Elon Musk’s Politics May Be Pushing Some Buyers Away From Tesla
The Tesla chief executive’s polarizing statements have alienated some potential customers and may be partly responsible for a recent slump in sales.
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![As Elon Musk’s public persona has become increasingly right wing, Tesla appears to be paying a price in lost sales.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/static01.nyt.com/images/2024/07/02/multimedia/02musk-views-mzkf/02musk-views-mzkf-thumbLarge.jpg?auto=webp)
![As Elon Musk’s public persona has become increasingly right wing, Tesla appears to be paying a price in lost sales.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/static01.nyt.com/images/2024/07/02/multimedia/02musk-views-mzkf/02musk-views-mzkf-threeByTwoMediumAt2X.jpg?auto=webp)
The Tesla chief executive’s polarizing statements have alienated some potential customers and may be partly responsible for a recent slump in sales.
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The vote on the compensation package, which helped make Mr. Musk one of the richest men in the world, served as a referendum on his performance running the automaker.
By Lily Boyce and
About 72 percent of shares in the balloting affirmed the chief executive’s lucrative stock award. The company hopes to get a court to reinstate it.
By Jason Karaian and
The vote was seen as a referendum on his management of the electric car maker and on the limits of executive pay.
By Jack Ewing and
Tesla Share Price Is Its Own Referendum on Musk
A huge run-up in the stock’s value followed a 2018 vote on Elon Musk’s compensation package. But investors have recently become less enamored.
By Peter Eavis and
Musk’s Friends and Fans Applaud Shareholder Vote on His Payday
On the social media platform X, which Mr. Musk owns, reactions to a vote that reaffirmed Mr. Musk’s $45 billion package were buoyant.
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At X Staff Meetings, Executives Talk Up Return of Advertisers
Still, Elon Musk, who owns the platform, and his chief executive Linda Yaccarino, have work to do to grow the business, leaders told employees.
By Kate Conger and
SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Successfully Completes 1st Return From Space
The company achieved a key set of ambitious goals on the fourth test flight of a vehicle that is central to Elon Musk’s vision of sending people to Mars.
By
SpaceX Is Sued by Employees Fired After Criticizing Musk
The eight workers say they were wrongfully fired after circulating a memo raising concerns about sexual harassment at the rocket company led by Elon Musk.
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Funding for A.I. firms made up nearly half the $56 billion in U.S. start-up financing from April to June, according to PitchBook.
By Erin Griffith
The billionaire met with senior brand executives at the Cannes Lions advertising festival this week, after crudely telling them off last year.
By Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ravi Mattu, Bernhard Warner, Sarah Kessler, Michael J. de la Merced, Lauren Hirsch and Ephrat Livni
Investors voted overwhelmingly to reinstate the C.E.O.’s multibillion-dollar compensation package, inextricably tying the car maker’s future to the tech billionaire.
By Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ravi Mattu, Bernhard Warner, Sarah Kessler, Michael J. de la Merced, Lauren Hirsch and Ephrat Livni
“They really sort of make you feel like it’s Christmas and Coachella at the same time.”
By Kevin Roose, Casey Newton, Rachel Cohn, Whitney Jones, Jen Poyant, Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop, Marion Lozano, Rowan Niemisto and Corey Schreppel
Tesla mechanics in Sweden have been striking for six months with little movement from their employer. Nordic shareholders hope to change that.
By Melissa Eddy
The vote is seen as a referendum on the limits of executive pay and the accountability of Silicon Valley billionaires.
By Jack Ewing and Peter Eavis
The Tesla chief executive had claimed that the A.I. start-up put profits and commercial interests ahead of benefiting humanity.
By Cade Metz
Tesla shareholders must reject the chief executive’s unorthodox compensation package to help turn him back into the visionary we need to fight climate change.
By J. Bradford DeLong
The company has lobbied to reinstate the package awarded to Musk six years ago — now worth about $56 billion — after a Delaware judge voided it.
By Michael J. de la Merced and Sarah Kessler
With new executive pay disclosures, the big picture is still riches at the top and lagging wages for most of the rank-and-file, our columnist says.
By Jeff Sommer
Elon Musk’s giant rocket, which launched from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, survived re-entry on its fourth test flight.
By Reuters
Readers counter his supporters’ criticism of the verdict and cite his history of fraudulent behavior. Also: A plea for shorter campaigns; inaction on guns; Elon Musk.
El sistema Starlink de Elon Musk ha conectado a los marubo, un pueblo indígena aislado del mundo exterior. También lo ha dividido.
By Jack Nicas and Victor Moriyama
Elon Musk’s Starlink has connected an isolated tribe to the outside world — and divided it from within.
By Jack Nicas and Victor Moriyama
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Since September, the Marubo, an isolated Amazon tribe, were connected to high-speed internet through Elon Musk’s Starlink. Jack Nicas, The New York Times’s Brazil bureau chief, visited the tribe’s remote Indigenous villages to see what the internet has changed for them.
By Jack Nicas, Rebecca Suner and James Surdam
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, announced last Sunday that it had raised $6 billion, which would go toward developing new products and research and development efforts.
By Santul Nerkar
The Tesla chief executive is taking to his social media company to press shareholders to vote for a critical pay package on June 13.
By Kate Conger and Jack Ewing
The social media platform will produce video town halls with Mr. Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., extending its push into politics.
