Business

When it comes to a trade war, US-China still hasn’t finished it, and now the pandemic situation is making things harder for US farmers. China, a few months ago under Xi Jinping’s leadership, agreed to import agricultural products from the US and finally took some action. The agreement between US-CHina to import US-based agricultural products for $36.5 billion is still pending because the Asia country imported goods worth $4.65 billion in the last four months. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently met with Chinese delegates to talk about trade war issues. He mentioned how both countries are still trying to complete the first phase of a trade deal, which happened four months ago.

Pompeo wrote on twitter about how Chinese delegates have been reminded of completing the unfinished trade deal that happened four months ago. The first phase of the trade deal occurred just before the coronavirus pandemic occurred, and everyone knows how the Trump administration has acted so far. The Trump administration blamed China on the international level for not being able to control the spread of coronavirus, which came from China. Trump criticizes the actions taken by the Chinese government to be selfish and ignorant and decided to shut down the fundings of WHO.

These two countries were already in a trade before this happened; each country levied massive tariffs on other country’s imported products. Huawei, a Chinese tech giant company, is still banned in the US on security concerns. However, now Chinese delegates want to move forward in this trade war by doing what they promised. Agricultural products like Corn, Wheat, Meat have great demand in China, and imports from the USA will be beneficial for American farmers. The market hasn’t given any good news for farmers in the last few months, but this one will give a good trade deal for them.

Wealthy people in the US are known for their lavish lifestyle, and spending enormous amounts of money on buying materialistic thighs. However, since the lockdown happened, this group of people saves money and not spending any money on buying things. A study done by researchers based upon the spending done by the use of credit cards shows us that wealthy people are spending less even after lockdown has lifted. People who belong in lower-income order have seemed to have increased their spending after a lockdown was lifted. Such less spending from wealthy people creates a problem in the economy of the country, and economists are worried about it.

Since the time unemployment benefits have been given to all lower-income people, their spending has increased enormously. However, the same thing did not happen with vibrant people because their spending on buying things has remained quite low. Consumer spending is the backbone of any economy; less spending from the wealthiest people will create problems. Two-thirds of consumer spending comes only from wealthy people. If they stopped spending less money even after the quarantine ended, then it will create further problems in the country’s economy.

Poor people who got the unemployment benefits from the government seemed to have increased their spending right after reopening was done by the government. Wealthy people have lost most of their learning resources. Now it is impacting spending money in restaurants, shopping, etc. restaurants and their businesses that got the hit most during a pandemic are getting on track again slowly. However, those who are not on a paycheck to paycheck are now afraid to spend more money than they have. Till all things get to normal, we might not be able to see everyone living like usual and spending money in the market.

The black lives matter movement, which has become a topic in the USA, is also becoming a significant thing among tech companies employees. Recently a Facebook worker got fired after he criticized his coworker for stating black lives matter movement. He also criticized Mark Zuckerberg, who did not take any action against Trump’s Facebook post on this matter. Brandon Dail is the UI engineer working in the Seattle office recently shared on his social media account that he was fired from the company. The reason behind this action was Dail’s criticism of his coworker in the black lives matter movement.

He also posted several tweets criticizing Mark Zuckerbergeof not taking action against President Trump’s Facebook post. He tweeted because of his actions to support black lives matter by criticizing Mark, and his coworker company finally fired him. The former employee asked his coworker to add a banner in support of #blacklivesmatter, but he privately messaged him when he didn’t receive the response.

However, this is not the first time we see an employee speaking against mark for the controversial post done by president Trump. In his Facebook post, Trump said, “when the looting starts, shooting starts,” this statement became a controversial one when people started to report it after witnessing George Floyd’s death. However, Trump said he doesn’t feel any guilty of the words he used in his FB post, and defended it by not deleting. Twitter, on the other hand, removed that post stating it promotes violence. But, Facebook decided to put it there since, according to their rules, it doesn’t affect their audience. An ongoing protest is raging to a new level since many people are coming for the support of protest, which is becoming more violent every day.

