The minute-long ad titled "Crush!" showed various artistic tools — a turntable, a trumpet, a piano, and a collection of camera lenses — slowly crushed by a hydraulic press to make a shiny new iPad Pro.
The ad certainly made a statement, just probably not in the manner that Apple intended.
Apple CEO Tim Cook's X post of the video drew over 11,000 replies as of press time, with a large number of them panning the ad's visuals and message.
Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create. pic.twitter.com/6PeGXNoKgG
"Who thought this was a good idea??" X user Joe B. Transue wrote in his reply to Cook. "Did you hire the one person that liked the scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit where the bad guy dips the animated shoe in the toon-killing bath??"
Others offered backhanded compliments to Apple, saying that the ad could be a masterpiece if it were meant to be a critique of tech giants.
"Is this intentionally a metaphor for the damage to the things of value to humanity wrought by tech bros and gen AI for profit/greed? If so, bravo!" another person told Cook.
Some felt the commercial missed the mark compared to Apple's past work. The company made waves with its "1984" Super Bowl ad when it introduced its first Macintosh computer in the 80s.
"Maybe hire Ridley Scott again next time instead," read one X post referencing the award-winning director behind the "1984" ad.
Venture capitalist and Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham went a step further with his review of the ad.
Apple's commercial, Graham said, would've been an insult to the company's late founder, Steve Jobs.
"Steve wouldn't have shipped that ad. It would have pained him too much to watch," Graham said in his reply to Cook.
Jobs, who handed the reigns to Cook before passing away in October 2011, often sought to portray Apple as lying at the intersection of arts and technology.
"It is in Apple's DNA that technology alone is not enough—it's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing," Jobs said when he unveiled the iPad 2 in March 2011.
Representatives for Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.
Tesla boss Elon Musk (L) walks with Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong during the ground-breaking ceremony for a Tesla factory in Shanghai on January 7, 2019.
STR via Getty Images
Tesla is facing an uphill battle in China, the world's largest auto market.
The EV ecosystem Tesla built may help catapult that competition to success.
Elon Musk appears focused on reinforcing Tesla's China business.
Tesla is facing tougher years ahead in the Chinese market, and it couldn't come at a worse time for the company.
Elon Musk's automaker has enjoyed many years of favorable treatment from the Chinese government. When Tesla started building cars at the Shanghai Gigafactory in 2019, it was the first foreign automaker to wholly own its production facility.
The Chinese government also provided Tesla with loans, tax benefits, and subsidies in return for a boon to the local supply base as Tesla worked with companies to source new, lower-cost materials and components.
Creating this ecosystem around the Shanghai factory changed the way electric cars were built in the world's largest auto market and may have sown the seeds for the intense competition Musk now faces in the region.
After years of steady growth in China, Tesla's sales are slipping
Tesla sold 62,167 cars in China in April, down 18% from a year ago, according to data released Tuesday by the China Passenger Car Association.
Local rival BYD, a former battery supplier that has its own mighty hold on the EV supply chain, is now outselling Musk's company, delivering 145,576 of its lower-cost battery-electric vehicles in April.
Now Tesla has to fight with domestic competitors
China fueled Tesla's explosive growth over the past five years, making it the most valuable automaker in the world and a leading seller of electric vehicles. But in the meantime Tesla has played into China's hand, teaching its local supply base how to build better EVs and scale up to mass produce them.
Now, Tesla will have to face home-grown competitors who will benefit from the same EV ecosystem that it helped to build, potentially sowing the seeds of its own downfall in the region.
This strategy of luring an industry leader to the region with favorable treatment to spur innovation for the rest of the sector isn't new for the Chinese government.
Take Apple, for example. China provided the California tech company's iPhone manufacturer, Foxconn, with mountains of economic incentives and tax breaks. Today, a majority of Apple's most popular products are manufactured in China, putting the country at the center of the smartphone manufacturing ecosystem.
Tesla sends in reinforcements
Challenges in China couldn't come at a worse time for Tesla. Musk has tried to keep pace with BYD by lowering prices in China for the past year, but the company is running out of leeway on pricing as a global EV slowdown is finally catching up to Tesla.
