KEY POINTS



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Twitter’s stock plummeted 18% in premarket trading following the initial announcement, but trimmed some losses after the second tweet.</li><li>Musk announced last month that he intends to buy Twitter for $44 billion.</li><li>He’s tweeted that one of his main priorities would be to remove “spam bots” from the platform.</li></ul>



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/elon-musk/">Elon Musk</a>&nbsp;announced Friday that his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/TWTR" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Twitter</a>&nbsp;deal is on hold until he receives more information about how many fake accounts there are on the social media platform.



In a follow-up tweet around two hours later, Musk added that he was “still committed to the acquisition.”



Twitter’s stock plummeted 18% in premarket trading following the initial announcement, but trimmed some losses after the second tweet. A spokesperson for the social media company did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/TSLA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tesla</a>&nbsp;CEO Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/elon-musk-offers-to-buy-twitter-for-54point20-a-share-saying-it-needs-to-be-transformed-as-private-company.html">announced last month</a>&nbsp;that he intends to buy Twitter for $44 billion and he’s previously tweeted that one of his main priorities would be to remove “spam bots” from the platform.



Even before Friday’s announcement, the company’s market value had fallen to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/12/twitter-market-cap-has-dropped-to-9-billion-below-musk-purchase-price.html">$9 billion beneath the offer price due to concerns about the deal.</a>



Musk, who is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/05/elon-musk-expected-to-serve-as-temporary-twitter-ceo-after-deal-closes.html">expected to serve as Twitter’s temporary CEO</a> if the deal goes ahead, would have to pay a $1 billion breakup fee should <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/26/elon-musk-will-owe-twitter-1-billion-if-he-cant-secure-financing.html">he choose to walk away</a>. Musk is worth more than $220 billion.



Twitter estimated in a filing earlier this month that fewer than 5% of its monetizable daily active users during the first quarter were bots or spam accounts.



Musk, who is the world’s richest person on paper, now wants the company to confirm this before he continues with the deal, which is being partly funded by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.



The San Francisco-headquartered social media company said in the filing that it had 229 million users in the first quarter who were served advertising.



On Tuesday,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/10/elon-musk-says-he-would-lift-twitter-ban-on-donald-trump-after-deal-closes.html">Musk said</a>&nbsp;that he would lift Twitter’s ban on former President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/donald-trump/">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;if he takes over the company.



“Permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots, or scam, spam accounts … I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump,” Musk said at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/50d2861e-fdeb-487c-b052-f2021558e87d" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FT Live’s Future of the Car conference</a>. “I think that was a mistake, because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice.”



Earlier this month,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/05/bill-gates-says-elon-musk-could-make-twitter-worse.html">Bill Gates warned</a>&nbsp;that Musk could make&nbsp;Twitter&nbsp;“worse.” Speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Summit, Gates said it’s unclear how Musk will change Twitter if he takes ownership, while also raising concerns about the spread of misinformation on social media platforms.



Gates went on to question what Musk’s goal is with Twitter and whether his drive to promote free speech is sensible. “What are his goals for what it ends up being? Does that match this idea of less extreme falsehoods spreading so quickly [and] weird conspiracy theories? Does he share that goal or not?” Gates said.



Before Musk made his bid to buy Twitter outright, he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/04/elon-musk-thumbs-his-nose-at-the-sec-again-with-twitter-stake.html">failed to disclose</a>&nbsp;a more than 9% stake in the company within the SEC’s mandatory 10-day window.



<a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/elon-musks-early-twitter-purchase-under-ftc-scrutiny" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Information reported</a>&nbsp;that the Federal Trade Commission is probing the timing of Musk’s disclosure.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-05/musk-faces-ftc-antitrust-review-on-twitter-alongside-stock-probe" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg later said</a>&nbsp;the FTC is separately reviewing the acquisition itself, though many experts don’t expect the deal to raise antitrust concerns.



The FTC doesn’t disclose ongoing investigations, and an FTC spokesperson declined to comment.



Tesla’s share price climbed nearly 7% in premarket trading Friday.



Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said some are likely to query whether fake accounts are the real reason behind this delaying tactic.



“The $44 billion price tag is huge, and it may be a strategy to row back on the amount he is prepared to pay to acquire the platform,” she said in a statement.



Additional reporting by CNBC’s Lauren Feiner.

Elon Musk At SpaceX Headquarters

Elon Musk says Twitter deal on hold pending details on fake accounts; shares sink 11%

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This week, we saw the price of bitcoin jumping above $37 000 &#8211; with the announcement that Central American country El Salvador passed a law to adopt the cryptocurrency as a legal tender. This is amid the crackdown on cryptocurrencies that we have seen in China in recent weeks, and also discouraging tweets from Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Tone Vays, Blockchain and Bitcoin Analyst joins CNBC Africa for more.

El Salvador passes law to adopt bitcoin as legal tender

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="820" height="547" src="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GettyImages-1175368064-820x547.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-361863" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GettyImages-1175368064-820x547.jpg 820w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GettyImages-1175368064-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GettyImages-1175368064-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GettyImages-1175368064-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GettyImages-1175368064-scaled.jpg 2048w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GettyImages-1175368064-630x420.jpg 630w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/GettyImages-1175368064-1920x1280.jpg 1920w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px" /><figcaption>SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk speaks in front of Crew Dragon cleanroom at SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California on October 10, 2019. (Photo by Yichuan Cao/NurPhoto via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure>



DETROIT, May 7 (Reuters) &#8211; Elon Musk&#8217;s turn as host of this week&#8217;s &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; television program will be a light-hearted, brand-building break from the pressures of running Tesla Inc and SpaceX &#8211; or land the billionaire in another bucket of hot water.



That uncertainty appears to be the point for both Musk and NBCUniversal&#8217;s venerable comedy sketch show.



Musk has been encouraging fans and detractors to anticipate shenanigans, potentially involving the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. Musk has touted Dogecoin on his Twitter account, and the cryptocurrency&#8217;s value has soared ahead of his appearance.



&#8220;I&#8217;m a wild card, no telling what I might do,&#8221; Musk, wearing a black bandana, joked in a brief promotional video for the show alongside Saturday&#8217;s musical guest, Miley Cyrus.



&#8220;Same here,&#8221; Cyrus said. &#8220;Rules? No thanks.&#8221;



Musk has been in New York this week preparing for the appearance. A photo posted to the &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; Twitter account on Wednesday showed him hunched over papers, wearing a &#8220;Nuke Mars&#8221; T-shirt. Musk has mused about using nuclear weapons to reshape the Red Planet for human habitation.



Some &#8220;SNL&#8221; cast members have expressed displeasure at the show&#8217;s decision to give its platform to one of the world&#8217;s richest people. Musk&#8217;s appearance has drawn comparisons to the show&#8217;s controversial decision in 2015 to invite Donald Trump to host as he was preparing for his presidential run.



