SpaceX, Twitter and electric car maker Tesla CEO Elon Musk with France’s President Emmanuel Macron (L) at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris on May 15, 2023. France has been looking to woo Musk and Tesla to set up a factory in the country.
Michel Euler | AFP | Getty Images
PARIS — France is trying to convince Elon Musk to build Tesla’s next Gigafactory in the country, the nation’s digital minister told CNBC on Wednesday, in the most explicit comments yet that Paris wants the billionaire’s investment.
The courtship comes just as the minister threatened the Musk-owned Twitter with a ban, if it does not comply with upcoming European Union regulation.
“It will be great to have a Tesla factory in France, there has been a lot of effort and energy to make sure this is possible and this can happen,” Jean-Noel Barrot told CNBC’s Charlotte Reed at the Viva Tech conference in Paris.
France has beenlooking to boost its position as a hub for the electric car industry, opening its first electric car battery factory this year.
“We have also invested in an … entire sector of electric batteries so we will try to convince him that France is the best possible place in Europe to establish the next Tesla factory,” Barrot said.
Musk is expected to speak in Paris on Friday at the Viva Tech summit — one of France’s flagship technology conferences, where the government will have a large presence. Musk has been on the hunt for a new Gigafactory location, in addition to the company’s major car manufacturing plants already present in the U.S., Germany and China.
Barrot praised Musk as a “great inventor, probably one of the greatest of the beginning of this century.”
Musk’s Twitter could face EU ban
Barrot’s attempt to woo Tesla sharply contrasted his fiery words for the billionaire in relation to Twitter.
The minister last month said the social media app would be banned in the EU, if it did not follow the bloc’s upcoming Digital Services Act that goes into effect in August. The law will force tech giants, including Twitter, to police illegal content and disinformation on their platforms more aggressively, or risk potential multibillion-dollar fines.
“There will be huge scrutiny by the EU commission … on the actions Twitter is going to take to meet these new obligations. If Twitter fails to comply with these obligations , Twitter will face sanctions of up to 6% of global sales … In case those failures to comply are not … corrected, they will face an obligation to leave the EU”
“In the past couple of weeks, what we’ve seen is not reassuring as to the ability of Twitter to comply with these new rules,” Barrot added without specifying what aspects of Twitter policy are not reassuring.
An Atlas V rocket of United Launch Alliance (ULA) lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on June 23, 2025.
Gregg Newton | Afp | Getty Images
Amazon‘s second batch of Kuiper internet satellites reached low Earth orbit on Monday, adding to its plans for a massive constellation and ramping up competition with SpaceX’s Starlink.
A United Launch Alliance rocket carrying 27 Kuiper satellites lifted off from a launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 6:54 a.m. ET, according to a livestream.
“We have ignition and lift off of United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet constellation, continuing a new chapter in low Earth orbit satellite connectivity,” Ben Chilton, an ordnance engineer at ULA, said on the livestream following the launch.
Six years ago, Amazon unveiled its plans to build a constellation of internet-beaming satellites in low Earth orbit, called Project Kuiper. The service will compete directly with Elon Musk’sStarlink, which currently dominates the market and has 8,000 satellites in orbit.
Amazon in April successfully sent up 27 Kuiper internet satellites into low Earth orbit, a region of space that’s within 1,200 miles of the Earth’s surface.
The 54 craft currently in orbit are the start of Amazon’s planned constellation of 3,236 satellites. The company has to meet a Federal Communications Commission deadline to launch half of its total constellation, or 1,618 satellites, by July 2026.
The company has booked more than 80 launches with several providers, including rival SpaceX, to deliver Kuiper its satellites into orbit.
A Tesla Inc. robotaxi on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, US, on Sunday, June 22, 2025. T
Tim Goessman | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Tesla‘s driverless robotaxi finally hit the road this weekend, sending shares of the electric vehicle maker up 10% on Monday.
The EV giant debuted autonomous rides in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, opening the service to a limited number of riders by invitation only. CEO Elon Musk said in a post on social media platform X that customers were charged a flat fee of $4.20.
“Super congratulations to the @Tesla_AI software & chip design teams on a successful @Robotaxi launch!! Culmination of a decade of hard work. Both the AI chip and software teams were built from scratch within Tesla,” he said in a post.
One tester wrote on X that they did 11 with the service with “zero issues.” Musk reposted numerous firsthand encounters with the services.
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Musk has long promised a driverless Tesla robotaxi fleet to investors, amping up the pressure to deliver.
The launch puts Tesla head-to-head with Alphabet‘s Waymo, which is already operating a fleet of robotaxis in several cities across the U.S. and reached 10 million trips last month.
Musk told CNBC’s David Faber last month that Tesla aims to have “Hundreds of thousands, if not over a million” self-driving cars in the U.S. by the end of next year. In May, Musk first announced plans to launch the service in Austin, with later debuts set for Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Heading into the launch, Tesla faced pushback from a group of Democratic lawmakers in Texas and public safety activists urged the company to delay the debut.
Tesla’s full-self driving capabilities, which feature a standard FSD or FSD supervised, include automatic steering and parking, but have been linked to accidents and fatalities, according to data tracked by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media upon arrival at Joint Base Andrews following a visit to North Carolina, in Maryland, U.S., June 10, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, Truth+, and the fintech platform Truth.Fi, said Monday its board has approved a stock buyback of up to $400 million.
Trump Media stock rose about 3% on the news premarket.
The Florida-based company, which trades under the ticker DJT on both Nasdaq and NYSE Texas, said the buyback could include both common stock and warrants, executed through open market transactions. All repurchased shares would be retired.
“Since Trump Media now has approximately $3 billion on its balance sheet, we have the flexibility to take actions like this which support strong shareholder returns, as we continue exploring further strategic opportunities,” said CEO Devin Nunes in a release announcing the move.
President Donald Trump, who indirectly owns more than 114 million shares of the company through a revocable trust, remains the largest shareholder.
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The announcement follows Trump Media’s $2.5 billion raise last month from institutional investors — one of the largest bitcoin treasury plays by a public company. The company said it would use those funds, which include $1.5 billion in equity and $1 billion in convertible notes, to buy bitcoin, with custody provided by Anchorage Digital and Crypto.com.
Calling bitcoin a “crown jewel,” Nunes said the move was designed to defend the company against what he described as “discrimination by financial institutions” against conservative businesses. The funds will also support the launch of Trump-branded exchange-traded funds and other crypto products later this year, pending regulatory approval.
Trump Media said the buyback will be funded independently and will not affect the capital already earmarked for its bitcoin treasury initiative.
In February, Trump Media reported a $400.9 million net loss for the full year on just $3.6 million in annual revenue. The company cited legal fees and a revised advertising revenue-sharing agreement as contributing factors.
Despite the losses, Trump Media said it ended the year with $776.8 million in cash and short-term investments.
The company, which went public via special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, last year, now trades with a market capitalization of around $4.9 billion.
The stock nearly doubled in 2024 as Trump won the U.S. presidential election in November. As of Friday’s close, the stock was down nearly 48% this year.