Business
In Palisades visit, Trump officials vow to speed up permits for fire rebuilding
In a visit to Pacific Palisades on Wednesday, top White House officials vowed to take over and speed up building permitting, a core state and local function, for rebuilding after the Los Angeles wildfires.
Administrators for the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, and Small Business Administration, Kelly Loeffler, also held a discussion with Palisades fire victims and met with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger in a closed-door meeting about how to hasten rebuilding and address issues such as insurance payouts and wildfire prevention.
“Our conversations with Mayor Bass and Supervisor Barger about accelerating the rebuilding process in Los Angeles were productive,” Zeldin said. “Administrator Loeffler and I, on behalf of President Trump, asked these local elected officials to join us in this urgent effort, and I am hopeful great progress will be made in the days and weeks ahead.”
The visit followed a Jan. 27 executive order signed by President Trump to allow victims of the Eaton and Palisades fires to go around “unnecessary, duplicative, or obstructive” state and local permitting processes.
Instead of going through building departments, such as the city of Los Angeles for the Palisades, or the county for Altadena, builders can instead “self-certify” that they have complied with state and local health and safety standards, if they are using federal emergency funds to rebuild, the order says.
The Small Business Administration has already launched a self-certification tool online, available to applicants who have been waiting more than 60 days for a building permit.
Loeffler said the “check and balance” will come from city and county inspections that must happen before a property is certified for occupancy.
Neither official could immediately recall another instance of the federal government preempting state and local permitting processes for disaster recovery, with Zeldin noting that “nothing like [these wildfires] has ever happened before.”
The visit underscored diverging narratives about the rebuilding process in L.A. While Trump described it as a “nightmare of delay, uncertainty, and bureaucratic malaise” in his executive order, state and local officials said construction is underway and permitting is not the issue.
“Both administrators were engaged — sharing the President’s concerns while also listening to what I am seeing on the ground in Altadena,” Barger said in a statement to The Times. “I emphasized that 53% of impacted residents have taken no action to rebuild, not because of permitting delays, but because they lack the capital to move forward — an issue exacerbated by delayed insurance payouts. Many families have not submitted plans or entered the County’s rebuilding pipeline and are now facing a serious financial crisis.”
She added that the county’s current timeline for completing permit reviews is 31 business days.
Bass, who is facing renewed scrutiny after an analysis of the Palisades fire was watered down, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Wednesday’s meeting.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a post on X following the executive order, that hundreds of homes are under construction, and that permitting timelines are at least twice as fast as before the fires. He said the president continues to withhold a federal aid package that would help families rebuild.
“The Feds need to release funding, not take over local permit approval speed — the main obstacle is COMMUNITIES NOT HAVING THE MONEY TO REBUILD,” the governor said.
Last month, on the anniversary of the fires, a bipartisan delegation of California legislators also penned a letter to Trump calling for additional federal support.
A December analysis by The Times found that permitting has gained momentum after a slow start, with the pace slower than after some disasters in the state, and faster than others.
As of Wednesday, more than 3,170 rebuilding permits have been issued in the fire areas, according to city and county dashboards.
But Zeldin used the opportunity to take jabs at Newsom, describing his approach to federal funding requests as “flawed.”
“The whole ask has been completely stepped on by the governor’s effort to campaign for president — to try to lob 11 insults a day and somehow fit in an ask for tens of billions of dollars in the middle of it,” he said. “It’s just not a good strategy.”
He declined to say whether additional funding will come from Congress, or how much.
Some Palisades residents said they would welcome whatever support they can get. Among them was Abby Waldorf, whose parents both lost their homes in the Tahitian Terrace mobile home park during the Palisades fire.
Waldorf said mobile homes don’t qualify for many city and state recovery programs, such as mortgage relief and disaster recovery aid, so they are “most at risk of not coming back.”
“Our community is very supportive of anyone that will help us move back quickly,” she said, “and at this point we haven’t seen that happen at the city, county or state level yet, and so anyone who can come in and do the job is welcome.”
