Waymo Wins California Expansion, Ackman Targets Dual IPOs, MTG Resigns From Congress, and X’s New Feature Exposes Foreign Political Accounts

24th November 2025

Waymo just secured sweeping regulatory approval that opens up massive new terrain across the Bay Area and Southern California. Bill Ackman is eyeing an unprecedented pair of public listings. Marjorie Taylor Greene is walking away from Congress after a stunning rift with President Trump. And Elon Musk’s X is throwing both MAGA and Democratic circles into chaos with a new country-of-origin label exposing foreign-run political accounts. All this and more in today’s Read It And Eat!

Major Headlines

• Waymo gets regulatory approval to expand across Bay Area and Southern California

  
  

Waymo continues to expand its reach, with the robotaxi company posting Friday that it’s now “officially authorized to drive fully autonomously across more of the Golden State.” Waymo already operates in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles (and outside California as well, in Atlanta, Austin, and Phoenix). But maps published by California’s Department of Motor Vehicles showed that the company can now test and deploy its autonomous vehicles across a much larger area in both the Bay Area and Southern California.

In the Bay Area, Waymo’s approved areas of operation now include most of the East Bay and North Bay (including Napa/Wine Country), as well as Sacramento. In Southern California, the company’s approved territory now stretches from Santa Clarita (north of Los Angeles) to San Diego.  The company will need additional regulatory approval before it can carry paying passengers in some of these regions, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Although Waymo’s post doesn’t offer many details about when it plans to actually start offering rides in all these new areas, the company wrote, “Next stop: welcoming riders in San Diego in mid-2026!” The company had previously announced its intention to launch in San Diego next year, along with Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, Orlando, San Antonio, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. There’s been plenty of Waymo expansion news in the past couple weeks, as the company announced that it will be entering Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Tampa; is removing safety drivers ahead of its commercial launch in Miami; and will start offering rides that use freeways in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix. TechCrunch 

• Bill Ackman eyes dual public offerings for Pershing Square and new fund

  
  

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman plans to take his hedge-fund firm Pershing Square and a new investment fund public early next year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The move would mark a significant milestone for the activist investor whose elaborate commentary on finance and politics is closely watched in New York as well as Washington.

The new fund, Pershing Square USA, is set to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange and will offer investors free shares in Pershing Square as an incentive, the WSJ said. The report added that partners could give away up to 10% of Pershing Square shares, which may value the firm well above a valuation of $10.5 billion in 2024. The Financial Times reported earlier on Friday that Ackman was preparing a listing of Pershing Square, without mentioning any other plans.

Talks for the listings are preliminary and could ultimately be delayed or not lead to a public offering depending on the market conditions, both newspapers said. 

Founded by Ackman in January 2004, Pershing Square Capital Management invests in roughly a dozen stocks and is best known for its activist campaigns.If Pershing proceeds with a listing, it would join a small club of publicly traded alternative asset managers. While private equity giants like Blackstone (BX.N), and KKR (KKR.N), have thrived in public markets, pure-play hedge funds have had a mixed record because of the unpredictability of their earnings. Reuters

• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she will resign from Congress in January

  
  

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced Friday she is resigning from Congress next year, effective Jan. 5, 2026. The bombshell development comes a week after President Donald Trump withdrew his support for Greene, one of his staunchest allies, after she criticized him and his administration for their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, along with other matters.

In a four-page statement announcing her resignation posted on X, Greene repeatedly addressed her recent falling-out with Trump. "Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for," she said. "I have too much self respect and dignity, love my family way too much, and do not want my sweet district to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the President we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms," Greene added. 

Greene, who has served in the House since 2021, came under attack from Trump last week, when the president announced that he was removing his endorsement of Greene's reelection campaign after she broke party rank and signed onto a discharge petition forcing a vote to order the Department of Justice to release its full Epstein files, another issue that Greene has come to champion from the campaign trail to Capitol Hill in recent years. In a social media post Trump called Greene "a ranting Lunatic" who has "gone Far Left." In an ensuing online back-and-forth with Greene over the weekend, he called her "Marjorie 'Traitor' Greene" and said he would support a primary challenger. In a video released Friday alongside her statement Greene said, "My self-worth is not defined by a man, but instead by God."

In a brief phone interview with ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott on Friday, Trump said Greene's resignation is "great news for the country." He said he has no plans to speak with her and wishes her well. "I think it's great news for the country. It's great," the president told Scott, adding Greene did not give him a heads up. "Nah, it doesn't matter, you know? But I think it's great," he said. "I think she should be happy.” She warned in her resignation statement that if she is "cast aside" by the MAGA movement, "then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well",  though she did not rule out a return to elected office in the future. ABC News 

• X's new country-of-origin feature shakes MAGA and Democrat circles as many 'US' accounts revealed to be foreign-run

Elon Musk's X, formerly Twitter, has introduced the country of origin feature that seems to have thrown both the MAGA and Democrats' worlds online into chaos. Several profiles online that had pushed certain narratives are now being found to have been operating from outside the US raising questions about the motives.

One profile going by 'MAGA NATION' with a follower count of over 392,000, is based out of eastern Europe. Similarly, ‘Dark Maga’ a page with over 15,000 followers is based out of Thailand. ‘MAGA Scope’ which boasts over 51,000 followers is actually operated out of Nigeria, and ‘America First’, an account with over 67,000 followers is based out of Bangladesh. “At this time thousands of MAGA-aligned influencer accounts and large political pages that claim to be based in the U.S. are now being investigated and exposed with many of them traced to India, Nigeria, and other countries,” a news aggregator page on X noted.

It wasn't just on the MAGA side.

An account going by ‘Ron Smith’ whose bio claims he's a ‘Proud Democrat’ and ‘Professional MAGA hunter’ is operated out of Kenya. The account has over 52,000 followers. ‘Republicans against Trump’ an anti-Donald Trump page on X, which tries to push politics against MAGA, was reportedly operating out of Austria. While the location now shows US, X notes that the account location might not be accurate due to use of VPN. “The Anti-Trump account “Republicans Against Trump” which 1M followed has been identified as a non-American from Austria and is currently using a VPN to hide their location,” a page said, making note of this. ‘Republicans against Trump’ has over 978,000 followers.

On a side note, an account going by ‘Mariana Times’, with over 78,000 followers, which posts pro-Israel content has been found to be based out of India. People within the MAGA orbit have also reacted to this new feature. Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna wrote on X from her personal account, “All of these pretend “pro-America” accounts that were pushing infighting within Maga are literally foreign grifters. I’m telling you, the foreign opp is real and so are the bot accounts.”  Alexis Wilkins, FBI director Kash Patel's girlfriend, also added, “I hope that everyone sees, regardless of their specific reason, that the enemy is outside of the house. The people posing as Americans with big American opinions but are actually operating from a basement across the world have one common goal - to destroy the United States. We have our issues, but we really can’t allow them to succeed.” Yahoo.Finance

Minor Headlines

• COP30 climate summit deadlocked as EU rejects draft deal Reuters

  
  

• Clifford Chance cites AI as it axes 10% of back-office staff  Financial Times 

  
  

• Daily Mail publisher agrees to buy Daily Telegraph for £500m BBC

  
  

• Ukraine peace talks in Geneva 'productive and meaningful,' Rubio says ABC News

  
  

• 'Wicked: For Good' opens to a record $150 million Reuters

  
  

• McLaren double disqualification revives Verstappen's F1 hopes Reuters

  
  

• Nvidia invests in Revolut as $75bn valuation secured CityAm

  
  

• BHP Says No Longer Considering Anglo American Tie-Up Bloomberg