Trump's Waco Rally, Bitcoin's Bullish Phase, Musk's Bounty To Twitter Employees And More: 5 Weekend Stories You May Have Missed

The banking crisis continued to dominate conversation over the weekend, especially as Deutsche Bank DB gave a scare on Friday. Here's a recap of a few major headlines that hit the wire over the weekend.

1. Big Turnout At Trump’s First Major Campaign Rally: Former President Donald Trump's decision to hold the first major rally of the 2024 presidential campaign in Waco, Texas, was questioned, given it coincided with the 30-year anniversary of a federal siege of the compound that belonged to a religious cult group in the city. The former president received a rousing reception at the rally held late Saturday, and he used the platform to rally people around him at a time when he is facing a potential indictment and arrest.

Expectedly, he took potshots at federal prosecutors and Florida Gov.  Ron DeSantis, who is likely to throw his hat into the GOP presidential primary race.

2. Cathie Wood Slams Hindenburg Over Block Short Report: After Hindenburg brought down shares of Block, Inc. SQ with a short report, fund manager Cathie Wood and analyst at her firm Ark Invest rose in defense of the company. The short seller said she assumes that investors and analysts with fintech expertise won’t read it, while expecting traders and speculators to support its short position without reading or understanding the report, she said, calling the report “wildly misleading.”

3.Tesla’s Giga Berlin Hits Goal: Tesla, Inc. TSLA announced over the weekend that its Giga Berlin plant has increased its weekly production capacity from 4,000 units in late February to 5,000 units. The achievement drew praise from Elon Musk, who said, “Big congratulations to the Tesla Germany team.” The development assumes importance because Tesla has reportedly submitted an application to the German government to expand the plant in a bid to boost annual production capacity to 1 million units.

4. Analyst Bullish On Bitcoin:  Pseudonymous analyst “Dave The Wave” said Bitcoin BTC/USD is entering a new bullish phase, pointing to the weekly moving average convergence divergence, a technical indicator. He also suggested that Bitcoin’s price performance should be mapped against gold rather than the U.S. dollar. Over 20 years, Bitcoin could reach the same market cap as gold, which would imply a price increase by a factor of 22, he said. 

5. Musk’s Offer To Twitter Employees: A Wall Street Journal report said Musk has offered new equity awards to employees of the social media platform that will vest after six months. The stock grants have a valuation of about $20 billion. Musk said in an email Twitter could possibly attain a valuation of more than $250 billion, which would mean the stock grants could increase in value by a factor of more than 10.

What Else: In what could be a conclusive pointer toward the launch of Apple, Inc.’s AAPL much-delayed MR headset by June, the company’s highest-ranking executives, aka “Top 100,” gathered at the Steve Jobs Theater over the weekend, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said in his weekly “Power On” newsletter.

Tech layoffs continue as Amazon, Inc. AMZN reportedly began eliminations of 9,000 employees that it announced last week. The bulk of the job cuts were in some of the company’s profitable businesses, including its cloud computing business. Saleforce, Inc. CRM also hinted at the possibility of more job cuts and noted that a review is underway.

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