1. Elon Musk buys Twitter
It was an on-again-off-again relationship when it came to Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media company Twitter. It all began in January when Musk first started buying shares in Twitter, which ultimately led to a 9.2% stake in the company by April. He became Twitter’s largest shareholder and later in the month made a $43 billion offer to purchase and delist the company from the New York Stock Exchange. What transpired was a battle between him and Twitter as he tried to renege on the deal and negotiate a better purchase price over several months. Ultimately, Musk completed the purchase in October and his ownership of Twitter has been anything but smooth sailing with multiple rounds of employee layoffs, delayed and failed service launches, and most recently a self-conducted poll where some 58% of users polled voted in favour of him stepping down from Twitter and appointing someone else as CEO.
2. The collapse of FTX
In October, FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried had an estimated net worth of $10.5 billion and throughout 2022 he had dominated the cryptocurrency space. Bankman-Fried had cultivated a white knight saviour image and used his enormous wealth to bail out struggling cryptocurrency exchanges. Analysts and experts even started calling Bankman-Fried the “new Warren Buffet” because of his uncanny ability to strike a deal. But come November and Bankman-Fried was all but bankrupt while FTX had collapsed dramatically. Bankman-Fried is more aptly compared to Ponzi scheme aficionado Bernie Madoff these days and he faces charges in the US, which include wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, and campaign finance law violations. Bankman-Fried faces up to 115 years in prison if he is convicted on all eight counts.
3. Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is sentenced to more than 11 years in prison
In January, Elizabeth Holmes, who founded the blood testing company Theranos in 2003, was convicted of defrauding investors – three counts of wire fraud, and one of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. During Holmes’ tenure with Theranos, the company had claimed to have made a breakthrough in blood testing that required very little amounts of blood that could be tested rapidly and accurately using technology developed by the company. This was later proven to be false. Theranos also raised more than $700 million in venture capital funding. In November, Holmes was sentenced to 11 1⁄4 years (135 months) in prison and ordered to surrender by 27 April 2023.
4. Apple becomes the first company to be valued at $3 trillion
Apple has long held the throne as the world’s wealthiest company and in 2018 became the first US company to breach the $1 trillion market capitalisation marker. The iPhone maker has gone from strength to strength since then and despite other major tech firms showing signs of a struggle this year amid a slowdown in advertising spending, which has impacted the revenue of players like Facebook owner Meta, Apple has continued its upward trajectory. In January, the company briefly topped the $3 trillion market valuation, again becoming the first US company to reach the mark. Apple is currently valued at over $2 trillion.
5. Central banks begin raising interest rates
With rising inflation out of control, the world’s central banks have all followed suit in turning hawkish in an effort to tame inflation by aggressively hiking interest rates at regular intervals throughout the year. While it may take months for the effects of interest rate hikes to be felt there are some positive signs with inflation slowing in the US and South Africa at a faster pace than was initially expected. However, central banks have indicated that while the aggressive pace at which they have been hiking interest rates may be at an end they will continue to increase interest rates until inflation is brought back down to each bank’s target range.
Source: Wall Street Journal
