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"Competition in 2025 will be fiercer than ever," Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng wrote in an internal letter obtained by The Wall Street Journal.
Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images
Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng said that competition within the auto sector will be even more heated in 2025.
He said in an internal letter that the industry will face an "elimination round" from 2025 to 2027.
The Xpeng founder-CEO said in November that most Chinese carmakers wouldn't survive the next decade.
Competition within the auto industry will become even more cutthroat in the years ahead, Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng said in a letter to his company's staff last month.
"The period from 2025 to 2027 marks the elimination round in the automotive industry," He wrote in an internal letter obtained by The Wall Street Journal.
"Competition in 2025 will be fiercer than ever," He added.
In 2024, Xpeng delivered 190,068 vehicles, a 34% increase from the 141,601 vehicles delivered in 2023, per a company filing. The company's vice-chairman and president, Brian Gu, said in March that Xpeng is on track to "achieve profitability at some point in 2025."
Tesla, the world's largest EV maker, delivered 1.79 million vehicles in 2024, a 1% decrease from the 1.81 million vehicles delivered in 2023.
Xpeng did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
He made similar statements on the auto industry's outlook last year. In November, the Xpeng founder-CEO said in an interview with Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times that most Chinese carmakers won't survive past the next decade.
"From 300 start-ups, only 100 of them survived. Today, there are fewer than 50 companies that still exist, and only 40 of them are actually selling cars every year," He told the outlet.
"I personally think that there will only be seven major car companies that will exist in the coming 10 years," he added, without specifying who he thought the surviving companies would be.
In March, He told Singaporean broadcaster CNA that the Chinese EV industry will see a "knockout tournament" in the next three to four years, followed by an "all-star competition" in the next seven to eight years.
To be sure, He isn't the only auto executive who expects intense competition in the industry.
In October, Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius told attendees at the Berlin Global Dialogue conference that Western automakers are fighting an existential battle against their Chinese counterparts.
"It's strange. It's a Darwinistic-like price war, market purification. And many of those players that are around now. Many of those are not going to be around five years from now," Källenius said.
Penn State quarterback Drew Allar said of his late misfire that resulted in a Notre Dame interception and was followed by the Irish's game-winning field goal: "I should have just thrown it away."
Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Adrienne Maloof was one of the first Housewives to be a no-show at a reunion taping, but she hasn’t been the last.
Adrienne opted not to film the sit-down special with her costars in 2013 after Brandi Glanville revealed during season 3 that she used a surrogate to carry her three sons. During the season, Bravo bleeped the word “surrogate” and more details of the situation as Adrienne threatened legal action.
“There was so much going on at the time,” she said on Bravo’s “Daily Dish” podcast in 2020. “When I think back, I think it would’ve been better to just plow through it, get it over with. And I know Lisa may think differently. It’s a little condescending and holier-than-thou. When I look at what I was going through and what she was going through, there’s no comparison. I’m going through a divorce, the whole Brandi and Lisa situation, bringing the things out about my family. I felt like it was almost too much to handle at the time. But in reality, I should’ve plowed through it. I don’t think Lisa would ever say that.”
Lisa, for her part, skipped the 2019 reunion amid season 9’s Puppygate after she was accused of leaking stories to the press about Dorit Kemsley’s dog. The Vanderpump Rules star also stopped filming midseason and quit the series altogether, telling Us Weekly at the time: “I made the decision to leave. It was a very difficult year for me, personally and professionally. The Housewives, it’s just, it’s emotionally too difficult to deal with.”
“Lisa only gets half of her pay for the season if she doesn’t go to the reunion, but she still chose not to go,” a source told Us at the time. “The women get half of their pay before shooting starts and the other half after the reunion. So Lisa lost money.”
A second insider then added, “Housewives don’t get fully paid for the season until it’s over and the reunion has been filmed.”
The SUR owner subsequently confirmed via Twitter that she lost “a lot” of money, adding, “But it wasn’t worth it to me [to go].”
