Category Archives: Tesla

Elon Musk’s return-to-office threat to Tesla staff sparks Twitter spat with Australian billionaire

Posted on by

Atlassian boss Scott Farquhar says he’d be happy to poach Musk’s employees for remote jobs at his software company, which allows staff to work from home

Elon Musk’s order that Tesla workers return to the office has sparked a Twitter spat with Australian billionaire Scott Farquhar, after the Atlassian CEO suggested he would be happy to poach Musk’s staff for remote working positions.

In a memo sent to staff, headlined “Remote work is no longer acceptble” [sic], the Tesla CEO wrote that “anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours a week or depart Tesla. This is less than we ask of factory workers”.

Continue reading...

Canada investigates after Tesla catches fire, forcing driver to ‘smash the window’

Posted on by

Video shows incident in which driver says he had to kick his way out because the doors and windows wouldn’t open

Canadian authorities are investigating an incident in which a Tesla caught fire in Vancouver, reportedly forcing the driver to smash his way out of the vehicle.

Transport Canada, the Canadian auto safety agency, said in a statement on Friday that it had learned of the incident in Vancouver on 23 May and that it had “notified Tesla … and is currently making arrangements for a joint inspection of the vehicle in an effort to determine the cause of the fire”.

Continue reading...

Elon Musk denies he sexually harassed attendant on private jet in 2016

Posted on by

Billionaire says report is ‘utterly untrue’ after allegation he paid $250k in 2018 to settle claim

Elon Musk has denied claims in a news report that he sexually harassed a flight attendant on a private jet in 2016, calling the accusations “utterly untrue”.

SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Musk, paid the female attendant $250,000 (£200,000) in a severance settlement after a sexual misconduct claim against the world’s richest person, according to the news website Business Insider.

Continue reading...

California tech titan’s Senate run has one target: Tesla’s self-driving software

Posted on by

Dan O’Dowd has bankrolled his own campaign to take a swing at what he calls Elon Musk’s ‘amazingly terrible’ technology

Dan O’Dowd is hardly the first California tech titan to bankroll his own campaign for high political office. What makes him unusual is that he has no interest in winning the US Senate seat he is vying for, or even in challenging the other candidates competing in the 7 June primary.

O’Dowd, a software entrepreneur with a 40-year history of working on military, aerospace and other commercial contracts, is running, rather, out of frustration at his fellow tech entrepreneur, Elon Musk, whom he accuses of endangering road safety with a driver assistance software package he’s put in his Tesla electric cars.

Continue reading...

Elon Musk sells $8.5bn-worth of Tesla shares after Twitter deal

Posted on by

Carmaker’s shares fell this week over concerns CEO would offload stock to help fund takeover of platform

Elon Musk has sold $8.5bn (£6.8bn) worth of shares in Tesla as the world’s richest man raises cash after reaching a deal to buy Twitter.

The Tesla chief executive has committed $21bn of his own money to the funding package for acquiring the social media platform, which he agreed to buy for $44bn on Monday. Since then Musk has sold 9.6m Tesla shares, or about 5.6% of his stake in the business, according to filings with the US financial regulator.

Continue reading...

Tesla revenues beat expectations in tumultuous period for Elon Musk

Posted on by

Electric car company reports $18.8bn in revenue for the first quarter, up 81% from a year before

Tesla surpassed Wall Street estimates for its first-quarter revenue and profit Wednesday, despite a tumultuous few months for its CEO, Elon Musk, and ongoing supply chain concerns.

The electric car manufacturer reported $18.8bn in revenue for Q1 of 2022, up 81% from a year earlier. The report beat analyst expectations of $17.8bn, sending Tesla shares up 4% in after hours trading.

Continue reading...

Sharp rise in US fuel efficiency penalties for automakers is boost for Tesla

Posted on by

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has reinstated penalties that could cost manufacturers hundreds of millions

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has reinstated a sharp increase in penalties for automakers whose vehicles do not meet fuel efficiency requirements for model years 2019 and beyond.

The decision is a win for Tesla that could cost other automakers hundreds of millions of dollars or more.

Continue reading...

Elon Musk and brother under investigation for alleged insider trading

Posted on by

Kimbal Musk sold Tesla shares the day before his brother asked Twitter if he should sell

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly opened an investigation into whether recent stock sales by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal Musk violated insider trading rules.

The SEC inquiry – first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday – was sparked in part by the Tesla CEO’s own tweets.

Continue reading...

Black workers accused Tesla of racism for years. Now California is stepping in

Posted on by

The company has been hit with several discrimination lawsuits but this from a government agency may have wider implications

For Black employees at Tesla’s flagship California plant, coming into work could mean being harassed, bullied by a supervisor or finding racist graffiti sprayed on factory walls.

That’s according to a new lawsuit filed by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), which alleges that Black workers in the company’s Fremont factory experienced “rampant racism” that the company left “unchecked for years”.

Continue reading...

Teenager seeks $50k from Elon Musk to delete Twitter bot tracking private jet

Posted on by

In DM exchange Tesla boss offers $5,000 for takedown but 19-year-old replies: ‘Any chance to up that to $50K?’

A row has broken out between the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, and a 19-year-old student and aviation enthusiast from Florida.

Jack Sweeney created the Twitter bot @ElonJet, which tracks Musk’s Gulfstream private jet and posts real-time updates of its location.

Continue reading...