Inexpensive Chinese cars are also competing with Tesla in important European and Scandinavian markets, a traditional stronghold for Musk. And while they aren't for sale in the US, BYD's Dolphin Mini goes for just $21,000 in Mexico compared to Tesla's cheapest Model 3, which is down to about $39,000 these days.
Meanwhile, in Tesla's native US market, similar price cuts are losing their luster as traditional competitors like Ford and GM are able to fall back on gas-powered profits and a newfound interest in hybrid vehicles, which Tesla doesn't build.
After his latest visit to the region, Musk appears to be sending reinforcements to the Chinese market. Tom Zhu, one of Musk's most trusted executives and the architect of Tesla's success in Shanghai, is headed back to the region as the company also looks to roll out its Full Self-Driving software.
Southern European economies have had remarkable recoveries since the financial crisis over a decade ago.
But a surge in real estate investment, partly due to "golden visas", has led to skyrocketing housing costs.
Northern Europe is also facing a housing crunch, despite very different economic conditions.
Southern European economies — from Greece to Portugal — have made remarkable recoveries since the European financial crisis just over a decade ago. Tourism is booming, investors and major businesses have moved in, and lots of foreigners are relocating to the region to take advantage of new jobs and a cheaper cost of living.
But one side effect of this growth is skyrocketing housing costs. Home prices and rents have soared in cities like Lisbon and Athens, while beach towns from Spain to the Greek islands are dominated by pricey short-term rentals.
This is in part the doing of so-called "golden visas," hugely popular residency visas for foreign investors. In countries like Greece, Spain, and Portugal, most visa applicants qualify by buying residential property.
Americans make up a big portion of the foreigners flooding into Southern Europe. They're gobbling up some of the most expensive real estate in Spain. They spent more per square meter on homes in Spain than any other nationality besides Danes, The New York Times reported last year. And they purchased more Portuguese golden visas than any other nationality in 2022. Some are escaping increasingly unaffordable housing markets in the US. But they're now contributing to housing affordability issues across the Atlantic.
A surge in real estate investment has pushed home values way up, gentrifying in-demand cities, displacing longtime residents, and preventing young people from moving out of their parents' homes. Despite their booming economies, average southern Europeans still have relatively low wages and just can't compete with foreign investors, homebuyers, tourists, and remote workers.
Portugal, which has had one of the most popular and lucrative golden visas, rolled out its policy in 2012, fast-tracking visas for well-heeled foreigners, including those who transferred at least one million euros to a Portuguese bank account, purchased at least 500,000 euros in real estate, created at least 10 jobs, or donated at least 250,000 euros to certain cultural or artistic initiatives. The visa holders can travel freely in more than two dozen EU countries and are eligible for family reunification.
The visas have had a huge impact on Portuguese real estate and housing costs, João Pereira dos Santos, a researcher at the School of Economics and Finance at Queen Mary University of London, told Business Insider. The vast majority of visa holders have used a real estate purchase as their way in.
"They buy houses, so they do not invest and create jobs. And we know part of this housing is immediately put in the long-term and in the short-term rental markets," Pereira dos Santos said. "So these people that apply for the visa, they do not come to live in Portugal."
Portuguese home prices rose 19% just between 2021 and 2022. The whole market — from cheaper rentals to luxury houses — has been affected, Pereira dos Santos said. "The problem was so salient that it even appreciated houses that were deals between Portuguese buyers and sellers," he said.
Golden visas aren't all to blame. At the same time, Portugal, like the rest of sunny Southern Europe, has seen a huge surge in tourists. Many emerged from pandemic lockdowns with the travel bug — and cash to spend. Last year was "the best year in the history of tourism in Portugal," the country's Secretary of State for Tourism, Trade and Services, Nuno Fazenda, told Bloomberg. The pandemic also ushered in a wave of remote workers and retirees looking for a high quality of life in relatively affordable European countries. New digital nomad visas for foreign remote workers have also juiced demand for housing.
But as Portugal has experienced a worsening housing affordability crisis, Portuguese public opinion on golden visas has soured. Pereira dos Santos and his colleagues conducted a nationally representative survey in Portugal that found that a majority of respondents were in favor of ending the golden visa program even if it harmed the Portuguese economy to do so. Last year, the country changed the terms of its golden visa program to exclude real estate investment.
