Tesla wins China security clearance

Tesla received a key security clearance from China during owner Elon Musk's whistlestop visit to the world's biggest electric car market, which wrapped up on Monday.

The tech billionaire arrived on Sunday for his second trip to China in less than a year, meeting top officials including Premier Li Qiang as he worked to boost his electric car company's fortunes in the face of intense competition from local challengers such as BYD.

On the same day, Tesla's locally produced models were listed among the EVs that meet China's data security requirements for smart cars, clearing a key regulatory hurdle.

Musk boarded his private jet at Beijing Capital Airport just before 1:00 pm (0500 GMT), with a Chinese flight tracking app saying it was bound for Anchorage, Alaska.

Despite the growing market share of domestic automakers, Teslas remain among the best-selling EVs in China.

The firm has been working to boost sales through its "Full Self Driving" (FSD) features, which need to be compliant with strict data and privacy laws.

It appeared to inch closer to that approval by teaming up with Chinese tech titan Baidu for maps and navigation, Bloomberg reported Monday.

These advanced assisted driving features do not make its cars fully autonomous, and Tesla says its autopilot and FSD capabilities are meant to be used under driver supervision.

It sells FSD to Tesla owners for $8,000 in the United States, or for a $99 monthly subscription.

Tesla did not immediately respond to AFP queries about FSD in China and the reported partnership with Baidu.

Earlier this month, in response to a question on his social media platform X, Musk said FSD availability in China "may be possible very soon".

That report came a day after the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y were compliant with data security laws.

CAAM, which tested vehicles with a national computer security regulator, said in a statement that the approved models satisfied rules on the collection and processing of personal data, including the recordings of faces outside the car.

- FSD 'no guarantee' -

FSD could help Tesla cars stand out in a Chinese market awash with models that offer customers a wide variety of connected and smart features, analysts said.

Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y "have become uncompetitive", said Tu Le, the founder and managing director of Sino Auto Insights.

"There's still no guarantee of additional sales but without FSD, Tesla has nothing new to offer consumers who are now used to seeing refreshes on EVs every 6-9 months."

In a note on Monday, Wedbush Securities analysts said the "long term valuation story at Tesla hinges on FSD and autonomous".

"If Musk is able to obtain approval from Beijing to transfer data collected in China abroad this would be pivotal around the acceleration of training its algorithms for its autonomous technology globally," they added.

Tesla's stock was up more than 10 percent during morning trading in New York on Monday.

However, the cost of FSD on top of Tesla cars' retail price may prove to be a hurdle for Chinese consumers.

"Tesla's FSD is not free... There doesn't seem to be much willingness among current Chinese Tesla owners to pay for and use it," Zhong Shi, an analyst with the China Automobile Dealers Association, told AFP.

"Many Chinese car companies offer similar features for free or at discounted prices, so users are willing to try it because it doesn't add to their financial burden."

China has led the electric car revolution.

"Based on today's policy settings, almost 1 in 3 cars on the roads in China by 2030 is set to be electric," the International Energy Agency said last week in its annual Global EV Outlook.

Musk and Tesla's China efforts reflect the importance of this hugely lucrative market for foreign automakers.

Two Japanese car giants last week said they would team up with Chinese tech firms to enhance their artificial intelligence capabilities.

Toyota said it would join hands with gaming giant Tencent on AI to try and capitalise on Chinese consumers' growing appetite for advanced smart features in the cars it sells in China.

Like other foreign manufacturers, Toyota has struggled to keep up in the ultra-competitive Chinese market, especially as it shifts to electric.

Toyota competitor Nissan also said it would work with Baidu in the same field, cooperating on AI research and to use the Chinese search engine giant's AI tech in cars for the local market.

Agence France-Presse

Musk threatens lawsuit as Twitter rival Threads takes off

WASHINGTON — Twitter threatened to sue Meta just hours after the Instagram parent company launched Threads, an app it hopes will beat out the struggling site owned by Elon Musk.

In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, published by online news outlet Semafor on Thursday, Musk lawyer Alex Spiro accused the company of "unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property."

The letter accused Meta of hiring dozens of former Twitter employees who "had and continue to have access to Twitter's trade secrets and other highly confidential information."

Threads is the biggest challenger yet to Musk-owned Twitter, which has seen a series of potential competitors emerge but not yet replace one of the world's biggest social media platforms, despite its struggles.

Zuckerberg's latest move against Musk further heightened the rivalry between the two multibillionaires who have even agreed to meet for hand to hand combat in a cage match.

Threads went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at 2300 GMT on Wednesday (7 a.m. Thursday in Manila), and early feedback noted its close, but scaled back, resemblance to Twitter.

Within a few hours, more than 30 million people had downloaded Threads, Zuckerberg said Thursday.

"Feels like the beginning of something special, but we've got a lot of work ahead to build the app," Zuckerberg wrote on his official Threads account.

Accounts were already active for celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, Oprah Winfrey and Hugh Jackman, as well as media outlets including The Washington Post and The Economist.

Zuckerberg wrote: "It'll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it."

"Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn't nailed it. Hopefully we will."

Twitter has said it has more than 200 million daily users.

Musk meanwhile retweeted an image that said the Threads logo resembled a tapeworm. "Metaphorically too," he added.

In another post referencing Twitter's potential legal action against Meta, Musk noted that "competition is fine, cheating is not."

Meta spokesman Andy Stone said on Threads: "No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee -- that's just not a thing."

'BE KIND' 

Threads was introduced as a spin-off of Instagram, giving it a built-in audience of more than two billion users and sparing the new platform the challenge of starting from scratch.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told users that Threads was intended to build "an open and friendly platform for conversations."

"The best thing you can do if you want that too is be kind," he said.

Zuckerberg is taking advantage of Musk's chaotic ownership of Twitter to push out the new product, which Meta hopes will become the go-to platform for celebrities, companies and politicians.

Analyst Jasmine Engberg from Insider Intelligence said Threads only needs one out of four Instagram monthly users "to make it as big as Twitter."

"Twitter users are desperate for an alternative, and Musk has given Zuckerberg an opening," she added.