Nasdaq braces for nervy fortnight as investors fall out of love with tech

Posted on by

Technology stocks have been tumbling in the new year; now all eyes are on the sector’s giants as they report results

Tech stocks have been nursing a new year hangover, pushing the Nasdaq into correction territory. Momentum is building against companies with exciting promises to reshape the world, as investors turn to “value” alternatives such as oil and banking.

The tech sector now faces a crunch fortnight as its biggest names report results, including Microsoft on Tuesday, Tesla on Wednesday and Apple on Thursday. They must prove they can thrive in a post-lockdown world where the cost-of-living squeeze is leaving people with less money for tech products and services.

Continue reading...

Tesla criticised for opening showroom in Xinjiang despite human rights abuses

Posted on by

Elon Musk and Tesla must consider human rights in the Chinese region or risk being complicit, says Human Rights Watch

Tesla has opened a new showroom in the capital of Xinjiang, a region at the heart of years-long campaign by Chinese authorities of repression and assimilation against the Uyghur people.

Tesla announced the opening in Urumqi with a Weibo post on 31 December saying: “On the last day of 2021, we meet in Xinjiang. In 2022 let us together launch Xinjiang on its electric journey!”

Continue reading...

US investigates claim Tesla drivers can play video games while driving

Posted on by

‘Passenger play’ feature has been available since December 2020 – before that, games could only be played in ‘park’ mode

The US has opened a formal investigation into a report that Tesla vehicles allow people to play video games on a center touch screen while they are driving.

The investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration covers about 580,000 electric cars and SUVs from model years 2017 through 2022.

Continue reading...

Elon Musk jokes about whistleblowing in Tesla merchandise tweet

Posted on by

Chief executive posts ‘Blow the whistle on Tesla!’ amid lawsuits brought against carmaker

Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, has appeared to joke about whistleblowers on Twitter in the wake of high-profile lawsuits against the electric carmaker brought by current and former staff.

The billionaire urged his 65 million Twitter followers to “Blow the whistle on Tesla!” and included a link to a branded “Cyberwhistle” for sale in the company’s online shop.

Continue reading...

App outage locks hundreds of Tesla drivers out of cars

Posted on by

Dozen of motorists report error as company’s CEO, Elon Musk, apologises on Twitter

Hundreds of Tesla drivers were locked out of their cars at the start of the weekend after the manufacturer’s mobile app suffered an outage – and dozens voiced their complaints on social media.

Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, said on Friday that the company’s mobile application was coming back online after the app server outage. Musk was responding to a Tesla owner’s tweet, who said that he was experiencing a “500 server error” to connect his Model 3 through the iOS app in Seoul, South Korea.

Continue reading...

JPMorgan sues Tesla for $162m after Musk tweets soured share deal

Posted on by

Investment bank says it lost millions because of tweets by Elon Musk that he might take electric carmaker private

JPMorgan has sued Tesla for $162.2m, accusing Elon Musk’s electric car company of “flagrantly” breaching a 2014 contract relating to stock trading options that Tesla sold to the bank.

The options, or warrants, give the holder the right to buy a company’s stock at a set “strike” price and date. The suit, filed in a Manhattan federal court, centres on a dispute over how JPMorgan repriced its Tesla warrants as a result of Musk’s notorious 2018 tweet that he was considering taking the carmaker private.

Continue reading...

Will Elon Musk abide by Twitter poll and sell 10% of his Tesla shares?

Posted on by

World’s wealthiest person says proposed billionaires tax led to poll, the result of which sent price falling

Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and world’s richest person, asked his 62.8 million Twitter followers over the weekend whether he should sell $21bn (£15.5bn) worth of shares in the electric car company in order to pay tax. Tweeting he would “abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes”, 58% of those who responded said “yes”, he should sell the shares, sending Tesla’s share price down 5% in pre-market trading on Monday.

Why did he do it?
Musk, who is sitting on a paper fortune of more than $338bn in Tesla and Space-X shares, proposed selling 10% of his Tesla shares in order to generate enough money to pay a proposed “billionaires tax” on “unrealised capital gains”.

Continue reading...

Senator behind billionaires tax denounces Elon Musk Twitter poll stunt

Posted on by
  • Tesla owner offers to sell 10% of shares – as poll demands
  • Ron Wyden has proposed tax to help fund Biden plans

After Elon Musk asked his Twitter followers to vote on whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock, the architect of the proposed billionaires tax that prompted the move dismissed the tweet as a stunt.

“Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll,” said Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and chair of the Senate finance committee. “It’s time for the billionaires income tax.”

Continue reading...

Elon Musk asks Twitter followers if he should sell 10% of Tesla stock

Posted on by
  • Entrepreneur refers to US proposal for ‘billionaires tax’
  • Nearly 56% of respondents say Musk should sell shares

Elon Musk on Saturday asked his 62.5 million followers on Twitter if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock.

“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” Musk wrote in a tweet referring to a “billionaires’ tax” proposed by Democrats in the US Senate.

Continue reading...

Tesla recalls nearly 12,000 US vehicles over software glitch

Posted on by

Communication error may cause a false forward-collision warning or unexpected activation of the emergency brakes

Tesla Inc is recalling nearly 12,000 US vehicles sold since 2017 because a communication error may cause a false forward-collision warning or unexpected activation of the emergency brakes, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Tuesday.

The California automaker said the recall of 11,704 Model S, X, 3 and Y vehicles was prompted after a software update on 23 October to vehicles in its limited early access version 10.3 Full-Self Driving (FSD) (Beta) population.

Continue reading...