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This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is all about how Walmart is transforming ordinary store visits into VIP experiences for World Cup tourists. Don’t worry, the World Cup is over this coming weekend, then we can talk about…baseball…or something. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, (today!) for consideration by your Cheddar peers. (Don’t worry if you get a bounceback email. The mailbox is working, it’s just been inundated with haikus lately, thank goodness!)

And now, news!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Table of Contents

• Hyundai Factory Shuts in Humanoid Fight

• Tax Man Will Scrutinize Fleeing CA Billionaires

• Oil Stockpiles Running Low as Iran War Resumes

• IBM Plunges 25% as Customers Shift Spending to AI

• Stripe Offers $53 Billion to Buy PayPal

• Poll of the Day: Taxin-Relaxin’?

• Poll Result of the Day: No Drink Minimum

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▲ 0.38% )  $DJI ( ▲ 0.29% )  $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$HYMTF ( ▼ 7.44% )  $GOOGL ( ▲ 3.17% )  $UBER ( ▲ 0.82% )  $IBM ( ▼ 2.7% )  $PYPL ( ▲ 17.21% )  $STRIZZX ( ▼ 0.1% )  

Hyundai Factory Shuts in Humanoid Fight

Meet Atlas, Hyundai’s new 6-foot-2 bipedal prodigy, made in partnership with robotics firm Boston Dynamics, who can swivel his joints a full 360 degrees. He’s taller than the average human, doesn't need coffee breaks, and boasts a four-hour battery life. Naturally, his human colleagues at the Ulsan factory in South Korea are so thrilled about their incredibly flexible new coworker that they’ve immediately gone on strike.

The union's response to Atlas's flashy trade-show debut in January was not exactly positive. Kwon Taek-hun, a union leader who previously worked in sheet manufacturing, told the Wall Street Journal, “I was really shocked. Many of us thought we’d now arrived at the era of making cars with robots, not human hands.” Labor negotiators are scrambling to catch up, with secretary general Byun Jun-hwan warning, “We have to prepare to ensure there are safeguards in place.” After all, it is hard to compete with a $130,000 plastic-and-metal overachiever that pays for itself in just two years.

But don't worry, South Korea's President, Lee Jae Myung, has a comforting, definitely-not-dystopian metaphor for the workers, declaring it “impossible to avoid the giant chariot that is rolling on.” Meanwhile, across the globe, United AutoWorkers President Shawn Fain is rallying the troops, declaring, “The human race has to master technology, not let it pass for us.”

Hyundai management insists Atlas is merely intended to "work alongside" humans, but the workers aren't buying the "we're just buddies" routine. After talks broke down last week, Hyundai’s workers decided to go on a partial strike. The work stoppages began Monday. They are “refraining” from four hours of work a day, a pullback that could disrupt production of roughly 5,000 vehicles and cut Hyundai’s sales by $134 million, according to industry estimates.

Quote of the Day

Tax Man Will Scrutinize Fleeing CA Billionaires

Right now, Polymarket $PLYRZZX ( ▲ 0.18% ) says there’s a 30% chance of California’s one-off 5% tax on billionaires surviving November’s election. And there is nothing quite like the panic of a flurry of tech elites. In fact, many of them have suddenly discovered a deep, soulful love for low-tax states like Nevada and Texas!

Google $GOOGL ( ▲ 3.17% ) co-founder Sergey Brin bought a mansion on the Nevada shore of Lake Tahoe, while Uber's $UBER ( ▲ 0.82% ) Travis Kalanick and venture capitalist David Sacks claimed Texas residency. But if they think a change of address on a campaign filing is enough to escape the Franchise Tax Board, they are in for a very intrusive reality check.

California tax auditors don't just count the days you spend out of the state; they check where your car is registered, where your bank accounts are, and even where your pet's vet is located. As UC Davis law professor Darien Shanske told the Financial Times, “Sending your assistant to get a driving license in Nevada, spending Christmas at your home in Miami, and writing a mean tweet about California are only moves on paper.”

Billionaires who fled right before the tax date should “100 percent” expect a residency audit, warns Pat Dwyer, co-founder of Aligned Wealth. Dwyer notes that, “Residency is murky and California is really tough... It’s like a game of chess, your lawyers against their lawyers, and it’ll end up in court.”

And what a courtroom drama it will be. Tax attorney Alex Kugelman warns, “If the tax goes through, the FTB will not be afraid to try to collect it. And obviously people of that means will have the top tax litigators. These fights will go all the way.”

So, pack your sentimental items, billionaires. And if your favorite vet is still in Beverly Hills, watch out!

Oil Stockpiles Running Low as Iran War Resumes

Remember that fleeting moment when a ceasefire was signed, oil prices dropped to about $70 a barrel, and we all collectively pretended the Iran war had been solved? Amazingly, the fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran has collapsed, the Strait of Hormuz is closed again, and that short-lived optimism is…gunked up.

This time, the oil market doesn’t think we have any shock absorbers left. During the first round of war, western powers threw everything but the kitchen sink at the problem, releasing record volumes of strategic reserves. But now? As one anonymous oil trader so poetically put it to the FT, “We’ve burned through all of the buffers we had. Everything. All of that’s now gone.”

