6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 4:02PM EDT · Published Mar 22, 5:14AM EDT

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Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company would do more to protect user data. 24/7 Wall St. covered the news.

Two senior tech executives have left Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F). According to The Wall Street Journal:

Ford Motor Co.is losing two executives it recently recruited from Silicon Valley, the latest in a series of prominent executives to leave the car maker since Chief Executive Jim Hackett was hired last year to forge fresh thinking at the company.

Musa Tariq, a former Apple Inc. executive hired last year to be Ford’s first brand chief, is leaving the company after a little more than a year on the job, the company said Wednesday.

Raj Rao, another hire from Silicon Valley tapped to run Ford’s smart-mobility division, has also elected to leave the company for personal reasons, effective May 1, a Ford spokeswoman said.

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Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) will try to spread use of its mobile app. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Starbucks Corp. wants to spread its mobile-ordering app beyond loyal customers to stem slowing U.S. sales.

Executives told shareholders at the coffee giant’s annual meeting Wednesday that the app would be available to all customers, not just the loyalty program members who use it now.

Chief Operating Officer Roz Brewer told shareholders in Seattle that the app helps Starbucks target products to customers more effectively. That could be an important tool as the chain also adds more lunch items and cold drinks to its menu to draw in more customers after the morning coffee rush.

The president could announce $50 billion in trade sanctions against China. According to Bloomberg:

President Donald Trump is set to announce about $50 billion of tariffs against China over intellectual-property violations on Thursday, according a person familiar with the matter.

The president is considering targeting more than 100 different types of Chinese goods, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The value of the tariffs was based on U.S. estimates of economic damage caused by intellectual-property theft by China, the person said.

Meredith Corp. (NYSE: MDP) plans to sell Time, Sports Illustrated and Fortune and will lay off 1,000 people as it consolidates with Time Inc., which it purchased. According to Bloomberg:

Meredith Corp., which bought Time Inc. and its stable of magazines in January, plans to sell the flagship publication, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and the Money brand after completing a review of the $1.8 billion deal.

The company also plans to eliminate about 1,000 jobs over the next 10 months as it integrates other Time publications into a lineup that includes Better Homes & Gardens and Family Circle, according to a statement Wednesday. The cuts are on top of firing notices given to 200 employees, the company said.

Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY) may end its relationship with China’s Huawei Technologies over security issues. According to Reuters:

Best Buy, the largest U.S. consumer electronics retailer, will cut ties with China’s Huawei Technologies, a person familiar with the matter said, amid heightened scrutiny on Chinese tech firms in the United States.

Best Buy will stop selling Huawei’s devices over the next few weeks, according to the person with knowledge of the matter, a setback for the Chinese telecommunications giant as it looks to expand in the U.S. market.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.