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Elon Musk, already the world's richest man, scored another huge windfall Friday when the Delaware Supreme Court reversed a decision that deprived him of a USD55 billion pay package that Tesla doled out in 2018 as an incentive for its CEO to steer the automaker to new heights. Besides padding Musk's current fortune of USD 679 billion, the restoration of the 2018 pay package vindicates his long-held belief that the Delaware legal system had overstepped its bounds in January 2024 when Chancellor Kathaleen St Jude McCormick rescinded the compensation in a case brought by a disgruntled Tesla shareholder. Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday. McCormick's ruling so incensed Musk that it spurred him to spurn Delaware and reincorporate Tesla in Texas. That decision also caused Tesla's board to scramble for ways to keep its CEO happy, including a successful effort to persuade the company's shareholders to reaffirm the pay package, which was valued at USD 44.9
A Chinese firm this week began trial production of flying cars stated to be the next generation in the world of transportation, ahead of US firm Tesla and others plans to launch the same shortly. Xpeng Aeroht, the flying car affiliate of Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng on Monday began trial production at the world's first intelligent factory for mass-produced flying cars --- a milestone in the commercialisation of next-generation transport. Located in the Huangpu district of Guangzhou, the capital of south China's Guangdong Province, the 120,000-square-metre plant has already rolled out the first detachable electric aircraft of its modular flying car, the Land Aircraft Carrier, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The facility is designed to have an annual production capacity of 10,000 detachable aircraft modules, with an initial capacity of 5,000 units. It has the largest production capacity of any factory of its kind, and will be capable of assembling one aircraft ever
Europeans angry at Elon Musk still aren't buying his cars months after the billionaire predicted a major rebound in Tesla sales, data released Thursday shows. Tesla sales plunged 40 per cent in July in the 27 European Union countries compared with the year earlier even as sales overall of electric vehicle soared, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association. Meanwhile sales of Chinese rival BYD continued to climb fast, grabbing 1.1 per cent market share of all car sales in the month versus Tesla's 0.7 per cent. Tesla stock fell 1.5 per cent in afternoon trading Thursday. Musk angered many Europeans by wading into politics there, embracing far-right candidates, calling a British prime minister an evil tyrant who belongs in prison and telling Germans things will get very, very much worse in their country if they didn't vote for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party. Protests broke out in several cities, including a hanging of the billionaire in effigy in
Elon Musk fought court cases on opposite coasts Monday, raising a question about the billionaire that could either speed his plan to put self-driving Teslas on US roads or throw up a major roadblock: Can this wildly successful man who tends to exaggerate really be trusted? In Miami, a Tesla driver who has admitted he was wrong to reach for a dropped cell phone moments before a deadly accident, spoke of the danger of putting too much faith in Musk's technology in this case his Autopilot programme. I trusted the technology too much, said George McGee, who ran off the road and killed a woman out stargazing with her boyfriend. I believed that if the car saw something in front of it, it would provide a warning and apply the brakes. In unusual coincidence, regulators arguing an Oakland, California, case tried to pin exaggerated talk about the same Tesla technology at the centre of a request to suspend the carmaker from being able to sell vehicles in the state. Musk's tendency to talk bi
Federal traffic safety regulators are looking into suspected problems with Elon Musk's test run of self-driving "robotaxis" in Texas after videos surfaced showing them braking suddenly or going straight through an intersection from a turning lane and driving down the wrong side of the road. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Tuesday that it has asked Tesla for information about the apparent errors. Though many other videos show robotaxis driving perfectly, if regulators find any major issues, that would likely raise questions about Musk's repeated statements that the robotaxis are safe and his claim that Tesla will dominate a future in which nearly all cars on road will have no one behind the wheel or even need a steering wheel at all. "NHTSA is aware of the referenced incidents and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information," the agency said in a statement. Passengers in Tesla robotaxis on the road in Austin, Texas, have generally bee
Tesla sales plunged by more than half last month in several European countries in a sign that Elon Musk could struggle to revive the company after he shifts from his Washington work to running the automaker again. Tesla sales collapsed in April by more than two-thirds from a year earlier in Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark, according to auto groups and government agencies Friday. Sales at the Austin, Texas, company dropped by 59% in France and 38% in Norway. The countries are not major drivers of sales overall, but they are the first to report April results and thus a foretaste of possible trouble elsewhere as Tesla reels from protests and boycotts over Musk wading into politics. In Germany, where he told voters their country was lost if they didn't vote for a candidate widely derided for her extreme views, sales plunged 62% in the first three months this year. German sales for April are not out yet. Financial analysts covering Tesla are worried about the Musk backlash but cauti