Author: openjargon

• A Russian military planner said he doesn't sleep well after sending troops to almost certain death.
• "I can't tell the men, otherwise they wouldn't fight with the hope of winning," he said.
• Russia is known for treating some of its soldiers as disposable, letting them die to make progress.

A Russian soldier who plans offensives as part of the invasion of Ukraine said he finds it difficult sending men into situations where he knows they will probably die.

The soldier, Pavel, told The Moscow Times that: "I draw arrows on a map, and the soldiers move forward."

According to the report, Pavel's job is to manage antiaircraft systems and plan offensives. This means he sometimes has to send men into an attack knowing that they are unlikely to survive.

"I can't tell the men, otherwise they wouldn't fight with the hope of winning," he said.

The Moscow Times said his eyes were "glistening with emotion" as he spoke about it.

"After all this, you don't sleep well," he said.

According to the report, Russia is sending soldiers forward in these attacks in the hope of distracting Ukrainian forces, with the aim of getting them to send soldiers away from its main offensives.

Russia has previously been accused of treating its soldiers as highly disposable.

This includes using "meat wave" tactics, where Russia sends waves of men forward to try to overwhelm Ukrainian positions, to then allow better-trained or more elite soldiers to progress.

Russia is believed to have suffered a much higher casualty rate than Ukraine in the war.

The UK Ministry of Defence said late last month that 500,000 Russian soldiers had likely been killed or wounded since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

It also said that Russia's average daily casualties were 1,200 in May, the highest numbers so far reported in the conflict.

Pavel spoke to The Moscow Times on a train near Ukraine's border. Some soldiers on the train were going to the front lines, while others were on a short leave break.

Pavel joined Russia's military as a volunteer, The Moscow Times reported, after hearing some of his family had been killed by Ukrainian soldiers at the start of the invasion.

He previously worked as a senior specialist at one of Russia's largest companies, the report said, and had asked for his army salary to be given to an orphanage.

"I don't want to be paid to kill people," he told the outlet.

The Moscow Times reported that most soldiers on the train were drinking, including Pavel, and that a fight almost broke out between one of the soldiers and another passenger.

Other soldiers on the train described brutal conditions, with huge Russian losses.

"Many young guys I knew are dead, they weren't even 30," one soldier, Yegor, said.

Another who was on his way back to the front line showed a gunshot wound in his chest that was not properly healed yet.

"I probably won't make it this time," he said.

• The high cost of living for Gen Zers and millennials appears to have impacted the tattoo industry.
• Clients seem to be becoming more selective, preferring respectful and accommodating artists.
• Several stories of tattoo consultations gone wrong have spiraled into viral outrage on TikTok.

Tattoo artists and enthusiasts on social media have been debating whether there is a "tattoo recession" afoot over the past few weeks.

Some believe the number of clients wanting to get inked has declined, while others claim there's simply been a shift in how discerning people are when choosing an artist.

Jason John Miles, a tattoo artist and content creator, said the industry is in a "bad state." Artists are struggling to fill their books.

Almost a third of all adults in the US have at least one tattoo, a study from Pew Research Center found. According to data from Fortune Business Insights, the tattoo industry is expected to reach $3.92 billion by 2030.

However, according to a BoldData study, the number of people getting tattoos in the UK has started to decline for the first time in a decade, which may be an early indicator of a more global trend.

Barry Hua, a New York-based tattoo artist who goes by the alias "Unloveable" on social media, told Business Insider the tattoo industry has "undergone significant changes" and is "experiencing a downturn."

"Over the past year, I have observed a decrease in the number of individuals seeking tattoos, largely attributed to the rising inflation rates in the United States," he said. "As a result, clients are now more discerning in their decision-making processes, opting to schedule appointments months in advance to financially plan for their desired tattoos."

Clients becoming more selective and an abundance of artists gaining prominence on social media is also "intensifying competition," Hua said.

Several other artists and tattoo shop owners spoke to BI, saying they have noticed "a dip" and that the industry seems "slow." They also pointed to budgeting under more financial constraints, and more selectivity as the reasons behind the trend.

Allan Buhl, a Florida-based tattoo artist, told BI the industry has "felt the slowest season we've had in many years."

A decade ago, there were only a few shops in a 10-mile radius, Buhl said. Now, "there are hundreds."

The recession has played out on TikTok

On TikTok, videos about an apparent tattoo industry recession are racking up views, with some artists saying they've noticed a downward trend and expressing their opinions on what's to blame.

One creator, Dominique, said she believes the perceived crisis is "a culmination of a few things."

She said it has nothing to do with people not wanting tattoos anymore. They're just being more picky, especially as tattoos have become so expensive.

"Consumers are less likely to put up with bullshit from tattoo artists and tattoo shops," Dominique said.

According to Statista, Gen Zers and millennials are the biggest cohorts likely to have one or more tattoos. Both generations have been hit by the rising cost of living and debts racking up.

There's also been some discourse around how appropriate visible tattoos are for securing interviews and landing a job amid conversations about how much of a part appearance and "pretty privilege" play in career success.

