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Klarna and StubHub reportedly pause going public with stock market in free fall over Trump tariffs

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  • Klarna and StubHub will hold back on their IPOs after the stock market collapsed over Trump’s sweeping tariffs. Both companies were scheduled to pitch to investors next week, but have put their roadshows on hold.

Klarna and StubHub have reportedly delayed IPO plans after President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs caused a roughly $6 trillion loss on the stock market last week. 

Due to the recent market meltdown, the two companies will hold off on going public for the near future and have no timeline to reinstate their plans, an unnamed source told CNBC.

StubHub had planned a roadshow next week, but that’s now on ice, according to The Wall Street Journal. Similarly, Klarna postponed plans to pitch to investors next week, WSJ said. Both companies declined Fortune’s request for comment.

StubHub worried investors would not have time to meet with the company amid the market troubles and feared that going public during the turbulence might look desperate, sources told the WSJ. 

This is the second time StubHub has postponed its offering. Last summer, the ticketing marketplace decided to delay its IPO due to the slow new-listings market. 

StubHub planned to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker STUB. In 2024, the company sought a valuation of at least $16.5 billion.

StubHub reported a $2.8 million loss on revenue of $1.77 billion in 2024. One year prior, the company earned $405 million on $1.37 billion in revenue, according to its S-1 filing. The loss came from a sales and advertising push, which boosted expenses by $310 million to $828 million.

Klarna specializes in buy now, pay later loans and most recently partnered with DoorDash to enable users to pay for meal deliveries in installments. 

The company planned to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker KLAR, targeting a valuation of $15 billion. Klarna was previously valued in 2022 at $6.7 billion. 

Shares of Klarna’s competitor Affirm have cratered 46% this year, falling 8% Friday alone. Affirm’s market cap has fallen to $11.4 billion, lower than Klarna’s valuation target.

Klarna previously warned tariffs could pose a risk for growth. In its IPO filing last month, the company said “a downturn in the general environment or a slower pace of economic growth” caused by changes in international trade policies, new tariffs, and immigration policies “can lead to consumer spending and adversely affect the financial condition of our merchants.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



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Elon Musk accused of rage quitting while live-streaming a video game after repeatedly dying and being mercilessly cyberbullied by viewers

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  • Elon Musk, the world’s most influential entrepreneur in a generation, was mercilessly jeered at by an online gaming audience still angry that he had so casually lied about cheating at video games.

Gamers have not yet forgiven Elon Musk for lying so casually about being one of the top-ranked players in the world for two different video games, and on Saturday, they wanted him to know it. 

During an attempt to live stream playing Path of Exile 2 from his private jet, the world’s richest man was mocked and jeered at mercilessly by his online audience in the live chat. 

Seemingly frustrated he kept having to manually hide the ridicule in the live chat, the CEO said his Starlink satellite broadband wasn’t holding up under the load and called it a day.

“Lost the connection,” he said, repeating again “connection lost” before the stream ended.

Gamers, however, weren’t buying that story.

“He rage quit and blamed it on Starlink, what a dumb a–, dude,” Hasan Piker, a popular Twitch streamer with over 2.8 million followers, later told his own viewers. “This is one of the only instances where a man, who is so pathetic, will literally end up sh—-g on his other property because he’s so desperate to blame anything else.”

The Tesla CEO didn’t respond to a request for comment by Fortune.

Musk never apologized to gamers for the lie

In January, it emerged that Musk had cheated playing the games he claimed to have mastered, hiring people to level up his characters all the while hiding the fact that he could barely play the games, let alone be among their top performers. In one instance, his Path of Exile 2 character was caught playing at the same time Musk attended Donald Trump’s inauguration.

When his lie was found out, he showed zero remorse for going on podcasts to take credit for accomplishments he seemingly had nothing to do with and bask in the lavish praise from hosts Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman. He also didn’t see any need to apologize to a community that prides itself on respecting skill and dedication over social or economic status.

Musk has been trying to market his satellite-based broadband service Starlink, as well as lure gamers from Amazon’s Twitch platform onto X, and it was in the course of one of these streams that a PoE2 player realized quickly he wasn’t just incapable of competing with the other top-five players in the game worldwide, he barely even knew the game’s essential mechanics. 

This time, Musk took up the challenge of a popular streamer to prove he was indeed the semi-professional gamer he claimed to be and started PoE2 from the very beginning with basic-level gear rather than the most powerful the game has to offer.

‘He knows he’s a fraud’

Rather than vindicate himself, though, Musk kept losing, including to the game’s very first boss fight that new players encounter during the tutorial stage. 

“There’s no way he makes it out of Act 1, he’s just going to dying over and over and over again,” said Quin, the Australian streamer that uncovered his cheating in the first place. “He knows he’s a fraud.” 

By that point, viewers in the chatroom were already tearing into him for his lying, making fun of his looks and throwing shade at his personal life, with over a dozen confirmed children from at least three different women. 

“YOU HAVE NO REAL FRIENDS AND WILL DIE ALONE,” wrote one user whose account was called “Elon_Musk_is_a_peedophile”, before hitting return repeatedly so the message would keep appearing.

