6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 5:46PM EST · Published Sep 18, 5:01AM EDT

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President Trump put tariffs on another $200 billion of China imports. According to Reuters:

China said on Tuesday it has no choice but to retaliate against new U.S. trade tariffs, risking even stronger action from President Donald Trump in an escalation of the trade war between the world’s largest economies.

Beijing’s statement came hours after Trump imposed 10 percent tariffs on about $200 billion worth of imports from China, and threatened duties on about $267 billion more if China hit back on the latest U.S. action. ‘

SpaceX announced the first passenger it will take to the moon. According to The Wall Street Journal:

SpaceX’s first paying passenger will be Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who is to blast off from earth in 2023, circle the moon and return, the company’s founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, said at an event Monday evening, where the space tourist also made brief remarks.

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Audi plans to build cars to challenge Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA). According to USAToday:

The upmarket electric-car floodgates are starting to open.

Audi on Monday threw an elaborate bay-side party just north of San Francisco to unveil the e-tron, a $75,000 SUV that arrives fast on the heels of Jaguar’s $70,000 I-PACE.

Together the two new vehicles represent the first real challenge to Tesla, which has stood virtually alone in the premium electric vehicle market with its Model S ($100,000) but which now is facing production lags with its entry-level Model 3 and hits to the reputation of its volatile CEO Elon Musk

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) will avoid some tariffs. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Apple Inc. dodged stinging duties on its smartwatches and wireless earbuds after the U.S. excluded those gadgets from tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, though the tech giant still faces retaliatory measures being weighed by China that could strike iPhone production there.

The trade tensions are rattling companies in a range of industries, but Apple’s heavy dependence on the U.S. and China makes it especially vulnerable as the world’s two largest powers escalate their economic feud. Because Apple assembles almost all of its gadgets in China, its watches, AirPods and other devices are vulnerable to the Trump administration’s plans to widen the scope of tariffs on Chinese imports—a risk Apple warned about earlier this month.

“Space junk” is becoming a larger problem. According to CNBC:

Space debris has become a huge problem. Their accumulation in Earth’s orbit has become a hindrance and can endanger future missions to the moon or Mars, according to the chief of a company that’s trying to solve the issue.

A surge in aggressive space ventures in recent years has seen a build-up of space junk, and they are set to grow exponentially, Nobu Okada, founder and CEO of Astroscale, told CNBC at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin, China.

Saudi Arabia will invest in a rival to Tesla. According to CNNMoney:

Saudi Arabia has agreed to invest more than $1 billion in Lucid, a potential Tesla competitor.

Lucid is planning a new high-performance electric car. It said the investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund announced Monday will allow it to finish engineering on its first car, the Lucid Air, as well as build a factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, and begin to sell the car by 2020.

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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.