🌏 Survival of the richest

Good morning, Quartz readers!

Here’s what you need to know

Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault, and Jeff Bezos all took turns vying for the world’s richest man title yesterday. Indexes fluctuated, but the biggest driver was Tesla’s underperforming stock.

Ryanair’s CEO, a huge Boeing customer and hater, thinks the planes are fine. Michael O’Leary said he’ll even take any new Boeing planes that rivals are scared to accept.

The European Central Bank said 90% of big eurozone institutions don’t align with the Paris Agreement. What’s putting them most at risk is their exposure to companies in the energy sector.

Amazon and iRobot aren’t getting together. The terminated deal resulted in the Roomba maker laying off 31% of its workforce, or 350 employees.

Tesla is saying less about diversity

The way Tesla has described employees in its annual shareholder report has changed dramatically since 2020, and it has been edited once again—this time to remove diversity language, just ahead of the start of Black History Month in the US.

Specifically, gone is the language referencing the electrical automaker’s “majority-minority workforce”—whose employee resource groups were empowered to “take charge” of fostering change at the company. The human capital section in the report has grown to 979 words, but it says next to nothing about the diversity of its now 140,473 employees. Quartz’s Melvin Backman looks back at how the section has changed over the years.

Are you thinking about a career shift, because…

Walmart managers can now make between $138,000 and $148,000 a year, depending on what kind of store they lead. That’s just with their base salaries and new annual stock grants! Managers can also make 200% of their base salary in bonuses! That adds up to $404,000 annually!! This is enough to warrant a lot of punctuation!!! Here’s how it all works.

China’s lead over the US in chip startup funding is getting even bigger

In 2023, the US’s share of global semiconductor startup funding was just 11%, versus 75% for China, according to a recent report from PitchBook, a market research firm.

In the wake of tighter US export controls on AI chips from manufacturers like Nvidia and AMD, China’s been going all in on semiconductors. What’s the US been doing in the meantime? Michelle Cheng takes a look.

Quartz’s most popular

🏈 An average NFL game: more than 100 commercials and just 11 minutes of play

🏢 New York is lapping San Francisco in the return-to-office race

🛍️ T.J. Maxx and thrift stores are siphoning shoppers from full-price rivals

🚫 AI girlfriend bots won’t last…

🤪 …and they’re also not the weirdest of the weird that has hit OpenAI’s GPT store.

🇪🇺 Europe’s economic security plan needs to play both defense and offense

🍟 How McDonald’s powers America’s economy

Surprising discoveries

An ocean exploration company thinks it has found Amelia Earhart’s plane. Sonar images of the bottom of the Pacific Ocean show an object that has very similar dimensions as the airplane she was flying, but we’ve been down this road before.

Skipping rope can help students get into good schools in China. Some in the education system are taking advantage of that and selling parents expensive, branded equipment.

There’s a pet rock GPT. It does absolutely nothing!

Rare medical accidents can pass Alzheimer’s from one person to another. One study of people who got human growth hormone from the pituitary glands of cadavers (a retired practice) found that some went on to develop the disease.

A tech dinosaur is going extinct. The Hobbes OS/2 Archive will shut down in April, ending what has been a longstanding relic of the doomed IBM operating system.

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Our best wishes for a productive day. Send any news, comments, real pet rocks, and envious exclamation points to [email protected]. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Morgan Haefner and Susan Howson.