What’s Going On Here?

Twitter's inching towards Musk's "everything app" vision, but getting there could be a puzzle.

What Does It Mean?

When Elon Musk bagged Twitter for $44 billion last year, he nailed his colors to the mast: his ultimate ambition was to turn the platform into an "everything app" named X, inspired by China's digital Swiss Army knife, WeChat. With over a billion users relying on Tencent’s WeChat for everything from payments to booking event tickets, Musk spied an opening to replicate its success globally. And now he seems to be taking a significant step in that direction – ending Twitter’s life as an independent firm and merging it with a shell company named X Corp.

Why Should I Care?

Zooming in: Too small for its boots.

Musk's cost-cutting strategies have helped Twitter reach a break-even point – but the crash diet he put the firm on has shrunk Twitter's workforce from around 8,000 to a mere 1,500. That probably played a role in the six major outages that have struck the platform since the year began. And those wrinkles have got folks questioning the feasibility of any potential plans to add e-commerce and payment features, especially when tech titans with much more manpower – like Alphabet and Meta – are struggling with similar goals.

The bigger picture: Debunking Musk.

If Twitter wants to outpace those behemoths, it’ll need to get its own house in order first. After all, one of Musk’s main goals was to make the platform more trustworthy – and while he’s claimed that his crusade against bots and automated accounts has helped clamp down on misinformation, studies suggest otherwise. In fact, engagement with misinformation spreaders actually seems to have spiked post-takeover. That’s left Musk with egg on his face, but he’s doubling down on his favorite solution – a payment barrier, which would just so happen to top up company coffers while supposedly waging war on misinformation.

What’s Going On Here?

Data out on Wednesday showed America looking red, white, and cool, with prices chilling out a little last month.

What Does It Mean?

As the Federal Reserve (the Fed) nears the end of its most aggressive rate-hiking campaign since the 1980s, it’ll be glad that March's inflation report has gone and given it a little thumbs up. US prices for goods and services inched up by just 5% compared to last year, slowing down from February's 6% and marking the smallest climb in nearly two years. Energy and used car prices took a dip, and food prices stayed flat on a monthly basis – but services like transportation and shelter did keep marching ahead. Interestingly that meant core inflation (which leaves out volatile factors like energy and food) hit 5.6%, outpacing the overall measure for the first time in over two years.

Why Should I Care?

For markets: Hikewatching.

Sure, the data isn't perfect, but there’s a hint that price increases are softening like the Fed's been wishing they would. And while a 0.25 percentage point hike still seems to be on the cards for May, this data could reduce the chances of more economy-squeezing hikes when June rolls around. That could explain why US stock markets perked up after the news. Still, Europe and the UK are poised to keep hiking, which could lure investors to their currencies and, according to UBS, darken the US dollar’s shine from here on out.

The bigger picture: Patience is a virtue.

Inflation might be easing up, but it's still a long way from the cozy 2% target that most Western central banks have in their sights. And that’s where things get dicey: sticky inflation might keep interest rates higher for longer, unveiling hidden vulnerabilities in the global economy. After all, the IMF warned that could dramatically boost the odds of a dreaded "hard landing" just this week.