6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:36PM EDT · Published May 17, 4:59AM EDT

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today — © courtesy of Intel Corp.

The self-driving car division of Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) took a large step forward. According to Reuters:

Mobileye, Intel Corp’s Israel-based autonomous driving unit, has signed a contract to supply eight million cars at a European automaker with its self-driving technologies, a company official told Reuters

Financial terms of the deal and the identity of the automaker were not disclosed.

The deal, one of the largest yet for Mobileye, is a sign of how carmakers and suppliers are accelerating the introduction of features that automate certain driving tasks – such as highway driving and emergency braking – to generate revenue while technology to enable fully automated driving in all conditions is still years away from mass-market deployment.

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Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) will make a round to EU leaders after a data-use scandal that rocked his company. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron and other European officials next week, as the Silicon Valley giant tries to calm tension with regulators and policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Mr. Zuckerberg will meet with top European lawmakers in Brussels to discuss the social network’s handling of its users’ personal information, and its potential impact on European elections, said European Parliament President Antonio Tajani. The hearing won’t be open to the public, an EU official said.

The NFL’s Carolina Panthers were sold for a huge sum. According to The Wall Street Journal:

David Tepper, the billionaire hedge fund founder, has agreed to buy the Carolina Panthers for an NFL-record of approximately $2.2 billion, according to people familiar with the sale.

In December, Panthers owner Jerry Richardson announced he would sell the team he founded, shortly after allegations of workplace misconduct were reported by Sports Illustrated. An NFL investigation of Richardson’s conduct remains ongoing.

Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) YouTube will start a streaming music business. According to CNBC:

Google’s YouTube said on Wednesday it will launch a new music streaming service, YouTube Music, next week and unveil soon a premium service that will charge more for its original shows.

YouTube Music, which will be launched on May 22, comes with extra features like personalized playlists based on individual’s YouTube history and other usage patterns, YouTube, owned by Alphabet’s Google, said.

Bumble Bee’s chief is in trouble. According to CNNMoney:

The Bumble Bee CEO has been charged with conspiring to inflate tuna prices.

A federal grand jury indicted Christopher Lischewski, the CEO of Bumble Bee Foods, in connection with a packaged seafood price-fixing scam.

The Department of Justice alleges that Lischewski met and communicated with rival seafood companies to keep tuna prices artificially high. Although the Justice Department doesn’t name the co-conspirators, major grocery chains, including Walmart (WMT), Kroger (KR) and Albertsons, sued Bumble Bee, Starkist and the maker of Chicken-of-the-Sea in 2016 for fixing prices.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) will restart building it F-150 pickup. According to CNNMoney:

Ford says it will restart production of its popular F-150 pickup truck on Friday.

The automaker ceased manufacturing of the F-150 at its plants in Dearborn, Michigan and outside Kansas City, Missouri — the only two plants that make the truck — earlier this month after a fire broke out at a supplier’s facility.

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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.