24/7 Wall St.

The government has made its case against the AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) buyout of Time Warner. According to The Wall Street Journal:

The Justice Department argued Monday that a trial judge ignored “fundamental principles of economics and common sense” when he allowed AT&T Inc.’s acquisition of Time Warner Inc., as a host of new details about the antitrust trial became public for the first time.

The government’s arguments came in a brief filed in federal appeals court, where the Justice Department continues to challenge the more than $80 billion cash-and-stock deal—even after the companies completed the transaction in June upon winning a six-week trial.

Carl Icahn said he will try to block a major merger planned by Cigna Corp. (NYSE: CI). According to The Wall Street Journal:

Carl Icahn is going public with his campaign to scuttle Cigna Corp.’s $54 billion plan to buy Express Scripts Holding Co.

The billionaire activist investor plans to send an open letter Tuesday urging fellow Cigna shareholders to vote against the deal, which he calls a “$60 billion folly” carrying a “ridiculous” price tag, according to a draft seen by The Wall Street Journal.

MoviePass made another change to its deal with customers. According to The Wall Street Journal:

The subscription service MoviePass sharply scaled back how many new films customers can see for its monthly fee, hoping to stanch the financial bleeding after a tumultuous few weeks of service outages and withering reviews that have chopped its parent company’s share price to pennies.

The company, which a year ago began charging just $9.95 a month to let users see movies as often as once a day at most U.S. theaters, said it would soon begin limiting customers to three a month. That new policy is in lieu of other recently announced changes, including a boost in the monthly subscription fee to $14.95, that were highly unpopular and drove away customers, adding to the company’s financial strains.

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) takes steps to open a factory in China. According to Bloomberg:

Cash-strapped Tesla Inc. has yet to reveal details of the investment needed for its Shanghai plant. But it has already started hiring for the facility.

In a social media post on its WeChat account last week, the electric-vehicle maker sought out more than a dozen engineers and machinists for its proposed plant in the Chinese city. The facility, known as the Gigafactory 3, is expected to churn out about 250,000 vehicles and battery packs per year initially, and that capacity will double over time.

China has moved ahead of the United States in efforts to advance 5G. According to CNBC:

China has in recent years outspent the U.S. by $24 billion in the area of next-generation mobile internet technology known as 5G, potentially creating a “tsunami” that will be difficult to catch up with, according to a Deloitte study published Tuesday.

5G would make it possible for people to download films and stream high bandwidth video for technologies including virtual reality. But beyond consumer applications, the tech could support connected infrastructure in cities, including driverless cars. In 2035, 5G is expected to enable $12.3 trillion of global economic output, IHS Markit estimated in a recent report.

Tariffs will increase the costs of some of the top-selling cars in the United States. According to CNNMoney:

A study this week by Experian said that a 25% tariff on imported cars and parts will raise the price of the 20 best-selling vehicles in the United States an average of $3,300 to $5,100, even though most of those vehicles are assembled at US factories.