Since the coronavirus pandemic happened, things went down negatively for Trump and his administration. Millions of people filed for unemployment during April and the rate of unemployment was nearly 15%. However, the latest reports reveal that the rate of unemployment went down to 13.3%, as Trump’s decision to reopen the economy benefited people getting back to their jobs. Even though many analysts predicted that the unemployment percentage would rise in May, some of them also said it would touch the benchmark of 20%.

However, in reality, Trump’s decision to restart the economy has given millions of people their jobs back, and he is celebrating it as a victory. The presidential election is now a few months away, some republicans are trying to beat him as a contender, but it seems like Trump us quite enjoying the position. Trump tweeted about the rate of unemployment getting to the lowest rate, such as 13.3%, and added various news sources.

He mentioned big news channels covering this news clearly, and the press praised him for maintaining such a lower level of unemployment in the country. Big news sites mentioned this news by using words like “stunner,” “incredible,” “amazing,” and Trump said these keywords specifically. As everyone knows, the media doesn’t like Trump, and the feeling goes the same from his side also. However, this time, he got praise for taking the rate of unemployment to the lowest level.

This report comes in a tough time because the country is facing health as well as racial problems. This report shows black unemployment stood at 16.8%, while white unemployment, on the other hand, was 12.4%. White House is currently worried more about the ongoing protest in the country because that social issue is increasing at a very high rate.

The famous oracle of Omaha, legendary investor Warren Buffett, recently shocked everyone when his investment firm Berkshire Hathaway declared the sale of airline stocks. Because of the pandemic, many airline companies like United Airline, American Airline, Southwest Airlines reported vast numbers of losses. Buffett, to stop the temporary losses, sold the majority of its stock from the airline industry. However, on Thursday, this sector rose on the wall street after the labour department revealed the number of low unemployment. The reopening of the economy by the Trump administration has given the right amount of benefit to the airline industry, and that’s why these company stocks went up significantly.

Trump now said even the legendary investor like Warren Buffett also made a mistake during this pandemic situation. He said Warren Buffett shouldn’t have sold his stake in the airline industry and should have kept some patience since the latest positive trend benefited this sector a lot. Trump said he has great respect for legendary investor Warren Buffet, but even he also made mistakes. In the last annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett revealed his company sold more than $6 billion worth of airline stock, because of which this sector started to go down.

The investors went into a panic, and now after getting the latest report from the labour department of unemployment slowing down, investors felt good. Buffett who while selling these stocks said he is looking for lots of trouble for this industry since carriers service has stopped. But, now the carrier services have resumed, and big airline companies are aiming to come back on the regular business again in just a few months. Buffett hasn’t given any immediate comment about Trump saying how he failed to predict the outcome for which he is famous.

The crypto market made lots of news a few months ago because of the decline at a rapid rate, which is now creating rebounding. Things are getting quite suitable for crypto investors during the lockdown period because bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are rising well from the last few days. Recently bitcoin crossed the benchmark of $10000 For the first time since February. May was quite good but not that much because bitcoin failed five times to pass the benchmark limit of $10000 five times in a row. However, June has brought news for all crypto investors because now the price has finally crossed $10000 For The First Time since the last three months.

The price of bitcoin crossed over $10500 but slowly went down and now trading safely at above $10000, which is significant. The first time bitcoin reached this limit was on May 7 when the price reached the ten thousand dollars benchmark, but it went down slightly soon to $8000. However, now the market has rebounded, and investors seemed to be quite positive about all of these things. Three months of a pandemic has given lots of benefits to all investors in the crypto market; the stock market, on the other hand, has become weak.