Under Musk, Twitter has seen content moderation reduced to a minimum with glitches and rash decisions scaring away celebrities and major advertisers.

He also fired more than half of Twitter's staff, some of whom presumably went to other tech companies, including Meta.

EU 'MANY MONTHS' AWAY 

Meta has its legion of critics too, especially in the major market of Europe, which could slow the growth of Threads.

The company has been criticized for its handling of personal data, the essential ingredient for targeted ads that help it rake in billions of dollars in profits.

Mosseri said he regretted that the launch was delayed in the European Union, but had Meta waited for regulatory clarity from Brussels, Threads would have been "many, many, many, months away."

According to a source close to the matter, Meta was wary of a new law called the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that sets strict rules for the world's "gatekeeper" internet companies.

One rule restricts platforms from moving user data between products, as would potentially be the case between Threads and Instagram.

Globally, the Threads hashtag on Twitter has garnered three million tweets, with many users jokingly suggesting people will return to Musk's platform.

Others expressed privacy concerns.

"Meta loves to collect private information and I don't trust the way it treats private information," a Japanese user tweeted.

"I also have the impression that this is a company hated by EU, so I'm reluctant."

But some said they would permanently move to Threads.

One Threads user wrote: "Now I truly can say goodbye to Twitter forever."

Agence France-Presse 

Twitter has long been more talk than money

NEW YORK, United States - Billionaire Elon Musk is capturing a social media prize with his deal to buy Twitter, which has become a global stage for companies, activists, celebrities, politicians and more.

Despite its reach and impact, the San Francisco-based one-to-many messaging platform has struggled to generate the kind of revenue seen by social media peers such as Facebook and TikTok.

Since its founding in March of 2006, Twitter has amassed 217 million daily active users, more than 80 percent of them outside the United States.

Twitter did not taste profit until the end of 2017, and the following year was its first to finish financially in the black.

Twitter reported a loss of $221 million last year.

While often associated with the giant Silicon Valley social media platforms, to the extent that co-founder and then-chief Jack Dorsey has been grilled by US legislators, it is vastly eclipsed by its peers when it comes to profit and share value.

A challenge that has vexed Twitter since its inception is how to weave in ads or other money-making tactics into the real-time flow of posts by users without ruining the experience people love on the platform.

The fleeting nature of tweets has meant that marketing messages in posts may not spend much time in the spotlight for Twitter users to see.

An added challenge is how to make sure ads, sometimes in the form of tweets promoted to the tops of feeds, do not wind up next to vitriol, misinformation or other troubling content that brands do not want to be associated with.

However, politicians, institutions and marketers have learned how to turn Twitter to their advantage with clever or controversial posts that get shared as "retweets." But while these can spark viral online conversations, they do not necessarily result in Twitter directly making money from them.

Town square? 

Some have opined that Twitter, while hard to squeeze money out of, has become an internet version of the "town square," and is so important that it should almost be considered a public utility and come with free speech protections.

Twitter was the preferred method of communication during former US President Donald Trump's four years in office, as opposed to press briefings at which he would face questions from reporters.

Investors had essentially steered clear of Twitter stock, which prior to Musk's uninvited takeover bid launched three weeks ago was worth 12 percent less than it was priced when the company's shares first went public more than eight years ago.

Twitter last year introduced a "Blue" subscription tier offering exclusive content and features, and Musk has made it clear he is a fan of such models at the platform.

There is a risk though, that if Musk follows through on his vow to let people say pretty much anything they want on Twitter, moderate users will not want to pay subscriptions to be in a platform turned hostile, said Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Susannah Streeter.

Money over mindfulness?

Musk taking Twitter private will provide more room to maneuver, but will not guarantee success, according to analysts.

As a private company, Twitter will be free to make changes that might irk shareholders or take longer than they like to pay off.

Musk and his partners buying Twitter will be able to focus more intently on the financial side of the business, and not fret over issues such as diversity that might be important to shareholders at a public firm.

And despite talk of making the software running Twitter more transparent, the business side would have to disclose less to the public as a private operation.

Musk will be able to shrug off concerns about the environment, diversity or political correctness and decide "to hell with it", running Twitter the way he thinks is best, William Lee of the Milken Institute told AFP.

Agence France-Presse

Elon Musk, a tech visionary turns social media king

Sometimes it feels like it's Elon Musk's world and we just live in it.

The endlessly innovative, endlessly eccentric billionaire has struck a deal to buy Twitter, giving him control of the social media network on which the world debates, mobilizes and bickers. 

It is just the latest conquest for Musk, who has revolutionized the car industry, sent his own rocket to space, built the world's biggest fortune – and created fountains of moral outrage and celebrity gossip along the way.

Musk, 50, last year became the world's richest person – taking the title from Amazon's Jeff Bezos – following the meteoric rise of Tesla, his electric automaker founded in 2003.

His takeover of Twitter caps a rollercoaster of announcements and counter-announcements – which he characteristically punctuated by gleefully firing jabs at the company on its own platform.

And Musk's new guise as a social media overlord will fuel controversy over his political views, business methods and outsized personality. 

He is libertarian, anti-woke, impulsive and promotes himself as a champion of free speech. Some would call him right-wing, while his critics accuse him of being autocratic and bullying.

All this has come in a month in which Musk also made headlines with Tesla opening a "gigafactory" in Texas, after the company left California following a dispute over his efforts to defy a state shutdown of his plant to stop the spread of COVID-19.

And there's more – his space transport firm SpaceX is currently breaking yet another boundary as a partner in a three-way venture that sent the first fully private mission to the International Space Station.

But Musk also makes news of a less flattering kind: Tesla has faced a series of lawsuits alleging discrimination and harassment against Black workers as well as sexual harassment.

In parallel with the whiplash-inducing stream of business news, Musk's penchant for living by his own rules in the private sphere also keeps the world wide-eyed.

It recently emerged Musk has had a second child with his on-again off-again partner, the musician Grimes: a girl they named Exa Dark Sideræl Musk – although the parents will mostly call her Y.

He is even expected to make an appearance – in person or not – at the ongoing celebrity defamation trial pitting Johnny Depp against his ex-wife Amber Heard, who formerly dated Musk.

