- Chinese buyers downplay Japan tensions at auto show Reuters
- Japanese carmakers taking biggest hit from new Chinese entrants Fleet News
- Japanese carmakers face difficulties in Chinese market news.cgtn.com
- International Business: Chinese buyers downplay Japan tensions at car show Gdnonline
- Japanese manufacturers “losing ground” to Chinese entrants motortrader.com
Category: 3. Business
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Chinese buyers downplay Japan tensions at auto show – Reuters
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Differences in the utilization of physical therapy for outpatients with non-specific shoulder pain labels and specific shoulder pain labels | BMC Health Services Research
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Barreto RPG, Braman JP, Ludewig PM, Ribeiro LP, Camargo PR. Bilateral magnetic resonance imaging findings in individuals with unilateral shoulder pain. J Shoulder Elb Surg. 2019;28(9):1699–706. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jse.2019.04.001.
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Miranda H, Viikari-Juntura E, Heistaro S, Heliövaara M, Riihimäki H. A population study on differences in the determinants of a specific shoulder disorder versus nonspecific shoulder pain without clinical findings. Am J Epidemiol. 2005;161(9):847–55. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwi112.
Weber S, Chahal J. Management of rotator cuff injuries. J Am Acad Orthop Surg. 2020;28(5):e193–201. https://doi.org/10.5435/JAAOS-D-19-00463.
Kelley MJ, Shaffer MA, Kuhn JE, et al. Shoulder pain and mobility deficits: adhesive capsulitis: clinical practice guidelines linked to the international classification of Functioning, Disability, and health from the orthopaedic section of the American physical therapy association. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2013;43(5):A1–31. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2013.0302.
van den Dolder PA, Ferreira PH, Refshauge KM. Effectiveness of soft tissue massage and exercise for the treatment of non-specific shoulder pain: a systematic review with meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med. 2014;48(16):1216–26. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2011-090553.
Peek AL, Miller C, Heneghan NR. Thoracic manual therapy in the management of non-specific shoulder pain: a systematic review. J Man Manip Ther. 2015;23(4):176–87. https://doi.org/10.1179/2042618615Y.0000000003.
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Cadogan A, McNair PJ, Laslett M, Hing WA. Diagnostic accuracy of clinical examination and imaging findings for identifying subacromial pain. PLoS ONE. 2016;11(12):e0167738. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0167738.
Somerville LE, Willits K, Johnson AM, et al. Clinical assessment of physical examination maneuvers for rotator cuff lesions. Am J Sports Med. 2014;42(8):1911–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/0363546514538390.
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Feleus A, Bierma-Zeinstra SMA, Miedema HS, Verhaar JAN, Koes BW. Management in non-traumatic arm, neck and shoulder complaints: differences between diagnostic groups. Eur Spine J. 2008;17(9):1218–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-008-0710-1.
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Fiscal policy and growth in Europe
Keynote speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, in the session “Central Banks in a Changing World” at the European Meeting of the Trilateral Commission in Vienna, Austria
Vienna, 22 November 2025
It is a pleasure to be here in Vienna.
The relationship between central banks and governments has evolved substantially over the centuries.
Historically, central banks were often created to provide governments with financing.[1] But if monetary history teaches us one lesson, it is that central banks kept under the thumb of the state tend to generate inflation.
This insight emerged only gradually.
In the early 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte – who founded the Banque de France – is said to have acknowledged that a central bank should serve the state, but not be excessively dominated by it.[2] Well, that was a start at least.
Over time, however, and especially in the second half of the 20th century, recognition grew that the more operationally independent a central bank became, the lower and less volatile inflation outcomes were. This relationship is well established in the empirical literature.[3]
But there is always the concern that a short-sighted government may be tempted to try to force the hand of a central bank to finance its debt – despite the lessons of history.
This concern tends to surface when public debt is elevated, as it is today in a number of jurisdictions.
Indeed, this afternoon’s session asks the question of whether central banks may someday face a regime of fiscal dominance – in which governments burdened with large current or future spending needs compel them to provide finance regardless of the inflationary consequences.
Today, I will begin by looking at Europe’s experience with monetary–fiscal interactions in recent years. I will then turn to the fiscal challenges ahead and discuss the ways in which Europe can mobilise its flexibility and collective strength to support higher growth.