Several stories of tattoo consultations gone wrong have spiraled into viral outrage on TikTok, often due to miscommunication between the client and artist about what is possible in the allotted timeframe and budget.

One woman named Courtney Monteith turned to TikTok when she ended up thousands of dollars out of pocket last year.

She said the artist overcharged her and designed a piece that looked nothing like what she wanted. The internet responded, flooding the studio with negative reviews.

Another creator, who makes content under the name Tattoo Red Flags and works as a tattoo artist, said the tattoo market is incredibly saturated, and clients are choosing to go to female artists more because they feel "a lot more welcome."

"They're feeling like they are being tended to in a nicer manner. They're being checked on during the tattoo. They're being given snacks. They're not being belittled for the things that they're asking for, the styles that they want," she said.

There are tons of good male tattoo artists, she said, and there is still a market for them. But they are the ones who are likely to be experiencing the shift most intensely, as the industry has been "male-dominated" for so long.

"Maybe it's because they're treating people like shit," she said. "Or half of their clients are female, and they're just not making the space comfortable enough."

Another artist and creator, called Electric Elaine, said she didn't see the shift as a "tattoo recession."

"Many clients are choosing artists very carefully because they really have to prioritize getting tattooed when everything has been going up in price," she said.

Tattoo artists have to work hard and learn how to be better with people, Elaine added, because clients will sometimes want to change designs and will be much more likely to return for future pieces if the artist is flexible.

Despite the current challenges, artists who spoke with BI said they were hopeful about the tattoo industry.

One artist, named Kee Kee James, said they are "still going strong."

Buhl said the artists who will survive are the ones who "evolve and roll with the changes."

"More importantly, those that care about their craft and genuinely want to make great tattoos for their clients day in, day out," he said.

Mikhaila Friel contributed reporting.

• Joe, 38, feels financially strained despite a six-figure household income.
• Joe is a HIFI, a group of Americans who are defined as high income, financially insecure.
• Many are experiencing an unsustainable lifestyle creep.

Joe doesn't think he lives an extravagant life. Sure, he and his wife enjoy spending their disposable income on concert tickets, takeout, and travel when possible, but they try to live within their means.

When the millennial couple bought a house in Austin a decade ago, they thought they were doing everything right: building their careers in a big city, raising two children, and working toward retirement. They loved Austin's music scene, could afford leisure activities, and saw themselves settling in their home long-term.

Joe tries to be smart about money, but he feels like his bills keep piling up. Daily life is expensive, and those concerts and plane tickets are drifting further out of reach.

"We want to make sure that we're actually enjoying our time in our youth," said Joe, whose identity is known to BI but he asked to use his first name due to fear of professional repercussions. "But we know that we need to be saving more but it feels incredibly daunting to try to do so."

The 38-year-old earned $119,764 last year in his job as a senior product designer, according to documents reviewed by BI. Combined with his wife's accountant salary, he said his household earns over $200,000 — "more money than ever." But with the rising cost of living, Joe is apprehensive about the future.

His experience echoes that of many HIFIs, a group of Americans who are defined as high income, financially insecure. HIFIs are often Gen Zers and millennials, tend to earn six-figure salaries, and feel stressed by their major living expenses. However, the group also has an affinity for luxury spending: fashion, real estate, vacations, and experiences. And many are experiencing an unsustainable lifestyle creep.

People under 40 are accumulating more wealth earlier in life than previous generations, but 48% of Gen Zers and 59% of millennials say they feel behind financially, according to a Credit Karma survey of 1,006 US adults published in December.

Debra Kaplan, a licensed therapist and financial expert, told BI that HIFIs often have a disconnect between how they spend their money and what they can afford.

"What it costs to live day to day is more now, and people are feeling that sense of 'Oh, money may not go as far,"' Kaplan said. "They don't feel as comfortable or financially secure even though their financial situation has not appreciably changed."

Joe said his family isn't living paycheck to paycheck — but they're also not saving.

"We're not taking as many vacations as we used to, we're not going through as many shows as we used to," Joe said. "We still feel like we're just treading water, and we can't get any traction to get to build any wealth."

Joe doesn't feel wealthy, despite a six-figure income

Right before the pandemic, Joe estimates he and his wife made about $150,000 together. While their combined income is now over $50,000 more a year, they "just feel like we're living worse," Joe said.

Joe said his biggest expenses are his mortgage, utilities, and groceries. His two children are now young adults, but they're still enrolled on his insurance and aren't fully financially independent. A few years ago, he finished paying off about $100,000 in student debt, but the payments made it difficult for him to build long-term savings.

Joe understands that America's economy is doing well, but he said he doesn't feel the benefit. With growing expenses, he feels like his family can no longer afford the full amenities of Austin. His family's budget for restaurants and travel keeps shrinking. And, despite his household income, Joe doesn't feel wealthy.

"We're really making educated and important choices for us to feel like we're living a fulfilled happy life," he said. "We're not going into the store and buying up all this stuff to 'keep up with the Joneses' or anything."