One way or another, Musk has become one of the most ubiquitous figures of the era. So how did he get where he is today?

- To Mars ... and beyond? -

Born in Pretoria, on June 28, 1971, the son of an engineer father and a Canadian-born model mother, Musk left South Africa in his late teens to attend Queen's University in Ontario.

He transferred to the University of Pennsylvania after two years and earned bachelor's degrees in physics and business.

After graduating from the prestigious Ivy League school, Musk abandoned plans to study at Stanford University.

Instead, he dropped out and started Zip2, a company that made online publishing software for the media industry.

He banked his first millions before the age of 30 when he sold Zip2 to US computer maker Compaq for more than $300 million in 1999.

Musk's next company, X.com, eventually merged with PayPal, the online payments firm bought by internet auction giant eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

After leaving PayPal, Musk embarked on a series of ever more ambitious ventures.

He founded SpaceX in 2002 – now serving as its chief executive officer and chief technology officer – and became the chairman of electric carmaker Tesla in 2004.

After some early crashes and near-misses, SpaceX perfected the art of landing booster engines on solid ground and ocean platforms, rendering them reusable, and late last year sent four tourists into space, on the first ever orbital mission with no professional astronauts on board.

Musk's jokingly named The Boring Co. is touting an ultra-fast "Hyperloop" rail transport system that would transport people at near supersonic speeds.

And he has said he wants to make humans an "interplanetary species" by establishing a colony of people living on Mars.

To this end, SpaceX is developing a prototype rocket, Starship, which it envisages carrying crew and cargo to the Moon, Mars and beyond – with Musk saying he feels "confident" of an orbital test this year.

Musk, who holds US, Canadian and South African citizenship, has been married and divorced three times -- once to the Canadian author Justine Wilson and twice to actress Talulah Riley. He has seven children. An eighth child died in infancy.

Forbes estimates his current net worth at $266 billion.

Agence France-Presse

Elon Musk buys large stake in Twitter, sending stock soaring

NEW YORK - Elon Musk has taken a major stake in Twitter, regulatory filings showed Monday, sending the social media network's stock soaring and igniting speculation he could seek an active role in its operations.

Musk, the world's richest man and CEO of electric vehicle company Tesla, is a frequent Twitter user who often posts controversial messages and announcements, and has long been critical of social media companies.

In one recent post he questioned Twitter's adherence to free speech and hinted at launching his own platform. 

According to a document filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the South African-born billionaire acquired nearly 73.5 million Twitter shares -- a 9.2 percent stake in the company.

Based on Friday's closing price of the company's stock, his investment amounts to nearly $2.9 billion.

Investors responded quickly. At 7.15 am in New York (1115 GMT) Twitter's stock was trading at about $49, up by around 26 percent.

"We would expect this passive stake as just the start of broader conversations with the Twitter board/management that could ultimately lead to an active stake and a potential more aggressive ownership role of Twitter," analysts Daniel Ives and John Katsingris of Wedbush wrote in a note.

Musk launched a poll on Twitter on March 25, saying "free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?" 

More than two million people voted in the poll, with over 70 percent saying "no."

"Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?" he continued the next day.

"Is a new platform needed?"

"Just buy twitter," was one of the first responses from tens of thousands of users.

MUSK, TWITTER AND CONTROVERSY

Musk has wielded Twitter polls to conduct business before: in November last year, he offloaded $5 billion in Tesla shares days after asking fellow social media users if he should sell 10 percent of his stake.

In the summer of 2018 Musk published a tweet where he claimed that he had the appropriate funding to take Tesla private, without providing proof.

The tweet caused a brief spike in Tesla's share price but the SEC said the statements on Twitter were "false and misleading."

The mogul then agreed that any tweets capable of moving Tesla's share price would be screened by lawyers, as part of a deal that saw him pay $20 million to settle a fraud case brought by the SEC.

Then in early March, Musk asked a New York judge to overturn the agreement with the stock market watchdog on his tweets. 

His lawyer said the dispute with the SEC was "yet another attempt to harass Tesla and silence Mr Musk."

Musk has also used Twitter to court controversy away from the business world: in March he challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to a fight, with the fate of Ukraine at stake; and in February he drew condemnation for a tweet comparing Canadian leader Justin Trudeau to Adolf Hitler.

Agence France-Presse

Meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin soars 40 percent to all-time high

LONDON - Meme-based virtual currency Dogecoin soared on Wednesday to an all-time high, extending its 2021 rally to become the fourth-biggest digital coin.

Dogecoin, launched as a satirical critique of 2013's cryptocurrency frenzy, has climbed 41 percent in the last 24 hours to a record $0.68, according to CoinMarketCap.

This year alone it has soared over 14,000 percent, from $0.00468 on Dec. 31, taking it past more widely used cryptocurrencies such as the Tether stablecoin and XRP to become the fourth-largest by market capitalization.

Dogecoin - whose logo features a Shiba Inu dog at the center of the meme - remains little used in commerce or payments. Like other digital coins, it is highly volatile and its price is heavily influenced by social media users.

On Tuesday, the New York crypto exchange Gemini said it would start letting users trade and custody the token.

Some cryptocurrency market players said its volatility was its main draw, with a mixture of retail investors and market makers fuelling its trading volumes.

"The ugly truth is that a lot of crypto valuations are divorced from reality anyway," said Joseph Edwards, head of research at crypto brokerage Enigma Securities.

"Right now, (Dogecoin) is being seen as it's always been seen - an asset with surprising staying power that provides opportunities to take advantage of volatility every year or so."

Dogecoins are now cumulatively worth $88 billion, compared to bitcoin's $1 trillion and ethereum's $391 billion. 

-reuters-

Bitcoin collector MicroStrategy fills its wallet with another $1 billion

Major bitcoin corporate backer MicroStrategy Inc said on Wednesday it bought another 19,452 bitcoin, worth around $1.03 billion, swelling its holdings of the cryptocurrency and sending the company's shares 8 percent higher in premarket trading.

The company, whose Chief Executive Officer Michael Saylor is one of the most vocal proponents of bitcoin, bought the cryptocurrency in cash at an average price of about $52,765 each.

