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☆ Judge strikes down Elon Musk’s massive, multi-billion-dollar pay package
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —A Delaware state court judge has thrown out the 2018 pay package that helped to make Tesla CEO Elon Musk one of the richest people in the world. He said Tesla investors will benefit from the decision by having the “dilution from this gargantuan pay package erased.”Attorneys for Musk and the Tesla board argued the pay package was approved by a shareholder vote. Excluding the votes owned by Musk and his brother, 73% of the shares voting in that election supported the pay package. The company’s market cap was valued at $54 billion at the time the pay package was approved. Robyn Denholm, the chair of Tesla’s board, testified that the pay package was all about keeping Musk focused on Tesla.

Persons: Elon Musk, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, Musk, Tesla, “, ”, Greg Varallo, McCormick, ” Musk, Robyn Denholm, ” Denholm, – CNN’s Matt McFarland Organizations: New, New York CNN, Musk, Delaware Supreme, SpaceX, Twitter, Boring, Tesla Locations: New York, Delaware, . Delaware, Tesla

☆ Tesla recalling nearly 363,000 vehicles equipped with ‘Full Self-Driving’
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Tesla is recalling nearly 363,000 vehicles with its so-called “Full Self Driving” driver assist feature due to risks it can pose at intersections, even if the driver is paying attention and ready to take over control of the car. Tesla will attempt to fix the the FSD feature, which costs $15,000, through an over-the-air software update, the notice added. NHTSA itself has identified at least 273 crashes that involved one of Tesla’s driver assist systems. Tesla owners have filed a class-action lawsuit over the predictions and missed deadlines, which is still pending. Tesla, which has disbanded its public relations staff and has not responded to press inquiries for several years, could not be reached for comment.

☆ Amazon’s Zoox robotaxi drives on public roads in California for the first time
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Julia Horowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

London CNN —Amazon’s Zoox driverless transportation company has started testing its robotaxi on open public roads — with employees on board, for now. The company said Monday that it conducted an initial run of its shuttle service for workers at its headquarters in Foster City, California on February 11, a key step in its efforts to make autonomous vehicles widely available. Full-time employees will now be able to travel in the self-driving taxi on the route between Zoox’s two main office buildings. Zoox, which was founded in 2014 and purchased by Amazon in 2020, is unique in its approach to designing electric self-driving vehicles. But Zoox has ditched the steering wheel and brake pedal, claiming those features are unnecessary when there’s no human driver.

☆ Tesla confirms DOJ has requested documents on Autopilot, ‘Full Self-Driving’
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

“Full Self-Driving” steers the vehicle on city streets, but also may stop for traffic signals and make turns to reach a destination. Tesla said that it’s not aware of any ongoing government investigation that has concluded any wrongdoing occurred. NHTSA first investigated Tesla’s driver-assist technology after reports that Autopilot-engaged vehicles were crashing into emergency vehicles stopped at the scene of earlier crashes. The investigation raises the stakes for Tesla and its claim of self-driving technology. IIHS found that 42% of Tesla Autopilot users were comfortable letting the system drive the vehicle without them watching what was happening on the road.

☆ Elon Musk is back on the stand in trial over controversial ‘funding secured’ tweet
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Washington, DC CNN —Tesla CEO Elon Musk returned to the witness stand for a third day in a California court room Tuesday, as he testified in a class-action lawsuit over his controversial “funding secured” tweet from 2018. Musk’s “funding secured” tweet previously prompted a civil suit by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that protects investors. The lead plaintiff, Glen Littleton, testified last week that he lost more than 75% of his investments following Musk’s “funding secured” tweet. Musk has argued during the trial that his tweets do not cause Tesla’s stock price to move higher or lower. He pointed to a time in May of 2020 when he tweeted that “Tesla stock price is too high.” The stock price dropped the day of his tweet but recovered and closed the year higher than it had opened.

