Intel Report: The Weekly Mobility News That Matters

BY AUTOMOTIVE VENTURES | DEC 22 2025 | VIEW ONLINE

Automotive Ventures portfolio company Axion raises $37M Series B to power the future of American manufacturing. | LINK

What We're Reading:

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Automotive

Americans aren’t racing out to buy new cars, with the steady drumbeat of increasing prices starting to wear on would-be shoppers. Sales of new cars slumped in October and November, according to Cox Automotive Inc., which forecast a nearly 9 percent drop in retail sales last month. Analysts still expect to end the year with more new-car sales than last year, but it won’t be the remarkable recovery that some had predicted. This year was meant to be a ray of light after years of constrained supply amid the coronavirus pandemic that pinched shoppers and dealerships. | The Washington Post ($)

For the foreseeable future, America is stuck with expensive cars. In some ways, the problem has been building for a long time. Car prices have always crept up over time, both in line with inflation and as automakers have added tech features such as touch screens and navigation systems. Americans’ buying habits haven’t helped, either. In the 2010s, buyers began flocking to bigger, more expensive trucks and SUVs, spurred by lower interest rates and cheaper gas prices. But things really started to change during the pandemic. Car factories across the world had no choice but to temporarily shut down, and the rules of supply and demand took it from there. When people were able to buy, many wanted even bigger options than ever before. Take KIA Motors: Once known for its ultra-budget options, the automaker debuted its Telluride SUV in 2020 and couldn’t keep the model on dealers’ lots, even when some were selling for about $45,000. The lesson for automakers was that people were willing to pay a lot more than they used to, especially for SUVs and pickup trucks. In effect, the entire car business has since gone all in on pumping out more giant, expensive cars. Because bigger vehicles mean higher profit margins, they have also helped carmakers fund the billions of dollars needed to develop electric vehicles. Not that all the new EVs have been cheap, either. Car companies, seeking Tesla’s levels of hype, assumed people would pay a premium for something novel and high-tech. They haven’t. Just this week, Ford Motor Company announced that it would pivot away from EVs, taking a nearly $20 billion hit to its business in the process. | The Atlantic ($)

Gasoline is signaling the endurance of fossil-fuel consumption, rather than becoming the fuel to display the earliest and most pronounced peak in demand as the world embraces electric vehicles. Regulatory changes in the U.S. and Europe, such as rolled back fuel-economy targets and abandoned bans on gasoline and diesel cars, are expected to increase gasoline forecasts for the rest of the decade. Gasoline demand has surpassed expectations, reaching a fresh record high of 27.62 million barrels a day, and is likely to continue growing, with the peak in demand possibly being delayed to 2029 or 2030. | Bloomberg ($)

Old and new oil producers alike are ramping up output as sanctioned barrels from Russia search for buyers, putting a record 1.3 billion barrels of crude on the world’s oceans. Benchmark oil prices are heading for their biggest annual loss since the pandemic, while U.S. gasoline at the pump is less than $3 a gallon for the first time since 2021. The drop is good news for consumers and the politicians who’ve made a point of addressing their cost-of-living concerns, including U.S. President Donald Trump. But it’s also an economic threat to some of the largest producers, like Russia and Saudi Arabia. Oil is as cheap as it was about a decade ago, without adjusting for inflation. Virtually all of the world’s biggest traders see the oil market in a state of oversupply early next year — the only question is by how much. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that output could exceed consumption by around 3.8 million barrels a day in 2026. Many traders predict smaller numbers than that, but storage levels are still expected to grow. | Bloomberg ($)

When President Trump declared the highest U.S. duties in nearly a century in April, he promised the tariffs would revitalize American manufacturing, bring back middle-class jobs and buoy the economy. Economic experts weren’t sold. They forecasted peril for the nation’s GDP, and expectations of a recession shot up. Both missed the mark. An economic collapse hasn’t materialized. Neither has an economic revival. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