MicroStrategy, the world's largest publicly traded business intelligence company, spent last year steadily amassing bitcoin after making its first investment in August.

The company earlier this month engaged in an almost $1 billion convertible note offering with the proceeds used for buying bitcoin.

Bitcoin's price has recently scaled record highs as major firms, such as BNY Mellon, asset manager BlackRock Inc and credit card giant Mastercard Inc, backed certain cryptocurrencies, with Tesla Inc investing $1.5 billion in bitcoin.

Square Inc Chief Executive Jack Dorsey promised on Tuesday to "double down" on the payment firm's commitment to bitcoin, the world's biggest cryptocurrency.

MicroStrategy owns close to 90,531 bitcoin, which were acquired at an aggregate purchase price of about $2.17 billion and an average purchase price of around $23,985 per bitcoin, it said on Wednesday.

The company's bitcoin holdings are valued at about $4.48 billion, according to a Reuters calculation.

"We will continue to pursue our strategy of acquiring bitcoin with excess cash," MicroStrategy's Saylor said.

-reuters-

Tesla's stock market value tops Facebook's in huge trading

Shares of Tesla surged to a record high in heavy trading on Thursday, with the electric car maker's stock market value exceeding Facebook's for the first time.

Shares in the company led by Elon Musk jumped nearly 8 percent to end the session at $816, putting its market capitalization at $774 billion and making it Wall Street's fifth-most-valuable company, just behind Google-parent Alphabet and ahead of Facebook.

Facebook's stock market value was $765 billion after its shares rose about 2 percent, according to Refinitiv data.

Over $39 billion worth of Tesla's shares were bought and sold during the session, a record for Tesla and more than the next three most traded companies combined, which were Apple , Alibaba Group Holding and Amazon.com .

Tesla, up over 700% in the past 12 months, has become the most valuable auto company in the world by far, despite production that is a fraction of rivals such as Toyota Motor, Volkswagen and General Motors.

Musk surpassed Amazon's Jeff Bezos to become the world's richest person, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

Tesla's latest lift came after RBC raised its rating on the stock to "sector perform" from "underperform."

RBC analyst Joseph Spak said in his research note that he previously underestimated Tesla's ability to use its soaring stock price to raise capital to fund the company's expansion.

"We took a fresh look at the growth opportunity, what we got wrong about TSLA's positioning and the valuation and conclude that the stock price itself is likely to be somewhat self-fulfilling to TSLA's growth and strategy," Spak wrote.

Analysts, on average, expect Tesla to report $1.2 billion in net profits for 2020, compared with $5.8 billion in net profits expected from GM and $27.1 billion in net profits expected from Facebook, according to Refinitiv.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich, Editing by Nick Zieminski and Dan Grebler)

-reuters-

Elon Musk leaves behind Amazon's Bezos to become world's richest person: Bloomberg News

Tesla Inc chief and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk surpassed Amazon.com Inc's top boss Jeff Bezos to become the world's richest man, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

Including Thursday's gains in Tesla shares, Musk, 49, had a net worth of more than $188.5 billion, $1.5 billion more than Bezos, the report said.

Musk's personal wealth has been boosted by last year's more than eight-fold surge in the shares of Tesla, which became the world's most valuable carmaker.

He has a 20 percent stake in the carmaker and about $42 billion of unrealized paper gains on vested stock options, according to the Bloomberg report.

Tesla shares were up as much as 7.4 percent on Thursday at a record high of $811.61.

The Forbes Billionaires List, however, said Musk still trails Amazon's Bezos by $7.8 billion.

Forbes has a more conservative estimate based on the Tesla stake that he has pledged as a collateral for personal loans. To take that into account, it applies a 25 percent discount to his shareholding, according to its report in November.

Musk, who co-founded and sold Internet payments company PayPal Holdings Inc, now leads some of the most futuristic companies in the world.

Besides Tesla, he heads rocket company SpaceX and Neuralink, a startup that is developing ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect the human brain to computers.

He set up the Boring Company to make affordable tunnels below busy city streets for an all-electric public transportation system to avoid the nasty traffic jams in US cities.

-reuters-

Tesla launches $250 tequila online, quickly 'out of stock'

MEXICO CITY— Tesla Inc on Thursday launched its own brand of tequila on the electric car maker's website, making good on a promise by CEO Elon Musk with a $250-per-bottle experience that was unavailable within hours of the product's lift-off.

Pictures of "Tesla Tequila" on the website revealed a sleek, lightning-shaped bottle, a bit different from what Musk had once touted. The product was quickly listed as "out of stock."

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk tweeted the idea of "Teslaquila" on April Fool's Day 2018, which many of his followers considered a joke. However, Musk's efforts to trademark the drink in October of that year were frowned upon by Mexico's tequila producers.

Mexico's Tequila Regulatory Council then argued the "name 'Teslaquila' evokes the word Tequila ... (and) Tequila is a protected word." Under the new name, it had no qualms.

"Tesla is now a certified brand of tequila under the strict regulations regarding our national drink," the council said in a statement, saying it would be made by Destiladora del Valle de Tequila, a major producer of tequilas and other spirits.

Tesla's website said the beverage will be made by Nosotros Tequila, which is one of Destiladora del Valle de Tequila's more than 100 labels, according to online tequila database Tequila Matchmaker.

Also known as Casa Maestri, the producer already makes a wide range of tequila brands, as well as bourbon, vodka and Canadian whisky, according to the company's website.

According to Tesla's website, the new alcoholic venture will be available only in selected U.S. states, including New York, California and Washington.

The Silicon Valley billionaire is no stranger to selling quirky products in limited one-time sales.

He sold flamethrowers at $500 apiece in early 2018, raising $10 million for his high-speed tunnel venture the Boring Company. Musk also sold 50,000 Boring Company hats previously.

Independent industry consultant Clayton Szczech said that without tasting the Tesla liquor he could not evaluate its quality. But he observed that celebrity products on the whole were not aimed at tequila aficionados.

"I tend to doubt that this tequila is significantly different from everything else they are putting out," Szczech said, referring to Destiladora del Valle de Tequila.