☆ Elon Musk returns to the stand in class-action lawsuit over controversial tweet
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington, DC CNN —Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the stand again on Monday morning in a California courtroom to testify for a second day in the lawsuit over his controversial “funding secured” tweet from 2018. Musk had spoken to executives of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund about the funding he would need to take Tesla private. However, it was anything but “secured.” Musk shared his recollection of the incident in his testimony Monday. He pointed to an incident in May of 2020 when he tweeted that “Tesla stock price is too high.” The stock price dropped the day of his tweet but recovered and closed the year higher than it had opened. Musk testified Friday that no one at Tesla reviewed his tweets in 2018 before he published them.

☆ Elon Musk takes the stand in his ‘funding secured’ tweet trial
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the stand in a California court room Friday to testify in the class-action lawsuit over his controversial “funding secured” tweet in 2018. Musk has said at the time that he was thinking about taking Tesla private at $420 a share. Musk argued that his tweets do not cause Tesla’s stock price to move higher or lower. He pointed to an incident in May of 2020 when he tweeted that “Tesla stock price is too high.”The stock price dropped immediately after his tweet but recovered and closed the day higher than it had opened the day. “To have no guardrails is very troubling,” Subramanian said of Musk’s Twitter account.

☆ Tesla-induced pileup involved driver-assist tech, government data reveals
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

The Tesla’s driver told authorities that the vehicle’s “full self-driving” software braked unexpectedly and triggered the pileup on Thanksgiving day. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration then announced that it was sending a special crash investigation team to examine the incident. It’s delighted some Tesla drivers but also alarmed others with its flaws. The benefit and promise of Autopilot is clear from the Vehicle Safety Report data that we have been sharing for 4 years,” Tesla said this month in an update to its vehicle safety data. Reimer said it remains to be seen if there’s a recall of any Tesla driver-assist features, and what it means for the automaker’s future.

☆ Tesla ‘full self-driving’ triggered an eight-car crash, a driver tells police
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN Business obtained the report detailing the crash through a public records request Wednesday. California Highway Patrol reviewed videos that show the Tesla vehicle changing lanes and slowing to a stop. California Highway Patrol said in the Dec. 7 report that it could not confirm if “full self-driving” was active at the time of the crash. A highway patrol spokesperson told CNN Business on Wednesday that it would not determine if “full self-driving” was active, and Tesla would have that information. NHTSA told CNN Business a few days after the Thanksgiving Day crash that it was gathering addition information from Tesla and law enforcement about the crash.

☆ America may dodge a crippling rail strike. Here’s how we got here
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Chris Isidore | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

The House approved two pieces of legislation Wednesday, one to impose the tentative agreements that members of four of the unions have already rejected, keeping 115,000 rail workers on the job and averting a strike. More than just sick daysThe fact that this is still an issue more than two months after an 11th-hour tentative deal was reached goes beyond the issue of paid sick days. All 12 rail unions agreed to the tentative deals that generated so much opposition. But he said the issue of sick days will not be going away. Senator Bernie Sanders, a close ally of the labor movement, tweeted “At a time of record profits in the rail industry, it’s unacceptable that rail workers have ZERO guaranteed paid sick days.

☆ Elon Musk’s $50 billion trial comes to an end today
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Washington, DC CNN —The trial for the Tesla shareholder lawsuit examining CEO Elon Musk’s unprecedented compensation package will wrap up this afternoon. The net value of the compensation package is $50.9 billion today, after Tesla’s valuation soared more than 1,000% at its peak since shareholders approved the package. Several corporate governance experts told CNN Business that it’s clear Tesla’s board of directors lacks independence from Musk. At the time of the 2018 compensation package, Kimbal said it was “very unlikely” that Elon would walk away from his role of CEO at Tesla. That’s just not how Elon operates,” Kimbal Musk said.

☆ Tesla’s close-knit leadership team goes under the spotlight in court
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Tornetta accuses Tesla’s board of breaching its duties to shareholders. The pay package from Tesla’s board granted Musk large sums of shares every time Tesla hit certain milestones, including earnings and share price targets. In this sketch, former Tesla board member Antonio Gracias testifies in court. Ehrenpreis also had the rights to the first Model 3, Tesla’s breakout product, but gave it to Elon Musk as a birthday gift. Ehrenpreis is also the Tesla board member who asked consultants if hypothetically Tesla could lower the disclosed costs of Musk’s compensation plan.

