Mark Zuckerberg tried to charm Congress. He got slammed.

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‘The right person at the right time to take this beating’

Facebook’s C.E.O. thought he would spend his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee yesterday defending the company’s cryptocurrency project, Libra. Instead, he endured over five hours of questioning about issues like political advertising, disinformation campaigns, work force diversity and child pornography, Cecilia Kang, Mike Isaac and Nathaniel Popper of the NYT write.

It’s clear that Facebook has a trust problem. â€œAs I have examined Facebook’s various problems, I have come to the conclusion that it would be beneficial for all if Facebook concentrates on addressing its many existing deficiencies and failures before proceeding any further on the Libra project,” said Representative Maxine Waters, the Democratic chairwoman of the committee.

Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged that. â€œWe certainly have work to do to build trust,” he said. And he largely kept his calm — Representative Juan Vargas, Democrat of California, said Mr. Zuckerberg was “probably the right person at the right time to take this beating.”

On Libra, Mr. Zuckerberg mixed fear-mongering and concession in an attempt to get on board with lawmakers:

• He invoked China as a threat, arguing that “while we debate these issues, the rest of the world isn’t waiting.” He added, “If America doesn’t innovate, our financial leadership isn’t guaranteed.”
• But he offered the possibility of compromise, including changing the way the Libra cryptocurrency is defined to make it more dollar-centric.
• He also pledged that Facebook would not offer Libra anywhere in the world “unless all U.S. regulators approve it.”

But lawmakers were largely unimpressed. â€œIt should be clear why we have serious concerns about your plans to establish a global digital currency that would challenge the U.S. dollar,” Representative Waters said.

Next up at WeWork: large-scale layoffs

The office space company accepted a financial lifeline from SoftBank of Japan that will keep its doors open. But its employees now face an enormous number of job cuts and hits to their stock holdings.

WeWork could lay off as many as 4,000 of its 14,000 employees, the FT reports, citing unnamed sources. About a quarter of those cuts will affect workers like cleaners, whose roles would be outsourced.

And most employees’ stock grants are now underwater, according to the WSJ, which cited unnamed sources. Over 90 percent of current and former workers were given stock awards and options above the $8 billion valuation that the SoftBank deal assigned to the company.

Employees are angry, especially since Adam Neumann, WeWork’s former C.E.O., stands to make money from the company’s bailout. He is receiving a $185 million consulting fee and a loan to cover a multimillion-dollar credit line that he had taken out. He will also be able to sell up to nearly $1 billion worth of his stock, though some of that would go to repay the SoftBank loan.

WeWork’s new chairman, Marcelo Claure, defended some of the arrangements with Mr. Neumann. At a meeting with employees yesterday, he said the former C.E.O. was like any shareholder who deserved the right to sell his stock.

Critics see the payments as a way to push Mr. Neumann out, especially since he had special shares that gave him a tight grip on the company. “When the founder-C.E.O. has voting control, sometimes you have to bend over backwards,” Amy Borris of the Council of Institutional Investors told Recode.

More: WeWork would have reportedly run out of money by the end of next week.

Dick’s Sporting Goods’ C.E.O. for president?

Ed Stack, who rose in prominence by withdrawing assault-style rifles from sale in his company’s stores after the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., has been testing the waters for a third-party candidacy, Natasha Korecki of Politico reports.

A focus group was asked to discuss his prospects, with an emphasis on whether Mr. Stack’s “showing leadership” with the guns issue made him a viable candidate, an unnamed source told Ms. Korecki.

Mr. Stack could scramble the 2020 race, Ms. Korecki writes. He’s a billionaire businessman and longtime Republican donor who could position himself as an alternative to President Trump and liberal Democratic candidates like Senator Elizabeth Warren.

But third-party runs aren’t easy, as the likes of Howard Schultz and Mike Bloomberg before him have found. He would have a hard time getting on ballots in all 50 states, and he wouldn’t have the national infrastructure that Mr. Trump or Democrats can rely on.

Hand-wringing about Mr. Stack could all be moot. Members of the focus group remarked on his age — 64 — and some felt that he “didn’t have the charisma it would take to attract a coalition that you’d need to have a chance as a third-party candidate.”

Falling C.E.O. confidence could hurt stocks

C-suite anxieties about the economy are prompting companies to slow down buying back their own stock. That could undercut one of the main drivers of this year’s stock market gains, Matt Phillips of the NYT reports.

• Confidence among C.E.O.s has fallen to its lowest level in a decade, according to a survey by the Conference Board. It’s now at a level last seen in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
• The pace of buybacks this year has declined from last year’s record of over $800 billion, though that binge was fueled in part by the Trump tax cuts.
• “Waning confidence could mean the drop continues into next year,” Mr. Phillips writes. “Goldman Sachs analysts expect buybacks will fall 15 percent in 2019, to a bit more than $700 billion, and then 5 percent in 2020 to $675 billion.”
• That could have repercussions for the markets: Buybacks have largely supported companies’ stock prices, since they can raise earnings per share by reducing the overall number of outstanding shares.
• “If companies hold back spending, including stepping in to buy up stocks when the market swoons, stock trading could be bumpier,” Mr. Philips writes.

Tesla’s surprise turnaround

Just months ago Elon Musk’s automaker seemed to be in dire straits, scrambling to raise capital, closing stores and facing slumping sales. But yesterday it reported a surprise profit, and its shares jumped 20 percent, Neal Boudette of the NYT writes.

The news defied expectations. Tesla said it had earned $143 million in the third quarter, reversing a trend that lost it a total of $1.1 billion in the first half of the year. That equates to $1.86 of profit per share on an adjusted basis; analysts had expected a loss of 46 cents per share.