Other southern European countries are following suit, similarly pointing to skyrocketing real estate prices. Last month, Spain announced the end of its golden visa program, which was almost entirely dependent on foreign real estate investment.
Due to these measures, some of the most in-demand places in Southern Europe will likely see slower housing price growth going forward. But because these economies are still doing so well overall, real estate prices will generally continue to tick up, Holger Schmieding, the chief economist at Berenberg Bank in London, told Business Insider.
"These economies are better places to invest and create jobs for domestic and for foreign investors into the economies as a whole," Schmieding said. "With better employment prospects people feel confident to buy a house or build a house. The real estate market is largely a reflection of the economy being on a more solid footing."
People stroll along Las Ramblas on June 30, 2023, in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
David Zorrakino/Getty Images
Northern Europe faces its own crunch
The economies of Southern Europe are doing much better than the traditional powerhouses of northern Europe. Portugal and Spain grew more than three times as fast as Germany did in the first quarter of this year. But northern Europe is struggling with a housing crunch of its own.
The Netherlands has one of the most severe housing crises on the continent. Home prices have doubled, on average, over the last decade and now a newly-constructed home costs 16 times the average Dutch salary. Limits on building permits, a shortage of building materials and construction workers, and limited land have all contributed to the country's housing shortage.
Germany has seen a significant home price correction as it faced relatively high interest rates, an energy crisis, and new regulations requiring that homeowners switch from oil and gas heating systems to heat pumps that rely on renewable energy. That combination has helped dampen demand for homes and construction.
German housing prices are expected to start rebounding as the home heating policy becomes better understood, the European Central Bank signals it will soon cut interest rates, and wages rise faster than prices. "The German market for house prices is close to bottoming out, and the same probably holds for building permits and residential construction," Schmieding said.
France similarly saw housing costs steadily climb in recent years, but, like Germany, has seen its prices come down amid high interest rates. Schmieding also expects home prices and rents to tick back up later this year in France as long as interest rates come down.
The country is still facing housing affordability issues — a situation one prominent charity recently called "a social bomb" — with rising homelessness and a growing waitlist for social housing. The Paris Olympic games this summer are only intensifying housing demand in the capital, including for short-term rentals, which has reduced the number of rental apartments on the market.
Despite very different economic conditions, all kinds of European countries are facing the same dilemma that's plaguing the US: a shortage of affordable homes.
Max Levchin, Affirm's CEO, said AI chatbots could save the company money in one to three years.
Getty
Affirm is investing heavily in AI-powered chatbots to cater to Gen Z's phone aversion.
AI chatbots are expected to replace 20-30% of customer service agents by 2026, according to Gartner.
Despite the potential savings and efficiency, AI customer service has seen limited adoption.
Gen Z hates talking on the phone, so companies like the $9.7 billion buy-now, pay-later giant Affirm are betting big on AI-powered chatbots.
The bots let voice-averse customers solve problems online, Affirm CEO Max Levchin said on an earnings call on Wednesday.
"We've been investing really heavily in this idea that Gen Z consumers really love chatting versus calling and they have no problem chatting with an Al, especially if the Al is intelligent," Levchin said.
Affirm uses chatbots to solve fast queries, like policy questions, and then real people take over for more complicated cases, Levchin said. The PayPal alumnus said chatbots are helping Affirm scale its customer service team.
Affirm built an AI-based assistant and tested it in the last quarter. Less than 40% of users needed to speak with a human after using the bot, Levchin wrote in a shareholder letter.
"No one has yet to lose their job to be replaced by robot at a firm, so that's not a short-term cost saving," Levchin said on Wednesday's call, adding that AI could save the company money over the next one to three years.
Tech research firm Gartner estimated last year that by 2026, AI will replace 20-30% of customer service agents.
The nascent technology is already having a big bottom-line impact for some companies.
Deb Cupp, the president of Microsoft Americas, said in a panel discussion at Davos in January that the software giant saved $100 million in its customer-service operation by implementing AI. Microsoft also sells AI-powered customer service technology.
Mihir Shukla, the CEO of Automation Anywhere, said at Davos that the company cut customer-service costs by 40% while seeing improved performance since introducing AI.
