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Elon Musk has said the time he spends with Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will “drop significantly” from May and he will allocate more time to Tesla.

It comes after first-quarter profits at Tesla sank as the company grapples with falling sales, partly due to President Trump’s tariffs.

As a special government employee, Mr Musk was limited to 130 days in his role at DOGE, which is primarily aimed at slashing federal spending.

But the cuts, which included axing government jobs, have divided the country and prompted a backlash against his company, including protests and attacks on Tesla showrooms, prompting Donald Trump to label the vandals “terrorists”.

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‘Elon Musk has got to go’

Tesla said on Tuesday that quarterly profits fell by 71% to $409m (£306.77m) from $1.39bn (£1.04bn) in the first quarter of 2024. Revenues were also well below forecasts, dropping 9% to $19.3bn (£14.5bn) between January and March.

The company’s value has plummeted since reaching a record high in mid-December. Since then, Tesla’s share price has fallen more than 50%.

Tesla’s share price has tumbled following the financial market turbulence caused by the global trade war tariffs, competition from Chinese EV rivals and concern over Mr Musk’s ability to give the firm the attention it requires.

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Mr Musk’s role as chief executive of the company was among the most common questions shareholders were asking about in a question-and-answer portal ahead of an investor call on Tuesday evening.

As well as his role at the top of Tesla, he is also the CEO of space exploration company SpaceX and owns social media company X, formerly known as Twitter.

President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk talk with to reporters near Tesla vehicles on the South Lawn of the White House Tuesday, March 11, 2025, in Washington. (Pool via AP)
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Donald Trump hired Elon Musk to help cut federal spending, but Tesla has faced a public backlash. Pic: AP

Musk has ‘lost focus’

An early Tesla investor Ross Gerber said in a recent interview with Sky’s Business Live that Mr Musk had lost his focus and was now too “divisive”.

There has been no clear sign of improvement at Tesla as much-awaited updates on making affordable cars and developing driverless technology left some questions unanswered.

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‘I think Tesla needs a new CEO’

Work on an affordable car remained “on track for start of production in the first half of 2025”, Tesla’s financial results said, but no details on a prototype were given.

Production of Tesla’s self-driving robotaxi, named Cybercab, is scheduled to start in 2026.

Tariffs harming outlook

Uncertainty was also evident in the outlook statement, which pointed to the harm tariffs could pose to the business.

“It is difficult to measure the impacts of shifting global trade policy on the automotive and energy supply chains, our cost structure and demand for durable goods and related services,”

“The rate of growth this year will depend on a variety of factors, including the rate of acceleration of our autonomy efforts, production ramp at our factories and the broader macroeconomic environment”.

While Teslas are made in the US, there are also factories in China and Germany. Under the tariff regime, those car parts are subject to additional taxes when they enter America.

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Octopus Energy sparks £10bn demerger of tech arm Kraken

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Octopus Energy sparks £10bn demerger of tech arm Kraken

Octopus Energy Group, Britain’s largest residential gas and electricity supplier, is plotting a £10bn demerger of its technology arm that would reinforce its status as one of the country’s most valuable private companies.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that Octopus Energy is close to hiring investment bankers to help formally separate Kraken Technologies from the rest of the group.

The demerger, which would be expected to take place in the next 12 months, would see Octopus Energy’s existing investors given shares in the newly independent Kraken business.

A minority stake in Kraken of up to 20% is expected to be sold to external shareholders in order to help validate the technology platform’s valuation, according to insiders.

One banking source said that Kraken could be valued at as much as $14bn (£10.25bn) in a forthcoming demerger.

Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley are among the investment banks invited to pitch for the demerger mandate in recent weeks.

A deal will augment Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson’s paper fortune, and underline his success at building a globally significant British-based company over the last decade.

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Octopus Energy now has 7.5m retail customers in Britain, following its 2022 rescue of the collapsed energy supplier Bulb, and the subsequent acquisition of Shell’s home energy business.

In January, it announced that it had become the country’s biggest supplier – surpassing Centrica-owned British Gas – with a 24% market share.

It also has a further 2.5m customers outside the UK.

Octopus energy wind turbine. Pic suppled by Octopus.
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Kraken is an operating system licensed to other energy providers, water companies and telecoms suppliers. Pic: Octopus

Sources said a £10bn valuation of Kraken would now imply that the whole group, including the retail supply business, was worth in the region of £15bn or more.

That would be double its valuation of just over a year ago, when the company announced that it had secured new backing from funds Galvanize Climate Solutions and Lightrock.

Shortly before that, former US vice president Al Gore’s firm, Generation Investment Management, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board increased their stakes in Octopus Energy in a transaction valuing the company at $9bn (£7.2bn).

Kraken is an operating system which is licensed to other energy providers, water companies and telecoms suppliers.

It connects all parts of the energy system, including customer billing and the flexible management of renewable generation and energy devices such as heat pumps and electric vehicle batteries.

The business also unlocks smart grids which enable people to use more renewable energy when there is an abundant supply of it.

In the UK, its platform is licensed to Octopus Energy’s rivals EON and EDF Energy, as well as the water company Severn Trent and broadband provider Cuckoo.

Overseas, Kraken serves Origin Energy in Australia, Japan’s Tokyo Gas and Plentitude in countries including France and Greece.

Its biggest coup came recently, when it struck a deal with National Grid in the US to serve 6.5m customers in New York and Massachusetts.

Sources said other major licensing agreements in the US were expected to be struck in the coming months.

Kraken, which is chaired by Gavin Patterson, the former BT Group chief executive, is now contracted to more than 70m customer accounts globally – putting it easily on track to hit a target of 100m by 2027.