Although it is rare for a business executive to host &#8220;SNL,&#8221; South Africa-born Musk, 49, is no stranger to pop culture or comedy.



He has appeared on &#8220;The Simpsons,&#8221; &#8220;Rick and Morty,&#8221; and &#8220;South Park,&#8221; and dates a pop star, Canadian singer Grimes. Musk&#8217;s persona helped inspire Robert Downey Jr&#8217;s portrayal of superhero Iron Man in a series of Marvel films.



His humor also shows in the names of Tesla car models S, 3, X and Y (&#8220;sexy&#8221;). He once built and sold flamethrowers to promote his tunnel venture, the Boring Company. In 2018, Musk smoked marijuana on a live web show, and later offered $420 a share &#8211; a drug reference &#8211; to take Tesla private.



While Musk has been getting ready for the cameras, Tesla has been in a rough patch.



Longtime major shareholder Baillie Gifford disclosed it had sold 41% of its Tesla shares. Police in California are investigating a fatal accident in which a Tesla crashed into an overturned truck. Documents prepared by California regulators said Tesla executives do not believe Tesla can deliver the &#8220;Full Self Driving&#8221; autonomous vehicle technology this year, contradicting Musk&#8217;s statements. (Reporting By Joe White, Editing by Nick Zieminski)



(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Click For Restrictions &#8211; https://agency.reuters.com/en/copyright.html

Billionaire Elon Musk Receives Axel Springer Award

‘SNL’ host Elon Musk takes a Saturday off from Tesla’s troubles

(Reuters) &#8211; Tesla Inc&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>&nbsp;has a chance at producing 500,000 cars this year, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk told employees, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.



The company’s shares were up 2.5% at $425.67.



Tesla said in January that 2020 vehicle deliveries should comfortably exceed 500,000 units, a forecast the company has left unchanged despite the COVID-19 pandemic.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/hqdefault-306.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-361004" width="683" height="521"/><figcaption>How Elon Musk Took Tesla To Hell And Back With The Model 3</figcaption></figure>



“This all comes down to Q4. Please take whatever steps you can think of to improve output (while increasing quality)”, Musk wrote to employees on Wednesday.



Industry blog Tesmanian first reported on the news earlier in the day. (<a href="https://bit.ly/3nvhLHE">bit.ly/3nvhLHE</a>)



Last week, Tesla said it delivered 139,300 vehicles in the third quarter, an all-time record for the electric-car maker. The company will have to increase deliveries to nearly 182,000 in the fourth quarter to reach its ambitious year-end target.







Tesla’s delivery push has been supported by its new Shanghai factory, the only plant currently producing vehicles outside California.



The company began delivering Model 3s from its Shanghai factory in December and has said it aims to produce 150,000 Model 3 sedans in the factory this year.



Reuters could not immediately reach Tesla for comment.

Tesla has a shot at producing 500,000 cars this year, African born Elon Musk says in memo

BEIJING (Reuters) &#8211; China’s electric vehicle startups are on the charge again, thanks to Tesla.



The country’s growing fascination with the U.S. pioneer’s sleek designs and cutting-edge technology is giving a string of second-wave home-grown Tesla wannabes the traction to raise more funding, expand production and boost sales.



Chinese EV startups NIO, XPeng Inc, Li Auto and WM Motor have raised more than $8 billion between them this year and now rival Aiways is planning to go public, its co-founder and President Fu Qiang told Reuters.



Speaking ahead of the Beijing auto show which starts on Saturday, Fu said the relative success of U.S. initial public offerings (IPO) by XPeng and Li Auto had helped fuel the company’s ambitions to list.



Since it was founded in 2017 in Shanghai, Aiways has raised “no more than 10 billion yuan” and it will need to secure more funding from some private equity funds and other investors, said Fu, the former head of Volvo Cars China who has also been an executive at Mercedes-Benz, Skoda and FAW-Volkswagen.



“IPO is also in our plans, and we’re planning to push ahead with it,” Fu said, adding that Aiways would most likely be listed within China, declining to elaborate further.



China has been the world’s fastest-growing EV market for years helped by generous state purchase subsidies but the sales boom started to sputter last year as Beijing began cutting back financial support and watering down other pro-EV policies.



Some prominent Chinese EV startups such as Byton and Singulato have struggled and NIO’s future looked in doubt last year. But a surge in Tesla’s market value &#8211; and its sales in China &#8211; suggest the country’s EV dream is far from over.







“As Tesla stock goes, so goes the fate for electric vehicle startups,” said China auto expert Mike Dunne. “Funds are flowing like a river in spring again. Tesla could end up pulling everyone into the future sooner than expected.”



‘JUST OUT OF THE GATE’



Tesla’s sales in China in the first eight months of 2020 have nearly tripled from a year ago to 73,658 cars, according to consulting firm LMC Automotive, despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.



Some Chinese auto executives say cars made by the company from Palo Alto, California are achieving the status of Apple’s first iPhones in China and with so many potential technological advances still to come, that gives them hope.



Fu believes the revived interest in EVs in China is partly because EV owners are fascinated by intelligent driving functions, as well as the interactive, so-called connected services that many newer models are starting to come with.



“Today’s smart, connected cars aren’t that smart. We’re just out of the gate and are in a stage that could be described as iPhone 1 or the original iPhone,” Aiways President Fu said. “As that gets developed step-by-step, in the near future we will get to iPhone 8, iPhone 9 and iPhone 10.”



Dunne, too, said Tesla was the primary factor sustaining interest in EVs among consumers and investors in China, and elsewhere in the world. Tesla’s shares have surged 10-fold over the past 12 months and it became the world’s most valuable car company in July.Slideshow&nbsp;( 4 images )



And cheaper running costs are also a significant factor.



Cui Yihua, who sells aquariums in the eastern city of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, switched from his gas-guzzling Audi Q7 to save cash and chose an electric-blue Aiways U5 sports-utility vehicle (SUV) after also test-driving a Tesla Model 3, saying he liked the U5’s interior design, its colour and extra space.



“I have charging facilities in my housing compound, in the parking garage downstairs. I put a 100-yuan deposit down for charging and I’ve been using it for two weeks,” he said. “It’s negligible compared to gasoline-fueled cars.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">PRIVATE OWNERS</h2>



Automakers in China that were part of the initial wave of EV startups sold or leased many of their cars to drivers working for ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing and rival taxi services who were spurred on by rebates and other policy support for EVs.



Now, Fu and NIO co-founder and Chief Executive William Li believe China’s EV marketplace is driven more by private car owners and their pure interest in electric cars.



That’s most evident in the performance of Tesla’s Model 3 sedan, which is perceived by many consumers as fairly affordable at about 270,000 yuan ($39,750) after purchase subsidies.







