Musk wants out of his $44 billion Twitter deal businesskinda.com

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Haje, jet-lagged and post-COVID fatigue, is back and joins Christine to bring you fine bits of tech news in this newsletter. Rumors (and the calendar) also suggest it could be Friday. If that almost unverifiable rumor is indeed true, then have a wonderful weekend. † Christine and hi

The businesskinda.com top… 4″

• Friday Musk news dump: We had the newsletter all set to go, but as usual happens late on a Friday, there’s some breaking news. And again, it’s about Elon Musk. The CEO of many companies, and the ostensible father of new twins with a director of one of those companies, decided to end his deal to buy Twitter. But Twitter doesn’t really have it, saying as much in its one paragraph, two sentence response to the news. This is a story in development, so keep your eyes peeled here for the latest news.
• Please check: This is such a well done story from Kylea that goes into detail about the fall of Butler Hospitality, which raised $50 million last year. Then it ran into several challenges that ended with the company essentially renting out hotel kitchen space to others to operate as a haunted kitchen, laying off hundreds of people and being unable to meet its obligations.
• Well, isn’t that a shock to the senses?: There can be many reasons why someone does not invest in an electric car, but TimoToday’s story suggests that a big is not enough trust in the public charging infrastructure. It’s really a legitimate fear because that 600 mile trip is going to end badly if there’s no reliable and fast place to plug in along the way.
• The hunt for charging electric vehicles has begun: Where Tim’s story was about electric vehicle chargers in general, another top story for today was: Jaclyn‘s, who wrote that the White House wants to expand charging options and that Elon Musk is in the case to expand Tesla’s Supercharger network.

Startups and VC

Coalition, a San Francisco-based startup that combines cyber insurance and proactive cybersecurity tools, is preparing to expand outside the US for the first time after a $250 million mega-series F round that takes its valuation to a staggering $5 billion , carly reports.

We also really enjoyed the interview Connie did with Jess Lee of Sequoia Capital, regarding its new Arc program, and whether it is a competitor to Y Combinator. “We’re really looking for founders who want to build long-term transformational, category-defining companies…that are tapping into a new market. There’s no one we would exclude, but it’s more about the size of the ambition,” Lee said.

Our money doesn’t shake, it folds:

The art of the pivot: work closely with investors to improve your odds

Image Credits: MirageC (Opens in a new window) / Getty Images

For her latest TC+ post, we asked veteran investor Marjorie Radlo-Zandi to share her roadmap to help budding founders take their businesses through a pivot.

Changing direction is a huge undertaking, but she breaks the process down into several steps that will help entrepreneurs get buy-in from investors (and employees).

“There’s no shame in turning around,” writes Radlo-Zandi. “On the contrary, it is a sign of strength.”

(businesskinda.com+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams move forward. You can register here†

Big Tech Inc.

We focus on a story first Taylor compiled this afternoon on a congressional study of period tracking apps and their associated data. Now that Roe has been revoked, there are concerns that this kind of data could pose a threat to people seeking reproductive care.

We can sum up today’s big tech news — well, tech late yesterday — in three words: Twitter, cars, yacht. Not to be confused with gym, tan, laundry.

Amanda reported on Twitter that it targeted its talent acquisition team by laying off 30% of that workforce. The company declined to go into details so we don’t know exactly how many people that is, but it’s safe to say jobs at Twitter won’t be filled for a while. If that wasn’t enough Twitter trouble, Taylor follows a report suggesting Elon Musk is no longer interested in buying the company.

But wait, there’s more:

• No one at the wheelThe layoffs continue, this time at Argo AI, which is testing driverless technology for automakers such as Ford and Volkswagen, Kirsten reports.
• that’s hot: SpaceX takes a spin on developing a more reliable internet service for people at sea, Andrew writes.
• Can you hear me?† Lauren writes about Netflix’s spatial audio feature rolling out to all of its devices so your home can be just like the theater.
• Roofer, we hardly know her: Yeah, yeah, not such a funny joke. Christine knows only one person in her neighborhood who has installed a Tesla sunroof, and according to Harris‘s story, that was one of maybe 20 a week that Tesla installed in the second quarter, well below the 1,000 a week originally planned.