The top 20 most-read Los Angeles Times business stories of 2022
The year in business brought no shortage of good stories — including corporate shenanigans and misdeeds of L.A.’s wealthiest, key developments in the local labor movement and the complicated business of trying to secure permanent supportive shelter for the city’s unhoused.
Here’s a look at the top 20 most-read L.A. Times business stories of 2022 in descending order. Revisit some of your favorites. Check out what you might have missed. And be sure to let us know what stories you’d like to see us cover next year.
- 1
In a class-action lawsuit, customers say they were duped by Tesla’s $15,000 Full Self-Driving feature. Company lawyers say failure isn’t fraud.
- 2
These companies say Gen Z is tired of Tinder, Bumble and Hinge. They offer videos, memes and artificial intelligence-based dating apps instead.
- 3
Grocery workers across Southern California began voting Monday to authorize a strike against supermarket chains to pressure the companies to raise wages.
- 4
In the last decade, the two largest race discrimination cases brought by the federal government in the Golden State alleged widespread abuse of hundreds of Black employees at Inland Empire warehouses.
- 5
Elon Musk and Tesla have millions of vocal fans on Twitter. Not all of them are real. Two researchers are trying to figure out who controls the bots.
- 6
The Cecil Hotel was supposed to be an innovative new model for permanent supportive housing in L.A. Why is it struggling to fill rooms?
- 7
Mauricio Umansky, a “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills†regular and star of a new Netflix show, is accused of self-dealing in the $70-million sale of a spectacular Malibu estate seized from the vice president of Equatorial Guinea. He denies any wrongdoing.
- 8
Stephen Miller and other Trump administration alumni are behind a surge of anti-immigrant bile airing during postseason baseball commercial breaks.
- 9
A new study shows just how badly Sweden fared in the pandemic.
- 10
Climate change spurred Friday’s unanimous vote by the Los Angeles City Council.
- 11
Pro poker player Garrett Adelstein risked his reputation, and maybe his career, when he accused another player of cheating him in a $269,000 hand. The clip, and the controversy, quickly went viral.
- 12
Government officials and private companies failed to anticipate the spike in demand for rapid COVID-19 antigen tests, but they are scrambling to close the gap.
- 13
Robbi Jade Lew invited me to a jeweler in an effort to prove her ruby ring didn’t help her win the Texas Hold ’Em hand that has rocked the poker world.
- 14
Richard Saghian, chief executive and founder of the online retailer Fashion Nova, confirmed to The Times that he submitted the winning bid for The One — the biggest residence in Los Angeles.
- 15
You’ve seen the signs advertising $6.95, $6.99 or even $7.05 for a gallon of regular gasoline. But who’s buying it, and why?
- 16
In their own words, former Tesla employees describe what they call a racist work environment that led California to file a civil rights lawsuit against the company.
- 17
Tall cans of AriZona iced tea have cost 99 cents since 1992. The family behind the company says it’s committed to that price even as the prices of aluminum and corn syrup climb higher.
- 18
These companies are staying the course in Russia, to their discredit.
- 19
Racist slurs were hurled daily at Black workers at Tesla’s California plant, delivered not just by fellow employees but also by managers and supervisors, California’s civil rights agency alleges in an explosive lawsuit filed against the company Thursday.
- 20
After years of construction, a foreclosure and a bankruptcy, the Bel-Air mega-mansion known as The One has sold at auction.