Paperjam.lu

Elon Musk poses with a Tesla outside the company’s factory in Silicon Valley, October 2011. Photo credit: Maurizio Pesce (CC BY 2.0) 

Tesla recharge

The electric carmaker Tesla has started what its CEO, Elon Musk, called a ‎“thorough reorganization”, Reuters reported. In recent months, Tesla has shut down its production line more than once, seen executive turnover and seen one of self-driving cars involved in a fatal accident. Tusk said Tesla would flatten its management structure and quickly hire to fill key roles, Reuters wrote.

McDonald’s tax reorg criticised by unions 

A group of European and US trade unions have accused McDonald’s of making its tax arrangements less transparent following the start of an EU investigation, the news agency DPA reported. The fast food firm moved its international tax base from Luxembourg to the UK, but now uses subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Hong Kong, making McDonald’s operations “more opaque” the unions claimed. 

Green energy rise Down Under

46% of larger Australian firms have moved to renewable energy for cost reasons, according to The Guardian. ‎Energy prices in Australia have risen 80% over the past decade, the paper reported, while “the capacity of Australian businesses to generate their own solar power had doubled in less than two years.”

New Catalan leader

‎Catalonia’s regional parliament has elected another separatist leader, Quim Torra, as the region’s president, stated the BBC. Torra replaced Carles Puigdemont, who currently is in self-imposed exile in Berlin. Catalan has been ruled directly by Madrid since October, when the region held an independence referendum that the Spanish government called illegal. Torra said that he’d continue to work towards independence.

Royal fortune

Luxembourg’s royal family is the second richest in Europe, according to Business Insider. The grand ducal household has a net worth of around $4bn, said the news site. That ranked it ahead of royal families in the Netherlands (ranked fifth), Britain (fourth) and Monaco (third). Liechtenstein’s royal household topped the list, with an estimated net worth of $5bn. 

Today’s Breakfast Briefing was written by @aarongrunwald.