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That back-to-office happy hour is probably getting rescheduled, yet again. Let's get into it.  

By Allison Morrow

💼 DELTA DILEMMA 

Over the past 24 hours or so, several major companies, including Amazon,  Wells Fargo, and CNN (hey, that's us!) have told their employees not to come into the office after Labor Day as previously planned. Many are giving it at least another month, hoping the Delta variant's spread will have slowed as more people get vaccinated.

 

But Amazon's gone ahead and punted its return to 2022. After all, October is basically Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving is basically Christmas, and heck, that's practically New Year's. We've all been doing this WFH thing for a year and a half, so what's another quarter matter?

 

But there is a downside, as my colleague Matt Egan explains. Mostly, it's for the office-adjacent economy: restaurants, bars, dry cleaners, limousine companies and other businesses that had been banking on a return of office workers this fall. Similarly, hotels and airlines have been expecting that once their summer surge cools, business travel will rebound. That may take a little longer now.  

 

That said, this isn't a repeat of 2020. The Delta variant may become a drag on the recovery, but economists aren't worried about another recession. At least not yet — with vaccines, there's unlikely to be a lockdown on the scale of what we experienced last year. But the longer Delta spreads, the higher the risk of new variants emerging.

 

Not to put too fine a point on it: Get vaccinated if you want to save lives and the economy. 

💰 NUMBER OF THE DAY

$800 million

General Motors' Chevy Bolt recall highlights one big risk of building electric vehicles. The automaker is preparing to spend $800 million to fix the batteries in nearly 70,000 Bolts because they might — wait for it — spontaneously catch fire when the car isn't even on (Seriously, GM had to put out a statement urging owners not to park their cars in garages, or next to homes or buildings. So like, literally anywhere except where cars normally go.) That comes out to about $11,650 per vehicle, making it one of the most expensive recalls ever on a per-car basis.

🔌 THE WHITE HOUSE SNUB

 

There was a curious absence today at the White House during an event celebrating the future of electric vehicles... 

 

President Biden welcomed executives from General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. But not invited to the party was the No. 1 maker of electric vehicles in America: Tesla. 

 

EVs make up just tiny slivers of US sales for GM and Ford, and Stellantis (the rather unfortunately named company created by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group) doesn't sell any pure EVs on US soil yet. Tesla, on the other hand, makes only one thing: electric vehicles. And all the Teslas sold in the United States are made right here at home, with about 50% of its components from American plants. 

 

Elon Musk tweeted overnight that it "seems odd" Tesla wasn't invited. And he's right, but then you remember Tesla is run by … Elon Musk. 

 

Here's the thing: The ceremony also included reps from the United Auto Workers union, the same union that's been battling, so far unsuccessfully, to organize Tesla workers at its plant in Fremont, California. And Musk has made no secret of his opposition to unions. 

 

The whole thing would have been, well, awkward. 

 

RELATED: Elon Musk says he's getting a new biography written by Walter Isaacson, who's known for his comprehensive books on Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger and Steve Jobs. 

QUOTE OF THE DAY

It was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility of being there.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, in an almost comedic display of understatement, said he regrets spending time with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who died in jail two years ago while being prosecuted for child sex trafficking. Speaking with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Gates said he only met with Epstein in the hopes of raising money for philanthropic ventures.

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

📺 Answer: This "Jeopardy!" executive producer has emerged as the clear front-runner to replace Alex Trebek as host of the beloved game show.

 

🔻 Robinhood shares fell more than 27% Thursday following a stratospheric rise earlier in the week.

 

🛢️ Big Oil is strategically using Facebook to blitz Americans with a steady stream of messages designed to delay the extinction of fossil fuel use, according to new research.

🍸 GIF OF THE DAY

Advice to live by, from the Queen herself, Ina Garten.