The Trump administration pitched its changes to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards as a vehicle affordability play, but the fine print shows that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) expects consumers to pay more for fuel, an expense that will top the predicted savings on transaction price. The Trump administration assumes that relaxed mpg regulations will allow automakers to spend less on components that improve fuel economy and pass an average $925 in purchase savings to buyers. Officials from Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Stellantis and the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to cheer the predicted savings for consumers. But if the proposal becomes official, companies will ditch fuel-saving technologies and consumers will pay at least $187 more over the lifetime of the vehicle, even with the expected price savings upfront, according to an appendix to NHTSA’s proposal. The net cost of passenger car and light truck ownership will increase by between $187 and $506 over the vehicle lifetime, driven by a total increase in fuel costs of $1,112 to $1,431 for the 2031 model year, NHTSA said. | Automotive News ($)

The global transition to electric vehicles is beginning to unravel the way major changeovers often do: slowly at first, then all at once. This week brought a cascade of signals that the EV era is entering a more uncertain, more contested phase. The European Commission backed away from what had been the world’s most aggressive timeline for phasing out internal-combustion engines, granting manufacturers and consumers more time to move off gasoline. A day earlier, Ford Motor Company announced $19.5 billion in charges tied to the retreat from an electric strategy it vowed to go all in on eight years ago. The pullback is no longer confined to a few laggards or skeptics. From relative newcomers to legacy giants, the signs of reckoning have been mounting for months. | Bloomberg ($)

Ford is drastically scaling back its electric vehicle plans and refocusing its U.S. manufacturing footprint on hybrid and gasoline vehicles to reduce losses from an EV market that never developed the way it envisioned. Ford on Dec. 15 said the change in strategy will cost the automaker about $19.5 billion that will mostly be accounted for in fourth-quarter special charges. Still, Ford raised its 2025 guidance to “about $7 billion” in adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, from a previous range of $6 billion to $6.5 billion, citing “continued underlying business strength” and cost improvements. Ford said it is discontinuing the F-150 Lightning, a truck its top executives once likened to the Model T in significance, after less than four years of production. Ford already halted production in October after a fire at an aluminum plant supplier so it could divert resources to more profitable gasoline and hybrid versions of the F-150. | Automotive News ($)

Ford said Monday that it would scale back plans to produce electric vehicles and take a $19.5 billion hit to its profit to cover the costs of a major change in strategy. The announcement amounted to an admission by Ford that it had overestimated demand for battery-powered vehicles and underestimated the staying power of vehicles powered by gasoline and diesel. Other big automakers, including General Motors and Stellantis, have also recently changed their plans and placed a far greater emphasis on combustion engine vehicles and hybrids. The U.S. auto industry’s move away from electric vehicles is also a result of a reversal in government policies since President Trump took office in January. His administration has slashed government incentives for electric vehicles while promoting fossil fuels. This month, the administration announced plans to significantly weaken fuel economy standards, which would reduce automakers’ incentive to make electric cars. | The New York Times ($)

Amid Ford’s shift away from making large electric vehicles, the automaker is adding a new product line to find a home for its batteries. Ford said Monday that instead of scuttling plans to build the batteries for those vehicles, it will pivot that capacity into a new battery storage business. Those storage systems, which will use cheaper lithium iron phosphate batteries, will be used to power data centers and help buffer demand on the electric grid. Ford says the battery storage systems will start shipping in 2027 and that the company plans to build 20GWh of annual capacity. Ford will invest about $2 billion into the new business over the next two years. Under the plan, Ford will repurpose the existing manufacturing capacity at its Kentucky factory. Ford plans to produce LFP batteries using technology licensed from China’s CATL, as well as battery energy storage system modules and 20-foot DC container systems at this facility. | TechCrunch ($)

The European Union has eased a 2035 zero-emission target to allow some internal-combustion cars to be sold after that date, throwing automakers a lifeline as doubts about cost, range and charging infrastructure kept European buyers from embracing electric vehicles. Internal-combustion engines would have been effectively banned under the current plan; the new proposal reduces tailpipe CO2 emissions by 90 percent versus 2021. The remaining 10 percent of emissions will have to be offset by sustainable biofuels or e-fuels and low-carbon green steel made in Europe. A variety of drivetrains, including plug-in hybrids, extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs), mild hybrids and internal combustion engines can still play a role beyond 2035, the European Commission said Dec. 16. | Automotive News ($)

