One important thing: All eyes are on the mercurial billionaire Elon Musk as he looks to complete the $44 billion buyout of social media firm Twitter before the court-appointed deadline tomorrow. (Also, bio change alert: Musk is now "Chief Twit")

• In a note shared on Twitter, he also reassured advertisers that the platform won’t become a “free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences.”

In today’s newsletter: 

• Meta’s metaverse nightmare 
• Byju’s turns to Aakash for Rs 300 crore 
• India's manned space flight countdown begins

Over $500 billion. That's the market value Facebook parent Meta has lost this year. It is now on the verge of being knocked off from the list of the top 20 largest US stocks.

Meta saw a 4% drop in its revenue to $27.7 billion in Q3, marking its second straight quarterly decline and it is forecasting another drop in the ongoing quarter. 

• The company had witnessed its first-ever revenue drop in the previous quarter, with sales declining 1% to $28.8 billion. 

Meta's problems are varied. Some are common with other tech firms like Google, Microsoft and Snap, while others are exclusive to it.

• A sharp slowdown in the online advertising market this year due to the economic downturn has upended the growth of several tech companies. 

• Massive impact of Apple's iOS privacy changes made it harder for companies like Meta to provide targeted advertising to businesses

• Increased competition from companies such as TikTok

•  A risky and expensive transition to the so-called metaverse, which is still several years away

Meta will dramatically slow its hiring pace and keep headcount growth flat until the end of 2023.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said they will focus their investments on a small number of high-priority growth areas in 2023 due to which some teams will "grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year".

"I believe the tougher prioritisation, discipline, and efficiency that we're driving across the organisation will help us navigate the current environment and emerge an even stronger company," he said.

Going forward, Meta will focus on three primary areas - AI discovery engine that’s powering Reels and other recommendation experiences, ads and business messaging platforms and the metaverse.

• Short-form video feature Reels has hit a $3 billion annual revenue run rate across Instagram and Facebook.

• Reality Labs, responsible for Meta's virtual reality and augmented reality efforts, lost $3.7 billion on $285 million in revenue during the quarter. Zuckerberg said the expenses will further increase "meaningfully" in 2023.

There’s seldom a dull day if you are tracking Byju’s, India’s most-valued unicorn and the world’s most-valued edtech. After news of dismal financials, fund-raising and layoffs, Byju’s is now in the spotlight for a loan. 

An unsecured loan of Rs 300 crore or $36.45 million from its wholly-owned subsidiary Aakash Educational Services for “principal business activities,” according to a filing that we accessed.

The loan comes a year after Byju’s acquired Aakash for a cash and stock deal of almost $950 million, one of the biggest acquisitions in the Indian education space. The company then deferred part of its payment for Aakash to September 23, 2022, and eventually managed to pay the amount to the shareholders of Aakash.

Byju’s taking an unsecured loan from its wholly-owned subsidiary for business activities comes at a time when the company is looking to cut operational costs amid a prolonged funding winter for the edtech sector. Thus prompting questions on cash flow and liquidity.

But Byju’s maintains that it has enough cash, Rs 9,800 crore to be precise. 

"The Rs 300 crore loan from Aakash Educational Services is in effect an advance against the marketing activities and campaigns that Byju’s has been running for Aakash," a spokesperson said.

The United States and Russia did it in 1961, and China did it in 2003. And now it's time for India to join the ranks of countries that have conducted their first manned space flight.

R Umamaheshwaran, director of ISRO’s Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) said that India will demonstrate the capabilities of its Gaganyaan mission by end of 2023, and then go ahead with the first manned space mission by either the end of 2024 or early 2025.

Umamaheshwaran said that the launch vehicle that will take astronauts to an orbit 400 km from Earth is near completion.

• The designs for the module from which the astronauts will pilot the launch vehicle are complete
  
  
• ISRO has shortlisted four astronauts for the missions and they are currently undergoing training

Around 16–17 tests will be carried out before the unmanned test flight is launched at the end of 2023.

• One of these tests will examine how the escape system of the launch vehicle works.

The ISRO official also said that discussions were underway to launch the Indian Space Station by 2030-35.

Go deeper.

• FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, is working on a stablecoin, CEO Sam Bankman-Fried told The Big Whale in an interview. FTX currently offers margin trading, which allows consumers to use a basket of US dollar stablecoins as collateral.
  
  
• Hong Kong plans to legalise retail trading of cryptocurrency, according to a Bloomberg report. A planned mandatory licencing programme for cryptocurrency platforms, which is expected to go into effect in March of next year, will allow retail trading, the report said.

Gender pay equity in sports for women in India has been long overdue, particularly at the national team level. 

In a historic move, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that Indian women cricketers will get the same match fee as their male counterparts. 

According to the new arrangement, the women in blue will get the same match fees as their male counterparts: Rs 15 lakh per Test, Rs 6 lakh per ODI, and Rs 3 lakh per T20I.

The BCCI's action follows New Zealand Cricket's (NZC) adoption of a similar policy earlier this year.

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