The experience of monetary policy and fiscal policy in recent years
When we look at the policy actions taken in the euro area in recent years, the narrative of fiscal dominance does not hold.
During the pandemic, monetary policy and fiscal policy worked hand in hand to help lift the economy out of the state of emergency.
The ECB carried out large-scale bond purchases to safeguard price stability, while governments increased debt to finance furlough schemes and other support instruments.[4]
Together, these measures were successful in stabilising the economy and putting the conditions in place for a fast recovery. Real activity in the euro area returned to its pre-pandemic level within seven quarters, compared with 29 quarters after the global financial crisis.[5]
But they also left Europe with higher debt levels. At its peak in early 2021, public debt as a share of euro area GDP had risen by around 15 percentage points relative to its pre-pandemic level.[6]
Yet the ability of monetary policy to pursue its mandate in full independence has not been constrained by fiscal policy.
This was clearly demonstrated when, confronted with the largest inflation shock in a generation, we increased rates at a record pace – the sharpest tightening of monetary policy in our history.[7] Inflation fell dramatically and, today, is close to our 2% target.
We also reduced the size of our balance sheet through quantitative tightening, reinforcing the stance of our monetary policy.[8] Our monetary policy securities portfolio has already declined by over €1.1 trillion from its peak.[9]
At the same time, there has also been a significant improvement in primary balances.
After dropping sharply in 2020 owing to the pandemic, the euro area primary balance improved by more than 4 percentage points of GDP by 2024, albeit with considerable variation across Member States.[10]
Perhaps most importantly, the ECB’s independence is unchallenged. We have one of the strongest and most clearly defined forms of central bank independence in the world, firmly anchored in the EU Treaties.
A different kind of fiscal challenge in the euro area
In fact, when I think about monetary-fiscal interactions, I see a different type of problem in Europe.
Public debt levels in the euro area remain elevated and need to come down. But the main challenge I see is not that governments widely fail to respect the fiscal rules.
Rather, it is that governments need to place greater emphasis on spending that supports potential growth and key strategic priorities while consolidating their budgets.
For example, the new EU fiscal rules give countries the opportunity to extend their fiscal adjustment period to as long as seven years if they commit to public investment and structural reforms that strengthen productivity and long-term growth.
But only seven out of 20 euro area countries have chosen this path.[11]
This can lead to a situation that has been called “fiscal stagnation”, where the measures taken to consolidate public finances weaken growth potential, leading to still more need for consolidation, in what can become a vicious circle.[12]
All this matters for central banks – not because of fiscal dominance in the classical sense – but because it can trap the economy in a low-growth equilibrium. This can make the central bank’s job harder in various ways.
A scenario of persistently low productivity growth, for instance, can put downward pressure on the natural rate of interest. That can limit how far central banks can cut rates, as we saw during the pre-pandemic era. At the same time, weak potential growth can also keep inflation higher than it would otherwise be.
By contrast, a scenario of stronger productivity growth can make the central bank’s job easier. In ageing societies, for example, faster productivity growth may moreover be key to compensate for shrinking labour supply and avoid upward wage pressures.
Now, one of the main reasons that governments are deprioritising productive spending over current spending is the pressure to sustain Europe’s social model and support ageing societies in the short run.
Yet it is precisely this productive spending that will enable Europe to generate the productivity gains needed to sustain its social model and its ageing population in the long run.
The goal should be to foster a virtuous circle in which productive spending raises productivity growth. Higher productivity, in turn, strengthens potential growth. That would put Europe’s social model on a stronger and more sustainable economic footing.
Mobilising Europe’s flexibility and collective strength
I see three ways in which Europe can rise to the challenge of achieving this goal.
First, countries should use the flexibility that the fiscal rules allow.
For example, if Member States reallocated just 1% of GDP more of existing public spending to research and development and another 1% to education, the productivity and growth gains could be sizeable: one study finds that, together, these shifts could boost output by around 6% over the long run.[13]
This should mean that, by the end of the seven-year adjustment period, government debt would be on a more sustainable path supported by higher potential growth, not higher taxes or cuts to productive expenditure.
Second, Europe should deploy its collective resources more efficiently.
Rather than each government reallocating existing national spending in isolation, we should explore ways to pool resources in high-multiplier areas where there are cross-border benefits and clear returns to scale can be achieved.
As it happens, these are often strategic areas where Europe must strengthen its capabilities anyway – such as research and development to drive innovation and defence to deter hostile actors.
