Intel’s Car Company?

Intel announced its intent to take Mobileye, its self-driving car unit, public next year. The move will allow Intel to retain majority ownership of the unit, which could be valued at more than $50 billion.

You’ve probably never heard of it, but unlike major EV IPOs and SPACs this year, Mobileye has been around the block. The 22-year-old company pioneered adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assistance using cameras on cars. In recent years, the company has built upon its foundational tech and moved into the wild west of self-driving vehicles. 🤠 Last year, Mobileye showcased its autonomous vehicle system.

Mobileye reportedly made over $442 million in operating income in the trailing 12 months, according to Wells Fargo. Analysts also underscore strong YoY growth. Yahoo Finance Anchor Brian Sozzi suggests that these figures support a high valuation. However, given the astronomical value afforded to businesses without production vehicles, it seems fairly likely that $50 billion will be a low bar to clear.

Mobileye still has a lot to prove — that’s what makes it an easy sell for Intel, who bought the company for $15.3 billion in 2017.

Sooo why is Intel spinning off one of its strongest business units?? Capital markets have ferocious demand for EVs and self-driving cars, which is one reason. But the move would also bolster Intel’s weak stock. $INTC has been in decline for the greater part of 2021, falling from the high-$60s to the low-$50s in months. There are plenty of reasons for that collapse in value, but Intel’s remedy is surprisingly simple: Intel bought Mobileye low and will be selling it very high.

Intel indicates that the listing will create value for $INTC shareholders. That has yet to be seen, but the deal’s announcement has given its stock some temporary reprieve. 🙏

$INTC is up 5.5% this week.

After 20 years in charge of American Airlines, CEO Doug Parker is passing the torch to the airline’s current president, Robert Isom. Isom will take over as CEO on March 31, 2022.

The CEO started at America West in 2001 and has since overseen two mergers (with U.S. Airways and American Airlines), both of which have positioned American as the largest U.S. airline. Parker’s career certainly hasn’t been easy. Throughout his career, Parker navigated 9/11, the 2008 recession, and the Covid pandemic.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, shared:

“No other CEO worked as hard, spent as much time with Congress or the administration, or felt the urgency of keeping people connected to our jobs — not once, but three times. The industry is standing today and able to lift us out of the biggest crisis in aviation history.”

Doug Parker isn’t the only airline leader stepping down. Earlier this year, Gary Kelly of Southwest announced that he would be handing over his position to Robert Jordan. Brad Tilden of Alaska Airlines did the same.

$AAL closed down 0.22%. Read more about Doug Parker’s eventful career on CNBC.

Twitter is making moves after its big leadership shuffle last week: the platform just announced its acquisition of Quill, a messaging app, in what seems to be an effort to revamp Twitter’s messaging capabilities. 

Quill is a Slack-like messaging app that was founded in February by Stripe’s former creative director of payments processing, Ludwig Pettersson. Twitter general manager Nick Caldwell tweeted about the acquisition:

“[Quill is a] fresher, more deliberate way to communicate. We’re bringing their experience and creativity to Twitter as we work to make messaging tools like DMs a more useful & expressive way people can have conversations on the service.”

Quill will shut down its business and merge with Twitter. The company shared “Together with Twitter, we will continue to pursue our original goal — to make online communication more thoughtful, and more effective, for everyone.”

Twitter users have questioned if/when Twitter would devote more energy to its messaging services. Maybe now is the time to shine for Twitter DMs?? 🌟

$TWTR closed down 0.02%.