From the last three months, the stock market has gone down approximately 30% from the previous two months. A technical analysis of bitcoin shows that the downward return will come again, and it will retake the bitcoin to $9800 or even more. Things are getting quite exciting for all crypto investors because they are now experiencing what others call a peak. The stock market is still not able to stabilize from the loss of the coronavirus pandemic created in the last few months, and it will become weaker unless the reopening of the economy happens.

A UK based startup named Beacon received millions of dollars of funding from Jeff Bezos and other angel investors. Beacon, a digital freight forwarder is also a supply chain finance firm which gathers the real-time cargo delivery data and traces it. It’s been used as a marketplace for global shipping cost and delivery chargers mainly targeting small, and big businesses. Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of tech giant company Amazon is famous for investing very ambitious projects. This investment round was quite an excellent achievement for Beacon because other than Bezos the startup received the funding from 8VC venture firm.

The startup received in total $15 million of financing from series A investment which includes big investors. The company was formed by two former Uber technology executives a few years ago, and it has support from Uber’s former founder Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp. Also, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has given support. Since the world is becoming more and more digital, the traditional way of freight forwarding is also going to need change. The CEO of Beacon Fraser Robinson said the future of conventional freight forward is more precarious than ever before.

Amazon is famous for making investments into the logistic, and related fields since the tech giant company Amazon is looking forward to dominating the e-commerce field. Amazon has already started its own delivery system by investing a considerable amount of money. Since the reliance on USPS and other third party delivery sources isn’t benefiting the company, this new investment in Beacon is also from the point of view that it would help the tech giant company in future. Beacon, the logistic service provider has air and truck freight, and this new funding the company said to be invested in acquiring technology and market expansion.

Restaurant owners in Los Angeles county are eager to reopen the hotels to give the dining services to people. A recent report shows that LA county is soon going to announce the reopening of restaurant services, and service providers are quite excited about it. Representatives of Los Angeles County are going to hold a press conference soon, in which they will talk about the reopening of the restaurant services in some areas. The press conferences by these representatives is reportedly going to reveal how the restaurants near the street can give dining service to ordinary services. It will include the precaution everyone will have to follow since the risk of coronavirus is still there.

Los Angeles City restaurants are also planning to provide some dining services, and they are waiting for permission only. The dining services will be different since the coronavirus situation has changed the way we interact and meet people. The local government in Los Angeles has already permitted to open the restaurants by following some restrictions. However, with the time social distancing and many other restrictions put on by the government on dining services are getting lower. Local government is trying to make sure everyone gets the dining in and out service from restaurants and consider the safety first. Restaurant’s way of operating is going to change entirely since priority will be given to sanitizing everything in the restaurant.

Workers and waiters who will be meeting people will have to follow more restrictions. Restaurant community got a massive hit because of the coronavirus pandemic because, for the last three months, they couldn’t operate in their local area. Even though now the situation is not that much easy, they still can provide service of dining by following required precautions. The loss suffered by restaurant owners is enormous, and they will try to minimize it after getting the permission of reopening.

Coronavirus outbreak has affected everyone, including large companies also. Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffett also seemed to be tense about the current situation. In a recent Berkshire Hathaway annual general meeting, Warren told investors what he thinks about the current situation. Even though his answers were not direct, the actions taken by Berkshire Hathaway tells a lot about the market conditions. The Buffet always tells about being positive in the market by buying stocks during hard times. However, this time it’s reversed because he has sold the majority of the airline stocks, which are worth billions of dollars.

Since the pandemic situation happened, airline stocks aren’t performing well, and that’s creating a vast number of problems for big companies to sustain. Another big thing that is worrying Buffet is the uncertainty about the upcoming situation. Many things are uncertain, including the reopening of the economy. Even though the government favors reopening the economy, people are still afraid of going out. Warren Buffet is famous for buying undervalued stocks, and the reason why the Buffet hasn’t made any investment is shocking everyone.