We know what is possible when Europe puts its mind to it.
An example of this is the European Organization for Nuclear Research – CERN – established back in the 1950s.
By pooling national resources, European countries were able to pursue high-energy physics research at a scale and over time spans that individual countries could not have financed alone.[14]
This joint initiative has produced major breakthroughs, notably the creation of the World Wide Web, as well as technological advancements in medical imaging and autonomous driving with artificial intelligence.
More recently, in March this year, the European Commission launched Readiness 2030, an initiative that helps to pool defence procurement across EU countries.
Under the initiative, €150 billion will be mobilised for investments in pan-European capability domains – such as air and missile defence, artillery systems, and anti-drone systems.[15]
Third, there is strong potential to use EU budget instruments to mobilise private capital.
Europe faces unprecedented investment needs to finance the green, digital and defence transitions. Together, these are estimated to require an additional €1.2 trillion of spending per year between now and 2031.[16]
These vast amounts cannot be borne by the public sector alone, so private investment will need to contribute substantially. While deeper capital-market integration is essential to unlock this private investment, well-designed EU programmes can play an important complementary role.
For instance, ECB research finds that the European Structural and Investment (ESI) funds – de facto the EU’s primary investment vehicle – generate significant crowding-in effects. Every euro of ESI funding has been matched by €1.10 of private investment.[17]
Further ECB analysis shows that ESI-funded firms steadily increased their capital stock and experienced long-lasting gains in productivity.[18]
Leveraging the synergies between targeted public investment and private finance will likely prove critical if Europe is to meet its investment needs and boost potential growth.
If Member States and the EU make full use of these three opportunities, Europe could combine the best of both worlds: strengthening productivity growth while preserving its social model.
In parallel, it would also reduce the risk of fiscal dominance emerging in the future.
Conclusion
Let me conclude.
The composer Johann Strauss II is said to have remarked “If only I had more time; the ideas come faster than I can write them down.”
I have no doubt that the beauty of this city was a constant source of inspiration to this famously creative son of Vienna.
We all do what we can with the time given to us – and Strauss, it is fair to say, used his exceptionally well. I have used the time given to me this afternoon to offer several ideas on how Europe can best leverage its flexibility and collective strength to support higher growth.
Crucially, each idea is within the realm of possibility – as there are already important precedents that demonstrate what is possible. Just as Strauss transformed inspiration into enduring works, Europe too can turn these opportunities into the growth needed to sustain its social model.
Thank you.
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Pinterest is leaning hard into AI. The strategy appears to be backfiring
New York
—
Abigail Wendling, 23, uses Pinterest to curate everything in her life, from recipes to wallpapers. At least until she saw a one-eyed cat when searching for a wallpaper. In another instance, a search for healthy recipes turned up a puzzling image showing a slice of cooked chicken with seasonings sprinkled inside it.
These posts were created by generative AI, which is quickly overtaking the photo-first platform. Pinterest, like other social media platforms, has grappled with a flood of AI slop since the launch of ChatGPT’s Sora video generation tool in 2024. The company has taken proactive steps to curb the content for users who don’t want it.
But the presence of generative AI has struck a chord with Pinterest’s creative community, with users telling CNN that they feel unheard as the company’s C-Suite goes all in on the burgeoning technology.
“It makes me want to put my phone down and do something else,” said Wendling, who also uses Instagram and TikTok. “I would say Pinterest has the most AI-generated photos and videos out of every social media app I’m using right now … I have to look over everything with a microscope now.”
Diving headfirst into AI has been a priority for Pinterest CEO Bill Ready, who took over the company in 2022. The former Venmo and Braintree leader has rebranded Pinterest “from a platform of window shopping” to “an AI-powered visual-first shopping assistant” in its latest earnings call this month. And it’s not alone: Pinterest joins Google, OpenAI and Amazon in a push to revamp the online shopping experience with AI.
Pinterest logged 600 million global monthly active users, half of which are Gen Z and many of whom use it for shopping inspiration. Its third-quarter revenue recently grew 17% year-over-year to $1 billion.
Artificial intelligence, a technology that Silicon Valley is racing to adapt and monetize, is at “the heart of the Pinterest experience,” he said.
What that means for Pinterest users is the stress of trying to navigate AI slop, more advertisements and less content they want to see on the platform, users told CNN.
