💰 Elon’s Twitter poll

A strange shareholder vote… unfolded on Twitter. The proposed billionaires tax, which would’ve required US billionaires to pay taxes on unsold stocks, died just hours after its release last month. But Elon Musk revived the tax convo over the weekend by asking his 63M Twitter followers if he should sell 10% of his Tesla shares — about $21B worth of stock — to trigger a tax payment. For context: Elon doesn’t pay much in regular income taxes since he doesn’t receive a salary. How the Twitterverse responded:

• 58% said Musk should sell, which would mean he’d owe $10B+ in taxes on the sale.
• Tesla shares fell 5% yesterday, even though Elon hasn’t sold yet — though he’s pledged to abide by the poll’s outcome.

The poll story isn’t the whole story... Elon needs to pay $15B in taxes next year to exercise billions’ worth of stock options. Basically, he needs to sell some shares to buy more shares — and this Twitter-fueled sale would give him the cash to do it. But since Elon is Tesla’s largest shareholder, the sale could also affect Tesla’s stock price. Tesla warned its shares could slip if Elon sells part of his 17% stake.

When the bill arrives... on President Biden's desk. On Friday, the House finally approved a $1T bill to give America's old infrastructure a major facelift, after the Senate passed it back in August. Biden could sign the bill this week, pouring $550B in fresh funds into transportation, broadband, and utilities. The other half of the bill reauthorizes existing infrastructure programs for five years. Where the new funds will go:

• $110B to roads and bridges, $66B to railways, and $39B to public transit.
• $65B to expand internet access, including $30 monthly vouchers for low-income families.
• $50B to make the power grid more resilient to cyberattacks and natural disasters (see: Hurricane Ida).
• $55B to upgrade water systems (think: fewer lead pipes) and $7.5B to build EV charging stations.

$1T charcuterie board... While it’s a major achievement for Biden’s agenda, the infrastructure bill is an appetizer to the main course: a separate $2T education, healthcare, and climate package. Think: universal pre-K, two free years of community college, public housing, and clean-energy development. Dems plan to vote on it before November 19.

• To help cover the $1T bill that just passed, Congress would repurpose existing Covid funds and apply new IRS tax-reporting requirements for crypto.
• The $2T bill would largely be paid for by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Dems plan to approve it through reconciliation, which wouldn't require GOP support.

• Body: Pharma giant Regeneron said its antibody drug reduced the risk of getting Covid by 82%, which could make it a good option for immunocompromised people.
• Chipper: Shares of chip maker AMD jumped 10% after it landed Meta (aka: Facebook) as a data center chip customer — it’s taking on rival Nvidia with fresh chips.
• Accept: Italy’s antitrust regulator started proceedings to fine Google over restrictive clauses in its Google Drive terms of service (which we’ve all “read”).
• Takeoff: Virgin Galactic reported strong demand for its $450K/seat space tourism flights, but still lost $48M on $2.6M in quarterly sales.
• Venme: PayPal’s quarterly sales jumped 13% from last year, and it announced an Amazon partnership to let US customers pay with Venmo at checkout.
• Hard: Japanese investment powerhouse SoftBank suffered a $54B hit from China’s tech crackdown, as its investment in ecomm juggernaut Alibaba lost value.

• Earnings expected from: Roblox, Coinbase, DoorDash, Sysco, Unity Software, TripAdvisor, RingCentral, and SeaWorld

Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Tesla, Amazon, Twitter, SoftBank, Amazon, and Google

ID: 1913052