Axios

A pair of election surprises in Mexico and India have left international investors reeling.

Why it matters: Stocks and currencies plunged in both countries as India Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party lost its parliamentary stronghold and Claudia Sheinbaum won by a landslide victory in Mexico.

The job market may be in a slow-motion cooldown, but you can still get a virtual job.

State of play: Ikea is hiring employees to work at its new virtual store on gaming platform Roblox, where they can perform tasks at the Swedish Food Market and Bistro or arrange virtual showrooms.

S&P 500 company CEOs got a median raise of 12.6% in 2023, far better than their workers and the rate of inflation, AP found based on study by Equilar, an executive data firm.

Why it matters: "At half the companies in this year's pay survey, it would take the worker at the middle of the company's pay scale almost 200 years to make what their CEO did," AP writes.

Zoom in: CEOs flourished as earnings often exceeded expectations amid a better-than-expected economy.

• But critics say CEOs are raking in exorbitant compensation while workers struggle to keep pace with price increases.

Elon Musk told Nvidia to send a bunch of AI chips slated for Tesla to his social media company X, instead.

Why it matters: The news, first reported by CNBC from internal emails at Nvidia, raised immediate questions about whether Musk was being truthful with Tesla's public shareholders about the company's AI spend and about the tech's near-term potential to power things like self-driving vehicles and robotaxis.

Musk confirmed the diversion today, but also downplayed its significance.

• In a post on X he said Tesla simply had no place to send the chips to turn them on, so they would have "just sat in a warehouse."

An index called CESR (said like the salad), or the Composite Ether Staking Rate, aims to show what rate people committing their ether are getting on average.

• There are many staking service providers out there, and the rates they pass on to their customers vary. So the CESR aims to make the take more transparent.

What we're watching: If ether ETFs sans staking end up being extra good for ether investors who aren't in those ETFs, a theory we reported on, the yield on this thing should go up as the new funds start to see meaningful inflows.

Crypto evangelist Michael Saylor and the enterprise software company he co-founded, MicroStrategy, will pay $40 million to settle tax fraud allegations in D.C.

Why it matters: It's the largest income tax fraud recovery in city history, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb announced yesterday.

Zoom in: D.C. alleged that Saylor dodged city income taxes by claiming he lived in Virginia or Florida while owning a lavish Georgetown penthouse. Schwalb's office claimed Saylor owed over $25 million in income taxes between 2005 and 2020.

• Whistleblowers alleged Saylor "bragged to friends and acquaintances about evading D.C. taxes," per Schwalb's office.

The latest trending product from Trader Joe's has come just in time for beach season. The chain's new mini insulated tote bags, selling in stores for $3.99 each, are expected to go fast.

Why it matters: The 1.5-gallon bags, available in two colors, are already showing up on the resale market for marked-up prices.

Newsrooms typically immersed in political coverage during a presidential election year are instead focused on saving their own businesses.

Why it matters: Major restructurings, layoffs and newsroom overhauls are unusual for America's biggest news companies just months ahead of a highly anticipated presidential race.

American media companies are missing out on billions of dollars in revenue a year by neglecting to focus more on Asian American stories, according to the conclusions of three recent reports.

Why it matters: Broadcast, cable, streaming and Hollywood giants have been struggling to keep audiences consistently engaged in the current era of content production and consumption.

Nvidia and AMD unveiled new AI chips in back-to-back announcements Sunday and Monday, respectively.

Why it matters: There's no such thing as "too soon" when it comes to grabbing market share in this space.

A New York Stock Exchange technical error triggered trading halts in shares of Chipotle, Berkshire and others Monday morning.

The big picture: The glitch comes a week after U.S. stock exchanges switched to one-day settlement. However, the FT cited a person familiar with the matter as saying Monday's issue was not connected to that change.

Coinbase filed a heated brief in its case against the SEC in the Third Circuit's Court of Appeals.

The big picture: America's largest crypto exchange is leading the charge to force the country's leading financial regulator to give the digital asset industry clearer policies to allow the industry to operate in compliance.

• Notably, there are two suits between the parties underway. One where Coinbase is the plaintiff suing for rules, and another where the SEC is suing Coinbase for breaking the rules it argues it already has.

Zoom in: In Coinbase's suit against the SEC, it draws attention to the agency's denial of its 2022 petition for new rules that pertain to the digital asset industry.

A high-quality mobile game is planned for the Pudgy Penguins NFT line next year, courtesy of a new partnership with Mythical Games.

Why it matters: Pudgy Penguins has been winning 2024, getting its intellectual property into Walmart and Target as physical toys, as well as dramatically increasing the value of its NFTs.

Yes, but: To stick the landing, it will need to be a good game.

• Pudgy Penguins' second CEO, Luca Netz, told Axios in February that he believed the social aspect is what makes games fun.

Context: NFTs offer, potentially, a built-in fanbase for products built around the underlying IP.

By the numbers: Floor prices (the value of the most common items in an NFT collection) have quintupled since Netz took over the Penguins, going from about 2 ETH to 10 ETH today (roughly $37,000).

Have you been wondering what SBF's chief mentor in doing good thought about the FTX debacle?

• William MacAskill, the famous evangelist for Effective Altruism (EA), has finally spoken up about what he thinks went wrong at the failed exchange.

Worth your time: He wrote about it on the EA forum, and discussed it on the Sam Harris podcast, "Making Sense" and the "Clearer Thinking" podcast.

• Big picture, he seems convinced by a book by Eugene Soltes about white-collar criminals, which explains they often fall into embezzlement without meaning to.
• It's worth noting, however, that Caroline Ellison testified that SBF directed Alameda Research to begin siphoning FTX customer funds well before the crypto markets became strained.

The ability of companies to raise prices without crushing demand may be petering out.

Why it matters: Shoppers have splurged in the face of rising prices for the last three years. Now, there are early signs the spending era is coming to an end, forcing executives to limit price hikes to maintain sales.

The vibecession is so back.

The big picture: "I think we are in one now more than ever and I think it will get worse in the election," says Kyla Scanlon, who coined the term and is the author of the new book, "In This Economy?"