By Kate Conger
At a time when the U.S. government is concerned about its reliance on a mercurial billionaire for access to space, new competitors say Elon Musk’s SpaceX is using tactics intended to squash them.
By Eric Lipton
Elon Musk, who founded xAI last year, has said the business “still has a lot of catching up to do” as it looks to compete with well-funded companies like OpenAI.
By Jason Karaian
A litigation team built from the sharpest, funniest tweeters is suing Elon Musk.
By John Leland
“Did you ever think we would have a literal Avenger fighting back against the relentless march of A.I.? Because that’s sort of what this story is about.”
By Kevin Roose, Casey Newton, Rachel Cohn, Whitney Jones, Jen Poyant, Alyssa Moxley, Dan Powell, Marion Lozano and Rowan Niemisto
The billionaire owner of X has increasingly been using his social media platform to criticize President Biden for his health and immigration policies, according to a New York Times analysis.
By Kate Conger and Ryan Mac
To some, Elon Musk has given Brownsville, Texas, a reason for being, a future. To others, he’s a colonizer, flirting with white nationalists online while exploiting a predominantly brown work force.
By Christopher Hooks and Mike Osborne
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Russia has deployed advanced tech to interfere with Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, Ukrainian officials said, leading to more outages on the northern front battle line.
By Paul Mozur and Adam Satariano
Elon Musk’s first human experiment with a computerized brain device developed significant flaws, but the subject, who is paralyzed, has few regrets.
By Christina Jewett
Nicole Shanahan, a lawyer who was married to Sergey Brin, a Google founder, led a rarefied and sometimes turbulent life in Silicon Valley, according to a Times examination.
By Kirsten Grind
Elon Musk ha creado una constelación de jefes de Estado aliados —Javier Milei en Argentina, Narendra Modi en India— para impulsar sus políticas y expandir su imperio empresarial.
By Ryan Mac, Jack Nicas and Alex Travelli
Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder at the artificial intelligence start-up and one of the world’s leading researchers, is out, and Sam Altman’s control looks firmer than ever.
By Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ravi Mattu, Bernhard Warner, Sarah Kessler, Michael J. de la Merced, Lauren Hirsch and Ephrat Livni
Mr. Musk has built a constellation of like-minded heads of state — including Argentina’s Javier Milei and India’s Narendra Modi — to push his own politics and expand his business empire.
By Ryan Mac, Jack Nicas and Alex Travelli
El empresario multimillonario y los republicanos de la Cámara de Representantes han dado nueva vida al expresidente Jair Bolsonaro al atacar al Supremo Tribunal Federal de Brasil.
By Jack Nicas
The billionaire businessman and House Republicans have given new life to former President Jair Bolsonaro by attacking Brazil’s Supreme Court.
By Jack Nicas
The automaker led by Elon Musk is no longer planning to take the lead in expanding the number of places to fuel electric vehicles. It’s not clear how quickly other companies will fill the gap.
By Jack Ewing and Ivan Penn
The carmaker dismissed 500 employees in a unit that was critical to its success and seen as important to the future of electric vehicle sales in the United States.
By Jack Ewing
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The Cybertruck looks edgy, that’s for sure, but it has serious problems.
By Elizabeth Spiers
Elon Musk met with the country’s premier, a longtime Tesla ally, and secured regulatory nods and a necessary partnership with a Chinese tech company.
By Keith Bradsher and Jack Ewing
The National Highway Safety Administration also released an analysis of crashes involving the system that showed at least 29 fatal accidents over five and a half years.
By J. Edward Moreno
“A clock is ticking on one of America’s most famous apps.”
By Kevin Roose, Casey Newton, Davis Land, Rachel Cohn, Whitney Jones, Jen Poyant, Alyssa Moxley, Dan Powell, Marion Lozano and Rowan Niemisto
Mr. Musk’s defiance over removing content is testing the boundaries of international legal systems.
By Kate Conger
The first-quarter results are likely to fuel worries that competitors will continue grabbing a bigger slice of a market dealing with slowing electric car sales.
By Jack Ewing
The world is not always kind to visionaries with self-control issues.
By Peter Coy
La empresa corre el riesgo de rezagarse en la industria que ayudó a crear. ¿Qué pasaría si eso sucede?
By David Gelles
The company’s directors are asking shareholders to again approve the multibillion-dollar compensation plan and to move the company’s registration to Texas, from Delaware.
By Jack Ewing
And what would that mean for the climate?
DAVID GELLES
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Along with the departure of two senior executives, the cuts added to signs of turmoil at the electric car company.
By Jack Ewing
Mr. Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, has turned off many people with polarizing remarks on social media, and it may be affecting the automaker’s sales.
By Jack Ewing
Elon Musk’s factory in China saved his company and made him ultrarich. Now, it may backfire.
By Katrin Bennhold, Mara Hvistendahl, Rikki Novetsky, Mooj Zadie, Rachelle Bonja, Lisa Chow, Alexandra Leigh Young, Marion Lozano, Diane Wong, Elisheba Ittoop, Sophia Lanman and Chris Wood
It’s about taxes — and a false belief in their own impunity.
By Paul Krugman
President Biden wants companies that use American airspace for rocket launches to start paying taxes into a federal fund that finances the work of air traffic controllers.
By Minho Kim
Futurists and the future-curious, including Seth Meyers and Darren Aronofsky, attended a screening in New York City for a new PBS documentary.
By Madison Malone Kircher and Nina Westervelt
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