Beverly Hills isn’t the only city with a history of women bailing before the reunion. Scroll through for more no-shows:
The Grand Dame did not attend The Real Housewives of Potomac season 9 reunion taping in January 2025 after choosing to focus on her health.
“Karen made the important decision to enter a private recovery program, so was unable to attend the reunion taping today,” Huger’s manager, Ryan Tresdale, said in a statement to Bravo’s The Daily Dish. “She was fully supported in this choice. We stand behind Karen as she embarks on this meaningful journey and are proud of her for taking such a significant step forward in her personal growth.”
In December 2024, Huger was convicted of DUI, negligent driving and other charges stemming from a Maryland car accident nine months prior.
Jen confirmed she wouldn’t be in attendance at the RHOSLC season 3 reunion taping in December 2022 as she awaited her sentencing for wire fraud charges. (In January 2023, she was ordered to 78 months in prison.)
“On September 14, 2022, I was informed by Bravo executives that I was not invited to attend the Season 3 reunion. I was disappointed because I would have no venue to confront inaccuracies and address my storyline with cast members,” she claimed in an Instagram statement at the time. . “Out of nowhere, on November 29, two and a half weeks ago, I was invited to attend. I was elated to learn I would now have a voice at reunion. I was clear with Bravo that out of respect for the courts and a standing judicial order, I would not be in a position to discuss anything related to my legal case or sentencing.”
Jen alleged that the network “found this unsatisfactory and said they expected to discuss this ‘storyline.’ That expectation has no regard for me or my family’s well-being; so under legal advice, I will not be attending reunion. I need to focus on the most important thing in my life — my family.”
The Real Housewives of New Jersey personality was a no-show at the season 3 reunion. For the first time in Housewives history, production on one season began without a break. So, while season 3 was still airing, Jacqueline was mad over season 4 events.
“The night before the reunion, there was a huge right revolving around Strippergate, and Jacqueline refused to leave her house,” Andy Cohen recalled in the book Not All Diamonds and Rosé. “I was so pissed at her! Furious. … It was so confusing to the audience that we were in the middle of production on season 4 during the season 3 reunion and something happened the night before that was so bad that all of their allegiances shifted. Everyone was so mad at Teresa [Giudice] but they couldn’t explain why because it was a spoiler.”
The RHOBH alum did a separate interview with Cohen for the season 2 reunion amid struggles with substance abuse in 2012.
“When it was clear that it was a real problem, we wanted to be responsible and we didn’t want to put her in a situation where anything could be exacerbated,” Cohen explained in Not All Diamonds and Rosé. “We considered her family and wanted to work with her to get her better. Bravo paid for her rehab.”
She returned for season 3.
The Real Housewives of New York City star wasn’t present for the season 10 reunion in 2018 to check into treatment for alcoholism.
“Bravo supports Luann’s decision to focus on her health,” the network said in a statement at the time. “She is part of the Bravo family and we continue to stand by her as she copes with this challenging situation. At this time, we hope everyone will respect her privacy.”
She returned for season 11.
“Adrienne Maloof's final act as a Housewife is not showing up tonight,” Cohen infamously said during the season 3 taping.
In Not All Diamonds and Rosé, the producer admitted he regretted being “bitchy on air about her not showing up.”
While Adrienne was fired ahead of season 4, producer Alex Baskin noted in the book, “The truth is, had she shown up to the reunion, we would have kept going with her.”
“We knew that if she didn’t come, that meant for sure she was off the show,” Cohen said in Not All Diamonds and Rosé. “That she was deciding to leave the show. I thought — and hoped — that she would come and she’d figure out a way forward with Kyle [Richards].”
While she was done with RHOBH, Lisa continued to work with Bravo on Vanderpump Rules and Peacock on Vanderpump Dogs.