Looking forward, Joe is worried about retirement. He doesn't feel like he's saved enough in his 401(k), and he worries his current spending will hurt his future. Joe hopes he can stop working someday, but he doesn't think he will have any extra money to give his children.

"Not being a financial burden to my kids in my old age would be a great accomplishment," he said.

Are you a HIFI? Do you struggle to afford your lifestyle, even with a high income? Are you open to sharing your story? If so, reach out to this reporter at allisonkelly@businessinsider.com.

• A San Francisco Gen Xer quit his job to escape the long hours and spend more time with his son. 
• Being an "older dad" and a cancer survivor made him want to prioritize family time. 
• He's among the American men who have at least temporarily stopped looking for work. 

A San Francisco Gen Xer quit his job to escape 60-hour workweeks and spend his time being an 'older dad': 'I'll be 70 when my son graduates from high school'

In June 2022, Randy Gerstbacher made a decision that was years in the making: He quit his job as a project manager.

And he's not in a rush to return to the workforce.

Gerstbacher, a 50-year-old based in San Francisco, was "really unhappy" at work, he told Business Insider via email.

"I grew tired of being coerced into working 50- and 60-hour weeks without overtime, then only getting a 1.5% raise at year-end, a minimal or no bonus, and only lateral position movement opportunities within the company," he said.

However, he said there were a few other key reasons he left his job.

First, he's an "older dad," and he wanted to maximize the time he could spend with his three-year-old son. He said the male lifespan data he's seen has provided additional motivation: US male life expectancy was 74.8 years as of 2022, according to the CDC.

"I felt that I should take the quality time now since I'll be 70 when my son graduates from high school," he said. Gerstbacher, a cancer survivor, added that his "brush with death" a few years ago also pushed him to prioritize family time.

And perhaps most crucially, his financial situation made it possible for him to forego his previous income. Gerstbacher said his wife is the "breadwinner" in the family and that she was on board with him leaving his job. He's also generally been responsible with his finances, which has allowed him to accumulate a solid amount of savings, he said.

While the vast majority of working-age American men have a job, Gerstbacher is among the rising share of men over the last several decades who've — at least temporarily — stopped looking for work. In 1950, roughly 97% of American men ages 25 to 54 had a job or were actively looking for one, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of April, this figure had fallen to about 89%.

Some men have dropped out of the workforce because they've struggled to find well-paying jobs. While some people without a college degree have seen strong wage gains in recent years, the employment and earnings prospects of this cohort have still taken a hit over the last few decades. Other factors, like disabilities and health issues, can make working difficult for some men like Gerstbacher — he said he had lingering physical limitations after surgery related to his cancer treatment.

However, the decline in working men is also due to some positive developments, like the growth of women in the workforce. This has made it possible for some men like Gerstbacher to become stay-at-home dads. Additionally, some men have stashed enough money for retirement to call it quits ahead of schedule.

Gerstbacher shared how he's getting by financially and how he went about dipping his toe back into the workforce.

It was only worth returning to work for a job that's flexible and interesting

In addition to his past focus on budgeting, saving, and investing, Gerstbacher said the income he receives from an investment property and his low mortgage rate on his home also helped him quit his job.

Gerstbacher said spending more time at home hasn't saved him and his wife money on childcare, as they were already fortunate to have an "amazing support group" around them that effectively provided free care. However, he and his wife's decision a few years ago to cut down from two cars to one has been a big money saver.

"My wife drives our family car to work while the baby and I walk, ride bicycles, and use public transportation to get around," he said.

In the years ahead, the family's finances could also benefit from Gerstbacher's return to the workforce. He said he never intended to say goodbye to work forever — he just wanted to return on his own terms.

Ever since he left his job in 2022, Gerstbacher has monitored job boards for roles that "really interest" him and don't seem too demanding, he said. He's intrigued by recycling and composting, which led him to monitor the local job listings at the waste management company Recology.

But until a couple of months ago, he said he'd only sent out roughly a dozen applications and done a few interviews, in part because the job search process can be very time-consuming. He said he worked briefly as a substitute teacher but isn't doing so anymore.

However, Gerstbacher recently began more actively looking for jobs and in June, he accepted a temp consulting job at a brokerage firm — the role involves data migration work. He also said he took an exam to become a San Francisco park ranger, and that he's currently on a waitlist. He said his son starts preschool soon, which means he'll have a bit more time on his hands.

Even though he's in the process of returning to the workforce, Gerstbacher said he's continued to prioritize spending time with his son.

"The most valuable thing to me at this point is time," he said. "The company I'm working at is very flexible with start and stop times, which allows me to be available after work to get the baby."

Are you a man who's not looking for work or has struggled to find a job? Are you willing to share your story? If so, reach out to this reporter at jzinkula@businessinsider.com.

It's probably really great to be Jennifer Lopez. Of my running mental list of people whose lives seem absolutely awesome, she easily falls within the top 10. But just because she lives a charmed life doesn't mean things go great all of the time, and, lately, things have been a little less than ideal for the actor/singer/dancer from the Bronx. Her relationship with Ben Affleck is said to be on the rocks, and beyond any personal woes, she's got professional pains, too. Namely, JLo is apparently having a hard time selling tickets.