“I want to see art that a human being has put time and effort into, not some gorge spit out by someone who typed a few words into an image generator,” Amber Thurman, a 41-year-old Pinterest user from Illinois, said to CNN.
Over the past year, Pinterest has responded to user complaints. It rolled out a “tuner” last month to adjust how much AI content users want to see and was an early adoptor in labeling Gen AI images on its platform earlier this year.
“While many people enjoy GenAI content on Pinterest, we know some want to see less of it,” a Pinterest spokesperson said in an email to CNN, adding: “Pinterest prioritizes high-quality content and what is inspirational to our users – whether it’s AI-generated or not.”
However, Pinterest users who spoke to CNN said they no longer recognize the app they signed up for and argue that the platform hasn’t kept up with the daily flood of AI content. The tools to limit AI, they argue, aren’t enough.
“There’s not a precise ability for any platform to catch 100% of what is AI-generated,” Ready said in the earnings call.
Pinterest once served as a haven from fast-talking commentary on TikTok, life updates from former classmates on Instagram and relatives arguing over politics on Facebook.
Founder Ben Silbermann told CNN in 2019 that the platform’s primary goal was to inspire users. Users curated mood boards and pinned cookie recipes. Creatives and artists flocked to the app to find real-life design inspiration.
But in 2025, tech giants are racing to capitalize on a technology that some have called as impactful as the smartphone or the internet itself. And that includes finding new ways to monetize. AI.Meta, for example, will soon start using user conversations with its AI assistant to inform targeted ads.
For Pinterest, its future hinges on AI-powered shopping. Its algorithm pinpoints products for users based on their searches in the app.
In its latest quarter, the number of people clicking on advertiser links grew by 40% compared to the year before and has increased by more than five times in the last three years, according to earnings reports. The company is doubling down on that momentum by introducing more AI features, such as a shopping assistant users can converse with that acts as “a best friend,” the company said.
However, some long-time users are not buying Pinterest as a shopping ad.
Hailey Cole, a 31-year-old creative director from California, began using Pinterest’s competitor Cosmos for design inspiration recently. She said she’s never purchased anything from the platform and is worried that Pinterest’s AI content may be stealing intellectual property, as she said it happened to her. Pinterest’s policy states it will take down accounts of those who repeatedly infringe on copyright or intellectual property.
“I’ve heard the CEO say (Pinterest is a shopping app); I don’t know where he came up with that… I think that’s him more just envisioning or manifesting,” Cole said.
Wendling said she worries about authenticity on Pinterest. With the sheer amount of fake content on the platform, even if she sees something she likes, she said she would go to another site and buy it.
Users will have to “live with both” slop and new technology as companies work to monetize the technology, Jose Marichal, a professor of political science at California Lutheran University, told CNN.
Pinterest’s leaders certainly are.
Over time, AI will follow a similar trajectory to Photoshop, Ready said. “Almost every piece of content you see will have been at a minimum edited by AI in some form or another.”
But that approach could jeopardize the authentic feel that drives users to the platform in the first place.
AI-generated posts often lead to off-platform websites that profit off affiliate marketing, Casey Fiesler, associate professor of information science at the University of Colorado Boulder, told CNN.
For example, one of the first search results for “chocolate chip cookie recipe” on Pinterest led to a photo of the dessert. The post linked to a different site that was riddled with ads and had an AI-generated image of a chef. The recipe itself matched almost exactly to a ChatGPT query asking for “the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever.”
On an algorithm-driven social media site, the one thing that users can control is their own engagement with AI content. Even leaving a hate comment or sending it to a friend as a joke can signal to the algorithm that you want to see more of that content, Fiesler said.
Media literacy is also more important than ever as users will need to sniff out slop on their own.
“These platforms are looking to gain short-term metrics, but they are degrading user experience and long-term trust,” said Tony Sampson, senior academic at the University of Essex.
So far, the users that spoke to CNN have been cutting down on their Pinterest usage. While some are moving to new apps like Cosmos, others are finding themselves back on older sites like Tumblr.
“For something like Pinterest in particular, I imagine it makes people a little sad,” Fiesler said. “They used to see a lot of human-created content that they found inspiring, and now it’s just a lot of very non-human, perhaps not inspiring content.”
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Customs Reform Needed As Import Rules Change
Responding to news of the Government’s plan to widen customs charges to low value goods entering the UK, William Bain, Head of Trade Policy, said:
“This has been on the cards for a while as the US has already made this change and the EU will do so at the start of January.
