Yaccarino hired as Twitter CEO
Musk announces that Yaccarino, who was previously head of advertising and partnerships for NBCUniversal, will take over from him as Twitter CEO.
I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter! @LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology. Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app.
I am excited to welcome Linda Yaccarino as the new CEO of Twitter!@LindaYacc will focus primarily on business operations, while I focus on product design & new technology.
Looking forward to working with Linda to transform this platform into X, the everything app. https://t.co/TiSJtTWuky
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 12, 2023
Musk announces Twitter CEO hire
Musk says he has found a new CEO for Twitter, a woman who will start in six week’s time. Musk does not revealed her identity. Musk says he will become CTO.
Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks! My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.
Excited to announce that I’ve hired a new CEO for X/Twitter. She will be starting in ~6 weeks!
My role will transition to being exec chair & CTO, overseeing product, software & sysops.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2023
Tesla to ‘cooperate’ with Samsung in IT development
Musk meets for the first time with Jay Y. Lee, Executive Chairman of Samsung Electronics, during Lee’s visit to the United States, to discuss ways Tesla and Samsung can work together in future high-tech industries, such as semiconductors for autonomous vehicles.
Musk breaks ground at Tesla lithium refinery
Joined by Governor Abbott (R), Musk breaks ground at the site of the Tesla’s $375 million lithium refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas, after arriving in a Cybertruck with shovels strapped to the sides. Tesla says the facility will help it secure a domestic supply of lithium hydroxide, a key ingredient used to make its batteries. Musk says the availability of battery-grade lithium is a “fundamental chokepoint” for the electric vehicle industry and others. Tesla aims to produce enough battery-grade lithium at the refinery to manufacture one million vehicles per year, and to produce more lithium than the rest of North America’s refining capacity combined there.
Tesla promises it will use an “innovative” process, designed to consume less hazardous reagents, such as hydrochloric acid, and create “beneficial use opportunities” from byproducts, which they expect to be mostly sand and limestone. However, the company did not disclose the specific chemistry it would rely upon for processing. Musk:
There’s no toxic emissions or anything — you could live right in the middle of the refinery and not suffer any ill effects.
Abbott praises Musk as the greatest entrepreneur on Earth, saying:
Texas wants to be able to be self-reliant, not dependent upon any foreign hostile nation for what we need.
Increasing lithium refining capacity is critical to a sustainable energy economy—today, we're breaking ground on our in-house lithium refinery outside of Corpus Christi, TX.
This facility will also prioritize the elimination of a challenging refinery byproduct (sodium sulfate).… pic.twitter.com/mBnDBLNrW7
— Tesla (@Tesla) May 8, 2023
Twitter down to 1000 employees
Twitter downsizes to only 1,000 employees, including about 500 engineers, about 90% less than worked for the platform just before Musk took over. One employee states, “performance reviews are constant,” leading to frequent firings with little to no explanation given and causing remaining workers scramble to meet demands. Even before the slash, hundreds of workers had already left. Musk:
The issue is like the company’s going to go bankrupt if we do not cut costs immediately. This is not a caring, uncaring situation. It’s like if the whole ship sinks then nobody’s got a job.
Tesla stock drops nearly 10% over continued price cuts
Tesla stock (TSLA) drops nearly 10%, nearly $50 billion in market capitalisation, after Musk says the electric vehicle manufacturer will keep cutting prices in a bid to drive up demand in a weak economy. Focusing on sales growth rather than immediate profit, Musk said:
We’ve taken a view that pushing for higher volumes and a larger fleet is the right choice here versus a lower volume and a higher margin.
With this drop, Tesla’s market capitalization ending below Meta Platforms’ for the first time since 2021.
Musk launches X.AI
Musk launches X.AI, an artificial intelligence company. The company, incorporated in Nevada in March, has Musk as its director and Jared Birchall, the director of Musk’s family office, listed as its secretary. Musk plans for the firm to compete with the Microsoft-backed OpenAI. Musk reportedly sought funding from SpaceX and Tesla investors to get the company started. The X.AI name matches the branding of the X Corp. name he has since assigned to Twitter, along with the ‘X’ label he’s applied to his vision of an “everything app.”
Soros sells all Tesla holdings
Soros Fund Management, the family office of George Soros, sells its entire stake in Tesla. This includes stock as well as $35 million of convertible bonds. Soros bought the bonds in 2018 and the stock in 2022. When he purchased the latter, Tesla shares averaged $274, but at the time of sale they average just $173.
Neuralink in talks with brain implant surgery company
Neuralink is in talks with Barrow Neurological Institute, which has helped standardize brain implant surgeries in which the patient can remain asleep, as a potential partner. There are unverified reports that the company is also speaking with other centers.
