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Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched a megarocket on Tuesday with Donald Trump in attendance but called off a plan for it to be caught by “chopstick arms”. The president-elect had travelled to Brownsville, Texas, to witness the sixth test of Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, that will be crucial to Musk and

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK inflation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. UK inflation accelerated sharply to 2.3 per cent in October, as higher energy costs pushed price growth above the Bank of England’s target. The annual consumer price index figure from the Office for National Statistics

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Ukraine has struck a military target inside Russia using US-made long-range Atacms missiles for the first time since Joe Biden’s administration lifted restrictions on their use, according to people familiar with the matter. Army

Donald Trump’s social media company is in advanced talks to buy Bakkt, a cryptocurrency trading venue owned by Intercontinental Exchange, as it pushes to expand beyond online conversation. The US president-elect’s Trump Media and Technology Group, in which he has pledged to retain his 53 per cent stake, is closing in on an all-share purchase

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. China’s biggest technology groups are building artificial intelligence teams in Silicon Valley, seeking to hire top US talent despite Washington’s efforts to curb the country’s development of the cutting-edge technology. Alibaba, ByteDance and Meituan have

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Russia on Sunday launched dozens of missiles and drones in what Ukraine’s foreign minister said was one of the largest air attacks of the war, targeting power facilities across the country and sending Kyiv

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world US President Joe Biden has authorised Ukraine to launch limited strikes into Russia using US-supplied long-range missiles, in a big policy shift before the end of his White House term in January, two

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Gold prices have been hit with their worst weekly drop in more than three years as Donald Trump’s US election victory and a strong dollar send bullion’s historic rally into reverse. After jumping more than

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in nearly two years, as western powers position for the return of a Trump administration that has made ending

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Nissan plans to warn ministers that the UK car industry has reached a “crisis point”, with jobs and competitiveness at risk unless the government relaxes electric vehicle rules, according to two people with direct knowledge

When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he quickly gutted the social media platform to its core operations, dispensing with anything he saw as wasteful or superfluous. Now, Donald Trump wants him to do the same to the US government. The world’s richest man was named this week alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, a former rival of Trump’s for

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world In April 2022, Elon Musk tweeted a cartoon made by US evolutionary biologist Colin Wright. The image shows a stick figure representing Wright, a self-described “centre-left liberal”, becoming politically stranded as the American

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Artificial intelligence may represent the biggest opportunity in tech since the arrival of the internet, but it also poses fundamental questions over how some of the industry’s most powerful companies make money. Apple, which began

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world Republicans have won a majority in the House of Representatives, giving Donald Trump’s party full control of both chambers of the US Congress and wide latitude to push a radical agenda through the

Volkswagen has earmarked a further $800mn for its partnership with electric vehicle start-up Rivian, as Europe’s largest carmaker bets that modern software will help slow falling sales. The two carmakers on Tuesday said their joint venture, which was announced in the summer, would be led jointly by representatives from both companies: Rivian’s chief software officer, Wassym Bensaid, and VW’s

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world Donald Trump has named Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a “department of government efficiency”, giving the two private-sector entrepreneurs charge of a promised effort to slash rules, bureaucracy and spending throughout

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world JD Vance, now America’s vice-president elect, last month said that the second-most important figure in Donald Trump’s administration would be his attorney-general. Nobody, least of all the incoming number two, ever said that

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world Donald Trump is closing in on top picks for his foreign policy team, planning to tap Florida congressman Mike Waltz as his national security adviser and to nominate Florida senator Marco Rubio to

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world Bitcoin hit a fresh record, the US dollar rose to a four-month high and Tesla shares jumped, as investors raised bets on the big winners from Donald Trump’s US presidential election victory. The

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world Years ago, a well-known Silicon Valley billionaire told me something I’ll never forget: “China is an autocracy, Europe is a technocracy and America is a company.” That statement has never felt truer to