Opinion

• SpaceX Owns a Real Business That Makes Big Money
  A simple view of SpaceX is that it’s a low-cost rocket launcher that created the profitable Starlink satellite business and which is now burning cash to build orbital data centers and colonize Mars. Starlink doesn’t have the lead role in SpaceX’s $1.8 trillion initial public offering. But it is the real business inside the company, and the telecoms industry and its regulators can ill afford to be complacent about the disruptive threat it poses.
• Rich Americans Should Welcome Higher Capital-Gains Taxes
  This year, several of America’s most celebrated private companies are expected to go public at combined valuations worth trillions of dollars. SpaceX’s initial public offering later this week could raise as much as $80 billion, making it the biggest in history.
• The White House’s Top Science Goal Is Ignorance
  Shutting down scientific inquiry because it discovers things you don’t like is a bit like turning off all the instruments on your plane because they warn you there’s a mountain ahead. It may satisfy your immediate urge to live in denial but will soon turn deadly.
• The Knicks’ Name Traces Back to a 200-Year-Old Publicity Stunt
• Kevin Warsh Catches an Inflation Break at the Fed
  The White House gave Kevin Warsh an unofficial mandate when he was put in charge of the Federal Reserve: Find any excuse to lower interest rates. The problem for Warsh is twofold.
• A Paris Basement Gives a Glimpse of Future Drone Warfare
  In a Paris basement office that could belong to any number of trendy software startups, entrepreneur Hadrien Canter opens a crate containing a critical ingredient of modern warfare: a drone interceptor. About the size of a desk lamp, it uses artificial-intelligence software and radar to detect, catch and destroy military drones.
• Ending Immigration Isn’t the Answer for Switzerland — or the US
  This weekend, voters in Switzerland will be presented with a deceptively simple solution to the frustrations over rising immigration that have roiled societies from the US to Europe: If they vote yes in a referendum, the country will proceed to cap its population at 10 million people. It’s the wrong answer — and not just for the Swiss.
• Madison Square Garden Is Fouling Knicks Fans
  Nobody expected the New York Knicks’ first Finals home games in a generation to be cheap. But this championship run has pushed the limits of even New York excess. Before Monday’s game, a law firm and a private equity giant split a $1 million bid for a pair of courtside seats in a charity auction. Before Wednesday’s matchup, the “cheap” seats on resale sites hovered around $5,000.
• Corporate America Is No Meritocracy. Just Ask Women
  Back in 2008, there were 12 women running Fortune 500 companies. Even though that equaled a measly 2.4%, it was still progress. A decade earlier, that number was 0.4%, or just two women (Jill Barad at Mattel Inc. and Marion Sandler at Golden West Financial Corp.).
• India’s Hidden Battery Fleet Can Keep the Lights On
  One of the crucial factors keeping India’s lights on when the temperature at dusk soars above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) rarely gets discussed. And yet they’re everywhere in the world’s third-biggest power market.
• Why It’s Harder for China to Keep North Korea in Line
  “As close as lips and teeth” is how Mao Zedong famously described China’s ties with North Korea.
• The GOP’s YOLO Caucus Is Peak Government
  The fact that a pair of Republican senators are being heralded for doing their jobs reveals just how much Congress has atrophied, especially during President Donald Trump’s second term.
• China Is Planning for AI’s Job Shock. America Isn’t
  Beneath the veneer of China’s reputation as one of the most enthusiastic adopters of AI is an already fragile labor market, persistent youth unemployment, and a deep anxiety about the future of white-collar work.
• Apple Is Handing a Lot of AI Power to Its Huge Rival Google
  Tim Cook’s last annual showcase of new software as Apple Inc.’s chief executive officer also marked the start of a deepening relationship with one of his biggest competitors: Alphabet Inc.
• AI Will Rip Off Consumers Unless They Fight Back
  My great uncle Fred, a former World War II prisoner living in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, had little to his name but a four-wheel-drive truck. When the treacherous winter storms came, he would drive around, offering to help poor souls who had gotten stuck in the snow. But he was no good Samaritan: He charged exorbitant prices, sussing them out to determine the maximum he could extract. He had all the power and he knew how to use it. Call it siege pricing.
• Asia’s Gen Z Talent Is Becoming a Political Threat
  I hated taking exams. I’d cram and strategize and fret as I imagined trick questions, bizarre equations or scenarios in which obscure sections from my textbooks emerged as soul-wrecking conundrums. But I had it easy. My 1970s middle-school classmates and I in the Philippines had heard all about the “examination hell” that was Japan.
• Indonesia Hits the Panic Button Over the Rupiah
  Indonesia has declared what amounts to an emergency over its embattled currency. The shock interest-rate increase this week has given the rupiah a short-term lift. Without a change in the underlying direction of government policy, it will be insufficient to revive confidence.
• Sometimes, Bending the Rules Can Revive a Stock Market
  What constitutes a market portfolio? SpaceX’s public listing has ignited a debate over whether index providers should speed up the addition of newly listed large companies and how fast-tracking them would affect people’s 401(k)s and broader equity performance.