Which tech tycoon pledged nearly half-a-billion dollars to back Republican candidates? Take our business and investing news quiz for the week ending Nov. 6

d. Mr. Musk spent nearly half-a-billion dollars to back Republican candidates and keep Texas red. His bets unravelled as Democrats seized both chambers of Congress and Gina Hinojosa defeated Greg Abbott in the Texas governor’s race. Mr. Musk, who urged his followers on X to vote Republican, now faces a resurgent Democratic Party that he has spent years antagonizing.

d. Shell is driving a surge in oil exploration interest off the coast of Newfoundland after several years of stagnation. The fossil fuel giant successfully bid on six exploration licences off the province’s east and southeast coast, according to the provincial regulator. The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Energy Regulator says it received 10 successful bids in total, marking the first time since 2022 that companies have purchased exploration licences in the province.

c. Don’t count on relief from food inflation any time soon. Maple Leaf plans to adjust its prices in the first quarter of next year in response to a “challenging external environment,” chief executive Curtis Frank said this week. The Mississauga-based company is paying 8 per cent more for live poultry this year, while fuel surcharges are advancing at double-digit rates.

a. Taalas develops specialized semiconductor chips that can run the large language models (LLMs) used in artificial-intelligence systems. It was founded just three years ago.

d. Aurora Cannabis announced this week that it had agreed to be acquired by rival Canadian cannabis producer Organigram Global for about $561-million. The decline in its value mirrors the broader decline in the legal cannabis industry, which has suffered as surging supply has overwhelmed demand. Apparently, cannabis is easy to grow. Who knew?

b. Amazon has more than 1,000 warehouses globally. Only two of them are unionized – one on Staten Island, N.Y., and the other in Delta, B.C. However, neither has a collective agreement that can be enforced yet.

c. British inflation is likely to reach around 5 per cent in the middle of next year, the Bank of England said. That is more than double the central bank’s target and a blow for new Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

a. China will extend tariff reductions for two years. The suspended tariffs include 100-per-cent levies on peas and canola meal and 25 per cent on lobster and crab. The continued suspension of the levies is welcome news, because Canada shipped $1-billion of those goods to China in the first eight months of the year.

a. Hackers used a bogus job interview and software hidden in an advertisement to compromise the computers of two Binance software engineers before using a third’s computer to drain billions of dollars worth of crypto. The FBI has blamed a North Korean hacking group, a claim North Korea has rejected. Binance has said it is repaying all customers whose funds were stolen.

b. The share price of Canadian clothing maker Gildan Activewear plunged after the company missed analyst estimates for its latest quarter, lowered its financial forecast for the year and pulled its longer-term targets. Gildan blamed its slump on higher borrowing costs and inflationary pressure.

c. Floridians approved a sweeping state constitutional amendment that will give property-tax relief to state residents and shift more of the burden to non-residents who own second homes in the state. The change will be particularly painful for Canadians, who consistently rank as the No. 1 group of foreign owners of property in the state.

b. Canada posted a trade surplus of $5.35-billion in September, the highest since May 2022. Credit a big part of that surplus to exports of unwrought gold, which surged 16.8 per cent.