Rail fail
Hyperloop goes bust
Good morning, transit trailblazers. This is your Stock Market Rundown for January 4th, 2024. Thanks for joining me. Let’s dig in:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: THE FAST TRACK GETS DERAILED
Countries like France and Japan are criss-crossed with high-speed bullet trains. But taking the train in the US is more of an old-timey and rustic experience, typically involving a stale tuna sandwich and a Grape Fanta in a creaky Amtrak car.
Hyperloop One was aimed at changing that. It’s a concept that sprung from the fertile brain of Elon Musk in 2014. The goal: to build a train that would travel in a vacuum tube, allowing it to silently glide across the country as fast as a jet plane.
The planned initial route was Los Angeles to San Francisco. Picture it: tech bros being propelled at hundreds of miles an hour through an underground tube, as though fired from a t-shirt cannon, shaving hours off typical travel times.
Hyperloop One completed a 500-meter-long development version of their vacuum train concept in Nevada, and raised hundreds of millions of dollars. Billionaire Richard Branson became chairman of the company, and said it would “change how the world moves around.”
They even got as far as a successful test run with human passengers—two risk-tolerant company executives took the inaugural ride. What do they do for fun, rock-climbing in hailstorms?
Sadly, the world isn’t ready to send people zooming through a tube like tiny particles in the Large Hadron Collider. After failing to secure any contracts, the company just shut down, selling its assets and laying off employees.
Thus, the dream of ultra-high-speed rail running between major US cities remains unrealized. Crazy idea: maybe passengers could travel in a metal tube that, instead of running along the earth, flies through the air? Nah, that’ll never work.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Fire up the Chinese crypto mining farms, your li’l digital currency is making a comeback. Bitcoin just touched $45,000 for the first time since April 2020.
Google just settled a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit over its secret tracking of millions of users who thought they were browsing privately. Voyeuristic tech bros giggling over my search history? Creepy.
Hershey’s has been sued due to their candy not precisely resembling the packaging. I think summary execution of the entire C-suite is the only appropriate punishment here.
The FDA wrote a letter to Amazon threatening legal action due to the sale of “bootleg Viagra” on the ecommerce giant’s platform. Apparently, supplements like “Big Guys Male Energy Supplement” (yes, that’s a real product) contain the same ingredient as the famed prescription dick pills. If your erection lasts more than four hours, contact Amazon Support.
So concludes today’s program, friends; tune in tomorrow for more at our usual morning hour. Yours in capitalism, The Axe
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Hit me up at theaxe@stockmarketrundown.co