Brussels has introduced new flexibilities to allow carmakers to hit 2030 carbon emission targets, as it scrapped its landmark 2035 ban on combustion engines. The changes mark a significant retreat for Europe’s green ambitions and follow a reversal of climate policy in the U.S. that will lead to more hybrid and petrol vehicles being on roads for longer. Tuesday’s announcements followed heavy lobbying from EU car manufacturers and countries, including Germany and Italy, which warned of further massive lay-offs and plant closures without an easing of climate targets. | Financial Times ($)

The car industry has soured on the EU’s plan to ease the 2035 ban on combustion engines as details have become clearer, with some executives warning the “disastrous” changes would lead to more expensive vehicles. Brussels said on Tuesday it would scrap a law forcing carmakers to cut their emissions to zero by 2035. While carmakers will be allowed to carry on releasing 10 percent of their 2021 emissions and to continue selling some petrol engines and hybrids, the European Commission has mandated that the emissions be offset by using low-carbon steel and sustainable fuels. The softening of the 2035 ban was meant to be a hard-won victory for carmakers after months of intense lobbying. Although it was initially welcomed by some carmakers, many companies said the offsets would be too challenging to bring in since the required use of green steel and “made in Europe” content in vehicles would be complex and expensive. Stellantis, the European group behind the Jeep, Fiat and Peugeot brands, said the proposals failed to address the challenges in the electric transition for light commercial vehicles and did not include enough flexibility to meet emissions targets in 2030. Auto industry analyst Matthias Schmidt predicted petrol cars would “become haute couture Swiss watches of the motor industry” with the added costs of green steel and renewable fuel priced in. | Financial Times ($)

Reversing on EVs could be risky for Western carmakers. According to Schmidt Automotive Research, Chinese brands controlled 10.7% of the market for all-electric cars in western Europe in the first ten months of the year, a percentage point higher than a year before, despite the EU’s imposition of additional tariffs on EVs imported from the country in October 2024. Sales of Chinese hybrids, which are not subject to the new tariffs, have surged. Western carmakers are also coming up against fast-growing Chinese EV brands elsewhere in the world. Eventually EVs will become the cheaper option for customers, as production expands and costs fall. Western carmakers must therefore perform a tricky balancing act, profiting now from petrol cars while investing enough to stay competitive in EVs. Those that slow down risk giving their competitors an unassailable lead. | The Economist ($)

Brussels is to propose special privileges for a “Made in Europe” small car class, which will benefit from preferential parking, lighter rules and more generous subsidy arrangements to keep out Chinese competition. The new all-electric category will be presented as part of a package of measures aimed at easing pressure on Europe’s car industry, which is under heavy pressure from the influx of affordable Chinese EVs, US tariffs and sluggish demand. It will grant eligible cars — which are built in Europe and under a certain weight — access to reserved parking spaces and charging infrastructure as well as a 10-year exemption to incoming regulations such as safety rules and the EU’s Euro 7 emissions standards that are due to come into force in 2026. By doing so the European Commission hopes to keep the price lower since frequent changes in standards contribute to rising costs for carmakers. | Financial Times ($)

After having cut more than 60,000 jobs across North America and Europe this year, automotive suppliers are preparing for a difficult 2026. Some of the challenges they are bracing for include falling orders from automakers, a flood of Chinese components and high interest costs, which are squeezing profits. At the same time, suppliers are being forced to invest more in new technologies. A key question is whether these negative factors could result in more bankruptcies in 2026. Declining global vehicle production and falling supplier orders, especially for combustion engine parts, mean many suppliers, notably smaller Tier 3 and Tier 4 players, risk insolvency or at least cash flow stress in 2026. | Automotive News ($)

The Delaware Supreme Court has reinstated Elon Musk’s $56 billion Tesla pay package from 2018, overturning last year’s ruling by the state’s Chancery Court, according to an opinion published Friday. In a unanimous ruling, the judges on the highest court in Delaware said that canceling Musk’s package left him “uncompensated for his time and efforts over a period of six years.” Adjusted for Tesla’s current stock price, which hit all-time highs this week, the reinstated package would be worth around $140 billion, according to Bloomberg. The state supreme court’s decision likely draws to a close a years-long battle that left such a bad taste in Musk’s mouth that he moved Tesla’s incorporation from Delaware to Texas, which prompted other companies to follow suit. Tesla will now likely revoke a $29 billion pay package it offered Musk earlier this year, which was meant as a hedge against the possibility that the company could lose the Delaware Supreme Court appeal. The $1 trillion compensation package awarded to Musk in November is separate from that, and will continue to exist going forward, giving Musk a series of lofty goals to hit in order to unlock the full value. | TechCrunch ($)

Odometer rollbacks are on the rise in the U.S., new data show, amid high vehicle prices and sales competition combined with the increased ease of manipulating digital instruments with cheap equipment. S&P Global Mobility identified about 2.5 million vehicles on American roads whose odometers may have been rolled back to give the appearance of having much lower mileage than they’ve actually been driven. That’s a 14% jump from last year compared to a 4% year-over-year increase in 2024. To arrive at its estimate, the company analyzed odometer readings recorded by dealership service drives, independent repair shops, vehicle inspectors and others, recordings that are more abundant compared to decades past, providing more opportunity to identify discrepancies, CARFAX said. At least two mileage recordings are needed for comparison purposes to determine whether an instrument has been tampered with. Rollbacks obviously tend to be expensive for unsuspecting consumers. The average value difference among vehicles suspected of having rolled-back odometers this year is $3,300, meaning their actual value would have been that much lower with their true mileage reflected. | Agent Entrepreneur

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China

China’s leaders have spent years preparing for Trump’s return and view the trade war as part of a much larger contest that is likely to last for decades. In the short term, Beijing’s priority is securing the concessions on advanced technology needed to accelerate semiconductor development in China and reduce reliance on imports. In the medium term, it aims to deepen technological capacity, diversify export markets, and capture a larger share of value-added exports in global supply chains to reduce U.S. leverage. In the long run, it intends to build an alternative global trading and financial architecture strong enough to strip the United States of its unilateral sanctioning power. Above all, China wants recognition that its core interests lie beyond even the threat of Western interference—that it has full freedom of action within its sphere of influence, including Taiwan and its regional periphery, and that it can engage economically with the world on terms no less favorable than those accorded to the United States or other great powers. In essence, China is attempting a geopolitical feat without precedent. It seeks to obtain an equal place alongside the United States without triggering “the Thucydides trap’’—the tendency for rising and established hegemons to come to blows. Unlike earlier revisionist powers, China intends to complete its ascent through the steady accumulation of economic power and influence rather than through military conquest. To succeed, it must not merely draw even with the United States but surpass it in some areas, to the point that any U.S. refusal to acknowledge its superpower status appears absurd to the rest of the world. | Foreign Affairs ($)

By itself, the United States cannot keep up with China’s soaring industrial capacity, which translates directly into military might. China has close to a 28 percent share of global manufacturing, while the United States has around 17 percent. By one count, it is acquiring advanced weapons systems and equipment five to six times faster than America is. One Chinese shipyard can build more than all American builders combined. The United States now risks finding itself in the position of Britain in the late 19th century and Germany and Japan in the 20th: overtaken militarily by a rising industrial powerhouse. History shows such competitions between rising powers and established ones often end in catastrophic wars. China’s gaming of international trade, rising hostility to neighbors and especially its accelerating military buildup show the urgent need for credible deterrence. There is a ready solution to the problem. While the United States can’t match China on its own, when joined by its closest allies, including Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia and the European Union, it can match China’s manufacturing capacity. For the sake of global security and freedom, the world’s democracies need to collaborate far more fully than they do now. | The New York Times ($)

