Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk speaks during an unveiling event for Tesla products in Los Angeles, California, U.S. October 10, 2024
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk, already the world’s richest person, added another $26 billion in paper wealth on Thursday after his company’s stock had its biggest rally since 2013.
Musk is now worth about $269 billion, according to Forbes, putting him more than $50 billion ahead of good friend and former Tesla board member Larry Ellison, who remains the largest shareholder in Oracle.
Musk controls close to 13% of Tesla’s outstanding shares, accounting for the bulk of his net worth, though he also owns a big chunk of SpaceX, which is valued on the private markets at over $200 billion. Additionally, he’s the controlling owner of X, formerly Twitter, and artificial intelligence startup xAI.
Musk’s wealth could be even higher depending on the outcome of a shareholder lawsuit surrounding his 2018 pay package that’s winding its way through court.
The pop on Thursday followed Tesla’s better-than-expected earnings report late Wednesday and Musk’s comments on the call suggesting that “vehicle growth” will be 20% to 30% next year. Tesla shares soared 22% at the close, their second-biggest gain since the company’s IPO in 2010.
Prior to the earnings announcement, Tesla shares had been slumping and were headed for their worst month since January. But the stock erased its loss for the year and is now up 5% in 2024, compared to the Nasdaq’s 23% gain.
Tesla reported earnings per share of 72 cents, topping the average analyst estimate of 58 cents. Profit was boosted by $739 million in revenue for environmental regulatory credits and $326 million in revenue from FSD, the company’s Full Self-Driving Supervised system.
Musk spent much of the earnings call touting what he promises will be Tesla’s autonomous future, including a ride-hailing service that he says will open to the public as early as next year in Texas and California. Two weeks earlier, Tesla held its long-awaited robotaxi event, showcasing the concept of its Cybercab.
However, while Alphabet’s Waymo has been operating a commercial driverless service to the public since June, Tesla has consistently missed its own projections for getting a product to market. The company still doesn’t produce or sell cars that are safe to use without a human at the wheel, ready to steer or brake at all times.
And while Musk unveiled both a heavy-duty Semi truck and a Roadster refresh in 2017, the Roadster design is still not finalized, and the company is only in “pilot production” with the Semi.
One topic Musk didn’t address on Wednesday’s call was his campaigning and hefty spending in support of Donald Trump.
Since publicly endorsing Trump shortly after the first assassination attempt on the former president in July, Musk has stepped up his rhetoric, most notably on X, and has contributed tens of millions of dollars to a political action committee that’s supporting the Republican nominee.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks with former president Donald Trump during a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa.
Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Musk has been campaigning in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania, which he’s called the “linchpin” in this election. Over the weekend, he said he would randomly award $1 million a day to registered voters who sign a petition for his pro-Trump PAC in an effort to get his fans in battleground states to the polls.
The U.S. Department of Justice has warned the PAC that Musk’s voter sweepstakes may violate federal election law, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News on Wednesday.
Ahead of the earnings call, many investors had questions about Musk’s political activities.
“Elon Musk has the right to express his political views, but his public activism seems at odds with his responsibility as CEO to protect shareholder value,” an anonymous retail investor wrote on a forum that Tesla uses to solicit investor questions. “How does Tesla address this, and can it confirm Musk’s actions are not harming sales or growth?”
The comment had received 168 upvotes prior to the call. Another question, which had received 527 upvotes, asked if Tesla’s board is doing anything to ensure Musk’s “political engagement doesn’t detract from Tesla’s core mission and protects shareholder value and brand integrity.”
In a post on X earlier this week, Musk wrote, “I think this election is existential to the United States.”
People walk past an Amazon Fresh store in Washington, DC, on August 26, 2021.
Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images
Amazon plans to close all of its Fresh supermarkets in the U.K., in the latest recalibration of its grocery strategy.
The company said in a Tuesday blog that it’s preparing to close all 19 of its Fresh U.K. stores, “following a thorough evaluation of business operations and the very substantial growth opportunities in online delivery.” Five of the Fresh locations are expected to be converted into Whole Foods stores, Amazon said.
Amazon opened its first Fresh location outside the U.S. in London in 2021, about a year after it debuted the store concept in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. Fresh stores offer cheaper prices and more mass-market items compared to Whole Foods, the upscale supermarket chain Amazon acquired for $13.7 billion in 2017. Many of the stores also feature Amazon’s cashierless “Just Walk Out” technology.
The Fresh store pullback in the U.K. comes as Amazon has continued to adjust its grocery ambitions. The company has slowed expansion of its Fresh grocery chain and Go cashierless stores in the U.S. It still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.
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At the same time, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items like canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks.
Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.
The company on Tuesday also said that it plans to offer same-day delivery of groceries, including perishable items, in the U.K. beginning next year.
The Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD presents its models at the Open Space Area during the IAA Mobility in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, on September 12, 2025.
Eyeswideopen | Getty Images News | Getty Images
BYD has a backup plan if it gets cut off from the Nvidia chips it currently uses in its cars, a top executive at the Chinese electric carmaker told CNBC on Tuesday.
Stella Li, executive vice president at BYD, said the company had not received any directive from the Chinese government to stop using Nvidia chips — but if it did, it has a plan B.