AI customer service hasn't been a panacea for all businesses, though. People tricked and hacked a car dealership's customer service AI in December, and in January, a UK mail service's bot swore at a customer.
And AI bots have not yet been widely adopted. Only 8% of customers said they used a chatbot during their most recent customer service encounter, according to a Gartner survey done from December 2022 through February 2023. Of those who used a chatbot, only a quarter said they would use that bot again in the future.
Alphabet is Google's parent company and has been described by its former CEO, Larry Page, as "mostly a collection of companies."
Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Alphabet Inc. was first created after a major restructuring at Google.
Alphabet is now a parent company consisting of two segments: Google and Other Bets.
Alphabet is a trillion-dollar company, and one of the biggest in the US and the world.
Alphabet Inc. is a multinational tech conglomerate that was created in 2015 out of a massive restructuring of Google.
The goal of Google's restructuring, forming the parent company Alphabet, was to enable different businesses within the company to "operate independently and move faster."
Google co-founder Larry Page was Alphabet's first CEO, but Google CEO Sundar Pichai took over Alphabet in 2019. Pichai is one of the highest-paid executives in the world; he earned $226 million in 2022.
Alphabet has been amping up its efforts to innovate in the artificial intelligence space and incorporate AI into its products — a key priority for its investors. Pichai has long touted Alphabet as an "AI-first company."
In 2023, Alphabet laid off about 12,000 employees, and Pichai said more Google layoffs would come in 2024.
What is the difference between Google and Alphabet?
Google is still Google, but its parent company is now called Alphabet Inc. and contains two main units: Google and Other Bets. Page has described Alphabet as "mostly a collection of companies."
The goal of creating Alphabet was to enable the company to invest in entrepreneurship, new products, and technology, and focus on taking a forward-looking approach.
Google remains the largest business within the Alphabet conglomerate, and includes Google Chrome, Google Pixel, Google Home, YouTube, search, Android, AdSense, Google Maps, and Google Play.
Other Bets encompasses entities such as the research and development unit Google X, Google Fiber, health research company Verily, the venture arm GV, and equity investment fund CapitalG.
Alphabet is one of the biggest tech companies in the world, and the third-largest company in the US, after Microsoft and Apple.
Like most major tech companies, Alphabet hired prodigiously throughout the pandemic and up to 2022, then slashed costs and implemented layoffs in 2023. By the end of 2023, Alphabet had about 182,500 employees in total.
Alphabet's net worth and ownership
Alphabet's annual revenue for 2023 was $307.39 billion, and its market cap was $1.87 trillion as of the end of March 2024.
Alphabet's main shareholders are Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Vanguard Group, and BlackRock Inc.
A woman tries to look over the gate of the house where Marilyn Monroe died in Brentwood.
FREDERIC J. BROWN/Getty Images
Owners of Marilyn Monroe's former Brentwood home are suing LA for the right to raze the property.
They want to expand their current residence, which is located next door.
The City Council is considering whether to designate the house where Monroe died a historic monument.
The owners of the Brentwood home where Marilyn Monroe lived and later died are suing the City of Los Angeles for the right to demolish the property.
Brinah Milstein and her husband, Roy Bank, filed a Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit on Monday, alleging "illegal and unconstitutional conduct and abuse of power" by the city concerning the property they bought in July 2023.
According to the Los Angeles Times, they purchased the home for $8.35 million. Their intention was to demolish it and expand their current residence, which is located next door, according to the lawsuit.
Monroe died from an overdose in the Brentwood property at the age of just 36.
The plaintiffs claim they were issued a demolition permit from the city, which was initially "held" for 30 days to allow for objections.
They claim that no objections were raised and permits were subsequently issued, which led to them incurring over $30,000 in expenses before receiving actual notice of a "stay" invoked by the city.
Last September, the Los Angeles City Council intervened to temporarily halt the demolition of the home, which KCAL News reported was welcomed by fans and historians.
Scott Fortner of The Marilyn Monroe Collection, a superfan and collector, told the news outlet that the "home is the equivalent of Graceland" for Monroe fans.
He said the property, which Monroe purchased in 1962 for just over $77,000, represented a new beginning for the iconic star, following her divorce from playwright Arthur Miller.