Lopez announced a tour to support her new album (and truly wild accompanying movie), "This Is Me … Now," earlier this year, but she wound up canceling a bunch of dates amid weak sales. She then rebranded the tour as a greatest-hits show, but fans still weren't tripping over themselves to see her. At the end of May, JLo decided to cancel her tour, saying she was "heartsick" but needed to spend time with her family and friends.

In JLo's defense, she's not the only one having trouble packing venues. The rock duo The Black Keys scrapped a planned arena tour and are expected to announce a "revised" set of dates at smaller venues. On social media, fans have noted that some shows from the pop artists Troye Sivan and Charli XCX as well as the band Wallows appear to be undersold. The Latin trap artist Bad Bunny recently pulled out of a show in Minneapolis, reportedly amid weak sales. Coachella lagged this year, and there's been chatter about a variety of acts not hitting home runs sales-wise, including Cardi B, Justin Timberlake, and Pink.

This doesn't mean the entire concert industry is in disarray. Taylor Swift is unstoppable. As is Beyoncé whenever she is on the road. Acts such as Luke Combs, Zach Bryan, and Olivia Rodrigo are selling a ton. Dead & Company, the successor band to the Grateful Dead, is adding dates at the Las Vegas Sphere. Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster and rules the roost in the live-events space, had a huge 2023, estimating that 145 million fans attended more than 50,000 events, a 20% increase in fans over the year before. However, not everything is going smoothly for everyone. For some artists, conditions aren't so favorable, and they're struggling to pull in the crowds they anticipated, at least right out of the gate.

"Concert promotion is a betting business. You don't always win. And sometimes, you can be humbled," said Jarred Arfa, the head of global music at Independent Artist Group, whose client roster includes Billy Joel, 50 Cent, and Metallica.

Ticket prices are just astronomical right now.

There are a combination of factors that are dragging down some artists' ticket sales. For one thing, a lot of acts are on tour at the moment. In the wake of the pandemic, artists have been eager to get back out there and recoup lost time and money. Even if the return hasn't been smooth, basically anyone who can be touring is, meaning the space is crowded and oversaturated.

"You'd never before had a moment in time where all the horses lined up at the starting gate and they all went out on the road at the same time," said Gary Witt, the CEO and co-owner of The Pabst Theater Group in Milwaukee.

The world really is your oyster right now when it comes to catching a show. But it also means that people have a ton of options, and there is only so much time to go around. Maybe you already saw your favorite artist when they first went on the road after the worst of COVID passed, and you don't feel especially inspired to go see them again. Or you like the band or singer in question plenty, but not enough to go through all the rigamarole of seeing them live. Either way, the once feverish demand for that ticket has probably cooled.

Pricing is also a factor. Anyone who's looked for concert tickets recently has probably been gobsmacked at the cost. Many consumers have been spending through inflation, even if begrudgingly so, but no one's budget is limitless, especially as prices for basically everything — including tickets to live events — remain elevated. Pollstar calculated that the average ticket price for the top 100 tours in the first quarter of this year was $123.25, an all-time. Its data indicates that the average ticket price for a Bad Bunny ticket is $290, for Justin Timberlake $216, and for Nicki Minaj $149.

"Ticket prices are just astronomical right now," said David "5-1" Norman, an industry veteran who has toured with Prince, Green Day, and Alicia Keys. "And if you're bringing a child with you, and then you have to stay overnight and gas and hotel and then food, that stuff adds up."

Just having the big song doesn't necessarily always translate into ticket sales.

Going on tour is always a gamble based on numerous factors including ticket history, streaming performance, email list sizes, and online attention. But there are no guarantees that any of that will translate to hard ticket sales. There are artists who might have massive numbers online but whose fans are only surface-level and don't really care enough to appear at a show. The way artists break out on social media nowadays makes it even harder to figure out whether that might be the case. Having a couple of hits on Spotify or TikTok doesn't mean someone can sell out a stadium.

That's why, in some cases, there seems to be a degree of overshooting. Artists (and their agents and managers and promoters) are trying to sell out bigger venues than they can. A more conservative approach would be to book a handful of big venues and see how it goes before committing to more, but that's not the approach everyone is taking.

"We have some hard-rock artists who you've never even heard of and they sell out everywhere, but they have that loyal fan base," Arfa said. "Just having the big song doesn't necessarily always translate into ticket sales." For every five or six acts that are doing great touring, one is a little clunky, he added. "We're having a couple conversations where we're thinking it may be best to push into Q1 of next year because of a high level of traffic on the road right now."

Every artist and situation is unique. Bad Bunny may not have been able to sell such high-priced tickets in Minneapolis, but he's sold a ton of other places. JLo seems to have a lot more on her plate than trying to tour right now, and the Black Keys will probably do fine in smaller venues. A representative for Live Nation, which is producing the Troye Sivan/Charli XCX show, said the tour had sold out some dates and was 70% sold across the board, implying there had been misconceptions about sales online. (They said Wallows is selling "well" without providing on-the-record specifics and pointed to public statements from the Black Keys and Lopez, the tours of which Live Nation all produced.) Hiccups are not all about ticket sales, either. Kid Cudi canceled his tour this year because he broke his foot jumping off the stage during Coachella, and many acts aren't specifically saying the problem is sales when they do cancel.