“Everybody has a backup. BYD has [a] backup,” Li told CNBC’s Dan Murphy.
Li declined to expand on what the plan is, but she pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic during which there was a global shortage of semiconductors which badly affected the auto sector. BYD had “no issue” at the time because it developed a lot of its technology in-house, he said, so it was able to source alternatives quickly.
Indeed, BYD has sought to have control over large parts of its supply chain, from manufacturing its own cars to developing its own batteries.
“We have a lot of strong … even deeper technology in-house, so we always have backup,” Li said.
Nvidia, whose chips underpin much of the world’s artificial intelligence development, has been caught in the crossfire amid U.S.-China tensions. The company’s H20 AI chip — designed specifically to comply with U.S. export restrictions to China — was first banned, then permitted to be sold in China this year after a revenue-share deal between Washington and Nvidia.
Nvidia designs an entirely different set of semiconductors for cars, however.
One of Nvidia’s systems, Nvidia Drive AGX Orin, is designed to enable cars to carry out some driving tasks autonomously. BYD is a customer of this product.
There is no indication so far that the Chinese government is looking to ban this Nvidia system.
Li said BYD had not been told to stop using any Nvidia products, adding it was unlikely that Beijing would ban the U.S. firm’s auto chips.
“I don’t think any country will do that, because this automatic will kill Nvidia,” Li said. “So Nvidia now is the highest market value company, so if they lose the big market from China … nobody wants to see this.”
Amazon and the Federal Trade Commission are squaring off in a long-awaited trial over whether the company duped users into paying for Prime memberships.
The lawsuit, filed by the FTC in June 2023 under the Biden administration, alleges that Amazon deceived tens of millions of customers into signing up for its Prime subscription program and sabotaged their attempts to cancel it. Amazon has denied any wrongdoing.
The trial is being held in a federal court in Seattle, Amazon’s backyard. Jury selection began Monday and opening arguments are slated for Tuesday, with the trial expected to last about a month.
Launched in 2005, Amazon’s Prime program has grown to become one of the most popular subscription services in the world, with more than 200 million members globally, and it has generated billions of dollars for the company. Membership costs $139 a year and includes perks like free shipping and access to streaming content. Data has shown that Prime members spend more and shop more often than non-Prime members.
Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos famously said the company wanted Prime “to be such a good value, you’d be irresponsible not to be a member.”
Regulators argue that Amazon broke competition and consumer protection laws by tricking customers into subscribing to Prime. They pointed to examples like a button on its site that instructed users to complete their transaction and did not clearly state they were also agreeing to join Prime for a recurring subscription.
“Millions of consumers accidentally enrolled in Prime without knowledge or consent, but Amazon refused to fix this known problem, described internally by employees as an ‘unspoken cancer’ because clarity adjustments would lead to a drop in subscribers,” the agency wrote in a court filing last week.
The FTC says that the cancellation process is equally confusing, requiring users to navigate four webpages and choose from 15 options — a “labyrinthian mechanism” that the company referred to internally as “Iliad,” referencing Homer’s epic poem about the Trojan War.
Amazon has argued that the Prime sign up and cancellation processes are “clear and simple,” adding that the company has “always been transparent about Prime’s terms.”
“Occasional customer frustrations and mistakes are inevitable — especially for a program as popular as Amazon Prime,” the company wrote in a recent court filing. “Evidence that a small percentage of customers misunderstood Prime enrollment or cancellation does not prove that Amazon violated the law.”
A crackdown on ‘dark patterns’
The FTC notched an early win in the case last week when U.S. District Court Judge John Chun ruled Amazon and two senior executives violated the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act by gathering Prime members’ billing information before disclosing the terms of the service.
Chun also said that the two senior Amazon executives would be individually liable if a jury sides with the FTC due to the level of oversight they maintained over the Prime enrollment and cancellation process.
Amazon’s Prime boss Jamil Ghani and Neil Lindsay, a senior vice president in its health division who previously oversaw Prime’s technology and business operations, are named defendants in the complaint.
Russell Grandinetti, Amazon senior vice president of international consumer, is also named in the suit, but Chun argued he had “less involvement in the operation of the Prime organization” compared to Ghani and Lindsay.
Chun also scolded attorneys for Amazon in July for withholding thousands of documents from the FTC and abusing a legal privilege to shield them from scrutiny. Among the documents was a 2020 email where Amazon’s retail chief Doug Herrington said “subscription driving” was a “shady” practice and referred to Bezos as the company’s “chief dark arts officer.”
Representatives from Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Amazon also faces a separate lawsuit brought by the FTC in 2023 accusing it of wielding an illegal monopoly. That case is set to go to trial in February 2027.
The Prime case is part of the FTC’s broader crackdown on so-called “dark patterns,” which it began examining in 2022. The phrase refers to deceptive design tactics meant to steer users toward buying products or services or giving up their privacy.
The agency brought a similar dark patterns lawsuit against Uber in April, accusing the ride-hailing and delivery company of deceptive billing and cancellation practices tied to its Uber One subscription service. Uber has disputed the FTC’s allegations.
Earlier this year, it reached settlements with online dating service Match and online education firm Chegg over claims that their subscription practices were deceptive or hard to cancel.