Happy Thursday, !

Pick a winner in this week’s world-famous news haiku competition™ in today’s poll.

And now for something completely different.

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

News You Need2Know

• Elon Musk is getting serious about orbital data ce …

• Job cuts surge to highest January total since ‘09

• Tech shares slide for the third straight day

• Who really controls TikTok now? Inside the US spin …

• Who Will Win the Oscars This Year?

• Poll of the day: It’s World Famous 5-7-5™ time!

• Poll of the day: Bezos, ur WaPo job cuts suck!

What’s the stock market up to, eh?

$SPX ( ▲ 0.59% ) $DJI ( ▲ 0.06% ) $NDX ( ▲ 0.97% )

Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter

SpaceX, $UPS ( ▲ 0.32% ) , $AMZN ( ▼ 0.71% ) , $GOOGL ( ▲ 0.32% ) , $QCOM ( ▲ 1.64% ) , $AMZN ( ▼ 0.71% ) , $MSFT ( ▲ 3.23% ) , $ORCL ( ▲ 9.53% )  

Elon Musk is getting serious about orbital data centers

Elon Musk is once again setting his sights beyond Earth. This time it’s with one of his companies, not just his horse tranquilizer habit. He’s got a bold initiative to launch orbital AI data centers. Last week, Musk’s SpaceX filed plans with the FCC for a monumental one-million-satellite data center network, and he’s wasted no time championing the concept publicly. “You can mark my words, in 36 months but probably closer to 30 months, the most economically compelling place to put AI will be space,” Musk declared during Patrick Collison’s podcast Cheeky Pint.

The logic? Space provides optimal conditions for scaling AI infrastructure. According to Musk, “Any given solar panel is going to give you about five times more power in space than on the ground, so it’s actually much cheaper to do in space.” While critics, including podcast guest Dwarkesh Patel, pointed out flaws in Musk’s economic reasoning — like the challenges of servicing hardware in orbit — Musk remains undeterred. He boldly claimed, “Five years from now…we will launch and be operating every year more AI in space than the cumulative total on Earth.”

Supporting this vision is SpaceX’s recent merger with xAI, combining its space expertise with artificial intelligence capabilities. The project also received a boost from an unusual move by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who shared the filing on X (formerly Twitter), hinting at Musk’s favorable regulatory prospects.

Throughout his tenure as chairman, Carr has shown himself eager to help President' Trump’s friends and punish his enemies — so as long as Musk stays on Trump’s good side, the proposal is likely to sail through without issue. The last time Musk got on Trump’s bad side, of course, he wrote on Twitter X (the social media site he’s just merged with SpaceX) that Trump was “in the Epstein files.” So: You never know.

Job cuts surge to highest January total since ‘09

Job cuts in the U.S. soared to their highest level for a January since the financial crisis in 2009, signaling mounting pressures in the labor market. Employment services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported a staggering 108,435 job cuts last month, more than double the 50,000 cuts reported in the same period a year earlier. “Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in the first quarter, but this is a high total for January. It means most of these plans were set at the end of 2025, signaling employers are less than optimistic about the outlook for 2026,” said Andy Challenger, the firm’s chief revenue officer, speaking to the Financial Times.

Separate data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed job openings dipping to 6.5 million in December, the lowest in over five years. Cory Stahle, an economist at Indeed, warned the FT that the labor market is “perilously close to a definitive breaking point.”

Notably, seasonal distortions and industry-specific factors contributed to the grim statistics. UPS’s $UPS ( ▲ 0.32% ) decision to cut 30,000 jobs after splitting with Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 0.71% ) significantly impacted the transportation sector. Technology layoffs also surged, with Amazon alone shedding 16,000 positions.

Though the unemployment rate remains low at 4.4%, Samuel Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, argued that the Federal Reserve “prematurely shifted its focus from the labor market back to inflation.”

The numbers have prompted renewed scrutiny of monetary policy, with Treasury yields falling as investors anticipate possible rate cuts later this year.

Quote of the Day

Tech shares slide for the third straight day

Tech stocks took another hit on Thursday as disappointing jobs data (see above!) added to a sell-off already rattling the software and AI sectors. The Nasdaq Composite fell 1%, marking its third consecutive session of losses and heading toward its worst week in months. The S&P 500 mirrored the drop, fueled by fears of an increasingly fragile labor market and uncertainty surrounding Silicon Valley's AI investments.

Major companies weren’t spared in Thursday’s downturn. Alphabet $GOOGL ( ▲ 0.32% ) slid 2.4% despite solid earnings, as plans to double capital expenditures to $185 billion raised questions about the profitability of AI projects. “The market is getting a natural correction and a test of the AI story,” said George Pearkes, macro strategist at Bespoke Investment Group, talking to the FT.

Adding to concerns, Qualcomm $QCOM ( ▲ 1.64% ) saw a 7.6% drop amid warnings of smartphone production challenges, while Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 0.71% ) and Microsoft $MSFT ( ▲ 3.23% ) fell 4.1% and 3.2%, respectively, as fears over AI disruption deepened.

Song of the Day: Maluma, Kany Garcia, ‘1+1’

Here’s some romantic salsa that celebrates love without fear or guilt. In other words, it’s just like this newsletter.

Who really controls TikTok now? Inside the US spin-off

After years of intense political and legal pressure, TikTok's US spin-off is officially complete, marking a major shift in the platform's control and operational structure. The new entity is a joint venture with a coalition of US investors, including Oracle $ORCL ( ▲ 9.53% ) and Silver Lake, aiming to put the app under more United States-led control. We spoke with Kerry Flynn, Media Reporter at Axios, about the shift.

The ownership is now divided among various US and foreign players. However, this is not a complete break from the past, as ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, "still retains a 20% stake, and they have one board seat,” Kerry said.

For U.S. policymakers, the change directly addresses long-standing concerns over American user data. The new arrangement builds on Oracle's Project Texas, which manages U.S. data. Kelly describes it as giving the U.S. "almost like a full control stake." This is seen as a significant departure "compared to the 100% control that China had in the past."

While the ownership and operational structure have changed, the new leadership is focused on maintaining the user experience. Despite initial malfunctions and user anxieties, the core app remains, and the team intends to "keep the experience very similar," even as the algorithm is updated, Kelly said.

Only 33 people who read this newsletter would admit to being on TikTok, according to a poll we ran on Jan 28. We asked: “Are you into this TikTok thing or what?” And you answered:

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 You're joking, right? Like ha ha, this is a funny joke of a question. No. (666)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I love TikTok and am constantly scrolling on it. (33)

699 Votes via @beehiiv polls

Who Will Win the Oscars This Year?

—This is the latest in a series of guest columns on the business of movies with Grant Keller.

We have a pretty stellar line up of Oscar nominations this year, with the ceremony airing live on March 15 at 7:00 p.m. on Hulu and ABC. The question is: Who will win? And of course, who should win?

Should you check your 401(k) today?

👎️ 

No

Poll of the day: It’s World Famous 5-7-5™ time!

Poll of the day: Bezos, ur WaPo job cuts suck!

We asked: Job cuts at the Washington Post: good or bad?

You answered:

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Print is dead, baby. Long live digital! (22)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Let's take the nuanced view that this really will help them focus on areas where they can compete in a news landscape now dominated by the New York Times. (21)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I think it was particularly classy for them to fire their Amazon reporter. (20)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Jeff Bezos is clearly running the paper into the ground to score political favors and it's totally corrupt and disgusting. (447)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Meh. It's a dog-eat-dog-world out there, baby. I'm not gonna cry over a few fired hacks. (28)
538 Votes

via @beehiiv polls

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