There are strategies acts undertake to try to freshen things up for fans and boost sales, such as combining forces or bringing in special guests. Def Leppard is touring with Journey this year, and last year it toured with Mötley Crüe. There's always good old marketing. Live Nation recently wrapped its "concert week," which offers a variety of tickets at $25 — a good way to push tickets that aren't moving.

There is, of course, a huge issue that undergirds the entire conversation: Buying tickets is supremely annoying. You have to really want to see a show to try to navigate the labyrinthine purchase process. Live Nation-Ticketmaster dominates the market, which critics — including the Department of Justice, which is suing the company over claims of anti-competitive practices — say stifles innovation, allows for unfair markups, and contributes to an overall negative experience for fans. Fees on tickets are confoundingly high and seemingly endless. Bot armies snatch up tickets when they go on sale and flip them on the secondary markets for exorbitantly high prices. (One piece of silver lining here is that this year's lowered demand has resulted in lower resale ticket prices. SeatGeek says the average resale ticket price to attend a summer concert this year is $214; last year, it was $257, though a lot of that was due to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.)

"The time when customer experiences aren't good is usually when there's a monopoly involved," Witt, from The Pabst Theater Group, said.

JLo, of course, will be fine — she is very rich, famous, and beautiful after all. Her fans will survive and will probably have a chance to see her perform again. But next time she hits the road, they'd be wise to scoop up her tickets fast so "This Is Me … Whenever In the Future" doesn't get axed, too.

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

• Buying an EV may be more difficult in some states than others.
• Dealers in some rural states have limited supplies of electric cars,  data from CarGurus has shown.
• The data included EVs in dealerships, but not those sold directly to customers, like Teslas.

Buying an EV is more difficult in some states than others, new data has suggested.

Data from car-listing platform CarGurus shows that over one-third of new electric vehicles are going to California, Texas, and Florida.

The data, which tracks EV inventory in dealerships and doesn't include companies like Tesla, Rivian, and Polestar that sell their vehicles to customers directly, showed that 14 states had less than 500 EVs available through dealerships at the end of March 2024.

Five of those states — North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota, Alaska, and Wyoming — had fewer than 250 EVs available, with potential buyers in Wyoming able to choose between just 62 vehicles. Bloomberg initially reported the CarGurus data.

The data comes amid a nationwide slowdown in demand for electric vehicles, with rural areas already having lower rates of EV adoption.

The US Department of Transportation estimates EV adoption is roughly 40% lower in rural areas, and has previously warned a lack of exposure to electric vehicles risks harming EV uptake in these regions.

Now, the scarcity of dealer supply has made it more difficult to acquire some of America's most popular electric cars in the country's rural states.

Hyundai's Ioniq 5, for example, reportedly sold 6,822 units in the first three months of the year and set a new record, per Electrek. However, the dealership data shows only 10 Ioniq 5s available in West Virginia at the end of March and seven in Iowa, for example.

Volkswagen reportedly sold 6,167 of its ID.4 electric SUV in Q1 and nearly 40,000 in 2023. But would-be EV buyers in Louisiana had two ID.4 vehicles to choose from. Maine, Mississippi, Arkansas, Michigan, and South Dakota had 23 available between them.

Both West Virginia or Nebraska, meanwhile, had just a single Nissan Arriya on offer, the data showed.

The data also suggests that in some states, EV inventory is lagging behind the rate at which people are buying them.

EVs accounted for 18% of total vehicle sales in Colorado in the fourth quarter of 2023 and 13% in Nevada, according to data from the Alliance of Automotive Innovation, an industry trade body. But EVs made up only 10% and 6% of new car inventory in the two states in CarGurus' data.

The findings come as automakers in the US reckon with slowing sales and faltering demand for EVs.

Ford and General Motors have shaken up their ambitious EV plans in response, and many companies are prioritizing the development of more affordable electric models that may appeal to a broader range of customers.

• Li Auto workers are facing layoffs or minimum wage due to weak electric vehicle sales.
• China's auto sector is struggling with overproduction, impacting domestic and international markets.
• Western concerns over subsidies and overcapacity add pressure as Chinese EV makers seek new markets.

As China grapples with manufacturing overproduction, some workers at one of China's auto plants face a difficult choice about their jobs.

Newlywed Lisa told Nikkei on Tuesday that in her brand-new factory for Li Auto, more than 1,000 employees like her were given the choice of either quitting or receiving minimum wage until business improves.

"We were told that our pure electric vehicle sales are weak due to the bad conditions, so the company has to cut production," said 27-year-old Lisa, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to Nikkei. "I will try to find a job. Otherwise, I will be starving to death."

Local media reported last month that Li Auto was planning to cut 18% of its workforce.

