Author: News Room

Tesla became the latest part of Elon Musk’s business empire to make it clear that criticism of the chief executive is unacceptable by firing a manager last month after he objected to a post on social media by Mr. Musk that referred to Nazi leaders.Jared Ottmann, a manager and engineer who worked with Tesla’s battery suppliers, said he had been fired because he criticized Mr. Musk for a post on X that used the names of Nazis like Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring in a series of wordplay.“Stop Göring your enemies,” Mr. Musk wrote on Jan. 23, adding, “Bet you…

In a speech this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, clearly annoyed by import tariffs levied by President Trump and his threats of making Canada “the 51st state,” suggested that Canadians might act individually to respond to the affronts.“Now is also the time to choose Canada,” Mr. Trudeau said, adding, “It might mean changing your summer vacation plans to stay here in Canada and explore the many national and provincial parks, historical sites and tourist destinations our great country has to offer.”In the weeks since, it appears that at least some Canadian citizens are taking his directive seriously.“I’ve decided…

Days before President Trump was inaugurated, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Capital One, accusing it of using deceptive tactics that the bureau said cheated customers out of $2 billion in interest payments on their savings accounts.On Thursday, the bureau abandoned that lawsuit and permanently waived its legal right to ever again pursue the claim.Russell Vought, the director of the White House budget office, has moved swiftly to close the consumer bureau’s offices and decimate the agency since he took control this month as its acting director. The bureau’s staff has been on administrative leave for weeks, barred from engaging…

I am not a coder. I can’t write a single line of Python, JavaScript or C++. Except for a brief period in my teenage years when I built websites and tinkered with Flash animations, I’ve never been a software engineer, nor do I harbor ambitions of giving up journalism for a career in the tech industry.And yet, for the past several months, I’ve been coding up a storm.Among my creations: a tool that transcribes and summarizes long podcasts, a tool to organize my social media bookmarks into a searchable database, a website that tells me whether a piece of furniture…

The geography behind a plan to ship natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska to Asia makes good sense. Alaska has vast stores of gas and is just a little over a week at sea from Asia, which has some of the world’s biggest importers of liquefied natural gas.But those countries have long been wary of the enormous cost of building the infrastructure to make it happen. That has contributed to a decades-long standstill.Now, Asian buyers are giving the Alaska natural gas project a second look.Their pivot was driven not by a change in the underlying economics, but by…

Early on in “The Substance,” the body horror film starring Demi Moore that has been nominated for five Academy Awards, Dennis Quaid grotesquely consumes an endless amount of peel-and-eat shrimp while firing Ms. Moore’s character for the crime of turning 50. Shells fly and sweat collects on his upper lip while he gesticulates wildly with a crustacean wobbling in his fingertips.It was this scene that convinced Efe Cakarel, the chief executive of the niche streaming service Mubi, that he had to buy the audacious horror film. The movie had been left for dead by Universal Pictures after the director, Coralie…

When Saori Kawano arrived in New York City in 1978 from Yokohama, most Americans’ ideas of Japanese food ended at instant ramen and onion volcanoes. Since then, if you’ve enjoyed hand-cut soba noodles or an omakase dinner, or admired the graceful curves of a rice bowl or the flash of a Japanese knife blade, you can probably thank her.Ms. Kawano is the founder and owner of Korin Inc., an importer of knives, kitchen tools and tableware from Japan that has become a place of pilgrimage for restaurateurs since opening in 1982. It’s the main U.S. supplier for big-name chefs like…

A union takes on Tesla over its stock priceAs Elon Musk’s norm-shattering influence in Washington has grown — consider his unprecedented cameo at President Trump’s first cabinet meeting on Wednesday — he has drawn intense scrutiny and opposition.The latest pushback comes from the American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation’s biggest labor unions, with an unexpected line of attack: applying pressure on some of the largest investors in Tesla, DealBook is first to report.The A.F.T.’s leader, Randi Weingarten, is writing to the C.E.O.s of six asset managers: Larry Fink of BlackRock, Abigail Johnson of Fidelity, Ronald O’Hanley of State…

The United States economy is starting to show signs of strain as President Trump’s abrupt moves to shrink federal spending, lay off government workers and impose tariffs on America’s largest trading partners rattle businesses and reverberate across states and cities.Funding freezes and firings of federal workers combined with the prospect of costly trade wars are souring consumer sentiment, raising inflation expectations and stalling business investment plans, according to recent economic surveys.Local economies are also bracing for a sudden withdrawal of fiscal support, forcing officials to contemplate tax increases or municipal bond offerings to stabilize their budgets. While Mr. Trump has…

The Republican Party won the last election in no small part because of its new appeal with working-class voters, a shift that left many in Washington wondering if a sustained political realignment was afoot.But the economic agenda Republicans are now putting together on Capitol Hill would by and large help rich Americans, all while teeing up cuts to programs that provide health care and food to the poor.The disconnect has left some Republicans nervous about whether they are abandoning their newfound base of support. Democrats, eyeing that vulnerability, are hammering Republicans for planning to take from the poor to give…