Earlier this year, Mr Jackson said that target now risked being seen as “embarrassingly unambitious”.

Last July, Kraken recruited Amir Orad, a former boss of NICE Actimize, a US-listed provider of enterprise software to global banks and Fortune 500 companies, as its first chief executive.

A demerger of Kraken will trigger speculation about an eventual public market listing of the business.

Its growth in the US, and the relative public market valuations of technology companies in New York and London, may put the UK at a disadvantage when Kraken eventually considers where to list.

One key advantage of demerging Kraken from the rest of Octopus Energy Group would be to remove the perception of a conflict of interest among potential customers of the technology platform.

A source said the unified corporate ownership of both businesses had acted as a deterrent to some energy suppliers.

Kraken has also diversified beyond the energy sector, and earlier this year joined a consortium which was exploring a takeover bid for stricken Thames Water.

This weekend, Octopus Energy declined to comment.

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Ryanair urges EU chief to ‘quit’ over air traffic strike disruption

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Ryanair urges EU chief to 'quit' over air traffic strike disruption

The boss of Ryanair has told Sky News the president of the European Commission should “quit” if she can’t stop disruption caused by repeated French air traffic control strikes.

Michael O’Leary, the group chief executive of Europe’s largest airline by passenger numbers, said in an interview with Business Live that Ursula von der Leyen had failed to get to grips, at an EU level, with interruption to overflights following several recent disputes in France.

The latest action began on Thursday and is due to conclude later today, forcing thousands of flights to be delayed and cancelled through French airspace closures.

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Mr O’Leary told presenter Darren McCaffrey that French domestic flights were given priority during ATC strikes and other nations, including Italy and Greece, had solved the problem through minimum service legislation.

He claimed that the vast majority of flights, cancelled over two days of action that began on Thursday, would have been able to operate under similar rules.

Mr O’Leary said of the EU’s role: “We continue to call on Ursula von der Leyen – why are you not protecting these overflights, why is the single market for air travel being disrupted by a tiny number of French air traffic controllers?

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File photo dated 02/09/22 of a Ryanair Boeing 737-8AS passenger airliner comes in to land at Stansted Airport in Essex. Ryanair has revealed around 63,000 of its passengers saw their flights cancelled during last week's air traffic control failure which caused widespread disruption across the industry and left thousands of passengers stranded overseas. In its August traffic update, the Irish carrier said more than 350 of its flights were cancelled on August 28 and 29 due to the air traffic contr
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Ryanair has cancelled more than 400 flights over two days due to the action in France. File pic: PA

“All we get is a shrug of their shoulders and ‘there’s nothing we can do’. We point out, there is.”

He added: “We are calling on Ursula von der Leyen, who preaches about competitiveness and reforming Europe, if you’re not willing to protect or fix overflights then quit and let somebody more effective do the job.”

The strike is estimated, by the Airlines for Europe lobby group to have led to at least 1,500 cancelled flights, leaving 300,000 travellers unable to make their journeys.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary speaks to journalists during a press conference at The Alex Hotel in Dublin. Picture date: Thursday October 3, 2024.
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Michael O’Leary believes the EU can take action on competition grounds. Pic: PA

Ryanair itself had axed more than 400 flights so far, Mr O’Leary said. Rival easyJet said on Thursday that it had cancelled 274 services over the two days.

The beginning of July marks the start of the European summer holiday season.

The French civil aviation agency DGAC had already told airlines to cancel 40% of flights covering the three main Paris airports on Friday ahead of the walkout – a dispute over staffing levels and equipment quality.

Mr O’Leary described those safety issues as “nonsense” and said twhile the controllers had a right to strike, they did not have the right to close the sky.

DGAC has warned of delays and further severe disruption heading into the weekend.

Many planes and crews will be out of position.

Mr O’Leary is not alone in expressing his frustration.

The French transport minister Philippe Tabarot has denounced the action and the reasons for it.

“The idea is to disturb as many people as possible,” he said in an interview with CNews.

Passengers are being advised that if your flight is cancelled, the airline must either give you a refund or book you on an alternative flight.

If you have booked a return flight and the outbound leg is cancelled, you can claim the full cost of the return ticket back from your airline.

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CBI kicks off search for successor to ‘saviour’ Soames

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CBI kicks off search for successor to 'saviour' Soames

The CBI has begun a search for a successor to Rupert Soames, its chairman, as it continues its recovery from the crisis which brought it to the brink of collapse in 2023.

Sky News has learnt that the business lobbying group’s nominations committee has engaged headhunters to assist with a hunt for its next corporate figurehead.

Mr Soames, the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, was recruited by the CBI in late 2023 with the organisation lurching towards insolvency after an exodus of members.

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The group’s handling of a sexual misconduct scandal saw it forced to secure emergency funding from a group of banks, even as it was frozen out of meetings with government ministers.

One prominent CBI member described Mr Soames on Thursday as the group’s “saviour”.

“Without his ability to bring members back, the organisation wouldn’t exist today,” they claimed.

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Rupert Soames
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Rupert Soames. Pic: Reuters

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Mr Soames and Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI chief executive, have partly restored its influence in Whitehall, although many doubt that it will ever be able to credibly reclaim its former status as ‘the voice of British business’.

Its next chair, who is also likely to be drawn from a leading listed company boardroom, will take over from Mr Soames early next year.

Egon Zehnder International is handling the search for the CBI.

“The CBI chair’s term typically runs for two years and Rupert Soames will end his term in early 2026,” a CBI spokesperson said.

“In line with good governance, we have begun the search for a successor to ensure continuity and a smooth transition.”

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