Li Auto delivered 80,400 cars in the first three months of the year, up 53% from the same period last year — but down 39% from the last quarter of 2023, per its financial results. The company did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Tesla, by comparison, delivered 386,810 cars in the first quarter — down 8.5% from a year ago, and 20% from the prior quarter.

Li Auto's financials are emblematic of the arc of China's electric vehicle industry. Car makers scaled up production quickly but have struggled to drum up enough demand for all their cars, especially as domestic consumers face a real estate crisis and volatile stock market.

Some of those automakers are looking to other countries as bigger markets, but politicians seeking to protect local manufacturers are cutting China off. Last month, the White House said it would impose a 100% tax on Chinese-made EVs.

Yao Xiaodong, an official for a Chinese EV group, said at a recent meeting that manufacturers could "either go overseas or go bust," Nikkei reported.

Chinese leaders have publicly said that the West's focus on supposed overproduction is election-year posturing.

But Western investors and politicians have been raising red flags about overcapacity for years, saying the Chinese government's huge manufacturing subsidies have led to cheap goods that distort the global market.

"China is now simply too large for the rest of the world to absorb this enormous capacity," US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said at a press conference in April.

China, meanwhile, is primarily concerned about factory underutilization and competition leading to too many unprofitable companies, BI reported last month.

Underutilization or closures of factories like Lisa's means less tax revenue for regional governments who have often borrowed significant sums for local development, fewer materials purchased from other Chinese companies, and an unemployed or underemployed workforce.

• Elon Musk reportedly discussed buying a tiny home from a Tesla board director, per Reuters.
• The Tesla CEO vowed to "own no house" in 2020, but BI found he bought an Austin house in 2022.
• Musk reportedly expressed interest in a factory-made house from Samara.

Elon Musk, who famously vowed to "own no house" in 2020 and claimed in 2022 that he was effectively homeless and couch surfing at his friend's properties, reportedly discussed buying a tiny house from one of Tesla's board directors, per Reuters.

Joe Gebbia, who cofounded Airbnb and prefabricated housing startup Samara, told Reuters that he stepped down from a special committee set up by Tesla's board to examine the company's possible move out of Delaware because of a "potential business transaction" involving Musk and Samara.

Samara sells prefabricated homes that cost from $269,000 to over $414,000.

Gebbia said the transaction was "currently on hold" but had decided to step down from the committee even after company lawyers concluded there was no conflict of interest out of an "abundance of caution."

"I did not want Elon's status as a potential customer of Samara to be used against the committee, so I disclosed that I had put that potential business transaction on hold," Gebbia said in a statement shared with Reuters.

Business Insider was unable to reach Gebbia for comment.

Musk has spoken often about his semi-nomadic lifestyle since 2020, when he tweeted that he was "selling almost all physical possessions" and would "own no house."

The Tesla CEO listed five of his luxurious properties on Zillow weeks later. In an April 2022 interview, he said he didn't own a home and was couch-surfing at friends' houses.

However, Business Insider reviewed court documents from December of the billionaire's custody dispute with his former girlfriend, Grimes, and found that Musk had purchased a house in Austin in February 2022 and still lived there.

Musk has also lived in a prefabricated property in the past. In 2021, he tweeted that he lived in a $50,000 house that he rented from SpaceX. He later said he used another prefab house, made by startup Boxabl, as a guest house.

Samara, which started out as a design studio at Airbnb before becoming an independent company in 2022, offers a range of different models, from a $269,000 studio option to a $414,000 two-bedroom, two-bathroom "Backyard XL" option.

After a foundation is laid and permits secured, the houses are driven to the property by a truck and then craned into place, which takes just a few hours.

Samara recently acquired a 150,000-square-foot factory in Mexico, which the company said would enable it to produce 1,000 properties yearly.

Elon Musk, Tesla, and Samara did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside normal working hours.

• India wants to unseat China as the new factory of the world.
• Modi is set to stay in power for another five years, but the results of the election are going to make it harder to beat China.
• However, analysts remain optimistic about the country's long-term growth.

India's economy is on a roll, chalking up 8.2% GDP growth in the last fiscal year and a boom in foreign investments.

The growth is in part thanks to a shift in supply chains and investment flows as companies try to stop relying solely on China.

This has boosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal, sending him to a historic third term as the country's prime minister in the country's general election.

But Modi's win this time around also comes with a huge loss.

While Modi is still hugely popular in India, his party — Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP — lost its majority in Parliament, reflecting resentment among voters amid rising inequality.

"The problem is most Indians have not adequately participated in the fruits of an economy with gaudy headline numbers," wrote Atman Trivedi, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center in a Tuesday note. "Growth is unequal, and jobs are few and far between."

India's unemployment rate rose to 8.1% in April from 7.4% in March, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a private think tank. The country has a longstanding brain drain issue.

India wants to unseat China as the factory of the world

BJP's likely loss of its majority is a testament to India's political system — but it will also make the dream of becoming the next China harder to achieve.

Decision-making and policy changes in the world's largest democracy, after all, can take far longer than they do in Communist China — a one-party state.

