TMS Ep292: Twitter under musk, metaverse, markets, deities on legal tenders

Elon Musk finally entered the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco Thursday last week. He was wearing a beaming smile and holding a heavy porcelain sink. And just hours later, he closed the deal to purchase the social media giant. With this, he lived up to his reputation of pulling off difficult feats and crazy stunts. But there is always a method to Musk’s madness. What is it? And how Twitter will transform under Musk in the days to come?  

In December last year, Elon Musk had said that metaverse was more like a marketing buzzword than a reality. But Mark Zuckerberg is trying hard to prove it otherwise. He is doubling down on his efforts to take metaverse or web 3 to the next level, despite investors’ pessimism. But it is not just Zuckerberg, metaverse is now getting many takers. People are buying land in it, and big brands like Nike have also jumped into this virtual world. So where does metaverse stand now? And how it may change your shopping experience? 

Wall Street is still not very keen on Zuckerberg’s metaverse project. Reality Labs, the unit working on metaverse plans, has just reported a quarterly loss of $3.67 billion. But Zuckerberg seems unfazed. Back home in India, markets stayed in green last week as investors cheered the new Samvat 2079. Frontline indices Nifty50 and the S&P Sensex added over a per cent each. This week, interest rate decisions by the US Federal Reserve, and the Bank of England, along with global macro numbers will affect market trends. 

Can putting the images of deities on legal tenders help India attain “economic prosperity”? Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal believes so. He recently appealed to the government to start this practice with new currency notes. Not everyone agrees with him, of course. Both the Congress and the BJP have expressed their disagreement with this view. Even as political parties continue with the slugfest, we try to answer a different question. What visuals can the government use on currency notes? We find out in this episode of the podcast.