Buffet seems to be waiting for some time to buy the right stock since currently they are quite overvalued, and that’s why Berkshire Hathaway is trying to avoid buying it. Some market experts say Buffet is waiting because they have made some mistakes of buying too early in the last crisis of 2008. The investment made in Bank of America has benefited a lot from Buffet, and now he is waiting for the same thing. Being optimistic about the market, Warren invests very cautiously. Still, the market conditions are not quite volatile for big investors like Buffet, impacting the overall market. Now how the government is going to handle the reopening of the economy is what investors are curious most about.

The ongoing battle between California lawmakers and Tesla founder Elon Musk to reopen the Tesla Factories is getting quite controversial every day. Recently Elon Musk showed his ferocity when the California local government decided not to open Tesla Factories stating the pandemic situation. However, many people are against it, and some are supporting Musk, but president Trump has also joined that list. President Trump recently said in support of Elon Musk to reopen the Tesla Factories and said the California government should permit opening. Musk even went to court to make his point clear, stating the fact that the company is following required guidelines for the safety of workers.

However, the local government is not letting Tesla restart the work during the pandemic situation on the fear that many will get infected. Musk, on the other hand, has prepared for this battle very clearly by stating the facts why Tesla needs to reopen. The productions are halted from March, which is affecting the company and its workers financially. President Trump tweeted about the support for reopening Tesla Factories. He mentioned the California government should let Tedlar Factories open, and Elon Musk replied with the “Thank You” context.

Trump’s latest tweet has created many controversies now again because Elon Musk is already quite serious about this issue. Now the unexpected support from President Trump will increase Musk’s confidence to put pressure on reopening the Factories. Alameda County is refusing to give consent to start the work, but workers in Tesla have seen coming and going out of the Factories recently. Musk is getting support from the company’s workers also who want to start the work after so many weeks of halt. Musk has previously also criticized the current conditions stating the importance of the economy during this time.

Currently, if there’s one thing that’s worrying the world’s influential leaders, then it’s a coronavirus and its impact on their country. The Trump administration got lots of criticism from some people for implementing lockdown lately, which increased the cases of coronavirus significantly. Now, these numbers are soaring every day that has severely impacted on the jobs of ordinary American citizens. Now experts are saying that the increasing number of jobless people will effect on the country’s economy and politics for a long time.

Many companies who have lost their primary source of revenues during this pandemic situation are trying to recover theri cost by letting go of their staff. The number of unemployed people is at its highest peak since the great depression era. The Trump administration is getting advised not to let older adults who are aged above sixty since they are at the highest risk of getting diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. Young folks who will be graduating soon will be out of the jobs about which they might not have ever imagined.

Things are getting changed quickly because many companies are relying more on machinery stuff than manuals now. The pandemic situation has shown a dark side of our economic system might work if things get harder. Tech companies are already telling their workers to work from home since it would be better for the health of themselves, and would save the right amount of money for big companies.

However, these changes, which are impacting severely on the economy, will leave its impact on political parties also. The government administration which was looking forward to making big campaigns to win the general election will have to work hard to make sure everyone’s healthy and safe. Currently, the political environment is quite more toxic than it was the era of the great depression.

The legendary investor Warren Buffet, also known as the Oracle of Omaha, for his right decision to choose the right type of investments, has shocked many analysts after deciding to sell most of the stake in Goldman Sachs. Berkshire Hathaway, which stood behind Goldman Sachs during the 2008 financial crisis, has sold the majority of its stake in Goldman Sachs. Berkshire said that they had sold 10 million shares of Goldman Sachs worth $2.3 billion at the end of the year. The sale represents a 2.3% stake of Berkshire Hathaway in Goldman Sachs. After selling that much amount of shares now, Berkshire Hathaway has 1.9 million shares or a 0.6 percent stake in Goldman Sachs.

Berkshire Hathway also sold its 0.6 percent stake in JPMorgan Chase. Warren Buffet, who is known for making multi-billion dollar deals, hasn’t done anything significant during this pandemic situation. He mentioned how the current situation would impact the government’s economic policies during the annual shareholders meeting. During the 2008 financial crisis, Warren Buffet decided to invest $5 billion, which gave him a tremendous amount of returns per year. However, it was costly for Goldman Sachs, they also did not perform up to expectations, and many competitors got ahead with the time.

Buffet recently invested a large amount of money into Delta Airlines and other airline stocks, which got a massive hot during April. Warren Buffet told the investors that they had invested nearly $7-8 billion in airline stocks for the last few years, and now most of them are not performing well because of the pandemic situation. Buffet dumped airline stocks also and tried to figure out the right type of actions to choose; however, this time, the decisions taken by Warren Buffet are quite different than those in the 2008 financial crisis.

Every business person is currently going through lots of tough times because they are not able to do the business properly because of the lockdown rules put by the local and federal government. Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who is famous for running multiple projects, is quite unhappy with Alameda county in California after the county refused to let Musk start a Tesla factory. Recently Elon Musk requested California government officials to let Tesla factory begin its work; however, that did not go as expected by Mr. Musk. The government officials from California and Alameda County refused to permit reopening the Tesla factory stating the severe side effects it will bring on the health of people.

Musk, after getting this refusal, is not in a good state of mind and threatened the county to shift Tesla factories elsewhere. Musk, in a various series of tweets, said he is thinking of moving the Tesla factory to Nevada or Texas. Tesla recently notified its workers about the reopening of the factory a few days ago, and the company hasn’t given comments on it. Since Alameda County health officials decided not to open the factories soon because of the possibility that this deadly virus will be infecting many people, Musk is not entirely happy with this decision. Musk, in his tweet, even said that the company is going to file a lawsuit against Alameda County for not letting them open the factory in a safe environment.

Tesla is claiming that they fall under the critical infrastructure service sector, and they need to restart the factory soon. However, Alameda County doesn’t think that way, and they preferred not to let any company start the manufacturing operations considering the possibility of coronavirus spread. Cases of coronavirus are increasing very significantly in the USA, and health officials from all countries are making decisions accordingly.

The pandemic situation has impacted all kinds of startups. They are struggling to manage their vast amount of expenses, and that’s why they did not earn a single amount of revenue lockdown. Recent reports from E-scooter company Lime state that they have decided to lay off 13% of its current staff because of the financial problem facing during this time. Brad Bao, who is the CEO of Lime, set in a letter letting 80 employees of the company. Brad said that these employees will get an email confirmation, and are required to follow the procedure before leaving their job. Different reports about how Lime companies are all on the verge of success and they were close to making a profit.

However, because of a pandemic situation more than 99% their operations have been shut down which is creating a substantial financial burden on the company, and they had to take this decision of letting go employees. Earlier this year Lime scooter company said that there are 100 employees to make the company profitable. However, management says they did not anticipate such kind of global pandemic situation, which will force them to shut down their operations in every country they operate.

Lime is not the only scooter company, others are also facing the same situation, but the executives said they are ready to take proper actions during hard times. US rival Bird and Swedish Company Voi have also informed some of their employees of letting go via Zoom video conference call. Meanwhile, other big companies like Uber are also planning to lay off 20% or 5400 employees soon. Ridesharing or scooter startups’ whole business depends upon the regular day to activities which are currently put on a stop.

Millions of people in the country are locked down in their homes because of the spread of deadly coronavirus. People who used to work daily to feed their families have to stay at home and rely upon government emergency funds. However, the rate of unemployment as of now seems to be bigger, might get worse in the future. According to White House advisor Kevin Hassett warned the country about upcoming financial troubles. He said the rate of unemployment next month would reach 16%; it would be the start of another great depression era.

Things are already starting to get worse because millions of people in the first week of lockdown filed for unemployment to get funds from the government. He said that the next couple of months are going to be terrible for the overall economy of our country. According to him, the current situation is far like the great depression era because at that time, more than 8.6 million have lost their job, and the same thing is happening right now. Things are getting out of hand since the number of unemployed people relying on the government are increasing every day, which is going to create more problems than anyone’s anticipations. Hassett said the coronavirus impact which our country is facing is the worst thing he has ever seen.