“If the UK did not follow suit, then it would risk significant trade diversion of goods from China as they would become more expensive to sell in those other markets.
“There will be winners and losers from this move. Many High St and online retailers have complained about unfair competition from Chinese manufacturers which can significantly undercut them.
“The Treasury estimates that almost £6bn of goods that currently enter the UK without having to pay customs duties would be covered by this change. That would raise at least an extra £500m for the Exchequer every year.
“On the losing side are regional airports, which have been major beneficiaries of the surge in freight flights carrying these goods from China. Airports like Prestwick and Bournemouth have seen a big rise in freight traffic from China and additional work as a result.
“In making these changes from 2029 it is important the Government keeps a level playing field with the EU and US to maintain our strong trade ties.
“But in a world of increasing trade complexity the government should use this opportunity to make more comprehensive customs reforms.
“To grow our economy, we must make it quicker, simpler and cheaper to bring in and export goods from the UK. The EU is already conducting the biggest customs reforms in a generation, and the US is changing the role of its customs agencies too.
“The UK needs a modernised rulebook, the rollout of digital trade corridors with a wide range of trading partners, a clear timeline for a Single Trade Window, and better customs co-operation with the US and EU.
“These changes on customs duty charges should be part of that, so all businesses benefit from lower costs and greater efficiency in trade.”
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Politics, crime and conspiracy content
Elon Musk can’t stop posting about the political fringe.
In recent weeks, the world’s wealthiest person used X to post about immigrants to Britain, saying they will cause the country’s collapse. He posted about examples of violent crime in Minnesota and South Carolina — where he does not live — and about judges in California and New York he believes are too lenient. Musk also smeared trans people, complained about Black-on-white crime, stoked fear about the end of civilization and shared his thoughts about the race of child actors.
Musk posted about all those topics and more in a recent one-month period, during which NBC News tracked and analyzed all of his posts for an in-depth look at where the tech billionaire focuses his attention online.
Musk left his role in the second Trump administration in May to focus on his companies, and since then he has continued to share a torrent of content on his social media site. Between Sept. 17 and Oct. 17, Musk posted, replied to or shared content 1,716 times on his X account — about 55 times a day, on average.
Some of his messages invoke extreme ideas, like the antisemitic “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which says there is a top-down plot organized by Jewish people to replace the white populations of the United States and Europe with nonwhite people. Musk backed the same false theory two years ago, causing a backlash among X advertisers. Though he later said he was “aspirationally Jewish” and not antisemitic, he continues to share the conspiracy theory. He also shared the baseless conspiracy theory that the FBI staged the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
An NBC News analysis of his online activity shows that while Musk may have shifted some of his day-to-day attention back to his companies, his public presence on X is a mix of promoting his business and weighing in on issues that are typically the focus of the far right.
Nearly half of his posts, 49%, during the period reviewed by NBC News were about politically charged topics. NBC News classified a post as political if it related to a government official, a political commentator or a policy debate.
Musk’s presence on X serves to maintain his political influence as he considers whether and how to become involved in the 2026 midterms or the presidential campaign that will follow.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment on the NBC News analysis.
“He can make himself inescapable,” said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego.
“Regardless of his links at any time to Donald Trump or to Democrats, he still has the potential to capture eyeballs and thus potentially votes,” he said.
About 41% of his posts during the same time period were about his companies. His AI startup, xAI, was his most frequent business topic, coming up in 21% of his posts. He touched on automaker Tesla in about 11% of posts and on rocket company SpaceX about 6% of the time.
Taken together, the posts offer a near real-time look at what is on the mind of one of the richest and most powerful people in the world as he oversees buzzy companies that fulfill major government contracts or move markets as part of the “magnificent seven.” This month, Tesla shareholders approved a new CEO pay package that could be worth up to $1 trillion if the company meets a series of benchmarks. Musk counts more than 229 million followers on X, and his posts regularly get millions of views.
“He’s not just the wealthiest person alive. He’s also one of the most influential, even if he has no formal role in government,” said Rob Lalka, a business professor at Tulane University who studies the tech industry’s impact on politics.
“He’s both really good at spotting what will soon be trending and also being one of the people who is defining that in this cultural moment,” he said.