☆ Elon Musk takes the stand in lawsuit over his Tesla pay
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Washington, DC CNN —Tesla CEO Elon Musk is testifying this morning in a shareholder lawsuit examining the massive compensation package that helped make him the world’s richest person. Musk was awarded the compensation package in 2018, and shareholders approved the deal at the time. They’ve also contrasted Musk’s compensation with the average Tesla salary, which they’ve said is $40,000. Musk’s compensation package goals were characterized t as lofty and incredibly difficult to achieve. This is a developing story and will be updated throughout Musk’s testimony.

☆ Tesla’s board chair says Musk needed money for space travel
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Washington, DC CNN —Elon Musk said that he needed to receive what amounted to the largest compensation package in history so that he could fuel his goals around “inter-planetary travel,” Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm testified Tuesday. Musk has long claimed that he intends to use his vast wealth in pursuit of space travel and colonization. “Quite honestly, I don’t know how much it costs to do any inter-planetary travel. The company’s driving interest in awarding Musk such an enormous compensation package was to keep his focus on Tesla, as opposed to his other companies. Denholm said Tuesday that Musk’s previous compensation package before the 2018 plan wasn’t adequate to keep him engaged at Tesla.

☆ Tesla heads to court to defend Elon Musk’s pay
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Washington, DC CNN —Tesla headed to court today to defend the huge compensation package that helped make CEO Elon Musk the richest person on Earth. Even in the rarified air of CEO pay, Musk’s compensation plan stood apart. The Tornetta complaint alleges that the board of directors that created Musk’s compensation plan lacked sufficient independence from him. “This is a huge package,” Hayn said of the compensation plan. Tesla leadershipHayn noted that Musk’s close relationships with the board members could be problematic for Tesla in the case.

☆ Elon Musk heads to court over Tesla pay that made him the world’s richest person
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-13 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Washington, DC CNN —Tesla and CEO Elon Musk will spend this week in court to defend the massive compensation package that helped make him the world’s richest man. The week-long trial in Delaware Court of Chancery will examine the 2018 compensation plan that the automaker’s board of directors created for Musk. Even in the rarified air of CEO pay, Musk’s compensation plan stood apart. The Tornetta complaint alleges that the board of directors that created Musk’s compensation plan lacked sufficient independence from him. “This is a huge package,” Hayn said of the compensation plan.

☆ Self-driving cars were supposed to take over the road. What happened?
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Caitlin O'Hara/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesGeneral Motors bought a self-driving company in 2016. Big talk, smaller resultsUrmson, while leading Google’s self-driving car project before founding Aurora, talked of his preteen son never needing to get a driver’s license. A self-driving car, without a steering wheel or pedals, would have to be able to drive itself in literally every situation possible. “It’s really, really hard,” Waymo’s then-CEO John Krafcik said in 2018 of self-driving technology. Companies developing lidar, widely seen as a key component for self-driving vehicles, as well as self-driving companies, have seen their stocks plummet recently.

☆ Rivian owners can’t help but gush about their trucks, flaws and all
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

“The Rivian is probably my favorite vehicle.”A Rivian R1T leaves the assembly line at its manufacturing plant in Normal, Illinois. Rivian owners have generally praised the R1T's features, including the gear tunnel for extra storage. Barnhart was one of several Rivian owners who said they were pleased with how accurately Rivian estimates its vehicles range. Feehley and other Rivian owners say it’s common to get questions from curious onlookers in parking lots, or to have people in cars driving alongside them taking pictures. Rivian owners describe being unwilling to ever sell their trucks.

☆ Ford, VW pull plug on robotaxis in blow to self-driving car industry
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Ford said Wednesday that it had concluded that the large-scale profitable commercialization of self-driving cars was further out then expected. Some Argo AI employees will join Ford for that work, Farley said. The company was developing robotaxis, self-driving vehicles that can operate in a ridehail service that does not require human drivers. The team effort allowed Ford and VW to share the hefty costs of developing self-driving cars. Companies have found that developing self-driving cars is incredibly expensive.