Business
Older AC and fridge chemicals amp up climate change. Trump just rolled back limits on them
President Trump on Thursday announced that grocery stories and air conditioning companies will be allowed to keep using high-polluting refrigerants for longer than they would have under a law he signed during his first administration.
“This was a tremendous burden, a tremendous cost,” said Trump, surrounded in the Oval Office by executives from supermarket chains including Kroger, Fairway, Neimann Foods and Piggly Wiggly. “It was making the equipment unaffordable, and the actual benefit was nothing.”
The move loosens rules meant to restrict hydroflourocarbons, a class of climate-damaging chemicals used in cooling equipment. HFCs are known as “super pollutants” because their impact on climate change can be tens of thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide during their shorter lifespans.
In the move Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency extends the deadline for companies to comply with a 2023 rule transitioning refrigerators and air conditioners off HFCs and onto new cooling technologies. Reducing these chemicals and moving to cleaner refrigerants has long been a bipartisan issue.
Trump is also proposing exemptions from a rule requiring leak repairs on large-scale refrigeration systems.
The administration framed the changes as part of its effort to bring down high grocery costs. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said the actions will save $2.4 billion for Americans and safeguard 350,000 jobs.
“Americans who wanted to be able to fix their equipment were instead being required to buy far more costly new equipment and that just doesn’t make any sense,” said Zeldin.
David Doniger, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the move will not only harm the climate, but U.S. competitiveness in global refrigerant markets as well.
“The EPA is catering to a small group of straggling companies by derailing the shift away from these climate super-pollutants,” he said. “The industry at large supports the HFC phasedown and has already invested in making new refrigerants and equipment, currently installed in thousands of stores.”
Danielle Wright, executive director of the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council, an environmental nonprofit, said any perceived near-term savings from the rollbacks will be outweighed by the future costs.
“Business owners are far more worried about the escalating cost of keeping aging, high‑global-warming-potential equipment running than they are about the cost of installing new, compliant systems,” she said.
Trump dismissed the climate concerns, saying his changes “are not going to have any impact on the environment.”
He said he wants to get rid of the technology transition rule entirely in the future.
Business
Airbnb to add grocery delivery and car rentals ahead of World Cup
Airbnb unveiled a new set of services for guests on Wednesday, adding car rentals, airport pickup and grocery delivery to its online marketplace that connects travelers with local hosts.
Customers can now get groceries delivered to their Airbnb through a partnership with Instacart and have a driver meet them at the airport with Airbnb’s Welcome Pickups. The app is also offering luggage storage in partnership with Bounce and will add in-app car rentals later this summer.
At the same time, Airbnb is ramping up its use of AI by adding AI-powered review summaries and lodging comparisons, the company said.
The company has been expanding beyond lodging since last year, when it introduced Airbnb Experiences and Services, giving guests the option to book private tours and chef-cooked meals through the app.
In an earnings call earlier this month, the company’s chief executive, Brian Chesky, said the company is at “the very, very beginning of how AI is going to change how we all do our jobs.”
The changes are coming in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will take place in 16 cities across the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The company said its offering exclusive World Cup experiences, such as watch parties and access to stadiums.
“In terms of what we’ve seen in cumulative bookings heading into the event, the World Cup is slated to be the largest event in Airbnb’s history,” said the company’s chief financial officer, Ellie Mertz, on the earnings call.
Airbnb gained popularity for offering travelers unique and homey stays on other people’s property, but it added boutique hotel bookings to its platform late last year. The move had some customers questioning if the app was straying too far from its original purpose.
In its announcement this week, the company said it is partnering with more independent hotels in 20 top destinations, including New York, London and Singapore. On the earnings call, Chesky said hotels on Airbnb could become a multibillion-dollar revenue business.
The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2007 and gave homeowners the opportunity to earn money by renting out their space to travelers seeking something different from a hotel. Airbnb bookings can range from private bedrooms in a shared home to luxury mansions and yachts.
The company’s revenue grew 18% year over year to $2.7 billion in the first quarter, while net income increased slightly to $160 million. Airbnb’s new services and offerings could transform it from a home-sharing platform to a holistic travel marketplace, analysts said.
