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Lionel Laurent

Lionel Laurent

Bloomberg

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Elon Musk’s Antics Are Too Much for Germany’s Central Bank

Elon Musk’s Antics Are Too Much for Germany’s Central Bank

“Spend less time on social media” is a New Year’s resolution that a lot of us are probably already breaking. In Europe, it’s a matter of...

22.01.2025 20

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Elon Musk’s Robotopia Will Bloom in Aging Europe

Elon Musk’s Robotopia Will Bloom in Aging Europe

There will be more humanoid robots than people by 2040, Elon Musk recently bragged. It’s a classic piece of Muskian bravado that will probably prove...

17.01.2025 40

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Elon Musk’s Euro Trolling Puts a Rocket Under SpaceX

Elon Musk has crossed a line with his latest attacks on the UK government, Prime Minister Keir Starmer says. Are there any lines left? Musk has...

08.01.2025 3

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

ECB's Lagarde Faces a Make-or-Break 2025

ECB's Lagarde Faces a Make-or-Break 2025

Every central banker has a make-or-break moment. As the euro crisis raged in 2012, then-European Central Bank boss Mario Draghi took to describing...

07.01.2025 5

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Trump Gloom or Green Shoots? Europe’s Year Ahead.

After Covid-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is Europe about to get its next existential shock in the shape of Donald Trump? From trade to...

25.12.2024 10

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Ozempic Maker Novo Nordisk's Plunge Echoes Nokia Risk

The meteoric rise of Denmark’s Novo Nordisk A/S from century-old insulin producer to Europe’s most valuable company has been a feel-good story...

22.12.2024 10

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

French Downgrade Sets Tone for Macron’s New Premier

Francois Bayrou, the 73-year-old also-ran of French politics with three failed presidential bids under his belt, has been named prime minister by...

15.12.2024 6

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Does Bitcoin at $100,000 Signal a Last Laugh for HODLers?

What is there to say with Bitcoin at $100,000 for those of us who thought $10,000 looked nuts. After 15 years of cryptocurrency boom-and-bust...

12.12.2024 100

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

France's Crisis Is Finally About to Start

When 73-year-old center-right politician Michel Barnier was appointed French prime minister in September, few expected the man who kept the...

03.12.2024 4

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

France May Not Be Greece, But It Is Europe

After Emmanuel Macron’s snap election gamble in July, his arch-nemesis Marine Le Pen is trying her own roll of the dice. The French far-right...

30.11.2024 3

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Musk’s New Political Power Is Making Starlink Rivals Nervous

Yet Musk’s space successes have also been helped by European failures to adapt and compete. SpaceX’s rivals have exhibited classic incumbent...

27.11.2024 2

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

MicroStrategy's Infinite Money Glitch Won’t Last

“Overheated” is how short-sellers Citron Research described MicroStrategy Inc. on Thursday. That somehow understates the hype surrounding...

22.11.2024 4

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Crypto Prediction Markets Have a Cloudy Future

The ancients used oracles and inspected animal entrails to predict the future. Gen-Z has Polymarket, a crypto platform where (almost) anyone can...

18.11.2024 2

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

A French Billionaire's Plea in a Nepo-Baby World

We live in a nepo-baby world. New billionaires are accumulating more wealth through inheritance than entrepreneurship. For the first time in 15...

25.10.2024 2

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

As Dubai Becomes the New Chelsea, Brace for Exit Taxes

Extraordinary times bring extraordinary taxes. The US Civil War prompted the country’s first income tax; the Cold War led to its first exit tax....

11.10.2024 10

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Tencent Bid for Assassin's Creed Demands a Leap of Faith

One of the highlights of Ubisoft Entertainment SA’s Assassin’s Creed game series is the “leap of faith,” when the hooded main character takes...

08.10.2024 20

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Trump-Proofing Europe Looks Impossible

Nothing is certain except death and taxes. The latter is on everyone’s mind in Europe, where France is embarking on an eye-watering round of...

04.10.2024 2

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Europe's Industrial Nightmares Are Coming True

Are the wheels coming off Europe’s bid to catch up to China and the US in critical industries? Swedish electric-vehicle battery maker Northvolt AB...

01.10.2024 3

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Trump and Harris Want More Crypto Innovation. Yikes.

With only a few weeks to go before US elections, in a race where every vote and dollar counts, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are courting the...

26.09.2024 90

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

French Passion for Taxation Is Back at a Bad Time

The challenges facing new French Premier Michel Barnier make his previous job negotiating Brexit terms with Boris Johnson look easy. President...

24.09.2024 1

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Amazon Unwinding WFH Won't Cure Productivity Blues

Real-estate developers, rejoice. Amazon.com Inc. — once seen as the enemy of commercial property — is bringing workers back to the office five...

18.09.2024 2

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Ireland Struck It Rich With Apple. Others Struck It Poor.

Irish rocker Bono once said Ireland’s low-tax, pro-Big Tech economic model had brought the country of 5 million the only prosperity it had ever...

13.09.2024 2

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Draghi Takes Aim at Europe's Industrial Zombies

Two decades ago, an expert report told the European Union that its lackluster growth stemmed from a failure to urgently adapt its economy to an...

10.09.2024 2

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Macron Plays Last Card to Save the ‘Revolution’

After seven excruciating weeks, Emmanuel Macron has played his last zugzwang — an unwinnable and unavoidable chess move. Hemmed in by a hung...

05.09.2024 3

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Working Six Days a Week Is No Myth In Greece

Anyone who’s seen swathes of sunburnt German tourists harrying Greek workers for a beach towel this summer will know how wrong economic cliches can...

28.08.2024 2

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Life-as-a-Service? Subscription Boom Faces a Big Test

The subscription economy clearly got out of hand during the pandemic. The popularity of software and streaming as-a-service gave way to monthly...

09.08.2024 2

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Bill Ackman's Streaming Optimism Faces the Music

Bill Ackman’s pitch for his bet on Universal Music Group NV in 2021 could have come straight from the trailer of a music biopic: “You need food...

06.08.2024 2

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

The Olympic Doom Everyone Predicted Never Came to Paris

For the better part of a year, a lot of Parisians have been planning for the Olympics — not to attend them, but to escape them. Fear of an...

02.08.2024 4

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Europe Has US Tech in Its Sights. It Might Miss.

The European Union’s $15 billion hammer against Big Tech is nearing completion, with regulation on artificial intelligence coming into force just...

01.08.2024 7

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Trump's Embrace of Bitcoin Is the Art of the Grift

Financial bubbles are inherently political. John Law’s doomed pumping of Mississippi Co. stock in 18th-century France came with the state’s...

30.07.2024 100

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Paris Olympics Can Help Unify a Fractured City

Paris faces the test this week of launching the Olympic Games safely and affordably at a time of war, political polarization and social unrest....

23.07.2024 40

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent

Trump 2.0 Would Be a Shock to Europe’s Ailing System

For a sign of things to come for Europe, the place to watch this week isn’t Blenheim Palace or the European Parliament but the Republican...

18.07.2024 2

Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent