed by China. But now, after seeing a handful of cases within its own city limits, many are worried that China’s capital will experience a similar fate. China has ordered mandatory testing on most of the city’s population, with officials saying there will likely be more cases in the next few days. Panic buying has well and truly started. Havens like the dollar and treasuries gained, while stocks, commodities and the yuan tumbled over fears of a Beijing lockdown. Oil also sunk below US$98, with a lockdown endangering China’s oil demand.

Global military spending tops US$2 trillion

military spending
FILE PHOTO: Swedish and Finnish tanks are seen during a military exercise called “Cold Response 2022", gathering around 30,000 troops from NATO member countries plus Finland and Sweden, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Evenes, Norway, March 22, 2022. REUTERS/Yves Herman

For the first time ever, global military spending, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has topped US$2 trillion per year, or US$2,113 billion to be more specific. This is up 0.7% in real terms from the year before. Since 2015, this figure has been trending upward.

The head of the SIPRI military expenditure and arms production program said that this has been because of more spending in Europe after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Trump’s pressure on NATO allies to spend more on defense when he was president. And now, with the Ukraine-Russia war, this upward trend will only continue.

Millennials gear up to retire early

person putting coin in a piggy bank
Photo by Joslyn Pickens on Pexels.com

Newsflash – millennials are getting older! But with the gray hair and creaky joints also comes retirement planning, which a new study shows millennials do differently than older generations.

A new Charles Schwab Retirement Reimagined Study shows that millennials are starting to save for retirement nearly a decade earlier than boomers, but they’re less likely to spend a bunch of time managing their money and investments while in retirement than boomers or Gen X. The study also found that while boomers are likely to keep making money while in retirement, millennials are more likely to use their retirement savings to pursue their dream lifestyle.

In other news …

🏛After the Capitol riot, Trump was banned from Twitter and started his own social media platform. Musk has promised free speech. When asked if Trump would come back now that Musk is on, Trump said no. But, US officials are still worried.

🇺🇸🇺🇦The US has pledged US$700 million in military financing to help Ukraine, and according to Antony Blinken, "In terms of Russia’s war aims, Russia has already failed, and Ukraine has already succeeded.”

🛍Meta is going … physical? The company is opening a store in California where they will let people try things like their VR headsets and demo their newly launched smart Ray-Ban sunnies.

💸A thief has stolen millions worth of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs after hacking into the official Instagram account and posting a fake link that transferred tokens out of people’s crypto wallets.

Written and put together by Jake Shropshire, Christine Dulion and Krystal Lai