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Tonight: The Reddit warriors strike again; RiRi gains billionaire status; and OK fine also some panda news, as a treat. Let's get into it.  

By Allison Morrow

🔺 ROBINHOOD RALLY 

Robinhood is the app that essentially created the meme stock. Now, Robinhood itself is getting memed. Hear me out... 

 

Shares of Robinhood spiked as much as 82% Wednesday, and trade was so volatile it was halted multiple times. 

 

Why the frenzy?

Reddit, for one.

 

Robinhood was easily the most talked-about stock over the last 24 hours on Reddit's popular WallStreetBets forum. Yes, the same folks behind the run-up in GameStop and AMC earlier this year. And the same folks who were apoplectic over Robinhood's decision to suspend trading on those meme stocks as they peaked.  (The chatter on Reddit wasn't all positive — some traders encouraged one another to "pump and dump" the shares.) 

 

Robinhood's stock was also getting a boost from the Ark Innovation ETF — a closely watched fund managed by Wall Street's oracle-of-the-moment Cathie Wood. 

 

What's next?

Robinhood pared some of its early gains and finished the day at around $70, up 50% from the previous day. That kind of frenzy is often short-lived, but if the fervor holds it'll surely be a welcome turn of events after Robinhood's lackluster IPO less than a week ago. 

💰 NUMBER OF THE DAY

$1.7 billion

Rihanna is officially a billionaire, with an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion. That means RiRi, at the tender age of 33, is the wealthiest female musician and the second-richest woman in entertainment behind Oprah Winfrey, according to Forbes' ranking. 

🇨🇳 CORPORATE CRACKDOWN

 

To understand what's happening to China's most powerful companies, it helps to understand a nascent youth movement in the country that's got Communist Party leaders on edge. 

 

ICYMI: Chinese government regulators are aggressively curtailing the power of private enterprise, wiping out an estimated $1.2 trillion in market value. The government abruptly pulled an IPO for Ant Group late last year. Then Alibaba was hit with a record $2.8 billion fine after regulators accused the e-commerce company of behaving like a monopoly. And last month Beijing banned Didi, the Uber of China, from app stores shortly after the company went public in the United States.

 

The message is not just that Beijing is still firmly in charge — that's hardly been in doubt at any point in the past several decades — but that the Party is doing this to protect the people from the ills wrought by Big Tech. 

 

'TANGPING' 

Among those ills: the culture of overwork. Not unlike those in the West, millennials and Gen Z-ers in China are increasingly saying no to expectations of a life of hard work, marriage, raising kids and building wealth. 

 

A movement called tangping, or "lying flat," went viral a few years ago before quickly being snared by China's internet censors. 

 

Tangping is a rejection of the "996" culture — working 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week — popular in the tech and startup worlds. And it's dangerous because it's also a rejection of the relentless work ethic that helped transform China into the world's second-largest economy. 

 

In short: The Party wants to project to its citizens that it alone has their backs — and tech companies, if allowed to flourish without strict controls, will exploit the people's private data and get their kids hooked on such "spiritual opium" as online games. 

 

CNN Business' Laura He has more on the crisis in Corporate China.

🍹 QUOTE OF THE DAY

The worst thing for the hospitality industry would be for us to have to go back to limited occupancy, or being shut down again. So as hard as the vaccine mandate may be on us, it is still better than that.

Erin Bellard, owner of e's Bar in Manhattan, supports New York's sweeping vaccine requirement for indoor activities, even if it puts the burden of enforcement on businesses. CNN Business Danielle Wiener-Bronner has more on how proprietors are reacting to the news. 

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

💉 Vanguard, one of the world's largest asset managers, is offering its US employees $1,000 to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

 

💫 Disney revealed pricing for its new, highly anticipated Star Wars hotel on Wednesday — and the cost to immerse yourself in a galaxy far, far away will not come cheap.

 

💵 CVS will raise its minimum wage for hourly workers from $11 to $15 by next summer.

 

🚗 Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart, fresh off their labor victory in California, are taking a similar approach to a ballot measure in Massachusetts.

🐼 PHOTO OF THE DAY

This is An An. He just turned 35, making him the oldest living male giant panda under human care in history. (In panda years, that's an impressive 105.)