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Elon Musk speaks at SolarCity’s Inside Energy Summit in New York.
Rashid Umar Abbasi | Reuters

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is expected in court on Monday, and the stakes are high — if he loses he could have to pay upwards of $2 billion from his considerable personal wealth.

Musk will be the first witness in a trial to defend his role in Tesla’s $2.6 billion acquisition of SolarCity. Shareholders have sued Musk and members of the Tesla board, alleging that the 2016 deal amounted to a SolarCity bailout.

They also allege that it unfairly enriched the Musk family, who were among the largest shareholders, and that Musk and others failed to disclose all pertinent details and breached their fiduciary responsibilities. Musk has insisted he was “fully recused” from negotiations over the deal. 

Last year, the board members named in the suit settled with the Tesla shareholders for $60 million with no admission of wrongdoing. Musk, the second-richest person in the world, was the only defendant who chose to take the fight to court.

There’s no jury to persuade in this matter. His fate will be determined by the Delaware Chancery Court’s judge, Vice-Chancellor Joseph Slights III.

Days in court

Musk has had his share of legal problems beyond SolarCity.

For example, the SEC sued him in 2018 for fraud, with Musk and Tesla settling, paying $20 million each. The charges came after Musk tweeted about taking Tesla private for $420 a share, a move that sent Tesla’s stock price soaring. Musk had to temporarily relinquish his chairman role at Tesla as one of the terms of the settlement.

In a separate case, he emerged victorious after caving expert Vernon Unsworth said Musk had defamed him when the Tesla CEO called him a “pedo guy” on twitter. His attorneys argued that “pedo guy” was heated rhetoric and not meant as statement of fact.

Tesla and Musk are facing many other lawsuits, including one over Musk’s unprecedented CEO compensation package, and a number of federal probes according to the company’s own financial filings.

In the SolarCity case, the judge will have to decide whether Musk was a conflicted controlling shareholder who met the “entire fairness” standard in his handling of the SolarCity acquisition.

In other words, was Musk acting in Tesla shareholders’ best interest? And did Musk tell shareholders everything they deserved to know?

Known as a shareholder derivative action, this kind of lawsuit is filed by investors on behalf of a corporation, rather than the individuals or funds themselves. If the plaintiffs win, proceeds may go to Tesla and not to the stakeholders who brought the suit.

Company connections

According to a filing with the chancery court, Musk owned 22.1% of Tesla common stock at the time of the deal, and 21.9% of SolarCity. SolarCity was a troubled asset that was bleeding cash in the capital-intensive market of residential solar deployment.

Vehicles sit parked outside the Tesla Inc. solar panel factory in Buffalo, New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2018.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Musk’s attorneys are expected to argue that the SolarCity deal hasn’t harmed shareholders at all and that they voted overwhelmingly to approve the acquisition. After all, Tesla shares have skyrocketed from a closing price of $43.92 on June 21, 2016 — when Tesla announced it would bid for SolarCity — to a closing price of $656.95 on July 9, 2021 (Friday) after a five-for-one stock split last year.

The company is also part of the S&P 500 now, and reports profits regularly.

SolarCity was founded and run by Musk’s cousins, Lyndon and Peter Rive, but backed by Musk who served as chairman of the board. Meanwhile, he also was CEO of Tesla, as well as the company’s chairman.

That wasn’t his only potential conflict. SpaceX, Musk’s aerospace venture, had invested $255 million in SolarCity bonds from March 2015 to March 2016. Four members of Tesla’s board directly or indirectly owned SolarCity stock at the time the acquisition was under consideration. And some Tesla board members also held shares in SpaceX and were on its board.

How he pitched it

To Musk and many of his supporters, the acquisition of SolarCity in 2016 represented a natural combination of his companies and a way for Tesla to pursue its environmental mission with a broader array of products. Homeowners would be able to finance and install solar rooftop panels from the same company that provided their electric vehicle, home charging station and backup battery for energy storage.

Tesla had already launched an energy division in late 2015, with a home battery dubbed the Powerwall and other big batteries for use by businesses and utilities.

By June 2016, Musk said Tesla would bid $2.8 billion to buy SolarCity. “I don’t think this creates additional financial risk for Tesla,” he said at that time, and called a merger “blindingly obvious.” But Tesla investors were skeptical, with the stock price plunging more than 10% on the announcement. 