Yes, gone. Like your hopes of a cheap summer road trip. Oil is back to $80 a barrel and showing signs of being ready to move significantly higher if the Strait of Hormuz isn’t, you know…open…soon.

We are left staring at a closed waterway that normally carries about a fifth of the world's oil. Amrita Sen, director of market intelligence at Energy Aspects, was equally comforting, noting that while we entered the war with roughly 400 million barrels of excess inventory, “Now we have close to nothing. Market complacency around Hormuz flows is being severely tested.”

But don't worry, the market was totally prepared for this. Just kidding. It wasn’t. Joel Hancock, a senior commodities analyst at Natixis Bank, told the FT, “Ultimately, the market was pricing an optimistic flow trajectory that now is clearly not on the table, at least . . . not until we get another round of diplomacy.”

Song of the Day: Masego, ‘Recommend’

"Recommend" by Masego is a smooth, high-energy jazz-funk track that showcases his exceptional talent as a multi-instrumentalist. The song serves as a vibrant, party-ready anthem driven by a heavy, irresistible bass-line.

IBM Plunges 25% as Customers Shift Spending to AI

Meet International Business Machines, $IBM ( ▼ 2.7% ) , the purported basis for the HAL 9000 computer in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick denied it, but then again he also denied faking the moon landings for the U.S. government. So.

IBM would prefer you to think of them now as "Definitely Not Just a Dusty Mainframe Company." That’s because they’ve spent tens of billions of dollars acquiring hip software outfits like Red Hat, HashiCorp, and Confluent to prove they are part of the future. Unfortunately, corporate clients had other ideas. Instead of buying IBM's trusty mainframes, or its fancy software products, customers had a panic-buy episode, racing to scoop up AI computing infrastructure from elsewhere before prices surged.

The result? IBM's shares plunged 25 percent in a single day earlier this week. That is IBM’s biggest drop since at least 1972, easily beating out the dismal performance they recorded during the actual 1987 Black Monday crash.

Chief Executive Arvind Krishna offered a refreshingly blunt assessment of the debacle: “These conditions require our teams to execute perfectly, and this quarter we faltered,” he told analysts. He confessed that IBM “did not adapt and move quickly enough, and numerous large deals failed to close on the timelines we expected, driving the majority of our shortfall.”

Apparently, IBM failed to predict the sheer “magnitude” of the AI stampede as clients scrambled “to secure supply-constrained infrastructure ahead of expected price increases.” To make matters more chaotic, Krishna added that clients were also “distracted” by “rapidly evolving, industry-wide cyber security concerns.”

Translation: Who has time to buy an enterprise mainframe when your entire network might be on fire? IBM bought Confluent in December to “deploy generative and agentic AI better and faster,” but right now, investors are moving even faster — straight to the exit. Oof.

I’m reading Kurt Vonnegut’s book Player Piano this week, incidentally. It’s all about the impact of AI on society, and was written in 1952. It’s mind-blowing how prescient it is. Almost like it was written by a supercomputer.

Stripe Offers $53 Billion to Buy PayPal

Ah, PayPal $PYPL ( ▲ 17.21% ) . Remember 2021? When we were all trapped indoors, buying custom sourdough starters online, and PayPal was riding high at a peak of over $300 a share with a massive $280 billion market value? Good times. Fast forward to last week, and the pioneer of digital payments was sitting at a relatively modest valuation of $42 billion. Naturally, rival processor Stripe $STRIZZX ( ▼ 0.1% ) and private-equity giant Advent decided this was the perfect opportunity to go bargain hunting.

They've made a joint $53 billion bid at $60.50 a share — a tidy 30% premium on the stock’s current price. On the news, PayPal's stock jumped 13%. But don't expect newly appointed CEO Enrique Lores to start packing up his office just yet. Lores, the former HP $HPE ( ▼ 4.38% ) chief who took over in March after some "poor internal execution" led to a profit warning, is already deep into his own DIY project. He’s busy splitting PayPal into three segments, promising to cut costs by $1.5 billion, and laying off a whopping 20% of staff. His grand plan? Cut "unnecessary layers" and spend more on AI to catch up to, well…companies like Stripe.

As William Blair research analyst Andrew Jeffrey told the Wall Street Journal, “We do not think PayPal’s new CEO will likely embrace what could be viewed as a low-ball offer.” Jeffrey suggested that if this “opening salvo” is just a starting point, Stripe and Advent could potentially bid up to $70 a share. Still, he expressed skepticism and openly “questioned the industrial logic of the deal.” I reckon the company might eventually go for $75 a share, based on those noises. Don’t you?

But how will they pay for it? Cash? Or credit?

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Still no, I’m afraid.

Poll of the Day: Taxin-Relaxin’?

Poll Result of the Day: No Drink Minimum

We asked: “What's your ideal drink intake at a ‘session’ with your friends?”

You answered:

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Like many boomers, it's zero, because I'm better than you. (117)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Up to two drinks, sir. (220)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Two to four drinks, mate. (130)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Four to six drinks, dude. (27)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ A reasonable six to eight drinks, bro. (17)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I'm too drunk to answer that question right now or ever, in fact, fool. But it's a lot more than eight lousy drinks. (Belch.) (9)
520 Votes via @beehiiv polls.

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