During Trump’s first term and under the Biden administration, China hawks spread the idea that the U.S. had to beat China before China could beat the U.S. This camp breathed a sigh of relief when China’s economy began showing signs of malaise in 2023: a slow-motion property crisis, a stock market selloff, legions of unemployed college graduates. Earlier predictions that Asia’s export powerhouse would one day surpass the U.S. in gross domestic product terms were laid to rest. All of this resurrected the idea that China was once again a nudge away from collapse. That notion looks increasingly strained. China is simply doing too well on too many fronts. And as the trade dispute showed, Beijing is now in a position to make Washington blink. Those hoping to see China humbled must resign themselves to the fact that it remains a formidable rival—and is determined to expand its already substantial advantages, including in future-shaping sectors such as electric vehicles, clean energy and robotics. | Bloomberg ($)

American automakers want to boost their profits by selling high-margin gas guzzlers today, all while not falling behind on electric-vehicle technology. It will be difficult to do both. Look at the list of regulatory changes this year, and it is all but impossible for U.S. automakers to not lean into selling big SUVs and trucks. Car manufacturers no longer face penalties for failing to meet federal fuel-economy standards, which are themselves also being revised to become less stringent. The $7,500 tax credit for buying EVs expired. California no longer has the ability to set its own tailpipe-emissions standards, which were a big driver of EV investment. BloombergNEF estimates that 24% fewer EVs will be sold in the U.S. in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with a year earlier. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Chinese cars are rapidly gaining ground in Britain, driven by a combination of factors. The lack of steep tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles — unlike in the European Union or the United States, where officials see the levies as a way to protect domestic production — means the cars can be sold in Britain at better prices. And British car buyers are not particularly loyal to brands, with no major mass-market British carmaker to support. Last month, roughly a dozen Chinese automakers, like BYD, Chery and Geely accounted for 13 percent of new car registrations in Britain, roughly double their market share a year ago, according to data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. | The New York Times ($)

When the European Union increased tariffs on Chinese battery electric vehicles (EVs) in 2024, the logic was straightforward: raise prices and imports will fall. A study published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a think-tank, estimated that higher levies would cause Chinese car exports to plunge by 25%. After more than a year, that forecast is wrong. According to China’s customs agency, car exports to Europe rose to nearly 1.2m in the 12 months to November, up by 26% from a year earlier (see chart 1). The data suggest that Europe’s failure to stem the rise of Chinese-made vehicles has less to do with weak tariffs than Chinese carmakers’ talent for steering around them. | The Economist ($)

Bill Russo and John Rossant argue that the auto industry is drifting toward two incompatible architectures: A Chinese-led ecosystem characterized by vertical integration, scale efficiency and unified standards. And a Western-led ecosystem shaped by private innovation, diverse regulation and political oscillation. If these systems diverge -with incompatible data protocols, duplicated supply chains and fragmented standards — the result will be delay, duplication, and diminished innovation. The alternative is strategic interdependence. The global transition to sustainable and autonomous mobility cannot succeed without both sides: China's industrial scaling capacity and the West's software, design, and governance strengths. The most promising way forward is competition — or cooperative competition in which competitors benefit by cooperating with one another strategically — within shared rules of engagement, meaning interoperability, safety standards, and transparent data governance. | China Daily

Shenzhen is home to Huawei, Tencent, DJI and of course BYD, giving rise to its reputation as China’s Silicon Valley. Shenzhen wasn’t always a tech powerhouse, though. Technology analyst Dan Wang, author of “Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future,” traced the city’s roots to the 1980s and ‘90s, when it became the first area in China to open to foreign commerce. Government incentives attracted multinational firms looking for cheap labor. Shenzhen became known as “The World’s Factory.” But then everything changed in the early 2000s, “when a very important company, Apple, decided to make the iPhone in Shenzhen,” Wang said. At the time, the decision didn’t seem that consequential. It was just another product that would be built in China. What Apple didn’t realize, though, was that outsourcing its production to Shenzhen would spark a new era of innovation. “What Apple was doing was training hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers, every single year, to make the most sophisticated electronic product in the world,” Wang said. “A lot of these workers would move from making an Apple iPhone in their first year, maybe to making a Huawei phone the next year, and then they may be putting together a DJI drone, and then maybe an even more complex product, like electric vehicle batteries.” That pipeline helped catapult BYD onto the world stage. The company started as a battery maker for cell phones, then shifted into car manufacturing and ultimately rose to become the world’s top EV producer. Shenzhen, with BYD at its center, evolved from a factory town into a premiere innovation hub in less than two decades. | The World