"Coalition governments require compromises. That reality could complicate any plans for ambitious structural reforms on land, labor, or opening India's markets to unfinished and intermediate inputs," wrote the Atlantic Council's Trivedi, who is also a partner at Albright Stonebridge Group.

India's stock markets tanked on the shock election results, with the benchmark Sensex index crashing over 5% in one day on Tuesday following the news. It rebounded on Wednesday.

Despite the knee-jerk reaction, most analysts are optimistic about India's economic outlook given that Modi is still in charge.

"Modi's broader economic reform agenda is likely to remain intact. And so, fears of India's key economic reforms unraveling are overdone," wrote Vishnu Varathan, the chief economist of Asia excluding Japan at Mizuho Bank.

India needs to get rich before it gets old

But India has a longer-term problem: aging.

India is the world's most populous country. With a 1.4 billion population, it has a huge pool of young people; 65% of its population is under the age of 35.

But aging is "rapidly progressing," according to the United Nations Population Fund. By 2050, one in every five persons in India will be 60 years old or above, the fund wrote in a report last year.

So, even though India has grown rapidly in recent years, it will need to grow much faster to get rich before it gets old, Raghuram Rajan, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, told NPR's "Planet Money" in a podcast.

It's not enough to power up India's manufacturing sector in the wake of China's breakneck growth — because so many other countries are doing the same thing, added Rajan, who is a former head of the Central Bank of India and a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

He said India will do better to capitalize on its services industry, especially since so many Indians are English speakers.

Despite its challenges, India is still expected to post healthy growth in the near future. The IMF forecasts India's economy will grow by 6.8% this fiscal year and 6.5% next fiscal year.

• This is a big year for Meta: Facebook turned 20 in February.
• The company's meteoric rise is one of Silicon Valley's biggest success stories.
• Here's how Facebook grew from a website built in a Harvard dorm to one of the world's biggest companies.

Facebook is a classic Silicon Valley success story: It's gone from an idea hatched in a Harvard dorm to one of the most powerful and influential companies in the world.

Mark Zuckerberg, its CEO and cofounder, has an estimated net worth of $170 billion. These days, Meta has more than 2 billion people using its social network monthly and is one of the world's biggest companies.

Here's the story behind Facebook's insane rise from February 2004 through to this year, its 20th anniversary:

Facebook's origin story is famous by now.

The website was created in Mark Zuckerberg's room in Harvard's Kirkland House dorm.

In 2003, Zuckerberg, then a sophomore at Harvard, built a website called Facemash.

"Facemash" was a Hot or Not-style site. Zuckerberg used pictures of his classmates that he hacked from the school administration's dormitory ID files. The site got 22,000 pageviews from 450 people in the first four hours it was up.

A few days later, Harvard ordered it to be taken down, citing copyright and security concerns. Zuckerberg faced disciplinary action from Harvard but was allowed to stay at the school.

Undeterred by the Facemash debacle, Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook" on February 4, 2004.

The logo featured Al Pacino's face constructed out of zeros and ones.

Six days after the launch, three Harvard seniors claimed Zuckerberg reneged on an agreement to build a site for them and used their ideas to create what eventually became Facebook.

Divya Narendra and twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss claimed Zuckerberg had agreed to build a website called HarvardConnection.com for them before abandoning them to create his own site. They eventually filed a lawsuit that was settled in 2008.

As part of the settlement, they received 1.2 million Facebook shares. Those shares were worth $300 million when Facebook had its IPO.

Within a month, half of Harvard's students were members of Thefacebook.

By March 2004, Thefacebook had expanded to other prestigious universities, including Yale, Columbia, and Stanford. Zuckerberg brought in fellow Harvard students Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes as cofounders to help manage the site's growth and build it into a business.

At this point, Zuckerberg was still running Facebook out of his dorm room, but it was time to get serious.

In 2004, he dropped out of Harvard to focus on it full-time.

In 2004, Facebook brought on its first president.

Zuckerberg hired Napster cofounder Sean Parker for the role.

In June 2004, Facebook set up shop in a tiny office in downtown Palo Alto, California.

Back then, the company was known for being as much a party hub as it was a serious startup.

This screenshot was taken from "Now Entering: a Millennial Generation," a 2008 documentary.

The same month it moved into its Palo Alto office, Facebook got its first outside funding.

The $500,000 investment came from PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel. Thiel has since become a prominent venture capitalist and political donor.

By this point, Facebook was starting its rapid ascent toward cultural superstardom.

In May 2005, Facebook raised $13.7 million in funding. In 2006, Facebook created its News Feed, a breakthrough and core feature of the site that gave people a real-time stream of what their friends were doing.

In late 2007, Zuckerberg met a Google executive named Sheryl Sandberg at a Christmas party.

At the time, Sandberg was considering taking a new position with The Washington Post. But after meeting her, Zuckerberg decided Facebook needed a chief operating officer, and managed to persuade her to come aboard in early 2008.

Sandberg's hiring was prescient: Facebook was already growing quickly, but the rise of the smartphone brought with it many more users.

