When the Alternative for Germany (AfD, from its German initials) was launched in 2013, it was a pro-business, classically liberal party created by German intellectuals opposed to the single European currency. Hans-Olaf Henkel, a free-market enthusiast and former boss of the bDI, the main German industry association, was a founding…

PRICE WARS are ten a penny in China. The emergence of hundreds of lookalike companies seemingly overnight is pushing down retail prices of everything from electric vehicles to bike-sharing and bubble tea. The latest products to enter the ruinous fray are artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbots. This may seem surprising. Until recently…

One satisfaction of buying a new car is the distinctive aroma within. The smell that emanates from the Chinese electric vehicles (evs) that are increasingly common on Europe’s roads is, for the European Commission, that of a rat. On June 12th, after an eight-month probe, the EU’s executive arm accused…

Tim Cook has an air of bashful reverence. In his 13 years at the helm of Apple he has created more value than just about any CEO in history, as the tech behemoth’s market capitalisation has climbed from less than $400bn to almost $3trn. But he still acts as if…

THE MIDDLE EAST is something of a tech desert. One company trying to change this is G42, founded six years ago in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). More recently the state-backed firm has turned into the nerve centre of Emirati ambitions to become an AI powerhouse—and to spread the country’s…

Pity OpenAI’s HR department. Since the start of the year the maker of ChatGPT, the hit artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbot, has lost about a dozen top researchers. The biggest name was Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder responsible for many of the startup’s big breakthroughs, who announced his resignation on May 14th. He…

WESTERN CHAINS used to dominate casual dining and drinking in China. The arrival of a Kentucky Fried Chicken in a Chinese city was once regarded as a developmental milestone. Today China is home to 10,000 KFCs (whose owner, Yum China, was spun off from its American parent in 2016), more…

Chart: The Economist How much is Elon Musk, the mercurial multibillionaire, worth to Tesla, the carmaker he runs? In 2018 the company’s board put in place a plan to award Mr Musk shares over ten years worth $46bn, at their current price, provided the business cleared a series of hurdles.…

CHINA’S HUNGER for homemade chips is insatiable. In May it was revealed that the government had launched the third iteration of its “Big Fund”, an investment vehicle designed to shore up the domestic semiconductor industry. The $48bn cash infusion is aimed at expanding the manufacture of microprocessors. Its generosity roughly…

Rare is the chief executive who extols the virtues of a lie-in. Tim Cook, boss of Apple, maker of the iPhone, wakes between 4am and 5am. So does Bob Iger, his counterpart at Disney, a media giant. According to one survey, two-thirds of the chief executives of large American companies…