The world’s two superpowers are in a tightening contest to dominate the energy future. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. is intent on producing oil, gas and coal and selling it abroad. Its chief economic rival, China, has become the world’s dominant supplier of clean energy in the form of solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles. Fusion could change the calculus for both nations and the globe. Whoever conquers it could build plants around the world and forge new alliances with energy-hungry countries. But the Americans and the Chinese have very different strategies for getting there. The United States is counting on private industry and American innovation to deliver results, with government agencies providing targeted support. From coast to coast, a fleet of start-ups has brought new urgency and ingenuity to the quest. On the other side of the world, China’s government has made fusion a national priority, marshaling resources at daunting speed. Recently, a Shanghai start-up essentially matched an engineering breakthrough by America’s best-funded fusion company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, in much less time. Over the summer, the Chinese government and private investors poured $2.1 billion into a new state-owned fusion company. That investment alone is two and a half times the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s annual fusion budget. | The New York Times ($)

Robots made by Chinese start-ups have danced on television, staged boxing matches and run marathons. When one company debuted its most recent robot last month, people online in China thought it looked so much like a human that workers cut the robot’s leg open onstage to reveal its metal pistons. Despite the public fascination, concerns are growing that China’s robotics industry is moving too fast. The robots can mimic human movement and even complete basic tasks. But they are not skilled enough to handle many tasks now done by people. And with so many companies rushing into the industry, Beijing is warning of a bubble. Over 150 manufacturers are vying for a piece of the market, the Chinese government said last month, warning that the industry was at risk for a crowd of “highly repetitive products.” “China has an attack-first approach when it comes to the adoption of new technology,” said Lian Jye Su, a chief analyst at Omdia, a tech research firm. “But this generally leads to a large number of vendors fighting for small chunks of market.” | The New York Times ($)China is rolling out fleets of autonomous delivery trucks, experimenting with flying cars and installing parking lot robots that can swap out your E.V.’s dying battery in just minutes. There are drones that deliver lunch by lowering it from the sky on a cable. If all that sounds futuristic and perhaps bizarre, it also shows China’s ambition to dominate clean energy technologies of all kinds, not just solar panels or battery-powered cars, then sell them to the rest of the world. China has incurred huge debts to put trillions of dollars into efforts like these, along with the full force of its state-planned economy. | The New York Times ($)

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Autonomy, Robotics & AI

Waymo is in discussions to raise more than $15 billion at a valuation near $100 billion, in a financing round led by its parent company, Alphabet. The company has achieved an annual revenue run rate above $350 million and has discussed raising billions in equity from external backers as well as Alphabet. Waymo is the frontrunner in a race against Tesla and others to turn autonomous ride-hailing into a business, with more fully driverless miles, paying customers and permitted operating zones than any competitor in the U.S. | Bloomberg ($)

Just about six months after Tesla started testing its fledgling Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, the company is now letting those cars drive around the city with no safety monitor onboard. The removal of the human safety monitors brings the company a critical step closer to its goal of launching a real commercial Robotaxi service, and it’s a step that’s been years in the making. | TechCrunch ($)