Marilyn Monroe waves from Arthur Miller's convertible as the newlyweds leave their Connecticut home for a picnic in June 1956.
Bettmann/Getty Images
Fortner said the home also has significance in memorializing Monroe, noting that its front step tiles read "Cursum Perficio" — Latin for "my journey ends here."
The City Council initiated proceedings last September to consider designating the property a historic cultural monument, a move that would invalidate the demolition permits.
However, Milstein and Bank have pushed back.
They contend in the lawsuit that Monroe lived in the house for only a short period, less than six months in 1962, and that the house has been "substantially altered" over the years.
"There is not a single piece of the house that includes any physical evidence that Ms. Monroe ever spent a day at the house, not a piece of furniture, not a paint chip, not a carpet, nothing," the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also alleges that the city's push for the designation violated its own codes, which has deprived the plaintiffs of their "vested rights as owners of real property" and has caused them "irreparable harm."
The City Council will vote on whether to declare the house a historic cultural monument by mid-June.
A statement provided by email to Business Insider by the plaintiffs' attorney, Peter C. Sheridan of Glaser Weil Fink Howard Jordan & Shapiro LLP, accused the City of Los Angeles of engaging in "an illegal and unconstitutional conspiracy."
Representatives for the City of Los Angeles did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
Brentwood boasts a rich Hollywood heritage, counting Betty White and Joan Crawford among its former notable residents.
However, that rich history, combined with the high value of the land, has created tension when it comes to preservation.
Actor Chris Pratt and his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger recently caused an uproar when they demolished a midcentury modern house designed by architect Craig Ellwood to make way for a sprawling mansion.
Liz Waytkus, the US executive director of the conservation nonprofit Docomomo, told Dezeen last month that the demolition highlighted a "systemic" problem in the area.
"The land has become more valuable than the house, and even if people understand the value of such a home, location and land value often trump architectural significance," she said.
Thursday, May 9, 2024: This article has been updated with a response from Peter C. Sheridan, the attorney for Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank.
That’s because, taken together, the two primary Social Security funds are set to only be able to pay out full benefits through 2035; the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, one of the main funds comprising Social Security, will start getting depleted in 2033.
That’s bad news for the Gen Xers currently ages 56 to 58: Come 2033 and 2035, they’ll start turning 67, making them eligible for Social Security — and they might end up with reduced benefits.
In other words, the moment that today’s older Gen Xers are ready to retire, their Social Security benefits could start to shrink. That could be a real problem for a generation that was already suffering in silence. Gen Xers — born from 1965 to 1980 — have been deemed the country’s “neglected middle child” by the Pew Research Center.
Gen X is deeper in debt and more worried about finances than other generations
You might be able to chalk up Gen X’s invisibility to the fact that, per the Library of Congress, they’re the smallest generation population-wise. Their plights have been dwarfed by millennials‘ massive ranks and prominent woes, and the huge peak boomer population that’s about to settle into retirement.
But Gen Xers have already been quietly dealing with some financial insecurity. In July 2023, Business Insider — in partnership with YouGov — surveyed over 1,800 Americans spanning five generations, asking about work, money, and relationships. And among the different generations, Gen Xers were the most likely to report that they were feeling financially insecure.
Experian consumer data shows that the total average debt for Gen X has been near or over $150,000 in the third quarters of 2021 to 2023, higher than both their younger and older counterparts. The generation also had over $9,000 in average credit card debt, based on data from the third quarter of 2023, which was not only a rise from their average credit card debt a year prior but far above the national average of $6,501 or the average for other generations.
“Generation X is the generation most likely to have the richest credit mix,” the Experian post stated. “That may sound like a flex, but in practical terms it means these consumers are likely to have multiple monthly payments to service—think student loan, mortgage, credit card and car payments.”
That’s not to say other generations aren’t encountering similar challenges. According to a new TransUnion study based on credit bureau data and a December 2023 survey of just over 1,200 Gen Z and millennial consumers, the youngest generation is disproportionately struggling to balance a range of credit products amid high inflation.
Specifically, Gen Zers are seeing higher levels of delinquency on products like credit cards and auto loans compared to millennials 10 years earlier, with 75% of Gen Z respondents saying the pandemic negatively influenced their finances.
