In today’s edition we discuss Taylor Swift and Beyoncé single handedly helped movie theaters in 2023, Tesla will make Billions from opening their Supercharger network in 2024, is Elon Musk’s X/Twitter creating their own email service, did Lionel Messi not play in China as a political statement, and the rent is too damn high in Puerto Rico.

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Quentin Tarantino Opens A Coffee Shop Named Pam's Coffy

Business

Looks like Tesla just added a new revenue stream that could make them billions a year!

As of Thursday, February 29, 2024 Tesla has opened up their Supercharger network to Ford Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning vehicles, in just the first steps of opening up their entire Supercharger network to a long list of vehicle manufacturers including the rest of Ford’s line up of EVs, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota, and Volvo just to name a few have said that their vehicles will also be Supercharger compatible starting in 2024.

There are estimates that Tesla could generate $6-$12 billion dollars a year in charging revenue by 2030 by opening its charging stations to non-Tesla EVs.

Longtime readers of this newsletter will know that I always say to never bet against Tesla or Elon Musk!

Tesla stands to earn billions of dollars a year by opening U.S. charging stations to drivers of Ford and other EVs

Entertainment

Movie theaters crushed it in 2023. Turns out all they have to do is show concert films from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé every year. Sounds like a strong business plan.

Taylor Swift’s: “The Eras Tour” concert movie brought in more than $200 million in 2023, making it the highest-grossing documentary or concert film of all time, at least according to AMC’s records. Beyoncé’s “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé” brought in $44.4 million dollars worldwide.

Now other artists have been reaching out to AMC inquiring about distributing film versions of their concerts in the next few years.

Looks like we can look forward to move concert movies from some of our favorite artists.

All of AMC’s revenue growth came from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé films, theater chain says

Tech

Is Elon Musk’s X/Twitter about to roll out their own email service modeled after Google’s Gmail?

An X security engineer named Nate McGrady posted a message to X asking “When we making XMail?”, to which Elon Musk responded “ It’s coming”, then they broke the internet.

So is Elon Musk really creating a Gmail killer?

Probably, but I’m guessing it probably won’t go the way Elon imagined.

First up, there’s his name for the email service: Xmail.

You see, the problem with that name is there are already a handful of email services going by the name Xmail. In true Elon Musk fashion he could just buy them all.

Then we come to our second problem. Xmail is a super generic sounding name, and I know a thing or two about branding since I run a Branding, Design, and Development agency. The issue with a generic name is it makes it all that much harder to market the service in a way that people will remember the name and associate it with their brand.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for Elon Musk’s X/Twitter rolling out their own email service, but please don’t do us the disservice of giving it an awful name like he did when he renamed Twitter as X.

Elon Musk To Take On Gmail With New Xmail Service

Sports

On February 4, 2024 Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami FC played a friendly match against a team of Hong Kong players, but sadly Lionel Messi didn’t play that day. In a press release it was shared that Lionel Messi didn’t play because he was injured and recovering.

The Chinese government and fans weren’t happy with Lionel Messi not playing that day, especially when only three days later on February 7, 2024 he did play in a match in Japan.

Now Lionel Messi has put out a statement saying his missing the “exhibition game in Hong Kong had nothing to do with “political reasons” and that he has a “special relationship” with China” according to an NBC report.

Lionel Messi put out a video on China’s version of X/Twitter called Weibo, and explained that he was unable to play because of an inflamed abductor muscle.

He explained in the video “I tried to train and made an effort for all those who had come to watch training. I did all I could. But I really couldn’t play. I felt discomfort and there was a risk it would get worse.” A few days later he said he was feeling better and played late in the game against Japan. In closing, he said that it was “totally untrue” that he had not played in Hong Kong for political reasons.

Now China is escalating this non-issue, by canceling a friendly game scheduled in March in the Chinese city of Hangzhou between World Cup champion Argentina, which Lionel Messi is the Captain of, and the Nigerian national team of Nigeria. 

So how will this story turn out? Will the Chinese government forgive Lionel Messi for not playing, regardless of why he didn’t play? Will Inter Miami FC revisit Hong Kong in 2024 and bring Lionel Messi along to try to appease the Chinese government and their Messi fans? I don’t think we’ve heard the end of this story, but if there’s one thing sports are good at, it's bridging the gap between groups of people with differing political views. So here’s to hoping for the best.

Lionel Messi says he had no 'political reasons' for missing Hong Kong match

Real Estate

“The rent is too damn high!” I love that line by Jimmy McMillan, who said it during a debate while he was running for governor of New York State.

It turns out Jimmy McMillan could have also been talking about the recent price hikes of Puerto Rico's short-term rentals.

Supply and demand is a tricky thing in economics. Puerto Rico has seen a rise in tourism, and short-term rentals have spiked as Puerto Rican home owners have stepped up to meet demand by renting out their properties. The insatiable rental demands have caused rental prices to jump up.

Now, with rental prices up, your average citizen of Puerto Rico is facing higher rental prices.

The Center for a New Economy and the Graduate School of Planning of the University of Puerto Rico came out with a study that found that a 10% rise in the number of short-term rentals in a community increases housing rental costs by 7% and the property value per square foot by 23%.

Now tourism has become a double-edged sword impacting Puerto Rico’s economy. By boosting short-term rentals to feed the needs of tourism, it is not affecting Puerto Rico’s residents and communities.

Puerto Rico's short-term rentals spike comes at a cost, report finds

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So much news, so little time. Until tomorrow we’re signing out.

— Chris