Twitter source code posted to GitHub
Part of Twitter’s source code is posted on GitHub but has been taken down when Twitter requested its removal. In the takedown request, Twitter said an account called ‘FreeSpeechEnthusiast’ had infringed copyrights owned by the company, and asked for information that could identify the owner of the account. GitHub:
GitHub does not generally comment on decisions to remove content. However, in the interest of transparency, we share every DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] takedown request publicly
ARK sells $27m Tesla stock, buys Coinbase
ARK Investment Management’s Cathy Wood sells off $26.84 million of Tesla (TSLA) stock, at a closing price of $192.22, buying shares of Coinbase (COIN) instead. For a total of 139,642 TSLA shares, Wood’s firm sold 119,630 from its ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) and 20,012 from the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW).
Saudi, Abu Dhabi companies to invest in SpaceX
An Abu Dhabi-based company and a unit of Saudi Arabia’s investment fund plan to invest in a multi-billion dollar funding round for SpaceX. The round is reportedly expected to value Musk’s company at about $140 billion.
Musk buys land for own town
Musk’s companies are reportedly buying land in Texas with the hope of incorporating their own town, where employees can live and work. The town is to be called Snailbrook, an apparent reference to the mascot of Musk’s tunneling firm, the Boring Company. Snailbrook reportedly includes plans to build more than 100 homes, as well as neighborhood features such as a pool and outdoor sports area.
Musk incorporates X.AI
0 0 Mark Devlin Mark Devlin2023-04-17 16:22:562023-04-17 16:22:56Musk incorporates X.AIARK buys more Tesla stock
ARK buys 69,356 Tesla shares, adding to the 1.3 million shares the firm purchased in December and January. This latest purchase adds about $12.6 million to ARK’s holdings in the electric vehicle company, based on the stock’s (TSLA) current market value.
Musk’s cost-cutting hurts Goldman Sachs
Musk’s “cost-cutting exercise” contributes to a rapid growth in delinquencies of commercial real estate loans for Goldman Sachs. After Musk’s attempt to avoid taking over Twitter, he began seeking ways to cut costs, which included not paying rent. Now, Twitter’s landlord, Columbia Property, is suing and defaulted on its loan from Goldman Sachs as a result. (Goldman Sachs was part of a group of banks that provided $1.7 billion in loans to Columbia Property. The loan was secured against seven office buildings in San Francisco and New York, two of which accommodate large Twitter offices.)
Massive Twitter outage
Many users find they cannot tweet, retweet, quote tweet and direct message on Twitter, with users recieving messages such as:
You are over the daily limit for sending tweets
Some users could not access their direct message, with the tab only showing the message “something went wrong.”
Musk sends a brief email to Twitter staff, instructing them to “pause new feature development” in order to ensure “system stability and robustness”.
Twitter may not be working as expected for some of you. Sorry for the trouble. We're aware and working to get this fixed.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) February 8, 2023
Report: Twitter has 180,000 US subscribers
According to The Information, only 180,000 people in the US have paid for a Twitter Blue subscription, 0.2% of the website’s monthly active users. The publication said it saw the information on a document that also revealed that 62% company’s paying users reside in the US, meaning Twitter has approximately 290,000 subscribers worldwide. Musk told Twitter employees last year that he wants half of the website’s revenue to come from subscriptions. One avenue the company is considering to earn more from its subscription services is to offer a higher-priced membership tier that allows users to browse the website with zero ads.
Tesla lost $140m on Bitcoin in 2022
According to SEC filings, Tesla lost $140m on its Bitcoin investments in 2022, losing $204m overall, although it gained back $64m through trading. The company holds $184m in Bitcoin, having offloaded most of its initial £1.5 billion purchase a few weeks after it was purchased in early 2021.
Musk denies Twitter use hurts Tesla, expects share price recovery
On an Earnings Call with investors [transcript], Musk rejects that his political influencing on Twitter is hurting Tesla’s brand.
Since Elon started political influencing, polls from Morning Consult & YouGov show Tesla brand favorability declining in 2022 and division along partisan lines. Such brand damage can impact demand. Does Tesla track favorability and how will any brand damage be mitigated?
Musk replies by citing his own popularity on Twitter:
Well, let me check my Twitter account (pause as he appears to actually pull out his phone). So I got 127 million followers and it continues to grow rapidly. That suggests that I’m reasonably popular. Now I might not be popular with some people, but for the vast majority of people, my follower count speaks for itself. I have the most interacted social account maybe in the world – certainly on Twitter.
And then talking about his impact on the brand:
I think Twitter is actually an incredibly powerful tool for driving demand for Tesla…I would really encourage companies out there of all kinds, automotive or otherwise, to make more use of Twitter and to use their Twitter accounts in ways that are interesting and informative, entertaining, and it will help them drive sales just as it has with Tesla.
Musk says he expects Tesla’s share price to recover over the long-term, though warned that he anticipated a “pretty difficult recession” in 2023 which could lead to setbacks.
We think demand will be good despite, probably, a contraction in the automotive market as a whole…There’s going to be bumps along the way and we’ll probably have a pretty difficult recession this year, probably. I hope not, but probably.