During the month that NBC News analyzed, Musk engaged with ideas on the fringe of politics, including an unapologetic attitude toward past British colonialism and a proposed nationwide purge of judges based on a Central American precedent. In an offhand remark, he appeared to claim Mars as legal territory of the United States.
“That is not what most average people are sitting around spending their time on, especially in an economy where real wages are not great,” Lalka said. “Most Americans are worried about the price of eggs right now.”
Musk, who said he voted for Democrats in 2016 and 2020, has shifted sharply to the right in recent years. During last year’s campaign, he aligned himself with Trump, made appearances in key swing states and poured more than $290 million into Republican efforts. He then joined Trump’s administration as a White House adviser and the head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk’s foray into government was rough. He repeatedly clashed with other Trump administration officials over the extent of his authority, DOGE did not drastically affect the federal budget deficit, and the cuts it did make have been blamed by public health researchers for hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide.
Tesla, where he is CEO, became a political target, and shares of the company took a beating. In May, he said he was leaving the administration to spend his time at Tesla and limit any more government work to a day or two a week. When he left the White House, Tesla investors cheered.
With his White House stint in the rearview mirror, Musk said in September that he was “burning the midnight oil” at work, with weekend meetings related to Tesla and xAI as he crisscrossed the country to visit employees in person.
“Daddy is very much home,” he wrote on Sept. 15.
Musk also took to his social media platform. One in eight of his posts in the month NBC News reviewed were about crime — slightly more than the share devoted to Tesla — even as crime rates continued to fall. In a Gallup poll in October, only 6% of Americans listed crime as the most important problem facing the country.
His posts were often targeted at influencing current events. In early October, before Trump decided against sending federal troops to San Francisco, Musk helped to fuel a narrative that crime was out of control in the city. He posted about crime there 13 times over two days, despite San Francisco experiencing the fewest homicides since 1954.
“I think he is mostly speaking to people who already agree with him,” said Darren Linvill, a co-director of Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub. “He’s not necessarily persuading anyone to come join him. But that still serves a function to maintain his influence and presence as a political actor.”
Musk has gone after judges and prosecutors who he said were too lenient. He posted about judges 52 times, including twice when he called for the wholesale removal of “corrupt” judges and cited purges in El Salvador as a model for the United States.
Often, Musk focused on cases where the criminal defendants were Black, immigrants or both, and where the victims were white, appearing to play into narratives about interracial crime that are common in conservative media. Experts say there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave, and most violent crime occurs between a victim and a perpetrator of the same race, according to Justice Department survey data.
In the 31 days that NBC News analyzed, Musk posted about violent crime every day but two.
Immigration was the second-most frequent political topic on Musk’s mind. About 8% of his posts touched on the subject, often aligning with the Trump administration’s own harsh language. He shared immigration-related posts from Vice President JD Vance four times, from the official White House account twice and from White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller once. Musk also accused officials in Democratic-led cities of “treason” for resisting immigration enforcement.
Musk’s opposition to immigration was global, criticizing politicians in Europe and Asia for allowing in migrants. He warned that mass immigration would “destroy Japan” and lead to “the end of Britain.” Musk, a native South African who became a U.S. citizen in 2002, is an immigrant himself.
Joan Donovan, an assistant professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University, said Musk’s frequent posts related to the decline of Western civilization are a thinly veiled callout to racial politics.
“This is, of course, a dog whistle about white identity politics and for people who are expressly proud of being white and unapologetic about their own beliefs in white supremacy,” she said.
She said that Musk’s embrace of fringe topics, such as a purge of judges, is the kind of content that used to be confined to the internet’s darkest corners.
“It’s really reflective of some of the grossest places on Reddit or the type of posting you’d see on 4chan. It’s become a reality-distortion machine,” she said.
But lately, racist rhetoric has been surging in the open, with white nationalists such as Nick Fuentes finding more mainstream footing on Musk’s X and in other venues.
Race was a major theme in Musk’s posts. Musk, or those whose posts he shared, often depicted Black people in a negative light, and they often did so regardless of the topic at hand.
Photos of Black criminal defendants appear to get Musk’s attention. Forty-one times during the month — more than once a day, on average — Musk shared or replied to a post that had an image of a Black person charged with a crime.