As global regulators increase their scrutiny on Visa and Mastercard over merchant fees, India has chosen a different path: creating rival payment networks that are increasingly sidelining international card networks. The strategy builds on India’s Unified Payments Interface, known as UPI, a nine-year-old system that now processes more than 13 billion real-time transactions monthly, or […]
Jon Gray said Blackstone asks junior employees to speak up at deal meetings.
Vernon Yuen for NurPhoto via Getty Images
Blackstone encourages junior staff to speak at deal meetings, fostering open dialogue.
It can be "scary," said Jon Gray, the firm's president, on a recent podcast.
A former intern told BI last year that a senior leader said to him "rank doesn't matter here."
Blackstone's president said that senior executives often ask themost juniorpeople in the room to speak at the private equity firm's deal meetings.
"We'll go around in many of these committees and ask the most junior people in the room, 'hey what do you think?' We want them to articulate why they have conviction," Jon Gray said on a recent podcast hosted by Norges Bank Investment Management. Norway's sovereign wealth fund has invested hundreds of millions of dollars with Blackstone.
The 54-year-old, who started his career at the firm, said that it can be "scary" for a young person, and that the committee is "not the most patient group of people."
Gray added that meetings get into questions immediately, with people"drilling" the presenters about the companies in question.
"What we try to do is make sure a lot of please and thank you's and be appreciative to the group, but there's really sort of a truth-telling exercise," Gray said.
Blackstone is the world's largest alternative asset manager, with more than $1 trillion in assets under management. The firm has 12,700 real estate assets and 240 portfolio companies as of June, according to the company's website.
Last year, an associate who interned twiceat the firm told Business Insider that juniors were encouraged to make their presence known.
"Senior leaders were constantly coming out to the bullpen and asking the most junior person on the team what they thought about the deals that we were currently in process with, what they thought about up-and-coming trends," said Marshall Plumlee, who was a US Army infantry officer before his Harvard MBA. He's now working at Blackstone full time.
Plumlee said that one senior leader explained it to him this way: "Rank doesn't matter here; your thoughts are just as valuable as the next guy."
Blackstone had 4,735 employees as of December 2023.
Talent development initiatives
The private equity firm has made other commitments to developing talent, too.
In 2020, it launched Career Pathways, a program to help portfolio companies solve talent problems by creating internal trainings. Last year, it started a data program to find and train people to fill specialized technical positions. In September, the company said the portfolio companies that took part in the program have hired over 10,500 people from underrepresented groups.
"We put it inside of our portfolio operations side of the business," Gray said at the time. "It's not a charitable effort. It's designed to drive talent to companies."'
The executive is also known for being in charge of the iconic Blackstone holiday videos, which started in 2018 when the firm had grown too large to hostcompany-wideChristmas parties. Business Insider previously reported that Gray is usually the first person to come up with the idea for the holiday video — a comical sketch sometimes filmed in the style of the television show "The Office" or with other pop-culture bents.
A federal appeals court paved the way Thursday for special counsel Jack Smith to release a final report on President-elect Trump's two dismissed federal criminal cases.
The big picture: Trump and two of his former co-defendants have fought the release of the report on his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election and handling of classified documents. The ruling leaves open the possibility of a further appeal.
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment in the evening.
Zoom in: The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta comes in response to a request from Trump aid Walt Nauta and former Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira, who were both charged in the dismissed classified documents case.
The timing of the report's release remains unclear.
A lower court ruling from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, which temporarily blocked the report's release is in place for three days.
A separate part of the report, which details Smith's investigation into Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents, appears likely to remain sealed for now, per the Washington Post.
What they're saying: Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that criticized Smith the decision from the 11th Circuit "keeps Judge Cannon's injunction in place and prevents any report from being issued."
He called on President Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, whom Trump's lawyers have asked to block the release of Smith's report, to "do the right thing and put a final stop to the political weaponization of our Justice system."
Context: Smith initiated a winding down of his two federal criminal cases against Trump after the president-elect's November win.
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