Recently Trump, while discussing the current situation with Tim Cook, said that he is expecting a V-Shape curve, meaning the economy will get back on track quickly. Even considering the present worse case, the Trump administration thinks reopening the economy will improve the situation soon. The Treasury Secretary also seemed to be confident about the recovery of the economy. Still, according to Hassett, it will take lots of time, plus the rate of unemployment will make things harder than ever before.

The prices of oil in the country have decreased to a 21-year low level since customers are locked down in the home and not using their vehicles for commuting. A recent report shows that prices of a barrel in West Texas Intermediate went down by approximately 14% to $15.65 per barrel. This significant drop was expected since the whole country is going through a pandemic situation created by a coronavirus outbreak. The US storage facilities are also getting weaker every day, and that’s also going to impact the further downfall of oil prices. The whole pandemic situation is badly affecting all over the country, which is the primary reason why investors in the commodity market are withdrawing their money.

The oil industry had been suffering from the downfall of prices before the pandemic situation arrived in the country. Because a few months ago, OPEC members decided to cut oil production by approximately 10%, which resulted in a larger downfall in prices. Meanwhile, there are some reports which show that storage places in the US might run out of their capacity pretty soon. Investors in the commodity market are already in fear because of a pandemic situation created by a deadly virus, which is affecting all the major economic factors of the country.

Experts said everyone currently knows the lousy condition of the oil market in the country, and the problem of not having a sufficient oil storage facility might also be the biggest reason for this recent fall in prices. In the European market also Brent oil, a benchmark used by them to trade oil, also went down by approximately 0.8% to $27.87 per barrel. The pandemic situation is making things harder for the US oil market, and experts believe this condition would be continuing for some more time.

According to US intelligence, North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un recently went through major surgery and might be in danger. According to the reports given by US intelligence to the media, it said that Kim Jong Un recently went through major surgery and has been hospitalized because of his severe health condition. Reports from intelligence are not entirely specific, but it shows that the North Korean Dictator had gone through a major operation and hasn’t been seen by media or intelligent sources from the last four days.

The main question arises about Kim Jong Un’s health when nobody saw him at his grandfather’s birthday on 15th April. Earlier before this, he had already been seen meeting government officials and planning about eliminating the coronavirus situation. The National Security Council said that they are keeping a close eye on Kim Jong Un’s health, but they haven’t received specific data about it. They are still trying their best to find out the level of severity of Kim Jong Un’s health after his major surgery.

National Security Analysts think since North Korea is a restricted place and information doesn’t get quickly out of it. Still, they are trying their best to find out about Kim Jong Un’s health condition. According to sources, Kim went through a cardiovascular surgery on April 12. He had been famous for following not such healthy habits like drinking, smoking, and being obese for a long time and because of which his health deteriorated to the lowest level, and he had to undergo major surgery.

Meanwhile, South Korea decided not to comment on this whole issue, which again raises more questions about the authenticity of this source. However, many analysts think that North Korean leaders must have gone through major surgery, and it would be a matter of a few days when they will know everything about it.

President Donald Trump is famous for implementing controversial economic policies and neglecting the overburden of healthcare costs. Currently, the situation in the USA because of the outbreak has become worse, and experts think this might be the main reason why some President Donald Trump will be refocusing on health care policies. Now experts are saying that if President Donald Trump gets reelected then he might be shifting focus on health care policies. Considering the current situation, both democratic and the Republicans can not fight against each other because of the mess created by the coronavirus outbreak.

