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A Tesla Model X burns after crashing on U.S. Highway 101 in Mountain View, California, U.S. on March 23, 2018. 

S. Engleman | Via Reuters

Tesla has settled a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of Walter Huang, an Apple engineer and father of two who died after his Model X SUV, with Autopilot features switched on, crashed into a highway barrier near Mountain View, California, in 2018.

The settlement comes as jury selection and a trial were just beginning on Monday in a California Superior court. The settlement allows Tesla to avoid airing evidence and testimonies in a widely-followed case.

The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the fatal crash and revealed, in 2020, that it found Tesla’s tech was at least partly to blame for the collision, along with possible driver distraction and problematic road construction. NTSB believed that Huang had been looking at a game on his phone at some point before the collision.

The federal agency found that Tesla’s forward collision warning system did not provide an alert, and its automatic emergency braking system did not activate as Huang’s Model X, with Autopilot engaged, accelerated into a barrier alongside the highway 101. Faded lane markings and the barrier — or crash attenuator — positioning also may have contributed to the collision, the NTSB said in 2020.

Huang’s bereaved family sued Tesla for wrongful death and their claims focused in part on alleged safety and design defects in the company’s driver assistance systems. The case was Sz Huang et al v. Tesla Inc. et al in a California Superior Court in Santa Clara County.

Huang attorneys, in court filings, also pointed to social media and marketing messages from Tesla, its CEO Elon Musk and others, suggesting that Autopilot made Tesla vehicles safe to drive without needing to stay attentive to the road at all times or without needing to keep hands on the vehicle’s steering wheel.

In internal Tesla e-mails referenced in court filings, Tesla execs and engineers discussed how they had become complacent while driving their Tesla vehicles with Autopilot or related premium features switched on. They described reading emails and checking their phones while driving with these systems engaged.

A Tesla Model X which crashed on U.S. Highway 101 (US-101) is seen in Mountain View, California, U.S. on March 23, 2018 in this handout image. 

S. Engleman | Via Reuters

A civil jury trial was slated to begin this week in a San Jose, California courthouse just before Tesla settled.

Tesla attorneys had argued that Huang was an inattentive driver, who ostensibly knew better but was playing mobile games on his phone at the time of the crash.

The company has filed to seal from public view the amount listed in the settlement agreement.

The fatal crash and filings in this suit had already thrown Tesla’s culture, its attitudes about safety and the quality of its driver assistance systems into question for many prospective shareholders and customers.

If a jury had found Tesla liable (in part or whole) for Huang’s death, this trial would have also set a precedent in product liability suits that the EV maker is now facing pervasively, making it easier for other plaintiffs to sue or win over related issues.

In May 2022, Musk declared in a post on social media: “We will never seek victory in a just case against us, even if we will probably win,” adding that, “We will never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose.”

Tesla lead attorneys with Bowman and Brooke LLP were not immediately available to comment on Monday.

In a filing asking the court to seal the settlement terms, Tesla’s attorneys wrote that the company had, “entered into a settlement agreement with Plaintiffs to end years of litigation.” They said they wanted the exact dollar amount of the settlement sealed because, “other potential claimants (or the plaintiffs’ bar) may perceive the settlement amount as evidence of Tesla’s potential liability for losses, which may have a chilling effect on settlement opportunity in subsequent cases.”

Attorneys for the Huang family, at the law firms Minami Tamaki and Walkup Melodia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Amazon CEO Jassy says company is reducing bureaucracy, which is ‘anathema’ to innovation

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Amazon CEO Jassy says company is reducing bureaucracy, which is ‘anathema’ to innovation

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, speaks during an unveiling event in New York on Feb. 26, 2025.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Tuesday that he’s working to root out bureaucracy from within the company’s ranks as part of an effort to reset its culture.

Speaking at Amazon’s annual conference for third-party sellers in Seattle, Jassy said the changes are necessary for the company to be able to innovate faster.

“I would say bureaucracy is really anathema to startups and to entrepreneurial organizations,” Jassy said. “As you get larger, it’s really easy to accumulate bureaucracy, a lot of bureaucracy that you may not see.”

A year ago, as part of a mandate requiring corporate employees to work in the office five days a week, Jassy set a goal to flatten organizations across Amazon. He called for the company to increase worker-to-manager ratios by at least 15% by the end of the first quarter of this year.

Jassy also announced the creation of a “no bureaucracy email alias” so that employees can flag unnecessary processes or excessive rules within the company.

