A group of mostly Democratic senators pressured Tesla CEO Elon Musk to end the company’s use of forced arbitration clauses in employee and customer contracts, in a letter on Monday.
Like most large companies, Tesla requires workers to sign an arbitration agreement upon employment wherever it is legal to do so. That means to speak freely in court, where their speech will become part of a public record, workers need to get an exemption from the arbitration agreement from a judge first.
The senators wrote that such clauses have allowed workers’ complaints of racist discrimination and other bad working conditions to remain hidden from public view. The group included Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Ed Markey, D-Mass., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
The letter references details from discrimination lawsuits against Tesla, in which Black workers said they regularly faced racist discrimination at work, and women who worked at Tesla reported blatant objectification and harassment by male co-workers, with little to no support from management. The EEOC, a federal agency responsible for enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination, has previously issued a cause finding against Tesla, the company disclosed in June last year.
The senators wrote that workers at Tesla’s Fremont, Calif. factory seem to have brought at least five times as many discrimination lawsuits last year than workers at comparable plants run by other companies.
“Only a few of these cases, however, have managed to survive in court, with most being forced out of court following Tesla’s motions to compel arbitration,” the lawmakers wrote. “The details these cases allege – some of which we noted above – raise significant concerns about not only Tesla management’s complicity and participation in the discriminatory conditions, but also the untold number of other complaints that remain confidential.”
Forced arbitration clauses in consumer contracts have similarly obscured important details about Tesla’s vehicle safety and business practices from the public, the lawmakers wrote.
“The public deserves the full record of safety complaints about Tesla vehicles,” they said, adding that while clauses in customer contracts can theoretically let customers opt out of forced arbitration, they rarely do so, making the difference basically moot.
Of particular concern to the senators were consumer complaints of phantom braking that occurred in Tesla vehicles.
“Beyond flawed design choices, Tesla’s vehicles appear to be plagued by myriad hardware and software issues: steering wheels in two Tesla vehicles fell off during operation because of a missing retaining bolt, which NHTSA recently opened an investigation into, while another vehicle appeared to spontaneously combust,” they wrote. “But because Tesla drivers, as a practical reality, are subject to confidential arbitration agreements, we and the public – including would-be buyers – have no visibility into what complaints may have already been made and what other potential safety issues with Tesla vehicles may exist.”
Beyond asking Tesla to commit to ending arbitration clauses in employee and consumer contracts and to stop filing motions to compel arbitration in court, the lawmakers asked Tesla for detailed information on its arbitration practices.
For example, senators asked how many racial harassment, discrimination and retaliation complaints Tesla received from workers since 2012 and how many were settled or went to arbitration. They asked for the same details about sexual harassment complaints from Tesla workers.
They also asked for more information on when Tesla added the ability for consumers to opt-out of forced arbitration, and how many had actually been able to do so historically.
The senators also sought detailed information on the types of vehicle related complaints they received from customers, which hardware and software factored into those complaints, how many were settled prior to arbitration and how many that went to arbitration were found in favor of the consumer.
Mandatory arbitration is a common practice among new- and used-car dealerships, says Paul Bland, executive director at Public Justice, the consumer advocacy group. However, Tesla makes and sells its cars direct to consumers so its forced arbitration clauses cover more than the norm where auto sales are concerned.
Bland said, “It makes a lot of sense to me that senators would focus on this. Tesla uses arbitration clauses as a tactic to shunt people into a forum that’s pretty rigged for the corporation.”
The long-time consumer advocate views arbitration as a secretive system that makes it harder for consumers to find out what happened to people in previous related cases. Bland also said arbitration makes it harder for consumers to form class action lawsuits, or even to make informed choices about where they want to take their business.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon speaks at the Computex forum in Taipei, Taiwan, June 3, 2024.
Ann Wang | Reuters
Qualcomm said on Tuesday that it expects its push into new markets to generate an additional $22 billion per year by 2029.
Of that amount, roughly $4 billion will come from PC chips, Qualcomm said at its investor day on Tuesday. The chipmaker just introduced PC processors earlier this year, when it released Snapdragon X for Windows devices.
The latest forecast marks an important milestone for Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, who took over the company in 2021 with a promise to get past a reliance on smartphones. In fiscal 2024, Qualcomm’s handset business reported $24.86 billion in sales, about 75% of its entire chip business.
Qualcomm also said on Tuesday that automotive revenues would rise about 175% by 2029 to $8 billion, of which 80% is tied to contracts that have already been secured.
“We have been on this trajectory realizing that the technologies we have developed over the many years can be very relevant to a number of different industries beyond mobile,” Amon said at the investor event.
Another $4 billion in revenue will come from industrial chips and $2 billion will come from chips for headsets, a category Qualcomm calls XR. About $4 billion of the forecast is a catch-all for other chip sales, like those for wireless headphones and tablets.
Qualcomm shares are up 16% this year, trailing the Nasdaq, which has gained 26%.
Qualcomm grew rapidly over the past decade as its modems and processors became essential parts for high-end smartphones, especially those running Google Android. Qualcomm also sells modems and related parts to Apple for its iPhones.