Many republican politicians are famous for not following socialist healthcare policies, which is impacting on the majority of ordinary citizens. People are already in a lockdown period trying to follow the best precautions stated by health officials. Even though the majority of the workers are working from home, they can’t earn a considerable amount of money during this lockdown period. However, President Trump is famous for his controversial opinions about health care policies in which he criticizes Obamacare under which the previous government spent billions of dollars. Democracy is, on the other hand, a following socialist economic policy in which they are giving priorities to the standard health care healthcare cost is one of the primary issues faced by ordinary Americans.

During this pandemic situation of coronavirus, it’s getting hard for ordinary people to afford medical expenses. More than 10 million people have filed themselves as unemployed to the government officials because they have been fired from their job by the employers because of a pandemic situation. Now the big question which experts are asking is whether the Trump administration will be focusing on social health care if they get reelected. Even if the situation is not that much hard in some rural areas, it is getting quite messy in metropolitan cities like New York Los Angeles, etc.

Airbnb’s CEO has recently published a letter to the networks of hosts of the company. In the memo, the executive has addressed the company’s reaction towards ongoing coronavirus epidemic across the world. The statement particularly talks about Airbnb’s decision, which allows guests to cancel their bookings and get a complete refund. Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s CEO, and co-founder has confirmed the news in the letter. In it, he states the company has decided to allow total refunds is not a business move. Brian noted they have had taken the decision to defend public health.

The Airbnb executive also said they hope the company has taken the right decision in prioritizing public safety and health. The statement from Airbnb arrives after various nations impose travel bans and soaring cancellation requests. For now, Airbnb, the short-term rental platform, is offering the first-time facility to cancel bookings, that too, without any penalties. The letter continues to announce that Airbnb will pay out hosts 25% of what they could have gained via the cancellation policy when a customer cancels booking because of a COVID-19 condition. The letter also details that only those hosts are eligible for the refund who have had check-ins slated between the period of May 14 to May 31. As per the document, the full amount of these payments could be $250 million.

So, Airbnb is promising $250 million to place toward hosts who have been affected by a coronavirus. Airbnb has also announced that the cancellation policy applies retroactively to all cancellations, which took place between the period mentioned above. Apart from this, Airbnb is crafting a $10 million fund for its experience hosts and superhosts. Employees have contributed the first a million dollars, and co-founders of Airbnb Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nate Blecharczyk are contributing an amount of $9 million. Even more, starting from April, hosts can request for allowances up to $5,000.

Harley-Davidson CEO Matthew Levatich has stepped down amid slump in sales. Levatich took this decision after spending 26 years with the iconic American motorcycle maker. He was promoted to the position of chief executive in 2015. Some reports suggest that Levatich will also step down from the post of the board of directors. “I consider myself very fortunate because I got to spent so many years with a company as revered as Harley-Davidson,” Levatich was quoted as saying in the statement posted on the website of the company. Board member Jochen Zeitz will be interim CEO and acting president while Harley-Davidson looks for a new leader. Zeitz is known for reviving the Puma sneaker brand.

The development comes at a time when the iconic bike brand is struggling to control the slump in demands for its motorcycles over year. As CEO, Levatich faced several challenges including heightened tariff costs as a result of a trade war of US President Donald Trump. The motorcycle manufacturer was hopeful of achieving lost shine with the launch of its first electric motorcycle – LiveWire. It got a positive review but it is yet to start sales. The company is also facing tough competition from more affordable bikes. Italy’s Ducati and UK’s Triumph along with the resurgent Indian bike makers have resulted in a multi-front battle.

Keeping this in mind, Harley introduced less-expensive bikes like ‘Street’ with a starting price of USD 7,600. ‘Street’ is competing with many European and Asian models where the iconic bike company has been trying to grow market share. The company that made a strong come back in the early 1980s is now struggling to find new buyers in the age of Tesla, Uber and several other transportation options. Harley is expecting to find some younger buyers with its middle-weight models and electric motorcycles. The company has also started shipping motorcycles to China and Europe from a new factory in Thailand. This will mitigate the cost burden from the tariffs on bikes made in the US.