Shares of the company have increased by 14% over the past six months and fell by less than 1% on Thursday.
Business
SpaceX files to go public in huge IPO deal
Elon Musk wants to take investors on a ride to the moon — and beyond.
His pioneering rocket company SpaceX filed Wednesday for what’s expected to be the largest initial public offering in history, potentially raising at least $75 billion and valuing the company at as much as $2 trillion.
The registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an expected public offering next month explicitly sets aside stocks for retail investors, though the exact number will be spelled out in a later filing, as will the offering price and company valuation.
Interest in the stock offering is expected to be high despite the billionaire’s controversial politics, including his involvement last year with the Department of Government Efficiency, the makeshift cost-cutting effort that resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of government jobs.
“Potential investors are probably just as polarized as the electorate is too, given his dabbling in politics,” said Carol Schleif, chief market strategist for BMO Private Wealth. “But it’s not just the SpaceX IPO per se, it’s a bigger, broader excitement among investors for space investment in general.”
Investor interest was piqued by the Artemis II moon mission this year that SpaceX did not participate in, she said. However, the company is expected to play a larger role in future missions that take astronauts to the moon..
Ultimately, Musk, 54, wants to establish a colony on Mars but those plans have been set on the back burner, with NASA now focusing on moon missions.
Musk will remain the company’s chief executive and chairman. Under a dual-class stock structure as a holder of special Class B shares he will be able to control the election of directors, the filing says.
The IPO is expected to be at least twice as large as the current record holder: Saudi Aramco, the state-controlled national oil and gas company of Saudi Arabia, which raised nearly $30 billion in 2019.
Nearly two dozen banks will be underwriting the IPO and offering shares to investors, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Citigroup.
Founded in 2002 in El Segundo, SpaceX has revolutionized the aerospace industry by developing the reusable Falcon 9 rocket that has radically lowered launch costs.
The company moved its headquarters from Hawthorne to Texas in 2024. However, SpaceX retains large operations in the South Bay city and blasts off regularly from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.
Scores of former SpaceX employees have launched startups in Southern California, including rocket company Relativity Space, hypersonic missile startup Castelion and satellite manufacturer Apex Space.
Since developing its reusable rocket technology, SpaceX has established its Starlink network as the leading satellite-based broadband internet service. It also is moving into satellite-based cellular service and this year merged with Musk’s xAi artificial intelligence company that also included his X social network.
Marco Cáceres, an aerospace analyst at Teal Group, said that the advantage of going public for SpaceX lies in the IPO’s ability to raise a large amount of capital quickly to complete development of its Starship rocket.
“It is going to dominate the market even more than the Falcon 9 is dominating the market now,” he said. “That’s going to be ultimately what’s going to drive their business for the next 10 years.”
The 12th test launch of Starship is set for Friday from the company’s south Texas launch facility. The rocket is the third version of craft, standing more than 400 feet tall and with about three times the payload of the second version.
The regulatory filing claims that the market for its rocket, internet and mobile telephone businesses could be as large as $28.5 trillion.
SpaceX also plans to launch thousands of orbiting data centers powered by the sun that would perform AI calculations.
With the company making massive capital investments, it recorded a $4.28-billion loss in the first quarter. Last year, it recorded $18.7 billion in revenue and lost $4.94 billion, according to the filing.
The public offering is expected to hit the market next month after a “road show,” during which SpaceX will seek to drum up interest from institutional and retail investors.
It will arrive after a fairly quiet year for IPOs that was brightened last week when Cerebras Systems, a Sunnyvale company that makes semiconductors for AI supercomputers, went public.
Shares at Cerebras were offered at $185 and jumped 68% on its opening day. They closed Wednesday at $290.69.
Matt Kennedy, a senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, said the SpaceX offering would dwarf that of Cerebras, as it is expected to raise more than every IPO combined in the last two years.
“A win here or a loss could really impact the IPO market,” he said. “The sheer size of this deal is going to make or lose fortunes.”
Among the oddest disclosures of the IPO is a decision by the company’s board in January to grant Musk 1 billion Class B shares if the company reaches a certain market capitalization and establishes a “permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants.”
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