“Gen Z consumers have seen their finances significantly impacted by the pandemic and its aftermath, even more so than the challenges faced by Millennials as a result of the Global Financial Crisis,” Michele Raneri, vice president and head of US research and consulting at TransUnion, said in a statement.
In addition to those concerns, how much older Americans have in retirement savings varies — from 20% of older respondents in the survey, excluding those who don’t know about their savings, who aren’t retired saying none to 7% saying at least $1 million.
That all comes as “peak boomers” stand poised to unleash a retirement tsunami. Those are the final boomers to retire, and they’re facing similar challenges — over half will be mostly relying on Social Security for income to get by, according to a report from the Alliance for Lifetime Income’s Retirement Income Institute. That could set the stage for the new crop of Gen X retirees to arrive in an already-precarious retirement economy.
Boeing 737 MAX airplanes are pictured outside a Boeing factory on March 25, 2024 in Renton, Washington.
Stephen Brashear/Getty Images
An ex-worker at Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the 737 fuselage, said he almost has a fear of flying from his time there.
Santiago Paredes, a former quality manager of 12 years at Spirit, accused the firm of rushing safety inspections.
He said he would find "over a hundred defects" per day when carrying out final inspections.
A former employee of Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems said he nearly developed a fear of flying because of what he saw during his 12-year stint inspecting aircraft fuselages there.
Santiago Paredes, who was a quality manager at Spirit's Wichita facility, told CBS News in a Wednesday report that he would observe "over a hundred defects every day" when conducting final inspections of 737 fuselages.
"Working at Spirit, I almost grew a fear of flying," said Paredes. "There's about two or three units that is in the back of your mind, that you know you would never want to fly on."
"You think there are planes out there that you wouldn't want to fly on?" CBS senior transport correspondent Kris Van Cleave asked Paredes.
"Oh yeah," Paredes said. "Knowing what I know about the 737, it makes me very uncomfortable when I fly in one of them."
Boeing outsources the manufacturing of the 737 fuselage to Spirit and, when assembling the plane at its own facilities, employs a team that finds and fixes defects.
Paredes, who left Spirit in 2022, called the operation a "recipe for disaster." He accused the company of fostering a work culture that pressured inspectors to clear fuselages faster so they could hit deadlines.
The former quality manager said he was even nicknamed the "Showstopper" by his bosses because he would delay deliveries by pointing out issues.
He also told CBS that he often found defects near door panels like the one that blew out midair on an Alaska Airlines 737 flight in January, which prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily ground more than 170 of the planes.
In February, the National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary investigation into the January incident said bolts were missing from the 737 Max 9's door plug.
"Why'd that happen? Because Spirit let go of a defect that they overlooked because of the pressure that they put on the inspectors," Paredes said.
Paredes told CBS that he once sent an email pushing back against his managers' requests to speed up inspections and then was removed from his leadership position. He complained to human resources and was later reinstated, but resigned, he told the outlet.
He is now a whistleblower in a lawsuit against Spirit brought by shareholders. In court documents, he was identified as "Former Employee 1" until coming forth to speak publicly about his experience, the BBC reported.
Another whistleblower at Spirit, John Dean, was also meant to give testimony in the lawsuit but died from a sudden illness in early May.
Spirit has said that the allegations in the lawsuit are false.
Paredes' accusations are the latest blow to the embattled Spirit and Boeing, which have both faced intensifying scrutiny after the January door plug incident. The 737 Max has become the subject of criticism from several whistleblowers, who accused the manufacturers of compromising safety standards to fill deliveries more quickly.
Employees work on a production line manufacturing lithium battery products at a factory in Yichang, Hubei province, China.
Reuters/Stringer
China published draft regulations for the battery industry and it wants to curb overproduction.
That appears to be at odds with China's official stance that there's no industrial overproduction in the country.
The West has been complaining about China's overcapacity, but analysts say it doesn't apply to all sectors.
The West has been complaining that China is overproducing goods and dumping them on the global markets. The comments have incurred the ire of Bejing, which has, as recently as Monday, denied the claims.
In its proposal, the ministry lays out plans to regulate the battery industry — which, alongside electric vehicles and solar cells, is a key pillar of growth in China's economic transformation.