Credit also goes to Wuling, a General Motors Co joint venture, whose Hongguang Mini EV has become China’s best-selling electric car this year, in part because its cheapest model sells for just 28,800 yuan.



To be sure, some companies hit hard by the initial slowdown in EV sales are still in limbo. Byton has suspended its business for six months through January and is working on a restructuring of its operations, a spokeswoman said.



Singulato, meanwhile, is operating on a limited capacity and is looking for further funding to finish developing two cars and launch them, a senior company source told Reuters.



But executives say raising funds has become markedly easier this year, and their confidence levels are climbing too.



NIO, for example, has raised $3.8 billion this year to get back on track, mostly through state-affiliated funds in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, and also with commercial paper and additional shares, its spokesman said.



WM Motor, backed by China’s most widely used internet search engine Baidu, raised $1.5 billion this week. XPeng Inc and Li Auto raised $1.5 billion and $1.1 billion respectively through U.S. listings in July and August.



‘DEMAND IS REALLY STRONG’







While sales of what China defines as new energy vehicles (NEV) &#8211; all-electric cars, plug-in electric hybrids and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles &#8211; started to contract more than a year ago, they jumped 26% in August after a 19.3% rise in July, which ended 12 months of year-on-year declines.



LMC Automotive expects sales of passenger NEVs to fall 8.9% this year but surge 48.4% in 2021 to hit 1.52 million vehicles, or 7% of expected passenger car sales. LMC’s Shanghai-based analyst Alan Kang expects NEV sales to accelerate mainly because Beijing recently enacted tougher green-car quotas for carmakers.



Fu said sales of the Aiways U5, its first model, have gained momentum since April to surpass 1,400 in the three months through August, when it also unveiled its sportier SUV U6 ion.



Within a year, he thinks Aiways could reach sales of 10,000 cars in China, with another 3,000 from Europe, where it has started selling in Germany. It plans to expend into Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland.



In NIO’s case, sales of its ES8 and ES6 models zoomed to 10,331 vehicles in the second quarter, half of its 2019 sales and almost matching sales of 11,348 for all of 2018, when only its seven-seater ES8 SUV was on offer.



NIO’s overall gross margin turned positive in the second quarter and hit 9.7% for vehicle sales. Operating losses shrank nearly 65% from a year earlier to 1.1 billion yuan.



“We think we have decisively overcome the difficulties of last year,” Chief Executive Li, who says he still flies economy to save the company money, told Reuters.



“Demand is really strong. If you place an order with us right now you will need to wait for a really long time to pick up your new car,” Li said. “Our main challenge in the fourth quarter is to improve our production capability.”

Billionaire Elon Musk: I am not Warren Buffett’s biggest fan

Billionaire Elon Musk: I am not Warren Buffett’s biggest fan. gettyimages-1155740300-594×594

African born Elon Musk’s Tesla, charges up Chinese startups.

(Reuters) &#8211; Elon Musk is hailed as an innovator and disruptor who went from knowing next to nothing about building cars to running the world’s most valuable automaker in the space of 16 years.



But his record shows he is more of a fast learner who forged alliances with firms that had technology Tesla lacked, hired some of their most talented people, and then powered through the boundaries that limited more risk-averse partners.



Now, Musk and his team are preparing to outline new steps in Tesla’s drive to become a more self-sufficient company less reliant on suppliers at its “Battery Day” event on Sept. 22.



Musk has been dropping hints for months that significant advances in technology will be announced as Tesla strives to produce the low-cost, long-lasting batteries that could put its electric cars on a more equal footing with cheaper gasoline vehicles.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/hqdefault-19.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-361692" width="680" height="519"/><figcaption>How Elon Musk Took Tesla To Hell And Back With The Model 3</figcaption></figure>



New battery cell designs, chemistries and manufacturing processes are just some of the developments that would allow Tesla to reduce its reliance on its long-time battery partner, Japan’s Panasonic, people familiar with the situation said.



“Elon doesn’t want any part of his business to be dependent on someone else,” said one former senior executive at Tesla who declined to be named. “And for better or worse &#8211; sometimes better, sometimes worse &#8211; he thinks he can do it better, faster and cheaper.”



Tesla has battery production partnerships with Panasonic, South Korea’s LG Chem and China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL) that are expected to continue.



But at the same time, Tesla is moving to control production of cells &#8211; the basic component of electric vehicle battery packs — at highly automated factories, including one being built near Berlin, Germany and another in Fremont, California where Tesla is hiring dozens of experts in battery cell engineering and manufacturing.



“There has been no change in our relationship with Tesla,” Panasonic said in a statement provided by a company spokeswoman.



(Reuters) &#8211; Elon Musk is hailed as an innovator and disruptor who went from knowing next to nothing about building cars to running the world’s most valuable automaker in the space of 16 years.FILE PHOTO: SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the automobile awards &#8220;Das Goldene Lenkrad&#8221; 



But his record shows he is more of a fast learner who forged alliances with firms that had technology Tesla lacked, hired some of their most talented people, and then powered through the boundaries that limited more risk-averse partners.



Now, Musk and his team are preparing to outline new steps in Tesla’s drive to become a more self-sufficient company less reliant on suppliers at its “Battery Day” event on Sept. 22.



Musk has been dropping hints for months that significant advances in technology will be announced as Tesla strives to produce the low-cost, long-lasting batteries that could put its electric cars on a more equal footing with cheaper gasoline vehicles.



New battery cell designs, chemistries and manufacturing processes are just some of the developments that would allow Tesla to reduce its reliance on its long-time battery partner, Japan’s Panasonic, people familiar with the situation said.



“Elon doesn’t want any part of his business to be dependent on someone else,” said one former senior executive at Tesla who declined to be named. “And for better or worse &#8211; sometimes better, sometimes worse &#8211; he thinks he can do it better, faster and cheaper.”



Tesla has battery production partnerships with Panasonic, South Korea’s LG Chem and China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL) that are expected to continue.



But at the same time, Tesla is moving to control production of cells &#8211; the basic component of electric vehicle battery packs — at highly automated factories, including one being built near Berlin, Germany and another in Fremont, California where Tesla is hiring dozens of experts in battery cell engineering and manufacturing.



“There has been no change in our relationship with Tesla,” Panasonic said in a statement provided by a company spokeswoman.







“Our relationship, both past and present has been sound. Panasonic is not a supplier to Tesla; we are partners. There’s no doubt our partnership will continue to innovate and contribute to the betterment of society.”



Tesla did not respond immediately to a request for comment.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">MAKE EVERYTHING</h2>



Since he took over the fledgling company in 2004, Musk’s goal has been to learn enough &#8211; from partnerships, acquisitions and talent recruitment &#8211; to bring key technologies under Tesla’s control, people familiar with Tesla’s strategy said.



They said the aim was to build a heavily vertically integrated company, or a digital version of Ford Motor Co’s iron-ore-to-Model-A production system of the late 1920s.