But the company has warned investors that Apple could choose to stop buying Qualcomm parts as soon as 2027. Qualcomm said on Tuesday that its growing businesses will more than offset any losses from Apple.
A Li Auto L9 electric vehicle (EV) is seen displayed at the Qualcomm booth during the first China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) in Beijing, China November 28, 2023.
Florence Lo | Reuters
Qualcomm’s strategy under Amon has been to use the technology its developed for its handset chips, like modems, processors, and AI accelerators, in new markets, including cars, PCs, and virtual reality. The investor event was the first time in years that the company has given a forecast for those new markets. Qualcomm said its total addressable market is as large as $900 billion.
“We put a strategy in ’21, and we’re not changing our strategy,” Amon said.
Laptop and desktop chips are currently dominated by Intel, which has over 70% percent of the market, according to Mercury Research. Intel reported $29 billion in PC chip sales in its 2023.
“The competitive landscape changed between the Windows and Macs,” Amon said, referring to Apple’s move in 2020 to switch from Intel to its own processors. “We saw that as an opportunity, especially as the ecosystem did not have confidence in the existing players to actually deliver a solution.”
The forecast for XR headsets also hints at the growth potential of the VR market over the next five years. Qualcomm supplies chips to many of the top headset makers, including Meta for its Quest and Ray-Bans products.
When it comes to artificial intelligence, Qualcomm calls itself an “edge AI” company, in contrast to cloud-based AI that’s typically powered by Nvidia processors. Company officials didn’t rule out introducing data center products in an interview with CNBC.
Qualcomm suggested that its mobile chips will be able to run the kind of advanced AI that’s restricted to large server farms today, an indication that that company may benefit from the AI boom down the road as the technology becomes more efficient.
“What you can run on the cloud last year, you can run on the device this year,” Durga Malladi, Qualcomm’s senior vice president in charge of planning, said at the event.
Options on BlackRock’s popular iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) began trading on the Nasdaq Tuesday, ushering in a new way to trade and speculate on the price of bitcoin.
IBIT traded 73,000 options contracts in the first 60 mins of trading Tuesday, Nasdaq told CNBC, placing the fund in the top 20 of the most active nonindex options.
Options trading allows investors to play bitcoin’s notorious volatility by letting them buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price based on whether they anticipate the price will rise or fall in a given period.
“Bitcoin has a lively derivatives market, but in the U.S. it is still tiny compared to other asset classes, and is largely limited to institutional players,” said Noelle Acheson, economist and author of the “Crypto is Macro Now” newsletter. “A deeper onshore derivatives market will enhance the growing market sophistication. This will reinforce investor confidence in the asset, bringing in new cohorts while enabling a greater variety of investment and trading strategies … [That] should, all else being equal, dampen both volatility and downside.”
The market for options contracts on major ETFs can be extremely active, and are widely used by more sophisticated traders. For example, over the past five business days, Interactive Brokers clients have more options orders on the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) and the SDPR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) than for the funds themselves, according to data from the brokerage.
The launch of the bitcoin ETF options will likely also lead to new funds that incorporate those options, said Todd Sohn, ETF strategist at Strategas.
“Grayscale already did a filing for a covered call [fund], and I’m sure BlackRock will come out with it too. And then we’re going to get buffers, and then we’re going to get whatever other trend-following-type strategy that folks think of. I think the ecosystem’s really going to start to fly here,” Sohn said.
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The stock prices for H&R Block and Intuit fell after a report Tuesday said Trump’s government efficiency team is considering creating a free tax-filing app.
Intuit, which makes the TurboTax tax-filing software, was down 5%, putting it on pace for its worst day since Aug. 23, when the company’s stock price fell nearly 7%. H&R Block was down 8% and on pace for its worst day since 2020.
President-elect Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency” has held “highly preliminary” discussions about creating the free tax-filing app, The Washington Post reported. The so-called DOGE will not be an official government department but an outside advisory commission. It will be led by billionaire Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and aims to slash government spending.
A DOGE tax-filing app would be a competitor of both H&R Block and TurboTax.
Intuit spokeswoman Tania Mercado didn’t directly address the prospect of a government tax-filing app, but told CNBC in a statement that, “For decades, Intuit has publicly called for simplifying the U.S. tax code so individuals, families, and small businesses can better understand their finances.”
George Agurkis, H&R Block’s director of government relations, said in an email that the company looks forward “to engaging with the new Administration and the Department of Government Efficiency on their ideas related to sound and efficient tax administration.”
It’s unclear where a new DOGE tax app would bridge with newer policies the Biden administration already implemented. Under the Biden administration, the IRS in March rolled out a pilot Direct File program in 12 states, allowing qualified taxpayers to file directly through a government portal. The IRS also offers free filing services through its Free File program for taxpayers who make an adjusted gross income of $79,000 or less.
While both Intuit and H&R Block have free filing options, neither have had stellar records when it comes to transparently offering those services.
The Federal Trade Commission in February filed an administrative complaint against H&R Block for deceptively marketing free filing products and wrongfully deleting users’ in-progress tax data. Intuit, meanwhile, agreed to pay $141 million in restitution “for deceiving millions of low-income Americans into paying for tax services that should have been free,” according to the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James.