In July 2016, Musk presented his vision of Tesla as an automotive innovator and renewable energy titan in his famous “Master Plan Part Deux.”

As CNBC previously reported, unsealed court documents, including emails between Musk and SolarCity execs, would later reveal that he knew SolarCity was facing a “liquidity crisis” even as Tesla pursued the acquisition.

“Three things need to happen to change investor sentiment: SolarCity solving its liquidity crisis, an LOI with Panasonic to address solar cell production risk, and a joint product demo,” Musk wrote to SolarCity execs in September that year. “Should be able to do all those before the shareholder vote.”

In October 2018, Tesla and SolarCity jointly announced a combined solar roof and battery pack. Musk showed off what looked like a solar panel, miniaturized and sleek enough to be mistaken for high-end roofing materials, at the Hollywood set of Desperate Housewives. 

After the deal

The hype event did help him to turn investor sentiment. In November, the deal was approved in a vote by 85% of shareholders. But after it closed, Tesla’s SolarCity business would falter.

Through the years, the company repeatedly delayed mass manufacturing its Solarglass roof tiles. The ones Musk presented as a production-ready prototype in 2016 were actually a non-functional design prototype.

Walmart sued Tesla after fires broke out on panels the company had installed atop their facilities. A former Tesla Energy employee filed a whistleblower complaint to federal agencies about the fire risks of Tesla’s solar rooftops. And Panasonic exited from the Buffalo plant that Tesla took over, once it was clear Tesla was not going to manufacture its solar roof tiles there.

While the Tesla solar roof tiles have not taken off, the company’s energy storage products are on a tear, as demand for lower-cost electricity from renewable sources picks up worldwide.

In the trial starting Monday in Wilmington, Delaware, Musk will be represented by attorneys with Ross Aronstam & Moritz (David E. Ross, Garrett B. Moritz and Benjamin Z. Grossberg). The trial is expected to run until July 23, 2021, unless the entities seek a settlement before it’s done.

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Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, others in latest AI talent deal

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Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, others in latest AI talent deal

Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.

Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.

As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.

“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”

The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup. 

Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.

“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.

Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.

This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.

Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.

The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.

WATCH: Google pushes “AI Mode” on homepage

Google pushes "AI Mode" on homepage

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Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth

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Nvidia's Jensen Huang sells more than  million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.

Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.

Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.

Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.

The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.

Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.

Read more CNBC tech news

The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.

On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.

Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.

Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.

WATCH: Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports

Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports

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Tesla to officially launch in India with planned showroom opening

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Tesla to officially launch in India with planned showroom opening

Elon Musk meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Blair House in Washington DC, USA on February 13, 2025.

Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images

Tesla will open a showroom in Mumbai, India next week, marking the U.S. electric carmakers first official foray into the country.

The one and a half hour launch event for the Tesla “Experience Center” will take place on July 15 at the Maker Maxity Mall in Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai, according to an event invitation seen by CNBC.

Along with the showroom display, which will feature the company’s cars, Tesla is also likely to officially launch direct sales to Indian customers.

The automaker has had its eye on India for a while and now appears to have stepped up efforts to launch locally.

In April, Tesla boss Elon Musk spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss collaboration in areas including technology and innovation. That same month, the EV-maker’s finance chief said the company has been “very careful” in trying to figure out when to enter the market.

Tesla has no manufacturing operations in India, even though the country’s government is likely keen for the company to establish a factory. Instead the cars sold in India will need to be imported from Tesla’s other manufacturing locations in places like Shanghai, China, and Berlin, Germany.

As Tesla begins sales in India, it will come up against challenges from long-time Chinese rival BYD, as well as local player Tata Motors.

One potential challenge for Tesla comes by way of India’s import duties on electric vehicles, which stand at around 70%. India has tried to entice investment in the country by offering companies a reduced duty of 15% if they commit to invest $500 million and set up manufacturing locally.

HD Kumaraswamy, India’s minister for heavy industries, told reporters in June that Tesla is “not interested” in manufacturing in the country, according to a Reuters report.

Tesla is looking to recruit roles in Mumbai, job listings posted on LinkedIn . These include advisors working in showrooms, security, vehicle operators to collect data for its Autopilot feature and service technicians.

There are also roles being advertised in the Indian capital of New Delhi, including for store managers. It’s unclear if Tesla is planning to launch a showroom in the city.

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