“Elon thought he could improve on everything the suppliers did &#8211; everything,” said former Tesla supply chain executive Tom Wessner, who is now head of industry consultancy Imprint Advisors. “He wanted to make everything.”



Batteries, a big chunk of the cost of an electric car, are central to the Musk method. While subordinates have argued for years against developing proprietary Tesla battery cells, Musk continues to drive toward that goal.



“Tell him ‘No’, and then he really wants to do it,” said a third former Tesla veteran.Slideshow&nbsp;( 4 images )



The changes in battery design, chemistry and production processes Tesla expects to reveal next week are aimed at reworking the math that until now has made electric cars more expensive than carbon-emitting vehicles with combustion engines.



Reuters reported in May that Tesla is planning to unveil low-cost batteries designed to last for a million miles. Tesla is also working to secure direct supplies of key battery materials, such as nickel, while developing cell chemistries that would no longer need expensive cobalt as well as highly automated manufacturing processes to speed up production.



‘STRAIGHT FOR MARS’



Panasonic is partnered with Tesla at the $5 billion Nevada “Gigafactory”, while CATL and LG Chem supply cells to Tesla’s Shanghai factory, where battery modules and packs are assembled for its Model 3 sedan.



Panasonic recently said it is planning to expand its production lines in Nevada, which supply the cells that then go into the battery modules assembled next door by Tesla.



But the Nevada Gigafactory partnership almost didn’t happen, according to two former Tesla executives. Musk ordered a team to study battery manufacturing in 2011, according to one former executive, but eventually partnered with Panasonic in 2013.



Now, Tesla is testing a battery cell pilot manufacturing line in Fremont and is building its own vast automated cell manufacturing facility in Gruenheide in Germany.



The roller-coaster relationship with Panasonic mirrors other Tesla alliances.







During its development alliance with Germany’s Daimler, which was an early investor in Tesla, Musk became interested in sensors that would help keep cars within traffic lanes.



Until then the Tesla Model S, which Mercedes-Benz engineers helped refine, lacked cameras or sophisticated driver assistance sensors and software such as those used in the Mercedes S-Class.



“He learned about that and took it a step further. We asked our engineers to shoot for the moon. He went straight for Mars,” said a senior Daimler engineer said.



Meanwhile, an association with Japan’s Toyota, another early investor, taught him about quality management.



Eventually, executives from Daimler and Toyota joined Tesla in key roles, along with talent from Alphabet Inc’s Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, as well as rival carmakers Ford, BMW and Audi.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">THE MUSK SPIN</h2>



Some relationships did not end well, however.



Tesla hooked up with Israeli sensor maker Mobileye in 2014, in part to learn how to design a self-driving system that evolved into Tesla’s Autopilot.







“Mobileye was the driving force behind the original Autopilot,” said a former Mobileye executive, who declined to be named.



Mobileye, which is now owned by Intel, also recognized the risk of sharing technology with a fast-moving startup like Tesla, which was on the brink of collapse at the end of 2008 and now has a market value of $420 billion.



But Tesla and Mobileye had an acrimonious and public split after a driver was killed in 2016 when a Model S using the Autopilot system crashed.



At the time, Amnon Shashua, who is now Mobileye president and chief executive, said Tesla’s Autopilot was not designed to cover all possible crash situations as it was a driver assistance system, not a driverless system.



U.S. tech firm Nvidia followed Mobileye as a supplier for Autopilot, but it too was ultimately sidelined.



“Nvidia and Tesla share a common strategy of developing software-defined vehicles powered by high-performance AI computers. Elon is very focused on vertical integration and wanted to make his own chips,” said Nvidia’s senior director of automotive, Danny Shapiro.



Both Shapiro and the former Mobileye executive said there was no question of Tesla improperly using their technology.



In addition to partnerships, Musk went on an acquisition spree four years ago, buying a handful of little-known companies &#8211; Grohmann, Perbix, Riviera, Compass, Hibar Systems &#8211; to rapidly advance Tesla’s expertise in automation. Maxwell and SilLion further boosted Tesla’s ability in battery technology.



“He learned a lot from those people,” said Mark Ellis, a senior consultant at Munro &amp; Associates, which has studied Tesla extensively. “He leveraged a lot of information from them, then put his spin on making it better.”



Tesla did not respond immediately to a request for comment.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">MAKE EVERYTHING</h2>



Since he took over the fledgling company in 2004, Musk’s goal has been to learn enough &#8211; from partnerships, acquisitions and talent recruitment &#8211; to bring key technologies under Tesla’s control, people familiar with Tesla’s strategy said.



They said the aim was to build a heavily vertically integrated company, or a digital version of Ford Motor Co’s iron-ore-to-Model-A production system of the late 1920s.



“Elon thought he could improve on everything the suppliers did &#8211; everything,” said former Tesla supply chain executive Tom Wessner, who is now head of industry consultancy Imprint Advisors. “He wanted to make everything.”



Batteries, a big chunk of the cost of an electric car, are central to the Musk method. While subordinates have argued for years against developing proprietary Tesla battery cells, Musk continues to drive toward that goal.



“Tell him ‘No’, and then he really wants to do it,” said a third former Tesla veteran.Slideshow&nbsp;( 4 images )



The changes in battery design, chemistry and production processes Tesla expects to reveal next week are aimed at reworking the math that until now has made electric cars more expensive than carbon-emitting vehicles with combustion engines.



Reuters reported in May that Tesla is planning to unveil low-cost batteries designed to last for a million miles. Tesla is also working to secure direct supplies of key battery materials, such as nickel, while developing cell chemistries that would no longer need expensive cobalt as well as highly automated manufacturing processes to speed up production.



‘STRAIGHT FOR MARS’



Panasonic is partnered with Tesla at the $5 billion Nevada “Gigafactory”, while CATL and LG Chem supply cells to Tesla’s Shanghai factory, where battery modules and packs are assembled for its Model 3 sedan.



Panasonic recently said it is planning to expand its production lines in Nevada, which supply the cells that then go into the battery modules assembled next door by Tesla.



But the Nevada Gigafactory partnership almost didn’t happen, according to two former Tesla executives. Musk ordered a team to study battery manufacturing in 2011, according to one former executive, but eventually partnered with Panasonic in 2013.



Now, Tesla is testing a battery cell pilot manufacturing line in Fremont and is building its own vast automated cell manufacturing facility in Gruenheide in Germany.



The roller-coaster relationship with Panasonic mirrors other Tesla alliances.







During its development alliance with Germany’s Daimler, which was an early investor in Tesla, Musk became interested in sensors that would help keep cars within traffic lanes.



Until then the Tesla Model S, which Mercedes-Benz engineers helped refine, lacked cameras or sophisticated driver assistance sensors and software such as those used in the Mercedes S-Class.



