City profiles
Elon Musk “Half a million frustrated would-be Tesla Model 3 owners” have got used to the electric carmaker missing production targets, says Danny Fortson in The Sunday Times. But investors still believe in founder Elon Musk. Following “a cascade of bad news” including a fatal accident, a credit downgrade and an ill-judged April Fool about bankruptcy, shares in the “deeply lossmaking” firm (valued more highly than Ford) were expected to take a drubbing last week. But, hey presto, they jumped. Backers cite the promise of Tesla’s battery and artificial intelligence tech. But “more than any company on the planet”, Tesla relies upon faith in its “brilliant but quixotic founder”. Musk is once again sleeping at the company’s plant, to iron out production issues. As he recently tweeted: “Car biz is hell.” More than three decades after penning the hit single A New England, singersongwriter Billy Bragg has “been invited by the Bank of England to lecture City financiers” about building a better one, says Patrick Collinson in The Guardian. The self-proclaimed Corbynite, who gigged for striking miners in the 1980s, was due to speak at Threadneedle Street this week at the invitation of chief economist Andy Haldane, who is keen to “shake up” the thinking of City types “more used to discussing gilt-edged securities” than radical politics. Bragg said that his main theme would be the “increasing alienation” of ordinary citizens. “I’m not going to be calling for the overthrow of capitalism,” he said. On the other hand, “I’m not there to be polite”.