The director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Joseph Pelfrey, announced his resignation from the role on Thursday, CNBC confirmed.

Pelfrey said in an email to employees at the space agency that as NASA focuses on its mission to return humans to the moon, it will be “important for agency leadership to move forward with a team they choose to execute the tasks at hand.”

The email also said Pelfrey would work with NASA leaders to “pursue new ways” to “serve our space program and our great nation.” Pelfrey wasn’t immediately available to comment.

NASA confirmed Pelfrey’s resignation and said in an email to CNBC that the agency is proceeding “with a public, open competition to find the next permanent director at one of the agency’s most important centers for human spaceflight.”

At Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama, Pelfrey oversaw “7,000 onsite and near-site civil service and contractor employees,” and “an annual budget of approximately $5 billion,” according to a NASA web page describing his responsibilities. The space center now employs over 6,000 people, according to the center’s official government website.

Pelfrey had planned an all-hands conference with Marshall employees this week that was canceled, said agency staffers, who asked not to be named to discuss sensitive matters. They said Pelfrey’s resignation came as a surprise.

The White House’s 2026 budget request, which has not yet been enacted into law, includes funding for the space agency. However, NASA’s resources have declined amid Trump administration budget cuts.

About 4,000 NASA employees left through a deferred resignation program offered by the agency, and others were let go through cuts initiated by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an effort that was led by Elon Musk during his days with the Trump administration.

The administration also defunded and compelled the closure of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which was housed in a building owned by Columbia University in New York.

WATCH: Why the U.S. and SpaceX need each other

Tesla shares fell more than 4% on Thursday after data out of Europe showed a continuing sales slump for the automaker, despite strong demand for fully electric vehicles in the region. 

Tesla EV registrations in Europe, a proxy for sales, fell by about 23% year-over-year in August, according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) on Thursday.

There were 14,831 Tesla EV registrations in Europe last month, down from 19,136 in August 2024. In the first eight months of this year, Tesla EV registrations in Europe declined 32.6%, the ACEA said.

Meanwhile, total EV registrations throughout the region rose by around 26% through August compared to the same period in 2024. By contrast, registrations for petrol and diesel-powered vehicles declined by more than 20% over that stretch.

Still, RBC analysts wrote in a note on Thursday that they expect Tesla’s total deliveries for the third quarter could amount to 456,000, above a FactSet-compiled consensus of 448,000 deliveries and a Visible Alpha consensus of 440,000 deliveries.

The analysts expect a bump for Tesla as consumers rush to buy EVs in the U.S. before a $7,500 federal tax credit expires at the end of September.

Even with Thursday’s slide, Tesla’s stock has bounced back following a brutal start to the year. It’s now up 5% in 2025 after plunging 36% in the first quarter.

Musk’s political activism in the U.S. and beyond has hurt the Tesla brand and dampened its appeal to many prospective EV buyers.

Earlier this year, Musk endorsed Germany’s far-right AfD party, and this month he appeared by video at an anti-immigrant rally in the U.K. that turned violent. The rally was led by activist Tommy Robinson, a convicted fraudster with a violent criminal record.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer rebuked Musk for “dangerous” comments that he made at the rally, where 26 police officers were injured. Musk told attendees, “violence is coming to you” and “you either fight back or you die.”

To revitalize interest in the brand, Tesla has said an affordable new model is in the works, which could help it fend off increased competition from the likes of Volkswagen, BYD and other EV makers that have been picking up market share.

WATCH: CFRA downgrades Tesla

A federal judge on Thursday preliminarily approved Anthropic’s offer to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class action lawsuit with a group of authors, in what will be the largest publicly reported copyright recovery in history.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, was brought last year by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson. It alleged that Anthropic illegally downloaded books from pirated databases like Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror.

“We are grateful for the Court’s action today, which brings us one step closer to real accountability for Anthropic and puts all AI companies on notice they can’t shortcut the law or override creators’ rights,” the authors said in a joint statement Thursday.

Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The startup was founded by former OpenAI research executives, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, in 2021. Anthropic, which is valued at $183 billion, is best known for its AI assistant Claude.

AI startups and media companies have been closely following this lawsuit against Anthropic as they work to outline what copyright infringement means in the AI era. 

Anthropic initially proposed the $1.5 billion settlement earlier this month. The company said it would pay roughly $3,000 per book plus interest, and it agreed to destroy the datasets containing the allegedly pirated material.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup initially expressed some reservations about Anthropic’s offer, including concerns over how to ensure authors would be properly informed. Alsup ultimately approved the settlement after “several weeks of rigorous assessment and review,” according to a release.

Alsup will consider final approval of the settlement once the notice and claims processes are complete, the release said.

Aparna Sridhar, Anthropic’s deputy general counsel, said in a statement that the company is pleased with the determination, and that the settlement “simply resolves narrow claims about how certain materials were obtained.”

“The decision will allow us to focus on developing safe AI systems that help people and organizations extend their capabilities, advance scientific discovery, and solve complex problems,” Sridhar said.

WATCH: Anthropic agrees to pay $1.5 billion to settle author’s class action lawsuit over AI training