“He learned about that and took it a step further. We asked our engineers to shoot for the moon. He went straight for Mars,” said a senior Daimler engineer said.



Meanwhile, an association with Japan’s Toyota, another early investor, taught him about quality management.



Eventually, executives from Daimler and Toyota joined Tesla in key roles, along with talent from Alphabet Inc’s Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, as well as rival carmakers Ford, BMW and Audi.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">THE MUSK SPIN</h2>



Some relationships did not end well, however.



Tesla hooked up with Israeli sensor maker Mobileye in 2014, in part to learn how to design a self-driving system that evolved into Tesla’s Autopilot.







“Mobileye was the driving force behind the original Autopilot,” said a former Mobileye executive, who declined to be named.



Mobileye, which is now owned by Intel, also recognized the risk of sharing technology with a fast-moving startup like Tesla, which was on the brink of collapse at the end of 2008 and now has a market value of $420 billion.



But Tesla and Mobileye had an acrimonious and public split after a driver was killed in 2016 when a Model S using the Autopilot system crashed.



At the time, Amnon Shashua, who is now Mobileye president and chief executive, said Tesla’s Autopilot was not designed to cover all possible crash situations as it was a driver assistance system, not a driverless system.



U.S. tech firm Nvidia followed Mobileye as a supplier for Autopilot, but it too was ultimately sidelined.



“Nvidia and Tesla share a common strategy of developing software-defined vehicles powered by high-performance AI computers. Elon is very focused on vertical integration and wanted to make his own chips,” said Nvidia’s senior director of automotive, Danny Shapiro.



Both Shapiro and the former Mobileye executive said there was no question of Tesla improperly using their technology.



In addition to partnerships, Musk went on an acquisition spree four years ago, buying a handful of little-known companies &#8211; Grohmann, Perbix, Riviera, Compass, Hibar Systems &#8211; to rapidly advance Tesla’s expertise in automation. Maxwell and SilLion further boosted Tesla’s ability in battery technology.



“He learned a lot from those people,” said Mark Ellis, a senior consultant at Munro &amp; Associates, which has studied Tesla extensively. “He leveraged a lot of information from them, then put his spin on making it better.”

The Musk Method: Learn from partners, then go it alone

(Reuters) &#8211; Tesla Inc shares fell for a third straight day on Thursday, as investors who have been betting on the electric-car maker’s growth prospects cashed in on the meteoric rally in the stock price this year.



Market analysts and traders called it a near-term profit-taking, triggered by the company’s plan to raise $5 billion from the market and the stake sale by the second largest shareholder Baillie Gifford, in a stock that has surged fivefold in 2020.



They expect it to be short-lived. “It’s just a poster child for the growth trade and there’s a bit of general rotation,” a London-based trader told Reuters.



Meanwhile, Edinburgh-based Baillie Gifford told Herald Scotland the investment firm remains a “strong supporter” of Tesla, but had to sell its passive stake due to norms that limit the weight of a stock in clients’ portfolios.



Gifford cut its stake to 4.25% compared to 7.67% as of Dec. 31, making it now the fourth largest stakeholder, according to Refinitiv data.



“I know Baillie Gifford were a kind of forced seller to stay within the mandates, but (an) evidence of core investor profit-taking as the company start a sell off of $5 billion stock,” the trader said.



Ever since Tesla surprised Wall Street by delivering on Chief Executive Elon Musk’s promise of a profit in its third quarter in October last year, its shares have risen nearly nine-fold.



The world’s most valuable carmaker has gone on to register three more profitable quarters, clearing a hurdle that could lead to its inclusion in the benchmark S&amp;P 500 index.



The index rebalances every quarter, but a stock can be added to the index at any point once a company becomes eligible for consideration.



Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&amp;P Dow Jones Indices, declined to comment on potential index membership changes.



The surge in shares during the COVID-19 pandemic have also led Tesla and Apple Inc to split their richly priced stock.



The iPhone maker’s shares, which have jumped more than 35% since it announced its split, fell for the second session, down 5.2%, while Tesla shares were down 6.5% in early trading on Thursday.

How Elon Musk Took Tesla To Hell And Back With The Model 3

Tesla retreats for third day as investors cash in on gains

(Reuters) &#8211; Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk’s net worth topped $100 billion on Friday, according to the Forbes real-time billionaires list, as the shares of electric-car maker Tesla Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>) see a more than five-fold surge in value this year.



A large chunk of his wealth comes from the 21% stake in Tesla, according to Forbes. Tesla shares, which went public at $17 a piece in 2010, rose as much as 3.5% in morning trade to a record high of $2,318.49.



The company became the world’s most valuable carmaker by market capitalization on July 1 when it overtook front runner Toyota Motor Corp (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/7203.T">7203.T</a>) and has over the last 10 years made many of its retail investors millionaires.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1155740300-594x594.jpg" alt="Billionaire Elon Musk: I am not Warren Buffett’s biggest fan" class="wp-image-351991" width="704" height="486" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1155740300-594x594.jpg 594w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1155740300-594x594-300x207.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1155740300-594x594-100x70.jpg 100w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1155740300-594x594-218x150.jpg 218w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 704px) 100vw, 704px" /><figcaption>Billionaire Elon Musk: I am not Warren Buffett’s biggest fan (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for E3/Entertainment Software Association)</figcaption></figure>



Musk is now part of an elite club of just four others with twelve digit net worth. His nearly $100 billion, however, is just about half the net worth of the world’s richest man and Amazon.com Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/AMZN.O">AMZN.O</a>) CEO Jeff Bezos, according to Forbes.



Musk, who co-founded and sold Internet payments company PayPal Holdings Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/PYPL.O">PYPL.O</a>), 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 to for an all-electric public transportation system to avoid the nasty traffic jams in U.S. cities.

South African born Elon Musk’s net worth tops $100 billion: Forbes

One-on-one with Maye Musk

Maye Musk on her new book, the secret to good health & what it takes to raise a billionaire

FRANKFURT/BEIJING/DETROIT (Reuters) &#8211; Tesla Inc’s (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>) rapid rise to become the world’s most valuable carmaker could mark the start of a new era for the global auto industry, defined by a Silicon Valley approach to software that is overtaking old-school manufacturing know-how.



Tesla’s ascent took many investors by surprise. But executives at Daimler AG (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/DAIGn.DE">DAIGn.DE</a>), the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, had a close-up view starting in 2009 of how Tesla and its chief executive Elon Musk were taking a new approach to building vehicles that challenged the established system.



Daimler, which bears the name of the man who invented the modern car 134 years ago, bought a nearly 10% Tesla stake in May 2009 in a deal which provided a $50 million lifeline for the struggling start-up.&nbsp;&nbsp;



That investment gave Mercedes engineers an inside view of how Musk was willing to launch technology that wasn’t perfect, and then repeatedly upgrade it, using smartphone style over-the-air updates, paying little regard to early profitability.