Another viewer made fun of his admission last month the entrepreneur had paid right-wing influencer Ashley St. Claire $2.5 million so she could raise their child in secret, claiming it would be safer for their son if no one finds out he exists. She ultimately revealed their affair publicly, and later sold the Tesla he gave her after he cut payments. 

“Elon. It’s me, Ashley St. Claire. I have no other means of contacting you so I bought PoE2 early access just for this,” the user wrote in jest. “Please pay your child support.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



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‘Bond King’ Bill Gross warns Gen Z and millennials will be the biggest losers from tariff-fueled market swings that rely on whether Trump ‘had a good night’s sleep’

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Audi’s top-selling SUV expected to be unsellable in U.S. after Trump tariffs

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The Audi Q5 is the German brand’s top-selling vehicle in the U.S. It’s also a prime example of how Donald Trump’s drastic reordering of global trade is wreaking havoc on automakers.

The president’s tariffs are hitting the $45,400 model thrice, rendering the sport utility vehicle unsellable, according to people familiar with the carmaker’s thinking, who declined to comment on the record.

There’s the 25% duty on imported autos and the non-U.S. parts they contain; the 25% levy on shipments from Mexico that Trump’s applied over border security; and a 2.5% fee for not complying with the free-trade agreement that Trump negotiated in his first term.

While automakers are still waiting for more guidance on the exact penalties they face, Audi is operating under the assumption that all three of those levies apply to the made-in-Mexico Q5, with duties totaling at least 52.5%, said the people, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Trump paused most so-called reciprocal tariffs for 90 days on Wednesday but kept in place trade measures targeting the auto industry.

“The Q5 is a nice car, but if they’re making it there, they can’t sell it” in the U.S., said Ambrose Conroy, chief executive officer of Seraph, a consultancy that works with carmakers and their suppliers.

The rising trade barriers are threatening sales and upending supply chains that automakers have built over decades. Jeep maker Stellantis NV is temporarily halting some production in Canada and Mexico, Ford Motor Co. is for now offering discounts, and General Motors Co. is boosting U.S. pickup output to counter the tariffs. Audi owner Volkswagen AG, which reported an almost 40% drop in first-quarter profit on Wednesday, plans to tack import fees on to the vehicles it ships into the U.S.

Read More: Carmakers Idle Plants, Rethink Prices as Trump’s Tariffs Hit

Volkswagen is among several global manufacturers that have invested in factories in Mexico in recent years to benefit from the country’s relatively low wages and free trade agreements with more than 50 countries, including the U.S. Audi’s San José Chiapa plant enabled the brand to better meet demand in the region and helped offset declining sales in China, where local manufacturers led by BYD Co. are taking over.

Audi has made more than 1 million Q5s at the site since production began in 2016. The mid-size SUV is by far its best-selling model in the U.S., accounting for around a third of the brand’s 42,710 deliveries in the first quarter. The San José Chiapa plant was envisioned as a global export hub, so Audi didn’t prioritize making the Q5 USMCA-compliant, the people said.

The vehicle is emblematic for how globalized automotive supply chains have become. Some of the Q5’s engines are sourced from Hungary, with transmissions shipped in from Germany, and dozens of local suppliers providing other components. The Q5 is then assembled and shipped to customers around the world — both to Europe and the U.S., which ranks among the most lucrative markets for SUVs.

That strategy was working fine until Trump introduced his tariffs on April 3. Just 2% of the Q5’s content is made in the U.S. or Canada, according to data collected by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, meaning the remainder likely will be affected by duties.

Finding workarounds is challenging. Even if Audi wanted to mitigate the tariff pain by shifting production to the U.S., its executives have hesitated out of confusion and uncertainty about Trump’s trade war.

Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume has said he’s waiting for clarity before proceeding with investment decisions, and the company said Wednesday it couldn’t yet determine the extent of the effects that tariffs will have on full-year earnings.

Volkswagen also owns brands including Porsche, Lamborghini and the EV upstart Scout. The company is considering expanding its plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and looking at other sites in the southeastern U.S. to offset the risk of higher tariffs, Bloomberg reported last month. Rethinking how Scout’s new $2 billion plant near Columbia, South Carolina, is utilized could be another option, but the site isn’t scheduled to start production until late 2026.

Read More: Trump Forces Carmakers to Game Out Calculus on American Plants

Audi is currently holding tariffed vehicles at U.S. ports until it can figure out how much the bill will be, according to a Volkswagen spokesperson. The premium brand still has about two months’ worth of tariff-exempt vehicles on U.S. dealer lots.

The Q5 isn’t the carmaker’s only concern. U.S. sales of the Q3, touted by Car and Driver as “one of the least expensive luxury subcompact SUVs in the segment,” jumped 45% last year. But the model is made at a plant in Gyor, Hungary, meaning its $39,800 starting price also will likely increase.

Audi is just one of dozens of car companies coming to grips with the complicated hand Trump has dealt. Manufacturers rushed cars and parts into the U.S. before the duties hit and are now delaying shipments to minimize the fallout. Most have set up tariff task forces to calculate penalties and figure out what to do next.

“Auto executives need long-term stability to run their businesses,” said Matthias Schmidt, an independent auto analyst in Germany. “Setting up car factories takes three to four years. With Trump, you don’t know how the market will be in three to four hours.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com



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