☆ Mobileye goes public, raising millions for Intel
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington, DC CNN —Intel spun out its driver-assist subsidiary Mobileye Wednesday and raised $861 million in the initial public offering. Intel had purchased Mobileye in 2017 for $15.3 billion, but announced in Dec. 2021 that it would spin out Mobileye. Mobileye, founded in 1999 in Israel, was an early leader in emerging driver-assist technology that can perceive the road and steer accordingly. Mobileye says being a public company again may help it draw attention to its products. “It’s important for us to amplify attention and a public company platform really allows you to do that,” Mobileye spokesman Dan Galves told CNN Business Wednesday.

Instead of having Argo develop self-driving car technology for cars without steering wheels, brakes or accelerator pedals — what is known in the industry as Level 4 or L4 technology — Ford will instead pursue in-house development of a lower level of automated driving technology. Ford reported automotive revenue of $37.2 billion, a jump of $4 billion from a year ago and $1 billion more than the analysts’ forecasts. It also was hit with $1 billion in higher-than-expected supplier payments, and a $1.5 billion increase in commodity costs. But in the end, the big news of the earnings report was a major change in direction on self-driving vehicles. He said there is only so much talent available to develop the different driver assistance and self-driving features.

☆ Elon Musk didn’t want EV tax credits. Now Tesla is warming up to them
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Washington, DC CNN —Tesla buyers may be able to take advantage of new federal tax credits for electric vehicles next year, the automaker’s executives said Wednesday. The remarks represent a reversal of sorts for the car maker, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk had spoken out against proposed electric vehicle tax credits in the last year. “This is written by Ford/UAW lobbyists, as they make their electric car in Mexico.”Tesla and Elon Musk have signaled that they're embracing the new electric vehicle tax credits. The most highly voted question asked about Tesla’s ability to meet thresholds for the electric vehicle tax credits in 2023, 2024 and 2025. The Tesla Model X SUV and Tesla Model S sedan appear unlikely to qualify, as SUVs must not cost more than $80,000 and sedans must not surpass $55,000.

☆ Waymo to expand robotaxi service to Los Angeles
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington, DC CNN —Waymo, the robotaxi provider of Google’s parent company Alphabet, said Wednesday that it will expand its ridehail service to Los Angeles. It is taking steps towards offering public robotaxi trips in San Francisco as well as downtown Phoenix, which is close to Chandler. Waymo began operating robotaxis in Arizona in 2017 and opened the service to the public in October 2020. Last year one Waymo robotaxi became stranded on a road while carrying a passenger and then unexpectedly drove away as the company’s roadside assistance arrived. Google gave the first robotaxi ride in October 2015 to a blind man in Austin, Texas.

☆ Why convenience stores aren't rushing to replace gas pumps with EV chargers
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Washington, DC CNN —Gas stations with convenience stores seem like an obvious location for electric vehicle chargers. The bipartisan infrastructure bill is providing $7.5 billion to help pay for electric vehicle chargers that could help gradually replace gas pumps. Convenience stores with fuel pumps account for 80% of fuel purchased in the US, according to the industry trade group. Customers charging electric vehicles must stick around longer, so they may be more likely to buy food and other goods. That way the convenience stores aren’t pulling a huge amount of power from the grid at once.

☆ Tesla Autopilot’s safety questioned after latest fatal motorcycle crash
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-17 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Driver-assist crash data that automakers like Tesla must report to NHTSA was published Monday and revealed that Autopilot was engaged. A Utah motorcycle rider was killed in July after being struck by a Tesla driver using Autopilot. Utah Department of SafetyA Tesla driver using Autopilot struck a motorcycle lying on a road on July 7 at 4:47 a.m in Riverside, California. Motorcycle safety advocates say they’re concerned that the software fails to see motorcycles and lulls Tesla drivers into a sense of complacency and inattentiveness. Europe’s vehicle safety programs test if driver-assist systems identify motorcycles.

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