Mercedes engineers helped Tesla develop its Model S luxury sedan in exchange for access to Tesla’s partially hand-assembled battery packs, but in 2014 Daimler decided to sell their stake amid doubts Tesla’s approach could be industrialized at scale.



Tesla would go on to pioneer new approaches in manufacturing, designs in software and electronic architecture which enable it to introduce innovations faster than rivals, leaving analysts to draw comparisons with Apple (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/AAPL.O">AAPL.O</a>).



Three people directly involved with the Mercedes side of the collaboration said the brief partnership highlighted the collision of old and new engineering cultures: the German obsession with long-term safety and control, which rewarded evolution, and the Silicon Valley carmaker’s experimental approach which embraced radical thinking and fast innovation.



“Elon Musk has been walking on the edge of a razorblade in terms of the aggression with which he pushes some technologies,” said a former Mercedes engineer who worked on the partnership.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">RELATED COVERAGE</h4>



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-singapore/tesla-hiring-servicing-staff-in-unsupportive-singapore-idUSKCN24N0EF">Tesla hiring servicing staff in &#8216;unsupportive&#8217; Singapore</a></li></ul>



By contrast, Mercedes and other established automakers are still not comfortable about releasing a new technology, such as partially automated driving, without years of testing.



Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.



Investors favor the Tesla model, in an industry undergoing fundamental and dizzying change even though the U.S. carmaker will face an onslaught of competing electric vehicles from established automakers during the next few years.



They are putting their money on Musk and his company, even though Mercedes-Benz alone sold 935,089 cars in the first half of 2020, dwarfing the 179,050 delivered by Tesla in the same period.



Today, Tesla is worth nearly $304.6 billion, more than six times Daimler’s 41.5-billion-euro ($47.7 billion) market capitalization.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://graphics.reuters.com/AUTOS-TESLA/NEWERA/bdwvkerrkvm/img/tesla.JPG" alt=""/></figure>



GRAPHICTesla electrifies the auto industry’s new era



TWO CULTURES COLLIDE &nbsp;



Daimler and Tesla began collaborating after Mercedes engineers, who were developing a second-generation electric Smart car, bought a Tesla Roadster. They were impressed by the way Tesla packaged batteries, so arranged a visit to Silicon Valley to meet Musk in January 2009 and ordered 1,000 battery packs.



The collaboration expanded. At a joint press conference in the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart in May 2009, Tesla said the partnership would “accelerate bringing our Tesla Model S to production and ensure that it is a superlative vehicle”.



For its part, Mercedes wanted to use Tesla’s batteries to power an electric version of its compact Mercedes-Benz B-Class. The Tesla Model S would hit the road in 2012. An electric B-Class, arrived in showrooms two years later.



Despite having batteries supplied by Tesla, the Mercedes had a shorter operating range after Daimler engineers configured the B-class more conservatively to address their concerns about long-term battery degradation and the risk of overheating, a second Daimler staffer who worked on the joint projects told Reuters.



German engineers found that Tesla engineers had not done long-term stress tests on its battery. “We had to devise our own programme of stress tests,” the second Daimler engineer said.



Before starting production of a new car, Daimler engineers specify a “Lastenheft” &#8211; a blueprint laying out the properties of each component for suppliers. Significant changes cannot be made once the design is frozen.



“This is also the way you can guarantee that we will be profitable during mass production. Tesla was not as concerned about this aspect,” the second Daimler source said.



Daimler’s engineers suggested the underbody of the Model S needed reinforcing to prevent debris from the road puncturing a battery pack, the first Daimler engineer said.



To quash doubts about safety and security, following a series of battery fires, Tesla raised the ride height of its vehicles, using an over-the-air update, and a few months later, in March 2014, said it would add a triple underbody shield to new Model S cars and offered to retrofit existing cars.



Musk was able to make adjustments quickly thanks to Tesla’s ability to burn through more cash during development.



“At Mercedes you can make such adjustments every three years at best,” the engineer said.



The Model S, a four-door electric sedan would go on to outsell the flagship Mercedes-Benz S-Class in the United States in May 2013, and outstrip S-Class deliveries globally by 2017.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">MUSK: INNOVATE OR GO</h3>



Musk&#8217;s relentless focus on innovation explains, in part, why he has disrupted the traditional auto world. In an interview&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp8smJFaKYE">here</a>&nbsp;at the 2020 Air Warfare Symposium, published on YouTube, he was asked about the importance of innovation among his employees.





“We certainly need those that do advanced engineering to be innovative,” Musk said. “The incentive structure is set up &#8230; such that innovation is rewarded. Making mistakes along the way does not come with a big penalty. But failure to try to innovate at all &#8230; comes with a big penalty. You will be fired.”



Established automakers are playing catch-up to Tesla, designing their own software operating systems and dedicated electric cars.



Mercedes will release its EQS next year &#8211; a four-door limousine built on a dedicated electric vehicle platform, with an operating range of 700 km. A new version of the Mercedes S-Class, which will have combustion and hybrid powertrains and semi-autonomous driver assistance systems, is due this year.Slideshow&nbsp;(4 Images)



From an investor perspective, traditional players face billions of dollars in restructuring costs as they transform product lines and factories to move away from internal combustion technology



“No one is going to give an OEM (established automaker) a five-year window to say &#8230; you can totally retool your business, and I am going to buy in and fund this journey,” said Mark Wakefield, co-leader of automotive and industrials practice at consulting firm AlixPartners.



Start-ups, however, get time from investors to learn, make mistakes and grow, he added.



Investors are betting on Tesla’s ability to scale up manufacturing just as they once backed Toyota Motor Corp (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/7203.T">7203.T</a>), which defined the auto industry’s last era with its mastery of highly efficient, high-quality lean production.



Toyota overtook the market capitalization of former industry leader General Motors&nbsp;(<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/GM.N">GM.N</a>) in 1996, though it wasn’t until 2008 that it sold more vehicles than its Detroit rival.



The Japanese giant also cultivated ties with Tesla, with the U.S. startup helping it design an electrified RAV4 compact sports utility vehicle under a 2010 deal.



Toyota was impressed by the speed with which Tesla came up with the new design, but ultimately decided Tesla’s methods were not suitable for mass production by a mainstream manufacturer when Toyota’s standards for product quality and durability were applied, two company insiders familiar with the partnership said.



Toyota said the joint project involved cooperation on the development of electric cars, parts and production system.



“Toyota accomplished what the project set out to achieve, and it ended in October 2014 after Tesla delivered roughly 2,500 electric powertrain systems over three years” for an electrified RAV4 crossover SUVs, a spokeswoman said.



Both the Toyota and Daimler collaborations were agreed before the Volkswagen (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/VOWG_p.DE">VOWG_p.DE</a>) emissions-cheating scandal in 2015, which prompted a global regulatory backlash and forced carmakers to step up investments in electric cars.