It’s thanks to a series of measures that included substantially cutting costs, lifting deliveries to record levels and dipping into a pool of money that it had been required to set aside, Mr. Boudette notes.

Mr. Musk painted a rosy future for Tesla, with its Chinese car production scheduled to start by the end of the year, and its next vehicle, the Model Y, expected to roll off production lines as soon as next summer, about six months sooner than previously expected.

But the company’s surge may not last. The company’s long-term viability is far from certain, and Mr. Musk’s optimism doesn’t always quite play out as described, Charley Grant of Heard on the Street argues.

Mario Draghi’s lasting impact at the E.C.B.

The departing president of the European Central Bank will lead his final monetary policy meeting today before Christine Lagarde takes over the reins. And CNBC reports that his presence could be felt for some time.

Mr. Draghi enthusiastically adopted quantitative easing since taking charge in 2011, a policy that is broadly thought to have helped prevent the eurozone from breaking up. He used the same trick in September to head off the threat of recession in Europe.

But the most recent instance of its use has proved controversial, even inside the central bank. And Mr. Draghi’s decision — and the infighting it has caused — could make it harder for Ms. Lagarde to change policy in the short term.

“We expect the E.C.B. policy to be on hold for the remainder of the year and for much if 2020,” Florian Hense, an economist at Berenberg, wrote in a research note. “A divided E.C.B. with a new president could maintain its current stance until 2021.”

Pressure on a pilot over the 737 Max

The former Boeing pilot Mark Forkner, whose warnings about an automated flight system drew outrage last week, had feared for his job if his warnings encouraged the F.A.A. to impose tough requirements on the 737 Max, according to the WSJ.

He felt pressure from management at Boeing to ensure that the 737 Max didn’t require airlines to put their pilots through expensive and lengthy training, the WSJ reports, citing unnamed sources.

“Mark was under an enormous amount of pressure,” Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing engineer who worked with him, told the WSJ. “He clearly was stressed.”

His experience at Boeing is part of an F.B.I. investigation into the 737 Max’s approval process, and “whether inaccurate statements, incomplete technical submissions or undue management pressure” contributed to two fatal plane crashes involving the 737 Max, according to the WSJ.

More: Boeing said that third-quarter earnings had fallen 43 percent from the same time a year ago, while sales fell 21 percent.

Revolving door

Attention Capital, a media investment firm, has hired Gary Newman, the former C.E.O. of Fox Networks, and Lisa Gersh, the former chief of the fashion label Alexander Wang, as executive partners.

President Trump reportedly plans to nominate Stephen Hahn, the chief medical executive of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, as the next head of the F.D.A.

The speed read

Deals

• Investors are increasingly shunning independent shale oil drillers, leading to a rise in bankruptcy filings across the industry. (FT)
• The Israeli investor Sam Ben-Avraham has submitted a takeover bid for Barney’s, challenging an offer by Authentic Brands. (Reuters)
• Blackstone earned $779.4 million in the third quarter on the back of a strong performance in its private equity arm — which the firm’s C.E.O., Steve Schwarzman, defended in the face of political criticism. (WSJ)
• Aberdeen Standard Investments, one of the biggest shareholders in Just Eat, said that a $6.3 billion takeover bid for the restaurant delivery company by Prosus was too low. (Reuters)

Trump impeachment inquiry

• Ukrainian government officials knew by early August that the Trump administration was withholding military aid, a timeline that contradicts claims made by the White House. (NYT)
• A group of Republican lawmakers disrupted yesterday’s House hearings into the Ukraine affair, a day after a key witness provided damaging testimony against President Trump. (NYT)
• House Democrats are reportedly planning to start holding public hearings into the Ukraine matter as soon as mid-November. (WaPo)

Politics and policy

• The Trump administration sued California over its cap-and-trade market for carbon emissions, arguing that it is unconstitutional. (WSJ)
• The Government Accountability Office has given Congress more leeway to review certain banking regulations, potentially helping Senate Republicans loosen those rules. (NYT)
• Maryland has sued a property management company owned by the family of Jared Kushner, the presidential adviser and son-in-law of President Trump, over housing conditions at several of its apartment complexes. (WaPo)

Brexit

• Members of Britain’s governing Conservative Party are split over whether to push for a general election or for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s deal to take the country out of the European Union. (FT)
• E.U. leaders have reportedly decided to grant Britain an extension for Brexit, but haven’t agreed on how long that period should be. (NYT)

Tech

• Google said it had achieved “quantum supremacy” by showing that a quantum computer can perform an esoteric calculation far more quickly than the world’s fastest supercomputer. (NYT)
• Some Google employees have reportedly accused the company’s leadership of trying to spy on their attempts to organize protests. The company denies the claim. (Bloomberg)
• The Trump administration is divided over how aggressively to restrict China’s access to American technology. (NYT)
• A senior White House cybersecurity director has resigned, and suggested that the Trump administration has made cyber policy changes that put it at risk of being hacked. (Axios)

Best of the rest

• Here’s who’s attending Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh this month. (Axios)
• Carlos Ghosn’s defense attorneys say that prosecutors won’t share records that might help their client, citing Nissan’s fears that company secrets could be revealed. (NYT)
• Investors have withdrawn nearly $2 billion from Ken Fisher’s investment firm since he made sexist and lewd remarks at a conference. (NYT)
• A new trial for Samsung’s heir, Jay Lee, over expanded corruption charges begins on Friday. (Bloomberg)
• Malaysia has reportedly discussed seeking a penalty of as little as $2 billion to $3 billion from Goldman Sachs for its role in the 1MDB scandal. (Bloomberg)
• Take a peek inside two very different family businesses: the one that built (and ruined) Forever 21, and the Nordstrom dynasty. (NYT)
• PG&E has begun shutting off power for 179,000 California customers. (NYT)

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