The website of the new drink describes it as agave tequila añejo aged in French oak barrels, "featuring a dry fruit and light vanilla nose with a balanced cinnamon pepper finish."

-reuters-

Tesla mocks shortsellers with sale of red satin shorts

After surpassing Toyota Motor Corp as the world's most valuable automaker and stunning with forecast-beating deliveries, Tesla Inc has taken time out to poke fun at the company's naysayers - with sales of red satin shorts.

"Limited edition short shorts now available," CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday.

Musk has often taken umbrage at short-sellers and in 2018 sent a box of shorts to hedge fund owner and Tesla short-seller David Einhorn.

The "Short Shorts" on the Tesla shop website feature gold trim and “S3XY” in gold across the back, which also happens to be formed from Tesla model names.

The shorts cost $69.420, the last 3 digits an apparent reference to Musk's infamous tweet in 2018 that he was considering taking Tesla private for $420 per share, with 420 also a code word for marijuana.

That tweet landed him in hot water with the US securities regulator, costing him his position as Tesla chairman.

Limited edition short shorts now available at https://t.co/5EmNcTBvJv

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2020

The Silicon Valley car maker, however, has reason to crow. Its stock has almost tripled in value this year to just over $1,200 per share and it sold more than 90,000 of its electric vehicles in the second quarter, defying a trend of plummeting sales for other automakers hit by coronavirus-induced lockdowns.

"Run like the wind or entertain like Liberace," the product description says, adding: "Enjoy exceptional comfort from the closing bell." It will ship within 2-4 weeks.

Tesla is expected to announce earnings results for April-June quarter this month, with analysts saying the second-quarter deliveries had heightened expectations that it will report 4 consecutive quarters of profit for the first time in its history.

-reuters-

Elon Musk's SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns - memo

NEW YORK, United States - Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX has banned its employees from using video conferencing app Zoom, citing "significant privacy and security concerns," according to a memo seen by Reuters, days after US law enforcement warned users about the security of the popular app.

Use of Zoom and other digital communications has soared as many Americans have been ordered to stay home to slow the spread of coronavirus.

SpaceX's ban on Zoom Video Communications Inc illustrates the mounting challenges facing aerospace manufacturers as they develop technology deemed vital to national security while also trying to keep employees safe from the fast-spreading respiratory illness.

In an email dated March 28, SpaceX told employees that all access to Zoom had been disabled with immediate effect.

"We understand that many of us were using this tool for conferences and meeting support," SpaceX said in the message. "Please use email, text or phone as alternate means of communication."

Two people familiar with the matter confirmed the contents of the mail.

A representative for SpaceX, which has more than 6,000 employees, did not respond to a request for comment. Chief Executive Musk also heads electric car maker Tesla Inc.

NASA, one of SpaceX's biggest customers, also prohibits its employees from using Zoom, said Stephanie Schierholz, a spokeswoman for the US space agency.

The FBI’s Boston office on Monday issued a warning about Zoom, telling users not to make meetings on the site public or share links widely after it received two reports of unidentified individuals invading school sessions, a phenomenon known as "zoombombing."

Investigative news site The Intercept on Tuesday reported that Zoom video is not end-to-end encrypted between meeting participants, and that the company could view sessions.

Zoom did not immediately respond to requests for comment on SpaceX’s decision, but it has been advising users to use all the privacy functions on its platform.

As a defense contractor, California-based SpaceX has been classified as an essential business, allowing it to stay open through shutdowns that are in effect in California and Texas, the development and testing hub for its Starship rocket that could be used to get to the moon and Mars and send national security satellites to space. 

Reuters

Elon Musk wins defamation trial sparked by 'pedo guy' tweet

LOS ANGELES -- Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk gained a stunning legal victory on Friday as a federal court jury swiftly rejected the $190 million defamation claim brought by a British cave explorer who Musk had branded a "pedo guy" on Twitter.

The unanimous verdict by a jury of 5 women and 3 men was returned after about 45 minutes of deliberation on the fourth day of Musk's trial, which was closely watched by legal experts because it is believed to be the first major defamation lawsuit by a private individual to go to trial over tweets.

Musk, 48, who had testified during the first 2 days of the trial in his own defense and returned to court on Friday to hear closing arguments from the two sides, exited the courtroom after the verdict and said: "My faith in humanity is restored."

Outside the courthouse, cave explorer Vernon Unsworth told a throng of reporters he was resigned to his defeat. "I accept the jury's verdict, take it on the chin and get on with my life."

The case stems from a public quarrel between Musk and Unsworth, who gained fame for his leading role in coordinating the successful rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand in July 2018.

Unsworth, 64 had chided Musk in a CNN interview for delivering a mini-submarine, which was never used, to the site of the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system. Unsworth called Musk's intervention a "PR" stunt and said the high-tech entrepreneur should "stick his submarine where it hurts."

Musk responded two days later on Twitter with three posts that became the basis of the defamation case. The first questioned Unsworth's role in the rescue, while the second said, "Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it," using a slang term of pedophile.

The third tweet, in reply to a follower who asked Musk about the second tweet, said, "Bet ya a signed dollar it's true."

In closing arguments on Friday, Unsworth's lead attorney, L. Lin Wood, summed up his case by castigating Musk as a "billionaire bully" who had "dropped a nuclear bomb" on Unsworth in his Twitter blast.

Wood said Musk's "pedo guy" remark was a slur that would overshadow Unsworth's relationships and job prospects for years to come and urged jurors to teach the Tesla chief executive and SpaceX founder a lesson by awarding Unsworth $190 million, including $150 million in punitive damages.

Two days earlier, under questioning on the witness stand, Musk had estimated his net worth at $20 billion.

But the jury was apparently swayed by the arguments put forth by Musk's attorney, Alex Spiro, who said the tweets in question arose from an argument between two men and amounted to an off-hand insult that no one could be expected to take seriously.

"In arguments you insult people," he said. "There is no bomb. No bomb went off."