Today's entrepreneurs promise robots that not only look human — or human-ish — but can do everything a person can. Tech investors are pouring billions into the effort, but Rodney Brooks argues that general-purpose humanoid robots will not be coming home soon, and that they are not safe enough to be around humans. In September, he delivered an authoritative takedown in an essay that concluded that over the next 15 years, “a lot of money will have disappeared, spent on trying to squeeze performance, any performance, from today’s humanoid robots. But those robots will be long gone and mostly conveniently forgotten.” His blog post kicked off a furor in the small world of robotics. This was a legend in the field, whose insights had informed the humanoid craze. “At least a dozen people asked me if I agreed with it shortly after it went live (I don’t),” wrote Chris Paxton, a researcher in artificial intelligence and robotics who tracks the rapidly developing discipline. | The New York Times ($)

ChatGPT is nearing 900 million weekly users. Not bad for a service that’s barely 3 years old. Most tech platforms have taken much longer to get to a billion users: Gmail had to wait more than a decade, Facebook about 8.5 years, and even the mighty TikTok took about five years. Considering those milestones were based on monthly users, whereas the reports for OpenAI’s app are weekly figures, it seems pretty likely that ChatGPT has already blown past the 1 billion monthly user mark… and Google’s not far behind. The tech behemoth’s own AI chatbot effort, Gemini — which recently made such a splash it caused a “code red” threat to OpenAI — is already up to 650 million monthly users. | Sherwood

✈️ Aviation & Space

Many able-bodied passengers request wheelchairs for “the VIP experience”—an escort down the jetway that lets them skip the lines and gives them first crack at overhead space. Once they realize at the end of the flight that they have to wait for assistance to disembark, the healing begins. There’s typically no request for proof of a disability–passengers just need to fill out a quick form and off they roll. Sometimes there are up to 50 wheelchairs boarding a plane that seats only 130 passengers. But some people are unafraid to get ahead. They boast about how they’ve found the ultimate travel hack and share the trick. | The Wall Street Journal ($)

Back in July of this year, SpaceX was reportedly selling shares and raising money at a $400 billion valuation, a figure that’s doubled in the months since. In that period, SpaceX has continued its domination across the industry with more affordable space launches and exploration ambitions — per Forbes, the company “now launches more payload into orbit than the rest of the world combined.” All of this is, obviously, pretty huge for Elon Musk, the SpaceX founder, CEO, and richest person on Earth, who also saw one of his other companies, Tesla, close at a record high yesterday for the first time in almost exactly a year. Indeed, his 42% stake in the $800 billion SpaceX business means that the majority of his reported $648 billion net worth — on paper, as we first noted in February — comes from what had once been a bit of a side hustle alongside his booming EV business. | Sherwood

Elon Musk on Monday became the first person ever worth $600 billion, Forbes said, on the heels of reports that his SpaceX startup was likely to go public at a valuation of $800 billion. Musk, who was the first to surpass $500 billion in net worth in October, owns an estimated 42% stake in SpaceX, which is preparing to go public next year, Reuters reported last week. The SpaceX valuation would strengthen Musk's wealth by $168 billion to an estimated $677 billion as of 12 p.m. ET on Monday, according to Forbes. | Reuters ($)

The American patrol satellite had the targets in its sights: two recently launched Chinese spacecraft flying through one of the most sensitive neighborhoods in space. Like any good tactical fighter, the American spacecraft, known as USA 270, approached from behind, so that the sun would be at its back, illuminating the quarry. But then one of the Chinese satellites countered by slowing down. As USA 270 zipped by, the Chinese satellite dropped in behind its American pursuer, like Maverick’s signature “hit-the-brakes” move in the movie “Top Gun.” The positions reversed, U.S. officials controlling their spacecraft from Earth were forced to plot their next move. The encounter some 22,000 miles above Earth in 2022 was never acknowledged publicly by the Pentagon or Beijing. Happening out of sight and little noticed except by space and defense specialists, this kind of orbital skirmishing has become so common that defense officials now refer to it as “dogfighting.” Satellites whizzing by each other at close range, maneuvering to gain strategic advantage, is a new development in the militarization of space — and increasingly important. Satellites are vital for maintaining military supremacy, and tensions are rising amid growing technological competition between major powers. | The Washington Post ($)