He posted about alleged Black criminals in Florida, Germany, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina and elsewhere, and in many of the cases the defendants were charged with harming white victims. Sometimes, Musk would include an ominous warning such as, “He will kill again.” One post from another user, the actor James Woods, had eight photos: four Black defendants and four white victims. Woods wrote: “Sad.” Musk replied: “Yes.”
Once, when an account denounced six amendments to the U.S. Constitution, including the post-Civil War 15th Amendment, which guarantees the right to vote regardless of race, and the 19th Amendment, which guarantees the right to vote regardless of sex, Musk responded with the “tears of joy” emoji. And on five occasions, Musk replied to or shared content from two accounts that regularly post white supremacist views.
There were six posts where Musk portrayed Black people in a positive light: two from a Black influencer saying that Democrats had failed Black Americans, and four posts in which Black people praised conservative influencer Charlie Kirk after his death.
Musk spent a lot of time posting about perceived enemies: About 1 in 5 of his posts during the month, or 21%, fell into that category, which for Musk included the news media, civil rights organizations, Hollywood, OpenAI and numerous people who identify as transgender.
Beyond politics, one of Musk’s frequent topics is himself. About 6% of his posts during the month referenced his own quotes, videos of interviews he has given or other bits of his life story and the mythology surrounding it. Sometimes he engages in conversation with accounts such as @ElonClipsX, @muskonomy or @muskosophy.
When the account @muskosophy posted a quote of his in September — “You don’t have a soul, you are a soul” — Musk responded, “Yes.”
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How Google Finally Leapfrogged Rivals With New Gemini Rollout – The Wall Street Journal
- How Google Finally Leapfrogged Rivals With New Gemini Rollout The Wall Street Journal
- A new era of intelligence with Gemini 3 The Keyword
- Generative UI: A rich, custom, visual interactive user experience for any prompt Google Research
- Google launches Gemini 3 with state-of-the-art reasoning, ‘generative UI’ for responses, more 9to5Google
- 5 things to try with Gemini 3 Pro in Gemini CLI Google for Developers Blog
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Investors Clamor for a Peek Behind the Private Markets Curtain
Selling data on private equity and private credit is becoming big business on Wall Street. In a market where opacity is the whole point, it is also a tricky feat.
S&P Global last month became the latest Wall Street behemoth to shell out for a private-asset data provider when it announced plans to buy With Intelligence for $1.8 billion. BlackRock paid $3.2 billion for Preqin in March, MSCI acquired Burgiss for $900 million in 2023 and Morningstar nabbed PitchBook for $200 million in 2016.
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Swiss regulator warns mortgage risks are rising as banks stretch lending rules
GENEVA, Nov 22 (Reuters) – Switzerland’s financial market regulator warned on Saturday of growing risks in the housing market, saying banks were stretching mortgage lending criteria as property prices continue to climb.
“The risk in the mortgage market is high, prices continue to rise, and the danger of a correction is correspondingly high,” the head of FINMA, Stefan Walter, told the Swiss news outlet Blick in an interview.
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“We have found that the scope for granting mortgages is being exploited excessively by various banks.”
Internal criteria are either too loose, or a high proportion of financing goes beyond some banks’ own affordability rules, he stated.
He told Blick that some banks were relaxing their internal lending criteria on between 25% and 40% of mortgage loans as a result of intense competition.
FINMA intervenes when it sees exceptions of that level, he added.
Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; Editing by Kevin Liffey
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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EssilorLuxottica proposes taking stake of 5-10% in Armani, report says
MILAN, Nov 22 (Reuters) – Eyewear company EssilorLuxottica (ESLX.PA) would be interested in taking a stake of between 5% and 10% in Armani but would not seek an active role in the management of the luxury fashion group, Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported on Saturday.A restructure of the famed fashion house is expected following the death of founder and owner Giorgio Armani in September.Sign up here.
EssilorLuxottica was named in Armani’s will alongside luxury conglomerate LVMH (LVMH.PA) and L’Oreal (OREP.PA) as priority potential buyers of an initial stake of up to 15% in the company.Citing unnamed sources, Il Sole said Franco-Italian company EssilorLuxottica had informed the Armani Foundation that it would be interested in becoming an investor but would seek a smaller stake and not ask for a seat on the board of Armani.
There was no immediate comment from Armani or EssilorLuxottica, whose brands include Ray-Ban.
Reporting by Keith Weir and Elisa Anzolin;
Writing by Keith Weir; Editing by Emelia Sithole-MatariseOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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