The proposal covers a range of issues, including minimum technical standards and ecological guidelines for battery production. Notably, however, it also states that lithium-ion manufacturers should avoid building factories that "simply expand production capacity."
China's battery production in 2023 alone was already big enough to fill global demand, according to an analysis from BloombergNEF.
The proposal illustrates China's concerns about overcapacity — which it sees differently from the West, even if Chinese leader Xi Jinping's administration is pushing back on the claims. It comes just as Xi wraps up his first trip to the European Union in five years.
China's overcapacity problem doesn't extend to all sectors
To be sure, the issue of overcapacity in China doesn't extend to all sectors.
As a separate Bloomberg analysis found, the problem is mainly in areas where China already had the upper hand over the West, such as lower-tech goods and building materials after the country's real-estate bust.
The country is also producing a vast oversupply of solar panels and batteries.
Analyses elsewhere also support Bloomberg's findings that China's factory production is not flooding global markets in every sector.
"We find emerging, but not overwhelming, macro proof to support the recent geopolitical narrative of excess Chinese goods production that unfairly undercuts global manufacturing competitors on price," wrote Louise Loo, the lead economist at Oxford Economics, in a note on April 30.
Loo said cyclical oversupply is likely in the near term due to China's economic woes, which have hit domestic demand, but it is not a persistent issue over time.
Still, this does not sit well with the West, which is trying to ramp up its own onshore battery capacity with government incentives in markets including the US,Canada,Europe, and India.
As Chim Lee, a China analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, wrote in a note on April 15, the "super-cycle" in strategic sectors —such as those of EVs and renewable equipment — is politically charged.
"These sectors are highly politicized globally: lower prices can be perceived as the result of government support, but they are also key to accelerating the green transition," Lee wrote.
China's global share of battery manufacturing capacity is expected to fall
Despite the West's consternation, there is an upside for the bloc. China's global share of battery manufacturing is expected to decline in the years ahead, according to a report from the International Energy Agency, or IEA, published on Monday.
China now accounts for more than 80% of battery manufacturing capacity, followed by the US and the EU with around 5% each, per the IEA.
However, China's share of battery manufacturing could fall to around 60% by the end of the decade, while the US and EU could each triple their share to about 15% thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act and policies to support energy transition commitments, according to the IEA.
Kennedy said on Wednesday that he's confident of winning a presidential debate even if he were to eat a couple more of those "brain worms."
"I offer to eat 5 more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate," Kennedy wrote in a post on X.
"I feel confident of the result even with a six-worm handicap," he said in a subsequent post.
Kennedy's remarks came after The New York Times wrote about his health issues in a report published on the same day. Kennedy claimed that doctors found a dead worm in his brain during his divorce deposition in 2012, per The Times.
Doctors, Kennedy said, told him that the dark spot that appeared on his brain scan was "caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died."
Kennedy's campaign press secretary, Stefanie Spear, earlier confirmed with BI that he was indeed infected with a parasite 10 years ago but has since recovered.
"Mr. Kennedy traveled extensively in Africa, South America, and Asia in his work as an environmental advocate, and in one of those locations, contracted a parasite," she said.
The presidential candidate's bizarre challenge on Wednesday can be seen as a lighthearted attempt to cast aside concerns about his health.
After all, the Kennedy campaign has long been positioning the 70-year-old as being more alert and fit than his rivals — 81-year-old President Joe Biden and 77-year-old former President Donald Trump.
Kennedy even posted a video of himself working out while shirtless in June.
"Questioning Mr. Kennedy's health is a hilarious suggestion, given his competition," Spear told BI.
Both Biden and Trump are fundraising aggressively to fund their 2024 war chests. But Kennedy, too, has won the support of wealthy and powerful backers like billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey. He's also running for the White House with Nicole Shanahan, the ex-wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin.
Kennedy's growing profile appears to have ruffled Trump's feathers, who told reporters last week that he will not be debating the long shot presidential hopeful.
"He's not a serious candidate," Trump said of Kennedy on May 2. "They say he hurts Biden. I don't know who he hurts; he might hurt me. I don't know. He has very low numbers, certainly not numbers that he can debate with. He's got to get his numbers a lot higher before he's credible."
Representatives for Kennedy didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.