“That was all before dieselgate, which changed the economics of electric and combustion-engined cars,” a senior Daimler manager said. “Tesla has a lead. Let’s see if they can scale up.”

How Tesla and Elon Musk defined a new era for the global auto industry

(Reuters) &#8211; Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk qualified on Tuesday for a payout worth an unprecedented $2.1 billion, his second jackpot since May from the electric car maker following its massive stock surge.



Tesla’s stock was down 3% in afternoon trading, eroding a recent rally that has elevated the company’s market capitalization to almost $300 billion, larger than any other carmaker.



Despite Tuesday’s stock dip, and importantly for Musk’s personal finances, Tesla’s six-month average market capitalization for the first time has reached $150 billion. That triggers the vesting of the second of 12 tranches of options granted to the billionaire in his 2018 pay package to buy Tesla stock at a discount. Musk, who is also majority owner and CEO of the SpaceX rocket maker, receives no salary.



Even with Tuesday’s decline in Tesla’s stock, its six-month average market capitalization rose, thanks to the stock’s strong rally in recent months.



In early May, Musk’s first tranche vested after Tesla’s six-month average stock market value reached $100 billion.



Musk has already achieved targets related to Tesla’s financial growth that are also required in order to vest the latest options tranche.



Each tranche gives Musk the option to buy 1.69 million Tesla shares at $350.02 each, less than a quarter of their current price. At Tesla’s current stock price of $1,594, Musk would theoretically be able to sell the shares related to the tranche that vested in May and the current tranche for a combined profit of $4.2 billion, or almost $2.1 billion per tranche.



Musk’s first tranche was worth about $700 million in May, when it vested, but its value has since increased along with Tesla’s stock price.



The median compensation for Tesla employees last year was about $58,000, according to a company filing.



Tesla’s stock has surged more than 500% over the past year as the company increased sales of its Model 3 sedan.



Following higher-than-expected second-quarter vehicle deliveries, some investors believe Tesla might report a profit in its second-quarter report on Wednesday after the bell. That would mark four consecutive profitable quarters, a first for Tesla and a key hurdle for it to be added to the S&amp;P 500 index&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/finance/markets/index?symbol=.SPX">.SPX</a>.



Analysts on average expect a $240 million loss for the quarter, according to Refinitiv. A month ago, analysts expected a loss of almost $340 million.

African raised Elon Musk qualifies for $2.1 billion payday

(Reuters) &#8211; When Tesla Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>) reports second-quarter results after the bell on Wednesday, investors will be keen to see whether the electric carmaker has delivered a profit during the global pandemic that has sunk most of its internal combustion rivals deep in red ink.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="594" height="410" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1155740300-594x594.jpg" alt="Billionaire Elon Musk: I am not Warren Buffett’s biggest fan" class="wp-image-351991" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1155740300-594x594.jpg 594w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1155740300-594x594-300x207.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1155740300-594x594-100x70.jpg 100w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1155740300-594x594-218x150.jpg 218w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px" /><figcaption>Billionaire Elon Musk: I am not Warren Buffett’s biggest fan (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for E3/Entertainment Software Association)</figcaption></figure>



Analysts’ estimates for Tesla’s second quarter range from an adjusted loss as steep as $2.53 a share to a $1.41 per share profit. On average, they expect an adjusted 11 cents loss per share and a net loss of $240 million, according to Refinitiv data. More bullish investors have sent Tesla’s shares soaring in recent weeks and made it the world’s most valuable automaker.



Tesla’s April-June results also have wider ramifications. A profit would mark the company’s first cumulative four-quarter net income, a goal it must accomplish to be added to the S&amp;P 500 index, where it would be among the most valuable companies.



Some analysts have said that failing to reach that goal could send Tesla shares plummeting after they surged more than 275% so far this year.



Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, in the meantime, has poked fun at the company’s naysayers and those who placed bets against him with short positions in the stock, by launching a limited edition of red satin “short shorts.”



Earlier this month, Tesla surpassed expectations when it announced it had delivered more than 90,000 vehicles in the quarter, significantly beating analyst estimates and running counter to the wider auto industry trend.



But while vehicle deliveries increased 2.5% on a quarterly basis, production dropped nearly 20%, clouding the outlook for the company that had predicted it would deliver at least 500,000 vehicles by the end of the year, Investors have been closely following any revisions of that target.



Tesla’s U.S. vehicle factory was shut for some six weeks during the second quarter on local regulators’ orders. The company has ramped up production at its new Shanghai factory and sold more than 29,600 vehicles in China during the second quarter.



But as global unemployment remains high and the economic outlook uncertain, many consumers are expected to hold off on larger purchases, including vehicles.



Nord LB analyst Frank Schwope expects global auto production and sales to collapse by 15% to 25% worldwide in 2020, but said Tesla might be more insulated as its buyers remain committed.



Tesla plans to build a second plant in the U.S. Southwest as soon as the third quarter. It has not announced a location, but Texas and Oklahoma have been vying for the plant, which promises to create at least 5,000 jobs.

Profit or not? Analysts divided ahead of African born Elon Musk’s Tesla second-quarter results

NEW YORK/SEOUL (Reuters) &#8211; Convinced of Tesla Inc’s (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>) imminent meteoric rise, Orestis Palampougioukis, a Netherlands-based software developer, took out a 43,000 euro ($49,000) loan in early October to invest it all in the electric carmaker, which at the time was trading at around $230 a share.FILE PHOTO: Tesla electric vehicles for test driving are parked in Hanam, South Korea, July 6, 2020. Picture taken on July 6, 2020. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo



Since then, Palampougioukis’ bet has paid off as Tesla’s share price has increased more than six-fold, trading around $1,500 on Monday and surpassing every rival to become the world’s highest-valued automaker. After investing an additional 14,000 euros in personal funds, he has pocketed around 10,000 euros in profit to date, even when accounting for the 7% interest he pays the bank.



“To me it didn’t feel like a bet because I studied what Tesla does very closely and it’s simply inevitable that it would dominate,” Palampougioukis said, adding that he plans to own the shares for decades.



He is not alone. Retail investors around the world, staunch believers in the company&#8217;s mission to lead the auto industry into a battery-powered future, have invested their personal money, and at times their parents&#8217; retirement funds, in Tesla and reaped handsome rewards. 



Tesla reports second-quarter results on Wednesday after the close of trading. While analysts polled by Refinitiv on average expect the company to report a loss, a surprisingly strong vehicle delivery report boosted hopes among many retail investors for a profitable quarter.



Discussions about Tesla on online retail investor forums have surged, with users debating whether to hold their shares in hopes of even higher returns or cash out. (Graphic:&nbsp;<a href="https://tmsnrt.rs/3jmlmWr">tmsnrt.rs/3jmlmWr</a>)



While the total number of Tesla retail investors is not known, around 75% of the company’s stock is owned by large institutional investors and Tesla executives, including Chief Executive Elon Musk, according to Refinitiv data.