Spiro also said Unsworth failed to demonstrate that he suffered any harm from Musk's comments, which the South African-born businessman apologized for in court earlier in the week.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Tesla cybertruck orders near 150,000 just days after chaotic launch

LOS ANGELES, California - Tesla's new electric pickup truck has secured almost 150,000 orders, the company's chief executive Elon Musk boasted on Twitter, just two days after its big reveal went embarrassingly wrong. 

The billionaire Tesla co-founder floundered on stage in California on Thursday when the vehicle's armored glass windows cracked in a demonstration intended to prove their indestructible design.

Shares in the company plunged 6.1 percent following the truck's bumpy launch and several lackluster reviews.

But on Saturday Musk tweeted that Tesla had already received 146,000 orders from prospective owners.

"146k Cybertruck orders so far, with 42% choosing dual, 41% tri & 17% single motor," he wrote.

The demand comes despite the product receiving "no advertising & no paid endorsement".

The industrial-looking Cybertruck is covered in the same steel alloy Musk plans to use for his SpaceX Starship rocket and will be able to go from 0 to 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour in about three seconds, the Tesla chief executive claimed in his presentation.

He said the entry-level model will have a starting price of $39,900 and a 400-kilometer (250-mile) range, while a deluxe option will be able to travel twice the distance and will sell for $69,900.

No date has been given for its release, but analysts said it would not be ready before the end of 2021 at the earliest.

Its space-age design is unlikely to challenge top-selling models by Ford and other conventional car companies, analysts warn. 

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Virgin Galactic becomes first space tourism company to land on Wall Street

NEW YORK -- Virgin Galactic landed on Wall Street Monday, debuting its listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in a first for a space tourism company.

Founder Richard Branson appeared on the floor of the NYSE to ring a bell marking the beginning of trading, as fireworks jetted behind him.

"We have pioneered several space milestones, including sending our chief astronaut trainer as the first passenger to space on a commercial spaceship," Virgin Galactic said on Twitter.

"Today, we tick off another first -- now anyone can invest in the future of space."

The company, which will trade under the initials SPCE, ended down 0.34 percent at $11.75, with a valuation of $969 million.

Virgin Galactic joined the NYSE after merging with Social Capital Hedosophia, which was already listed. This allowed it to skip the formal IPO process and bring in $450 million.

Founded in 2004, Virgin Galactic has spent years developing its space program, and after a fatal accident in 2014, has twice crossed the barrier into the final frontier.

The company plans to offer weightless flights to six passengers at a time, at $250,000 (225,750 euros) a ticket for the first customers from the Summer of 2020, though it has yet to begin commercial launches. 

The client-astronauts will be able to float around the ship's cabin and look out of portholes to see the curvature of the Earth, all while surrounded by the blackness of space. 

More than 600 people have already signed up for the journey.

Branson is joined in the new space race by Blue Origin, founded by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, which wants to offer clients a few minutes of weightlessness aboard a small rocket that takes off vertically.

Tesla's Elon Musk has founded SpaceX, with an eye on long-range space travel.

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Tesla drops cheapest Model X, S variants, cuts prices to simplify lineup

BEIJING - Tesla Inc has dropped the standard-range variants of its Model X and Model S from its product lineup and adjusted prices across its range, in a sales push that comes days after the US electric vehicle maker reported record deliveries.

To simplify its offerings, the automaker on Tuesday limited variants of its Model X sport-utility vehicle and Model S sedan to "Long Range" and the more expensive "Performance." It also trimmed the price of its now entry-level Long Range variants.

The discontinuation of the standard-range variants, however, means a rise in starting prices - to $84,990 for the Model X and $79,990 for the Model S, excluding potential buying incentives.

Tesla also lowered the starting price of its mass-market Model 3 to $38,990.

"To make purchasing our vehicles even simpler, we are standardizing our global vehicle lineup and streamlining the number of trim packages offered for Model S, Model X and Model 3," Tesla said in a statement.

"We are also adjusting our pricing in order to continue to improve affordability for customers."

Earlier this month, Tesla said global deliveries of its three models in the second quarter of this year rose 51 percent from the previous quarter to a record 95,200 vehicles. The Model 3 accounted for about 80 percent of the total, underscoring the vehicle's role as the linchpin of Tesla's growth strategy.

The automaker said it expected production and deliveries to continue growing in Q3.

In China, the world's largest market for electric vehicles, Tesla's changes on Tuesday pushed the starting price of its Model X to 790,900 yuan ($115,068) and Model S to 776,900 yuan.

Tesla is building a factory in Shanghai where it initially plans to build Model 3 cars. It is taking orders for those China-made versions, which have a starting price of 328,000 yuan.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Twitter's Jack Dorsey is tech's foremost 'manfluencer

Young men are staggering around, hungry for days. They are throwing themselves into ice baths and cryotherapy pods. There are not enough beds at the silent vegan meditation centers to accommodate them. They need more near-infrared bulbs.

They are the followers of Jack Dorsey, Silicon Valley’s answer to the mega-influencer Gwyneth Paltrow. The lithe, 42-year-old tech founder has become a one-man Goop.

“In terms of influence, no one is at the scale of Jack,” said Geoffrey Woo, whose startup, HVMN, sells fasting tools (like a liquid ketone supplement). He also heads up WeFast, an online support network for intermittent fasters.

It’s unlikely that Dorsey can embrace his wellness guru role as fully as Paltrow. He is already the chief executive of both the payments platform Square (valued at $30 billion) and Twitter (valued at $26 billion). As Twitter’s head, he spends his days navigating issues around free speech for white supremacists, online abuse and the spread of terrorist propaganda, all while facing a deluge of criticism from everyone (including the American president).

Still, Dorsey finds time for himself. For 10 days a year, he sits in silence at a meditation retreat. Before getting dressed each morning, he experiments with using his home infrared sauna and then an ice bath, sometimes cycling through both several times before he leaves home. He walks 5 miles to work. He eats one meal a day and has said that on the weekends when he fasts from Friday to Saturday, “time slows down.”

He talks about starting each morning with salt juice — water mixed with Himalayan salt and lemon. It is dispensed in Twitter offices around the world.

