| Plus: Asia’s elder statesman speaks out | |
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| Welcome to the weekend! After a rocky start to 2025, one company just became the first ever to reach a $4 trillion market valuation. Which company is it? Find out with the Pointed quiz. What’s not worth $4 trillion because it’s actually priceless? Our audio playlist, available in the Bloomberg app. We’ve got five great stories this week, on everything from overheating gig workers in China to luxury pop-ups at hotspot hotels. Don’t miss Sunday’s Forecast, on Meta’s AI-glasses dreams. For unlimited access to Bloomberg.com, please subscribe. | |
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| American higher education is facing one of the most serious crises in its existence as the Trump administration targets schools’ funding, accreditation and ability to accept foreign students. Without federal dollars — mainly for scientific research and student aid — many institutions wouldn’t survive. But it wasn’t always this way, Ellen Schrecker writes. Military and medical science first brought federal funding to US college campuses, then rising tuition kept it there. That tangled legacy has left schools more vulnerable to government threats than ever before. | |
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| Just as the US was boosting funding to universities in the wake of Sputnik, Europe and Japan were boosting subsidies to shipyards to meet growing global demand for cargo ships. The US virtually guarantees its own shipmakers the domestic market, but it never encouraged them to compete for foreign customers — an original sin that complicates Trump’s plan to tax imports arriving in vessels owned or built by China. As long as US ships remain several times more expensive than those made abroad, Marc Levinson writes, the strategy is unlikely to succeed. | |
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| Questioning Trump’s plans is tricky business: Even those countries frustrated by US tariff whiplash are staying diplomatic in public. But from the freedom of retirement, Malaysia’s longest serving prime minister told Mishal Husain exactly what he thinks of the US president’s approach to trade: “It’s going to damage America more than the rest of the world.” Now 100 years old, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad has seen empires rise and fall, and for the Weekend Interview shared his thoughts on tariffs, Malaysia’s future, Beijing’s strong-arm tactics, and what it takes to stay healthy. | |
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| Mahathir says the key to longevity is discipline: “You do not get fat, and you do some exercise and keep your brain busy.” That’s sage wisdom for Howard Chua-Eoan, who decided to spend 2025 defying the results of a scientific study that found aging happens more rapidly around ages 44 and 60. On the cusp of his 66th birthday, Chua-Eoan bought running shoes and an Apple Watch, paused his alcohol consumption and scheduled overdue doctor’s appointments. That’s when things went off the rails, he writes, but perhaps the perseverance is the point. | |
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| South Africa
When Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi accused a cabinet minister of interfering in a probe of political killings, the provincial police commissioner wore combat fatigues and was flanked by eight masked and armed officers. “I will die for this badge,” Mkhwanazi told the crowd. Those optics would cause alarm in many democracies, but South Africans’ embrace of Mkhwanazi highlights the dire state of law enforcement in the country. His tough rhetoric also echoes strong-arm tactics against crime being championed by leaders around the world.  Photographer: Gallo Images/Getty Images China
On a scorching morning in Beijing, Hao and other food delivery drivers wait outside a hot-pot restaurant for the next round of lunch orders from people wise enough to stay indoors. Working in extreme heat makes most of the drivers legally eligible for a “heat wave allowance,” but many companies don’t comply with the law and few of the workers have ever seen a penny. As China’s slowing economy pushes more than one in five workers to gig work, competition for jobs is fierce and few are willing to negotiate for better benefits.  Photographer: Andrea Verdelli/Bloomberg | |
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| Enough with “Schrödinger’s tariffs.” If tariffs exist in the mind of Donald Trump and the risk of them persists in the thoughts of financial decision-makers, then those tariffs exist. They affect people’s actions in the real world, even if there are no material levies, John Authers writes for Bloomberg Opinion. Tradition can’t be bought. It’s fashionable in business circles to pass over Europe with a sigh. But the best European family companies have survived everything history can throw at them, and the majority of businesses that have survived for 200-plus years are European, Adrian Wooldridge writes for Bloomberg Opinion. | |
Eat, Pray, Scam | | “The greed in me said, ‘ What if this deal is real?’” | | Kevin Dettler Farmer and author of ‘Hunting: You’ve Got to Be Kidding!’ | | Author services companies are central to the world of self-publishing; they handle the printing and upsell writers on editing, marketing and other support. The companies frame this process as an empowering way to circumvent traditional gatekeepers, but critics say it’s plagued with predatory sales practices and fraud. One author services outfit, PageTurner, used promises of mainstream success and Netflix deals to prey on more than 800 aspiring authors. | | |
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| What we’re watching (figuratively): copper. Trump’s announcement that he’ll impose 50% tariffs on copper from Aug. 1 signaled the endgame for a massive arbitrage trade that industry veterans say is the most profitable they’ve ever seen. What we’re watching (literally): Superman. The character is rooted in the complexity of identity — he is an alien, after all — but James Gunn’s new movie leans into Superman as an immigrant fighting an authoritarian regime. What we’re rooting for. Vietnam. The country is writing the next chapter of its economic story in Dong Nai, which is at the center of its ambitions to become a hub for tech, travel and finance. The odds look good — or they did until Trump. What we’re listening to: nothing. Ever since a composer sued a restaurant in 1917, Performing Rights Organizations have ensured songwriters get paid for plays. But as licensing fees soar, some restaurants are considering killing the music. What we’re admiring: robot sculptures. Two studio owners whose clients include Jeff Koons and Maya Lin now dominate the booming industry of robot-assisted fine art carving, where machines do the grunt work and artisans add the final touch. | |
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