Who Isn’t Worried About Elon Musk?

Good Monday morning. (Want this by email? Sign up here.) The bull market could become the longest ever on Wednesday.

Losing sleep over Tesla

After the Tesla founder emotionally opened up to the NYT last week — about his sleepless weeks at the carmaker’s factory, about his efforts to take the company private — investors and friends are increasingly concerned about his health and stewardship. Shares in the company plunged 9 percent, wiping out billions in market value. (Short-sellers were happy.)

Arianna Huffington publicly urged Mr. Musk to use his “human energy” more efficiently, starting by getting some sleep. His response on Twitter: “You think this is an option. It is not.” (He did find time to talk tech with the vlogger Marques Brownlee last week.)

Tesla still has a lot of debt, and spending cuts in search of profitability risk starving crucial new products. Meanwhile, Mr. Musk’s putative ally in a Tesla take-private, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, is reportedly talking to a rival, Lucid Motors

Elsewhere in Tesla news: The NYT delved into the Azealia Banks controversy.

PepsiCo stays on a health kick

The beverage giant said today that it would buy SodaStream International for $3.2 billion, a sign that it’s still seeking to move away from sugary sodas under its new leadership.

While SodaStream machines were once primarily sold as a way to make such drinks at home, they’re now a popular brand in the world of sparkling water. They’ll give PepsiCo a new weapon in its fight against the likes of La Croix, and match the healthier products like hummus and kombucha that the outgoing C.E.O., Indra Nooyi, brought to the group.

SodaStream also gives PepsiCo a way to address consumer backlash against disposable plastic bottles. As Ms. Nooyi’s successor, Ramon Laguarta, put it, “PepsiCo is finding new ways to reach consumers beyond the bottle.”

Could Uber cuts its losses on autonomous vehicles?

Self-driving cars are clearly going to be important. But the NYT reports that Uber is divided over how to approach them. Its autonomous vehicle unit has accumulated losses and legal headaches. One faction says it’s still a priceless key to the future, another that the best thing would be to sell it and form partnerships.

More from Mike Isaac, Daisuke Wakabayashi and Kate Conger on the deliberations of Uber’s chief, Dara Khosrowshahi:

Mr. Khosrowshahi remains undecided, the people said, though he has expressed a desire to partner with other companies on autonomous technologies. In recent months, Uber has started talking with a few auto manufacturers about potential partnerships, including supplying Uber’s autonomous driving technology for use in Toyota’s minivans, according to one person familiar with the talks.

With Uber’s I.P.O. expected next year, the company will have to decide soon. The partnerships model looks likeliest, and employees of the unit are decamping for rivals.

The Greek bailout is over. But is Italy next?

Europe’s $360 billion worth of financial assistance to Greece is set to end today, capping nearly a decade of turmoil that almost split the euro. Greeks will be paying for a long time yet, however: A third of the country’s population is in poverty, and the government has promised years of fiscal belt-tightening.

The European Union may not be out of the woods, either. As Greece improves, Italy is showing signs of weakness; markets have trembled at its growing debts and a costly-looking government agenda. We may yet find out how much Brussels has learned from its Greek experience.

The career costs of sexism

Growing up in a sexist environment can handicap a woman’s career, putting her wages and advancement far behind those of men, an academic paper to be published today has found. The effect seemed to persist even for women who later moved somewhere less sexist.

The economists behind the paper aren’t sure why, though they suspect it has something to do with internalizing social norms. (Incidentally, they tracked only white women, to rule out effects from racial bias.) One of the study’s authors told the NYT that he was “shocked” at how big and persistent the effects of sexism proved to be.

Blockchain is getting real-world uses (not all of them sensible)

Decentralized databases could transform industries from shipping to video games, and a lot of companies are excited about them. But as Barron’s cover story notes, many are struggling to use blockchain properly.

Part of the problem is that many executives are confused about what it’s for. Here’s the take of Brian Behlendorf, the executive director of the Hyperledger project:

“It’s a technological solution to a political problem. A political problem within business. You don’t want a PayPal or an eBay or an Uber or a Facebook at the center of a lot of markets, because that gives a tremendous amount of power to those entities, greater than arguably even AT&T had when it was at the center of the phone market.”

A power player in Washington and Wall Street looks back

Vernon Jordan has befriended C.E.O.s and U.S. presidents alike in his decades-long career, becoming one of the most prominent black advisers to boardrooms. (Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard professor, says of him, “Historians will remember Vernon Jordan as the Rosa Parks of Wall Street.”) But as populism grows in America, Mr. Jordan defended the status quo over Lunch with the FT.

“It is not a crime to be close to Wall Street,” he said over bites of sea bass at the Manhattan power lunch spot San Pietro. And he added that retirement in a time of Trump isn’t in the cards:

Waking up wondering about my tee time and bridge game scares the hell out of me. So I’m going to keep going for a while. Lazard is not suggesting I hang it up and neither is Akin Gump.

Revolving door

HBO’s “Succession” isn’t all fiction: Several media companies have an aging-mogul problem. (Bloomberg View)

The speed read

Deals

The move by Sears Holding’s C.E.O., Eddie Lampert, to buy Sears’s Kenmore brand has put his board in a tough position. (WSJ)

Campbell Soup is said to have hired Goldman Sachs to assess selling businesses in response to activist pressure. (CNBC)

China’s Anbang Insurance Group plans to sell a luxury hotel collection that it paid $5.5 billion for two years ago. (WSJ)

Politics and policy

Prosecutors are investigating Michael Cohen over bank fraud potentially exceeding $20 million. (NYT)

The White House counsel, Don McGahn, has testified extensively to Robert Mueller. President Trump’s lawyers don’t know everything he said.

Central bankers will discuss how big companies keep workers’ wages down. (FT)

A former lawyer for chemical companies appears to be doing them proud at the E.P.A. (NYT)

Trade

The Washington-Beijing fight is hamstringing American banks’ bid to expand into mainland China. (FT)

Canada’s auto capital is feeling trade-war jitters. (WSJ)

Companies expect trade fights to outlive the Trump presidency. They also think they aren’t ready. (Bloomberg)

Tech

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey said he hadn’t done enough to be transparent. (CNN)

Apple pulled 25,000 apps from its online store in China after coming under fire from state media. (WSJ)

Facebook has a plan to protect the midterms, but it’s running out of time. (Recode)

Think tech stock multiples are overheated? These investors don’t. (WSJ)

Best of the rest

President Trump ordered the S.E.C. to consider letting companies report results every six months, rather than quarterly. (NYT)

Companies like Walmart are becoming more aggressive in recouping shoplifting costs — sometimes, it appears, from people who didn’t steal. (NYT)

How McDonald’s reinvented the Quarter Pounder. (Fast Company)

Brands pay big money to teens to learn that “lit” is no longer a thing. (NYT)

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