Category Archives: Tesla

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

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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.

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Tesla revenues beat expectations in tumultuous period for Elon Musk

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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.

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

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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.

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Elon Musk and brother under investigation for alleged insider trading

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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.

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

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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”.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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Tesla criticised for opening showroom in Xinjiang despite human rights abuses

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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!”

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US investigates claim Tesla drivers can play video games while driving

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‘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.

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Elon Musk jokes about whistleblowing in Tesla merchandise tweet

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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.

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App outage locks hundreds of Tesla drivers out of cars

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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”.

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Senator behind billionaires tax denounces Elon Musk Twitter poll stunt

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  • 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.”

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

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  • 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.

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Tesla recalls nearly 12,000 US vehicles over software glitch

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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.

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Tesla breaks $1tn valuation barrier after Hertz orders 100,000 vehicles

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Milestone comes after firm’s Model 3 became first battery-powered electric car to top Europe’s monthly sales chart


Tesla’s market value has broken through the $1tn mark for the first time after the US electric car pioneer received an order for 100,000 of its vehicles from the rental company Hertz.

The carmaker’s stock market value has soared during 2020 and 2021 as investors bet on accelerating sales of electric cars in the run-up to government bans on petrol and diesel cars to meet climate targets.

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Tesla headquarters will move from California to Texas, Elon Musk announces

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CEO confirms move in shareholder meeting after clashes with California officials over pandemic restrictions

Elon Musk has announced that Tesla will move its headquarters from California to Texas, following through on a threat he had hinted at for several months.

The company has been building a new plant in Austin and the CEO confirmed the move in a shareholder meeting on Thursday. He gave no timeline, however, and said the electric car maker will keep expanding its manufacturing capacity in the Golden State.

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Tesla ordered to pay $137m to Black former employee for racial abuse

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California federal court orders company to pay Owen Diaz who alleges he faced ‘daily racial epithets’ including the ‘N-word’

Tesla has been ordered by a federal court in California to pay almost $137m in damages to a Black former employee who said he endured racial abuse while working at a factory in Fremont.

Owen Diaz, a former contracted elevator operator who worked at the plant between 2015 and 2016, alleged he was harassed and faced “daily racial epithets” including the “N-word”. He also said employees drew swastikas and left racist graffiti and drawings around the plant.

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Humanoid ‘Tesla Bot’ likely to launch next year, says Elon Musk

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Billionaire Tesla chief gives no indication of any progress in actually building such a machine

Elon Musk said he would probably launch a humanoid robot prototype next year dubbed the “Tesla Bot”, which is designed to do “boring, repetitious and dangerous” work.

The billionaire chief executive of the electric carmaker Tesla said the robot, which would be about 5ft 8in (1.7m) tall and weigh 125 pounds (56kg), would be able to handle tasks such as attaching bolts to cars with a spanner or picking up groceries at stores.

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