An Island That Needs an Elon
Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:
• Predictions: 18 things we think will happen in 2025
• Predictions: What happened with our guesses about 2024
• How to transform your productivity in the year ahead
• Plus: Holmes at home; spilling tea on the Town; and Taylor Sheridan strikes again
Elon Musk already keeps a pretty full calendar running six major companies—X, Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Co., xAI and Neuralink—as well as, seemingly, large portions of the federal government’s policy decisions. (And, in fact, our Kaya Yurieff thinks Musk could add the management of a seventh major company to his to-do list.)
Yet I’d like to propose he add another item to his agenda, one I genuinely think he is uniquely qualified to handle: Musk should help fix Puerto Rico’s dismal power system, a project he has discussed with the island’s government in the past.
Put simply, the island is in chaos, languishing under the neglect of the U.S. government as a territory, not a state. Puerto Rico is still trying to repair damages to an aging power grid wrought by Hurricane Maria in 2017, and that’s not all. Several years ago, Puerto Rico privatized its energy sector, handing off control to two corporations, Luma Energy and Genera PR. It hoped the companies could improve the territory’s energy difficulties. They haven’t, and mostly everyone on the island without a private generator spent the New Year’s holiday in the dark, part of a chronic blackout problem.
Puerto Rico’s new Republican governor, Jennifer González-Colón, is talking about a fix that isn’t much of a long-term solution: She has said she would roll back initiatives to convert more of the island’s grid to solar power and boost the territory’s reliance on natural gas. At the moment, less than 3% of Puerto Rico’s power comes from solar, while the territory has set an ambitious target of reaching 100% by 2050.
The 2050 goal was an initiative led by progressive Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, who had briefly spoken with Musk about the billionaire helping to fix Puerto Rico’s infrastructure back in 2017. Nothing seems to have happened based on that conversation—Rosselló resigned amid scandal the same year Puerto Rico established the 2050 milestone—but with the island’s situation unchanged, why not revisit the opportunity?
Rather than increase Puerto Rico’s dependence on fossil fuels, González-Colón and Musk should get together and put Musk’s solar power expertise to good use. Arguably, no one in the world would be better suited to work on a solar initiative of such scale, and for once Puerto Rico would have an ally with a very direct line to the president. And, as Musk’s decision to send Starlink hardware to Ukraine in 2022 underscores, he does like to have a role in a humanitarian crisis beyond Mike Johnson’s latest whip count.—Abram Brown
18 Things We Think Will Happen This Year
We’re in for another crazy one! Our reporters predict a topsy-turvy 2025 filled with another major departure at OpenAI, a surprising product debut from Amazon, a significant decision by Tim Cook, a new acquisition by Josh Kushner and much more.
What We Got Right (and Wrong) About 2024
A year ago, we thought we had a pretty good sense of what was ahead in 2024. We were right about some things—like rising default rates around “buy now, pay later” loans and a key Amazon departure—but we were definitely too optimistic about a pickup in dealmaking.
How to Transform Your Productivity in 2025
In 2024, our Jessica Lessin actually did what so many of us tell ourselves we’ll do every year: She reflected on her work habits, identified the ones that weren’t, well, working as well as she’d like and set about changing a bunch of them. She cut down on multitasking, checked her email less, embraced a “Mom Admin” list and more. I think what Jessica did to change up her routine would make a big difference for plenty of people in 2025.
Abram Brown, editor of The Information’s Weekend section, envies Nosferatu’s centuries-long PTO: Who says a Faustian bargain is bad? Reach him at [email protected] or find him on X.
Listening: Bonneville x Baskervilles
As a younger man, Hugh Bonneville (the former paterfamilias of “Downton Abbey”) would have made a wonderful Dr. Watson. A pity the opportunity never arose—still, he’s quite excellent as the narrator of a new audio series adapting the classic Sherlock Holmes stories by Noiser, a British podcast outfit. So far he’s done several of the better pieces, including “The Dancing Men” and “The Red-Headed League,” and the production quality is top-notch. (I almost found myself reaching for the Persian slipper on the mantel.) “Sherlock Holmes: Short Stories” will delight any existing Holmes fans, and I think it would be especially good for parents who want to change up their children’s bedtime stories and introduce them to 221B Baker Street. The Holmes stories aren’t long, and Noiser further separates them into halves and thirds. Plus, Bonneville does all the work of making a 19th-century story read aloud as compelling as anything from the 21st century, a task that can be tough for a bedtime-weary parent.—A.B.
Reading: For Love and Money
Quite a few outstanding books have been written about Hollywood that pierce the veil of fame through an outsider’s eagle-eyed reportage. (“Picture” by Lillian Ross is one. “The Devil’s Candy” by Julie Salamon is another.) “Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time” accomplishes the same task but does it with an insider’s twinkly-eyed view.
Indeed, this memoir from director Barry Sonnenfeld (“The Addams Family,” “Men in Black”) reads like a conversation with a tipsy, Marlboro-smoking uncle over a late lunch at the Chateau Marmont, and it is precisely as delightful as such an outing sounds. In breezy chapters sometimes no longer than a TikTok clip, Sonnenfeld recounts a career in which he intersects with stars such as John Travolta (“charming and not self-aware”), Gene Hackman (a fellow in “constant, self-loathing pain”), Tim Allen (“a handful on set”) and Tommy Lee Jones (“a hyperactive 6-year-old”).
Much of Sonnenfeld’s own fame comes from the three “Men in Black” films with Jones and Will Smith. Sonnenfeld and Smith became especially close. Once, the pair were walking through a parking lot when Sonnenfeld decided to stop and take a piss near another person’s car. The vehicle’s owner spotted Sonnenfeld and almost started a fistfight; the owner, who was a professional film editor, then recognized Sonnenfeld, forgave him—and asked him for a job. Sonnenfeld remembers the scene ending thusly: “As Will and I continued down the lane of diagonally parked cars, not for the first time, I heard Will mutter: ‘White folk.’”—A.B.
Watching: …Giddy Up? Hell, Yeah!
Over the past several years, I somehow managed to avoid watching “Yellowstone,” the neo-Western drama starring Kevin Costner and co-created by Taylor Sheridan. I was indulging in the bounty of prestige television, and “Yellowstone” seemed just a bit too lowbrow. Still, I liked “Sicario,” the 2015 action thriller about the drug trade written by Sheridan, so I recently gave his latest show, “Landman,” a shot. After the first episode of this series about oil roughnecks in west Texas, I found myself looking up classified ads for Ford F-250 Super Duties, the model of truck driven by Tommy Norris, the oil company fixer and jack-of-all-trades played by Billy Bob Thornton.
Make no mistake: This is a “Dallas”-like soap opera—one with better writing and a lot more nudity and cursing, but a soap opera nonetheless. Still, Thornton’s performance is sensational, and his chemistry with Ali Larter, who plays his ex-wife, is great. And the tension is off the charts at times: Strap yourself in for episode 6.—Nick Wingfield
Final Thought
😬 😬 😬 cc: Alex Garland
