☕️ Harvard hoopla

How BYD beat Tesla as the top EV seller... January 03, 2024 [View Online]( | [Sign Up]( | [Shop]( [Morning Brew]( PRESENTED BY [YNAB]( Good morning. We never thought we’d write this, but you might want to find a way to stream darts this afternoon. That’s because Luke “the Nuke” Littler, a 16-year-old viral phenom who loves eating kebabs, playing Xbox, and chucking sharp objects, will compete in the PDC Darts World Championship final. If he wins, he’d become the youngest darts champion in history by eight years. Darts has recently exploded in popularity in Europe, and Littler’s storybook run is boosting its profile even more. Littler’s quarterfinal victory reached a peak of 1.4 million viewers, and today’s final will certainly smash that number. —Cassandra Cassidy, Sam Klebanov, Adam Epstein, Neal Freyman, Abby Rubenstein MARKETS Nasdaq 14,765.94 -1.63% S&P 4,742.83 -0.57% Dow 37,715.04 +0.07% 10-Year 3.946% +8.0 bps Bitcoin $44,922.71 +1.66% Apple $185.64 -3.58% *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 10:00am ET. [Here's what these numbers mean.]( - Markets: Stocks had a [rough start]( to 2024. Though the Dow ticked up on Tuesday, the S&P 500 fell, and the Nasdaq suffered its worst day since October as several Big Tech stocks tumbled during the first trading day of the year. Apple shares dropped almost 4% after Barclays [downgraded]( the stock over “lackluster” iPhone sales in China.  HIGHER ED [Harvard’s president resigns amid firestorms]( [Former Harvard president Claudine Gay speaking before Congress]( Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Harvard University President Claudine Gay announced her resignation yesterday following weeks of turmoil resulting from allegations of plagiarism and controversy over her testimony in last month’s congressional hearing regarding antisemitism on college campuses. The Harvard Crimson, the school’s student newspaper, [first reported]( the resignation. Gay’s six-month tenure was the shortest in the university’s 388-year history. Criticism of her leadership began just a few months into her term when many, including vocal billionaire alumnus Bill Ackman, condemned her response to a controversial statement made by student groups about Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. On December 5, Gay and the presidents of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania appeared before a congressional committee to discuss the rise of antisemitism on campuses. The presidents were [widely panned]( for their refusal to explicitly answer whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” violated their universities’ codes of conduct. Two of the three leaders are now gone: President Liz Magill of Penn resigned on December 10. Allegations of plagiarism Accusations of plagiarism against Gay initially came from the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet, last month. Harvard then conducted an independent review, [finding]( instances of “inadequate citation” but no research misconduct. Gay’s supporters have criticized how Harvard’s governing body, the Harvard Corporation, handled the allegations and the backlash against Gay, although it did unanimously reaffirm its support of her presidency on December 12. In her resignation [letter]( Gay said she’s been subjected to racial vitriol and personal attacks. Gay was the first Black woman to serve as president of Harvard, and her backers say the campaign to oust her was politically motivated. Big picture: The push to remove Gay has sparked a debate around the influence of wealthy donors on university decision-making. Private donations to US colleges and universities last year reached $59.5 billion, up from ~$14.8 billion in 1980–81. Looking ahead…the House Committee on Education & the Workforce is investigating the allegations of plagiarism against Gay. Meanwhile, the Harvard board appointed Alan M. Garber, the university’s provost and chief academic officer, as interim president.—CC   PRESENTED BY YNAB [Auld lang (dollar) syne]( [YNAB]( Looking to do more with your money in 2024? Join the club: 59% of Americans named financial progress as their #1 resolution. You’ve tried quick fixes, unsustainable extreme measures, or mildly ignoring it all. And yet here you are. What you need is a simple set of habits to rewire your money mindset. Enter [YNAB, a cult-favorite spending app]( that’s taught millions to spend, save, and give without guilt or second-guessing. With YNAB you’ll go from passive and unsure to confident and—dare we say—[shocked by your progress](. I think we both agree that we don’t want to have this same conversation next year. [Try YNAB free for 34 days]( (no credit card required)—your future self will thank you. WORLD [Tour de headlines](#) [The site of a strike targeting a Hamas office in Beirut]Getty Images Israel kills top Hamas official in Beirut. Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’s deputy political leader and a co-founder of its military wing, [was killed]( in a suspected Israeli drone strike in Lebanon’s capital yesterday, Hamas confirmed. Israel has pledged to take out the Hamas leaders responsible for the Oct. 7 attack wherever they reside, and the assassination of al-Arouri (who was placed under a $5 million bounty from the US in 2015) was the [first targeted strike]( against a Hamas official outside of Palestinian territories since the war broke out, per the Financial Times. Al-Arouri’s killing could intensify military activity along the Israel–Lebanon border, where the Israel Defense Forces and the militant group Hezbollah have been trading fire. Two planes collided at Tokyo’s airport. A passenger plane [hit]( a Japanese coast guard plane and burst into flames while landing at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport yesterday. All 367 passengers and 12 crew members were safely evacuated from the fiery Japan Airlines plane, but five crew members died on the coast guard aircraft, which was scheduled to deliver supplies to the area affected by a recent earthquake. Aviation accidents are rare, but the New York Times [recently found]( that this type of collision, known as a runway incursion, is often only narrowly averted. The newspaper reviewed FAA data that showed such near misses increased by almost 25% in the last decade, although since 2018, the rate has been improving. X’s value has plunged 71.5% since Elon Musk bought it, Fidelity says. It’s a good thing that Musk still owns several other successful companies, because Fidelity believes that the social media platform is [worth]( a lot less than when the billionaire bought it for $44 billion in October 2022, Axios reports. That includes a decision by Fidelity, which owns a stake in X, to cut its estimate of X’s value by 10.7% in November after Musk publicly suggested that advertisers fleeing the platform over concerns about antisemitic postings “go f**k” themselves. The investment firm’s most recent valuation would put X’s value at ~$12.5 billion. AUTO [Tesla loses No. 1 EV seller spot to BYD]( [BYD beating Tesla]( Francis Scialabba Someone get Elon to a FedEx, because he has to ship Tesla’s EV crown to China: For the first time ever, his company sold fewer EVs in a quarter than the Chinese electric car giant BYD, which [claimed the top spot]( for Q4 2023 in all-electric sales. Tesla still beat expectations with a record quarter (and the 1.8 million EVs it sold in 2023 were the most worldwide for the full year), but it’s now racing bumper-to-bumper with its ascendant overseas rival. BYD goes pedal to the floor The Warren Buffett-backed battery manufacturer turned automaker scaled quickly, partly due to its ability to [mass-produce]( its own batteries. - BYD sold 526,000 all-electric vehicles in the last three months of 2023, compared with Tesla’s 484,500. - The company grew its EV sales by 73% year over year, delivering 1.57 million vehicles and selling roughly as many plug-in hybrids, according to Nikkei. Though BYD still makes nine out of every 10 of its sales within China, its international deliveries grew more than 3x in 2023. And it’s threatening to pass auto titans Volkswagen and Renault in their own lane with plans for its first European EV plant in Hungary. But there are speed bumps…BYD faces the possibility that Europe will raise tariffs on Chinese electric cars. The EU is also investigating China’s massive subsidies for its EV-makers, which it claims might be artificially lowering prices.—SK   TOGETHER WITH AUTONOMIX [Autonomix]( Your investment portfolio potential 2024 returns. [Autonomix]( is blazing trails in a market where individual companies have been acquired for over $900m. They have the potential to target an estimated $100b+ in treatment markets—there’s a reason the electrophysiology market is surging—and you can still invest before their planned Nasdaq listing. [Become an Autonomix shareholder by January 15](. ENTERTAINMENT [Hollywood still isn’t hiring many female directors]( [Scene from Barbie]( Barbie/Warner Bros. Hollywood is built on pretending to do things. So you won’t be shocked to hear that’s exactly what researchers say it’s doing when it comes to encouraging diversity. Traditional US film studios have made little progress on their promise to hire more women and people of color to direct movies, [two separate reports]( released this week found. Despite the historic $1.4 billion success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, USC Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative found that… - Only 14 of the 116 directors (~12%) of the 100 highest-grossing films of 2023 were women. - Just four (3.4%) were women of color. The report skewered Hollywood’s attempt to improve representation as “[performative]( Another report from San Diego State University found that for the 250 top-earning movies of 2023, the results are even more dire: Just 16% of those directors were women, [down]( [from 18%]( in 2022. Big picture: In the wake of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, Hollywood studios said they’d reevaluate their hiring practices and vowed to make the talent in front of and behind the camera look more like the audiences watching. The industry made some strides—a separate USC study found that the percentage of Asian characters in speaking roles has [meaningfully increased]( for instance—but critics argue it’s not doing enough. The caveat: The reports don’t include directors working for streaming services, which typically have better representation than traditional studios. In 2021, nearly 27% of the directors Netflix hired were women.