The tech world has two main personalities with cults: Dorsey and his foil, Elon Musk. Followers of Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, are drawn to his brash hypermasculinity and angry tweets — his memes, rockets and flamethrowers.

Musk’s fans see him as a model of aggressive optimism. They swarm critics on Twitter and form Tesla Motor clubs. Some call themselves Musketeers, and there are quite a few Musk-themed tattoos posted to message boards.

He is the billionaire doing the things a billionaire in movies does. His hair has gotten thicker and his arms buffer. He dated a pop star and smoked pot on a podcast.

Dorsey, in comparison, seems to be having less fun.

He is very thin. He looks paler than usual. His beard is longer. The lines on his face have deepened, and he can seem to disappear in one of those high-end, overly long T-shirts. But to his followers, this monastic, pensive leader is a better direction for Silicon Valley. And while Musk’s acolytes seek to mirror an attitude, Dorsey’s have an 11-point lifestyle plan.

Just as an endorsement from Paltrow can make even the most spurious self-help objects instantly covetable, an endorsement from Dorsey can put products out of stock for weeks.

“We’re just really glad he’s spreading the message,” said Harpreet Rai, the chief executive of Oura Ring, which makes a sleep tracking device Dorsey endorsed.

Brian Richards, the founder of SaunaSpace, also owes something to the Twitter founder’s words. His company makes “Personal Near-Infrared Sauna” equipment. (A near-infrared sauna heats by pointing incandescent lights at you.) Its latest product is a Faraday tent, of sorts, that purports to block electromagnetic transmissions — creating “your very own EMF-free ancestral space.” Richards said his company had never been mentioned in the national press until Dorsey started talking about his personal SaunaSpace sauna on a fitness podcast, and now his products are back-ordered by a month.

“The demand’s been insane,” Richards said. “He legitimizes it. He’s a true believer. And now people are like, ‘Hey, if this guy’s doing it, maybe there’s something to it.’”

To Richards, who is based in Columbia, Missouri, it makes sense that Dorsey’s tech followers would find these saunas and become one of his biggest consumer bases.

“An EMF-blocking Faraday sauna is really the only escape these people have from electromagnetic stress,” Richards said. (Though a study of middle-aged and older Finnish men indicates that their health benefited from saunas, there have been no major studies conducted of “Faraday saunas.”)

Those who run meditation centers, especially those running the specific type Dorsey endorses, Vipassana, are seeing booming wait-lists. A recent silent meditation retreat at Spirit Rock near San Francisco was completely full, with about 100 attendees — plus 603 people on the wait-list.

And the new meditators are very young. Since 2013, the number of retreatants between ages 18 and 29 has tripled.

Rachel Uris, the center’s director of development, said she is now getting startup employees who want to come as a group.

“It’s not just one person going on retreats anymore,” she said. “We are in this moment where CEOs are saying, ‘I’m seeing this as a really important tool that can enrich the work experience.’”

Spirit Rock is now expanding.

Many of the activities Dorsey endorses are not inherently fun, and so his personal seal of approval makes a big difference.

“It’s such a strange service — who wants to be in the cold? You need to hear about it from someone you trust,” said Michael Garrett, the head of Reboot, a spa that offers cryotherapy around the Bay Area. (Cryotherapy is when you make yourself get cold.) “And now people are getting their information from CEOs. That’s where the culture is going. Dorsey’s a successful guy. So you listen.”

He said the cold therapy gives him a high, as blood rushes to his head and chest, and he believes practitioners are addicted. “I’m addicted straight up, it’s a high and I love it,” Garrett said.

No community has embraced Dorsey as their guru more than the fasters, who spend days on end just not eating. Dorsey’s very public endorsements of this movement have led to criticism that he is endorsing eating disorders.

The WeFast community, started in 2015, now has around 25,000 members across its closed Slack and Facebook groups. They share about fasting and their blood ketone levels. There is also a private WhatsApp group for Silicon Valley power players who fast.

“We just grew up expecting three meals a day plus snacks. But why? Why does that exist?” Woo asked on a recent day at the HVMN office. Various ketone supplements were scattered around the tables.

While health trends have historically been set by Los Angeles, with people obsessing over an actor’s workout or skin routine, Woo argues that in the current economy, following the habits of a tech CEO like Dorsey makes more sense.

“In LA, there’s an economic value in appearing good, being physically strong, but we’re not physical laborers anymore. I’m not a farmer,” Woo said. “Now we need to optimize for cognitive performance and intellectual labor.”

The movement has grown so fast now, Woo has had to begin warning people not to obsess on Dorsey too much. Just as Paltrow’s Goop was fined $145,000 for claims about jade eggs, Woo cautions that even Silicon Valley’s guru can let his eccentricities go beyond science.

“People should slow down and understand what they’re trying to optimize for before just following Jack,” Woo said. “You don’t want to be in a cargo cult type thing.”


2019 New York Times News Service

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Uncensored on Twitter, Elon Musk draws ire of US regulators

NEW YORK - Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk is a prolific user of Twitter, and a federal judge on Thursday urged him to settle contempt allegations brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over one of his tweets.

The SEC accused Musk of violating his Oct. 2018 fraud settlement with the regulator by posting an Feb. 19 update about Tesla's production outlook without first getting required approval from lawyers for the electric car maker.

Musk countered that the tweet contained nothing new and did not need advance approval.

US District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan gave Musk and the SEC two weeks to work out their differences before she rules.

The following is a sampling of some of Musk's more notable posts on Twitter, where he has more than 25.6 million followers.

"Tesla made 0 cars in 2011, but will make around 500k in 2019." -- Feb. 19, 2019. The tweet that prompted the SEC contempt motion. Musk has said the tweet merely restated outlook he provided on a Jan. 30, 2019 conference call, when he said production "may be on the order of 350,000 to 500,000 Model 3s, something like that this year."

"Just want to that the Shortseller Enrichment Commission is doing incredible work. And the name change is so on point!" -- Oct. 4, 2018. Musk was attacking both the SEC and short-sellers by renaming the regulator just one week after being sued over the "funding secured" tweet. Twelve days after this tweet, he and Tesla reached their settlement with the SEC.

"Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." -- Aug. 7, 2018. The tweet that prompted the SEC lawsuit. Musk was not close to taking Tesla private, and had not lined up financing. Tesla's share price traded as much as 13.3 percent higher following the tweet, which occurred during market hours. Musk tweeted on Aug. 24, 2018 that Tesla would remain public.

"They have about three weeks before their short position explodes" -- June 17, 2018. Musk frequently uses Twitter to attack short-sellers betting that Tesla's share price will go down. He was responding to a tweet suggesting that short-sellers were "freaking out" about suspected problems on Tesla's production line.

"Despite intense efforts to raise money, including a last-ditch mass sale of Easter Eggs, we are sad to report that Tesla has gone completely and totally bankrupt. So bankrupt, you can't believe it." -- April 1, 2018. Some investors appeared to believe it. A day after the April Fool's Day prank, Tesla's share price fell 5.1 percent.

"When the zombie apocalypse happens, you’ll be glad you bought a flamethrower. Works against hordes of the undead or your money back!" -- Jan. 27, 2018. Musk's Boring Co sold flamethrowers and hats to raise funds to build underground tunnels for its hyperloop transportation project.

"I've talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited." -- July 25, 2017. Musk was targeting Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who had downplayed Musk's warnings about the danger of artificial intelligence.

"A little red wine, vintage record, some Ambien ... and magic!" -- June 6, 2017. In an interview with the New York Times in August 2018, Musk said he takes Ambien and was having problems sleeping because of stress from his job.

"The rumor that I'm building a spaceship to get back to my home planet Mars is totally untrue" -- March 12, 2015. Musk has said he wanted his company SpaceX to develop a rocket capable of an unpiloted trip to Mars in 2022, with a crewed flight two years later.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Elon Musk's Tesla adds 'Model Y' SUV to line-up

HAWTHORNE, California -- Tesla introduced a new electric sports utility vehicle slightly bigger and more expensive than its Model 3, pitched as an electric car for the masses.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk showed off the "Model Y" late Thursday at the company's design studio in the southern California city of Hawthorne, and the company began taking orders online.

The all-electric Model Y has a starting price of $39,000 for a version with a 230-mile (370-kilometer) range. A long-range version of the SUV capable of traveling 300 miles (483 kilometers) on a single charge was priced at $47,000.

Deliveries were expected to begin late next year for the higher-priced Model Y vehicles, with the standard-range version likely get to buyers by spring of 2021, according to Tesla.

Musk said the Model Y has "the functionality of an SUV but it will ride like a sports car" accelerating from stand-still to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds.

Model Y featured a "panoramic glass roof" and could seat seven people, according to Musk.

Entry-level SUVs are a hot segment of the vehicle market.

"Even though the Model Y will debut with promises of grandeur, if there are any chinks in Tesla’s brand armor, this vehicle will expose them," said Edmunds executive director of industry analysis Jessica Caldwell.

"Tesla is about to learn exactly what it means to go head-to-head with the German automakers."

While Tesla has a devoted fan base, with people at the Thursday event shouting enthusiastically for Musk, the Model Y will be competing with attractive SUVs that titans such as BMW, Mercedes and Audi are bringing to market, according to Caldwell.

POSSIBLE TURNING POINT

The latest addition to the Tesla line-up comes shortly after the California-based company rolled out its lowest-priced Model 3, an electric car designed for the masses, at a base price of $35,000, with deliveries promised in one month.

At that price, the Model 3 is less than half the cost of most Tesla on the road and may be eligible for tax incentives which could further lower ownership costs.

"If Tesla truly wants to be a mainstream brand, it's going to have to figure out how to sell cars to people besides young men in California," Caldwell said.

Tesla has a sound foundation for the Model Y to be a "turning point," since it has an enviably young base of buyers for a luxury brand and the Model X has had strong appeal to women, according to Caldwell.

The new vehicles suggest Tesla has been able to overcome production bottlenecks to ramp up production to meet demand, and moving toward Musk's goal of making electric vehicles widely available.

Tesla this week reversed course on its decision to move most of its sales online, saying it will keep many of its showrooms open -- but will need to hike prices to do so.

Tesla made the announcement on Feb. 28 that it would begin selling its mass-market Model 3 at the promised $35,000 price, and close most of its retail locations to cut costs.

But the company said that after review, it had decided to keep some of its showrooms, although the specifics were not disclosed.

Tesla said the price hikes would start on March 18 for "the more expensive variants of Model 3, as well as Model S and X."

"To be clear, all sales worldwide will still be done online, in that potential Tesla owners coming in to stores will simply be shown how to order a Tesla on their phone in a few minutes," the statement added.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Tesla gets $520 million funding for first Chinese plant

SHANGHAI, China - Electric carmaker Tesla has won more than $520 million in loans from Chinese banks to build its first overseas car plant near Shanghai, the first foreign automaker to wholly own a factory in China.

The funding, announced on Thursday, is an important boost for the California-based firm, which has been in negotiations with Beijing for years over building the plant in the world's biggest electric car market.

The US giant will make its Model 3 sedans at the factory -- initially targeting 3,000 cars a week before ramping up annual production to 500,000 -- which it plans to have operational by the end of the year.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk was in China in January for the groundbreaking of the factory, where he said he planned to approach local banks for the money to get the plant built and into production.

Musk is betting on China's growing market for electric cars as Beijing pushes the industry away from fossil fuel vehicles.

Manufacturing locally is expected to help Tesla avoid some of the impact of trade tensions between the US and China, as well as reduce its production costs.

According to a regulatory filing, Tesla has secured $521 million from 4 domestic banks -- the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the Chinese Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, and the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

Tesla shares rose more than 2 percent in after-hours New York trading.

China is by far the world's biggest car market and sales there have been on an upwards trajectory for years, although they slipped 2.8 percent in 2018.

Sales of electric vehicles and hybrids have meanwhile continued to swell -- jumping 62 percent last year -- but only make up just four percent of overall sales in China.

Tesla remains in the lead, but is followed by three Chinese brands -- BAIC, BYD and Zotye -- according to analysis provider Jato Dynamics.

(Bloomberg News contributed to this story)

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