In 2009, Facebook moved into a slightly larger Palo Alto office in the Stanford Research Park.

The move came as Facebook's site was experiencing explosive growth. By late 2010, it hit a trillion page views a month.

That year, Facebook would introduce one of the most defining features of the platform and our broader social media landscape.

That's right, we're talking about the "like" button.

The Stanford Research Park space wouldn't hold Facebook for long. In 2011, the social network moved again.

This time it set up shop in a corporate campus once occupied by Sun Microsystems, which had fallen from grace and been acquired by Oracle.

Facebook named the campus' main thoroughfare "Hacker Way," referring to Zuckerberg's famous "move fast and break things" philosophy of the same name.

By this point, Facebook was showing that its social network could play a major role in global politics.

The site's influence was highlighted by the Egyptian revolution of 2011. That uprising was largely organized via Facebook and other social-networking sites.

Zuckerberg himself was also getting more involved in the political scene.

Among his first public political actions was to speak to world leaders in support of spreading internet access all over the globe.

The social network was becoming unstoppable.

Facebook had its historic $5 billion initial public offering on May 18, 2012.

Over the years, the company has snapped up a bunch of hot startups, including photo-sharing hit Instagram.

Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012. The photo-sharing app now has more than 2 billion users.

The purchase was a demonstration of how, despite its rise, Facebook has always been on the lookout for the next startup that threatened to disrupt it.

It also bought virtual-reality headset maker Oculus.

Oculus was an early-stage startup when Facebook acquired it in March 2014 for $2 billion.

And it purchased mobile-messaging company WhatsApp — for $19 billion.

Facebook made the acquisition in February 2014, and the service now has more than 2 billion active users.

By the time Facebook turned 10 in 2014, over 1.23 billion people were visiting the social network every month.

A billion of those users were accessing the social network through their mobile devices.

The world had changed, but Facebook had kept on growing.

To support all that growth, Facebook had to move to a bigger office — again.

In March 2015, Facebook opened a new campus in Menlo Park, California. The campus was designed by legendary architect Frank Gehry to accommodate more than 2,800 employees.

For better or for worse, Zuckerberg has an iron grip on the company's voting shares.

The way Zuckerberg has structured Facebook's stock gives him disproportionate voting power that keeps him in charge, no matter what else happens to the company. So he's not losing control of the company any time soon.

Facebook had a rocky 2017, and a rockier 2018, culminating in Zuckerberg testifying in front of the United States Congress.

In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, Facebook spent much of 2017 under scrutiny for its role in the spread of "fake news" and misinformation.

When it came out that firm called Cambridge Analytica had improperly obtained the personal data of as many as 87 million Facebook users, Zuckerberg was ultimately called to the floor of the US Congress to answer tough questions about the social network's business.

That year, Zuckerberg announced the company would create an Oversight Board that could overrule Facebook's own content management policies and even Zuck himself.

Facebook announced the first members of the oversight board in 2021.

In October 2021, Facebook rebranded.

With an eye towards the digital metaverse, Zuckerberg announced the company was changing its name to Meta.

The metaverse could be accessed by the company's virtual reality headsets, the Oculus Quest line, which was later also rebranded as the Meta Quest.

In 2022, the company lost one of its highest-ranking execs.

Sandberg stepped down as chief operating officer in 2022 after 14 years in the role. She was succeeded by Javier Olivan.

"I don't plan to replace Sheryl's role in our existing structure," Zuckerberg said at the time. "I'm not sure that would be possible since she's a superstar who defined the COO role in her own unique way.

"But even if it were possible, I think Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated, rather than having all the business and operations functions organized separately from our products," Zuckerberg added.

The company also suffered another blow that year.

In February 2022, it reported a decrease in daily active users for the first time in its history, going from 1.93 billion to 1.929 billion in the last three months of 2021.

And the hits kept coming: The company announced the biggest job cuts in its history in November 2022.

Meta laid off 11,000 workers, roughly 13% of its workforce at the time, in its first-ever mass layoffs.

Rounding out 2022, the company agreed to pay a $725 million settlement to settle claims it shared users' data with third parties without their consent.

As part of the settlement, Meta denied wrongdoing.

The cuts continued in 2023, which Zuckerberg vowed would be a "year of efficiency."

The company announced a further 10,000 job cuts in 2023. Zuckerberg was focused on cutting organizational bloat and reportedly said he hated structures of "managers managing managers."

In July 2023, Meta launched the social networking app Threads.

It's drawn many comparisons to X, formerly Twitter, and has more than 130 million monthly active users, Zuckerberg said during Meta's fourth-quarter earnings in February.

Facebook hit a big milestone this year.

The company turned 20 on February 4, 2024. Zuckerberg himself turned 40.

Now, the company has its eyes on AI.

This January, Zuckerberg said Meta was working on building artificial general intelligence, or AGI.

Meta released its first large language model in the Llama family in February 2023. This April, it announced it's introducing AI assistant Meta AI, powered by Llama 3, to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

Matt Weinberger contributed to a previous version of this article.