—AE   GRAB BAG [Key performance indicators](#) [I Think You Should Leave on Netflix]I Think You Should Leave/Netflix via Giphy Stat: Heeding the advice of an I Think You Should Leave sketch closely, billionaire Warren Buffett did a lot of giving in 2023. The Berkshire Hathaway co-founder donated 1.5 million shares of company stock—worth $541 million—to his Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which primarily backs women’s reproductive health. That was the [biggest act of charity]( of the year, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual rankings. The second biggest donation came from hedge fund manager James Simons and his wife, Marilyn, who gave $500 million to SUNY Stony Brook. Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny, also made the list with a $400 million pledge to revive a historically Black neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. Quote: “I’m flabbergasted!” If that was your reaction after opening a Halloween-themed Reese’s treat to find it wasn’t as cute as its packaging suggested, then there’s a class-action lawsuit in Florida for you. The suit alleges that, in order to boost sales, the Hershey-owned brand advertised that its chocolates contained festive designs like smiling jack-o’-lanterns, but in reality, many of the candies were tragically undecorated. The lawsuit quotes scores of unhappy eaters who [took to YouTube]( to express their shock. Hershey joins Burger King, Taco Bell, and other big food brands in getting sued for alleged false advertising in recent years. Read: How Australia’s Bluey conquered children’s entertainment. ([Financial Times]( NEWS [What else is brewing](#) - [Maersk]( paused all shipping through the Red Sea until further notice after one of its ships was attacked by Houthi militants over the weekend. - [Muhammad Yunus]( a Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist, was sentenced to six months in jail in a case his supporters say is politically motivated. - [South Korea’s opposition leader]( Lee Jae-myung, is recovering after he was stabbed in the neck by an unidentified assailant in Busan yesterday. - [A new study]( shows that women who are not pregnant are increasingly ordering abortion pills in case they need them and their access is threatened. - [Taylor Swift]( broke Elvis’s record for the most weeks atop the Billboard 200 album chart as a solo artist, with 68. RECS [Wednesday to-do list] Read: Healthcare Brew’s new series on the [future of hospitals](. Watch: It’s hard to know [what floor you’re really on]( in the Chinese city of Chongqing. Bail: Readers discuss the optimal time to [give up]( on a book you’re not enjoying. Grow: Join Morning Brew and YouTube growth consultant Jamie Rawsthorne for a [two-day workshop]( starting Jan. 20 on how to rocket your YouTube channel to new heights. In the know: Starting your business or preparing to grow? Check [credit monitoring]( off the list and enjoy real-time, easy-to-understand credit alerts with Dun & Bradstreet. [Get free alerts]( *A message from our sponsor. GAMES [The puzzle section](#) Word Search: If you were the type of kid who stared at maps for hours, you’ll love today’s Word Search. [Play it here](. Darts trivia Let’s throw it back to darts for today’s trivia question, which will test your intuition rather than knowledge because not many of you will “know” the answer to this. According to the Darts Regulation Authority, what is the standard height of a dartboard, measured from the floor to the bull’s-eye? SHARE THE BREW [Share Morning Brew]( with your friends, acquire free Brew swag, and then acquire more friends as a result of your fresh Brew swag. We’re saying we’ll give you free stuff and more friends if you share a link. One link. Your referral count: 0 [Click to Share]( Or copy & paste your referral link to others: [morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=4904f90a]( ANSWER 5 feet, 8 inches Word of the Day Today’s Word of the Day is: flabbergasted, meaning “greatly surprised or astonished.” Thanks to Sophie from Pittsburgh and many others for the staggering suggestion. Submit another [Word of the Day here](. ✳︎ A Note From Autonomix This is a paid advertisement for Autonomix’s Regulation A+ Offering. Please read the offering circular at [invest.autonomix.com](. Written by [Neal Freyman]( [Adam Epstein]( [Abigail Rubenstein]( [Cassandra Cassidy]( and Sam Klebanov Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up [here](. 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