Dominic Preston

When Musk bought Twitter, the banks that backed him were left with almost $13 billion of debt that was quickly branded toxic. Three years on, they’ve mostly made their money back, boosted by Trump’s election and a little help from Elon himself. As one banker put it: “It was a bet on the world’s richest man, and it paid off.”

After the US escalated global trade tariffs, China responded in kind. Most of the tit-for-tat has been paused since, but not the tight controls China issued on rare earth minerals and magnets, used in everything from smartphones to EVs. Those don’t just apply to the US though, and now the EU has warned that some European manufacturers are going to run out of materials in days, which will come at a “very significant cost.”

Never mind its growing EV business, the world’s third biggest smartphone manufacturer is trying to reposition itself as a premium brand to rival Apple and Samsung, and it seems to be working. In its latest earnings report Xiaomi notes its 15 Ultra flagship has sold 90 percent more than last year’s 14 Ultra during its first month or so on sale, and the company now has almost ten percent of the flagship market share in China.

Shipments dropped 76 percent in April 2025 compared to the year before, as those from India grew by the same percentage, according to new figures from Omdia. April’s figures are low overall, but skewed by March’s efforts to rush 600 tons of product into the US before tariffs hit.

After announcing its second browser, Dia, last year, the company stopped developing new features for original breakout Arc. Now CEO Josh Miller explains why, and admits he considered either selling or open-sourcing the software. Neither is on the table right now (because it would require giving up their custom development kit, or “secret sauce”), but “that doesn’t mean it’ll never happen.”