Amazon has received about 1,500 emails in the past year, and the company has changed about 455 processes based on that feedback, Jassy said.

The changes are linked to Jassy’s broad strategy to overhaul Amazon’s corporate culture and operate like the “world’s largest startup” as it looks to stay competitive.

Jassy, who took the helm from founder Jeff Bezos in 2021, has been on a campaign to slash costs across the company in recent years. Amazon has laid off more than 27,000 employees since 2022, and axed some of its more unprofitable initiatives. Jassy has also urged employees to do more with less at the same time that the company invests heavily in artificial intelligence.

Transforming Amazon into a startup-like environment isn’t an easy task. The company operates sprawling businesses across retail, cloud computing, advertising, and other areas. It’s the U.S. second-largest private employer, with more than 1.5 million employees globally.

“You have to keep remembering your roots and how useful it is to be scrappy,” Jassy said.

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StubHub to price IPO at $23.50, valuing company at $8.6 billion

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StubHub to price IPO at .50, valuing company at .6 billion

The StubHub logo is seen at its headquarters in San Francisco.

Andrej Sokolow | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Online ticket platform StubHub is pricing its IPO at $23.50, CNBC’s Leslie Picker confirmed on Tuesday.

The pricing comes at the midpoint of the expected range that the company gave last week. At $23.50, the pricing gives StubHub a valuation of $8.6 billion. StubHub will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “STUB.”

The San Francisco-based company was co-founded by Eric Baker in 2000, and was acquired by eBay for $310 million seven years later. Baker reacquired StubHub in 2020 for roughly $4 billion through his new company Viagogo, which operates a ticket marketplace in Europe.

StubHub has been trying to go public for the past several years, but delayed its public debut twice. The most recent stall came in April after President Donald Trump‘s “Liberation Day” tariffs roiled markets.

The company filed an updated prospectus in August, effectively restarting the process to go public.

The IPO market has bounced back in recent months after an extended dry spell due to high inflation and rising interest rates. Klarna made its debut on the NYSE last week after the online lender also delayed its IPO in April. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss’ Gemini, stablecoin issuer Circle, Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish and design software company Figma have all soared in their respective debuts.

At the top of the pricing range StubHub offered last week, the company would have been valued at $9.2 billion. StubHub had sought a $16.5 billion valuation before it began the IPO process, CNBC previously reported

StubHub said in its updated prospectus that first-quarter revenue increased 10% from a year earlier to $397.6 million. Operating income came in at $26.8 million for the period.

The company’s net loss widened to $35.9 million from $29.7 million a year ago.

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Oracle and Silver Lake part of TikTok investor group as Trump extends deal deadline

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Oracle and Silver Lake part of TikTok investor group as Trump extends deal deadline

In this photo illustration, the logo of TikTok is displayed on a smartphone screen on April 5, 2025 in Shanghai, China. 

Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Tuesday extended the deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. business, which will be owned by an investor consortium that includes Oracle and Silver Lake, CNBC’s David Faber reported.

It’s the fourth time Trump has extended the deadline. The extension, as described in an executive order, precludes the Department of Justice from enforcing a national security law that would effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. until Dec. 16.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed on Monday that a “framework deal” had been reached involving TikTok. Under the national security law, which would have come into effect on Wednesday, app store operators like Apple and Google and internet service providers would be penalized for providing services to TikTok’s U.S. operations if a deal was not reached.

Under the framework deal, about 80% of TikTok’s U.S. business would be owned by an investor consortium that includes Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz, the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported. As part of the arrangement, existing U.S. users would need to shift to a new app, according to report.

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected on Friday to discuss the terms of the TikTok-related deal that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed on Monday.

The deal, which is expected to close in the next 30 to 45 days, includes new investors, existing ByteDance investors and will result in Oracle maintaining its cloud computing agreement with TikTok, CNBC’s David Faber reported earlier on Tuesday.

Bessent said Tuesday during CNBC’s Squawk Box that Trump was willing to let TikTok “go dark,” which spurred China to agree to a deal. The Treasury Secretary said that the deal’s commercial terms had already been finalized “in essence” since March or April, but China put the deal on hold following Trump’s tough tariffs and trade policies.

“We were able to reach a series of agreements, mostly for things we will not be doing in the future that have no effect on our national security,” Bessent said Tuesday.

A senior White House official said in a statement that, “Any details of the TikTok framework are pure speculation unless they are announced by this administration.”

TikTok did not reply to a request for comment.

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