The FTX founder was arrested at the request of the United States. Also: Elon Musk is no longer the richest person and Rivian is putting its partnership with Mercedes on hold.

Good morning! While you slept, work continued elsewhere in the digital scene.

The top topics:

The police in the Bahamas has the former FTX– Boss and Founder Sam Bankman Fried arrested. This was announced by the country’s Attorney General in a statement on Monday. The Bahamas responded to a request from the United States. It is not yet known exactly what points Bankman-Fried is accused of in the indictment. More details are yet to be released. In the USA, however, investigations and class action lawsuits are already underway against the former star of the crypto scene.

The arrest came just hours before the entrepreneur was scheduled to testify at a hearing by the US House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee. He investigates the collapse of the company. FTX had defaulted in days last month as traders attempted to withdraw $6 billion from the platform in just 72 hours. Previously, the competing crypto exchange binance abandoned a planned rescue operation. Whether this “backtrack” will also have consequences for Binance is apparently still being debated in the US Department of Justice. [Mehr bei Spiegel, Reuters und Reuters]

On start-up scene: A Gopro for vacation, a tablet to try out or a laptop for temporary help: the Berlin startup has it all by renting out electronic devices grover made it to the unicorn. The day after Nicholas, Grover then confirmed that he had laid off a number of employees – without commenting on the background. Three insiders reported to us exclusively how the layoffs went, what the working atmosphere is like at the moment and what might be behind it. [Mehr bei Gründerszene+]

And here are the other headlines of the night:

TwitterCEO Elon Musk lost the title of richest person in the world on Monday. According to Forbes, he was dated LVMH– Chairman and CEO, Bernard Arnault, overtaken. Musk had previously been booed by a crowd in San Francisco. After laying off thousands of Twitter employees in the city, the billionaire also posted far-right ideas on his Twitter account over the weekend. He called for US immunologist Anthony Fauci to be prosecuted, spread QAnon conspiracy theories and made transphobic statements. [Mehr bei Forbes, Spiegel und The Guardian]

Rivian has the negotiations with Mercedes put on hold. The US electric vehicle startup was interested in a potential joint venture that would see the automakers produce all-electric vans at a joint plant in Poland. Rivian wanted to save costs in Europe with the help of the cooperation. Mercedes announced that the factory would be built anyway. [Mehr bei Wall Street Journal]

Of the WirecardThe trial takes an unexpected turn in the first few days of the negotiations: the defense attorney for ex-Wirecard boss Markus Braun portrays him as a victim of a gang led by key witness Oliver Bellenhaus. He therefore calls for the trial to be suspended. Since the bankruptcy of the financial service provider in June 2020, Braun has been prejudged like no other of his clients in 30 years. [Mehr bei Reuters und Handelsblatt]

Microsoft buys four percent of the parent company of the London Stock Exchange. The US group is to move the stock exchange’s financial data and trading platforms to the cloud. the London Stock Exchange Groupowner of Europe’s largest exchange by market value, will spend $2.8 billion on Microsoft products over the next decade, mostly on the Azure cloud service. [Mehr bei Wall Street Journal]

Thomas Bravo buys Coupa software, a California enterprise software company, for $8 billion. The Chicago-based private equity firm is paying $81 a share in an all-cash deal, a price about 77 percent above the share price at which the company was trading at the end of November. At the same time, the price is well below Coupa’s peak of almost $370. [Mehr bei The Information, Techcrunch und Wall Street Journal]

Our reading tip on Gründerszene: For years, startups only went up – in terms of growth and finances. In many places, founders are now radically cutting back on staff. We have put together for you where it was last redundancies gave. [Mehr bei Gründerszene]

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Happy Tuesday!

Your Gründerszene editors