Tesla shares are among the most popular on U.S. retail investor platforms, such as Robinhood Markets Inc and TD Ameritrade (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/AMTD.O">AMTD.O</a>). The number of users holding Tesla stock on the Robinhood trading app increased more than 400% from the first two weeks of July 2018 to the same point this year, according to data from Robintrack.net, which compiles data on the investing platform.



In South Korea, where Tesla has become the latest craze among tech-savvy professionals, the company is the most-traded overseas stock, with Koreans buying $3.2 billion worth of Tesla shares so far this year, up nearly 13-fold from all of 2019.



Choi Jong-wan, the former head of Korea’s Tesla owners’ club, borrowed money to invest in Tesla after the company unveiled its Model 3 in 2016. He also bought Tesla stock for his seven-year-old son, taking advantage of Korean inheritance tax breaks.



Choi, who bought a Model S, said the company’s shares are supported by its many fans buying stock. Convinced of Musk’s vision, Choi bought when Tesla shares tanked in the past.



“I am getting more confident about Tesla,” he said. “I will sell Tesla stock when other automakers introduce better electric cars than Tesla at competitive prices.”



Some investors have invested their stock proceeds in the company by buying its vehicles. David, a marketing specialist from Oakland, California, who asked that his last name not be used, bought a Tesla Model 3 last August after selling some of his Tesla shares.



He bought his first Tesla shares for a couple of hundred dollars right out of college in 2010. The company had just listed publicly, with the shares trading around $29.



David has since invested about another $40,000 and currently holds 180 shares.



“Tesla has treated me well so far. I believe in their vision and I believe in Elon Musk,” he said. “But the house we bought needs a new roof and I’m thinking to just sell a few shares to pay for that.”



Musk’s own net worth has soared even higher thanks to the latest share price rally. The outspoken Tesla boss is within reach of another share-based payday potentially worth as much as $2 billion. Including previously vested tranches, Musk would own options for about $4 billion worth of Tesla shares.

African born Elon Musk’s Tesla share rally propels early fan investors to riches

Reuters) &#8211; Tesla Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>) cut the price of its sport utility vehicle Model Y by $3,000, just four months after its launch, as the U.S. electric carmaker seeks to maintain sales momentum in the COVID-19 pandemic.



The reduction follows price cuts in May on Tesla’s Model 3, Model X and Model S.



The company headed by Elon Musk this month posted a smaller-than-expected fall in car deliveries in the second quarter, resilient results despite the pandemic that hit the global auto industry.



The Model Y now starts at $49,990, down nearly 6% from its previous price of $52,990, according to the carmaker’s website.









Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.



The company started deliveries of the Model Y in March, promising a much-awaited crossover that will face competition from European carmakers like Volkswagen AG (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/VOWG_p.DE">VOWG_p.DE</a>) rolling out their own electric rivals.



In April, Tesla had said the Model Y was already profitable, marking the first time in the company’s 17-year history that one of its new vehicles turned a profit in its first quarter.

African born tycoon Elon Musk Tesla slashes prices as pandemic weighs heavily

Billionaire Musk&#8217;s net worth zooms past Warren Buffett&#8217;s &#8211; Bloomberg News &#8211; Reuters



(Reuters) &#8211; Elon Musk’s net worth soared past Warren Buffett on Friday as the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>) became the seventh richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.



Musk’s fortune rose by $6.07 billion on Friday, Bloomberg News said, following a 10.8% jump in the electric carmaker’s stock.



Buffett’s net worth dropped earlier this week when he donated $2.9 billion in Berkshire Hathaway (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/BRKa.N">BRKa.N</a>) stock to charity, the report added.



Tesla’s shares have surged 500% over the past year as the company increased sales of its Model 3 sedan.



The blistering rally also puts Musk in reach of a payday potentially worth $1.8 billion, his second jackpot from the electric car maker in about two months.



The stock is up about 38% since the close on July 1, a day before the company reported its quarterly delivery numbers.



Tesla’s solid delivery numbers heightened expectations of a profitable second quarter, which would mark the first time in its history that it would report four consecutive quarters of profit.

African born Billionaire Elon Musk’s net worth zooms past Warren Buffett’s

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/TSLA.O">TSLA.O</a>) is “very close” to achieving level 5 autonomous driving technology, Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Thursday, referring to the capability to navigate roads without any driver input.



“I’m extremely confident that level 5 or essentially complete autonomy will happen and I think will happen very quickly,” Musk said in remarks made via a video message at the opening of Shanghai’s annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC).



“I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level 5 autonomy complete this year.”



Automakers and tech companies including Alphabet Inc (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/GOOGL.O">GOOGL.O</a>) Waymo and Uber Technologies (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/UBER.N">UBER.N</a>) are investing billions in the autonomous driving industry.



However industry insiders have said it would take time for the technology to get ready and public to trust autonomous vehicles fully.



The California-based automaker currently builds cars with an Autopilot driver-assistance system.



Tesla is also developing new heat-projection or cooling systems to enable more advanced computers in cars, Musk said.



Industry data showed Tesla sold nearly 15,000 China-made Model 3 sedans last month.



Tesla has become the highest-valued automaker as its shares surged to record highs and its market capitalisation overtook that of former front-runner Toyota Motors Corp (<a href="https://www.reuters.com/companies/7203.T">7203.T</a>).



Reporting by Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Yilei Sun and Yingzhi Yang in Beijing; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Stephen Coates

African-born Elon Musk says he is very close to making cars that can drive themselves.

Tesla Inc is building mobile molecule printers to help make the potential COVID-19 vaccine being developed by CureVac in Germany, the electric-car maker’s Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk, tweeted on Wednesday.FILE PHOTO: SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the automobile awards &#8220;Das Goldene Lenkrad&#8221; (The golden steering wheel) given by a German newspaper in Berlin, Germany, November 12, 2019. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/File Photo



CureVac, an unlisted German company, has said it is developing portable, automated mRNA production units that it calls printers and which Musk described as “RNA microfactories”.



They are being designed to be shipped to remote locations, where they can churn out its vaccine candidate and other mRNA-based therapies depending on the recipe fed into the machine.



But for the immediate pandemic use &#8211; should its vaccine candidate win market approval – it has production sites with regulatory approval in Germany with a capacity to produce hundreds of millions of doses.



The company, based in Tuebingen and backed by the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation, is a pioneer of the so-called messenger RNA approach, which is also pursued by BioNTech and its partner Pfizer as well as Moderna.



RNA molecules are single-stranded versions of the DNA double-helix. Thanks to their recurring molecular pattern, they can be produced in a relatively simple biochemical process that do not require genetically modified living cells, which are needed to produce most other biotech drugs.



CureVac is also building a new stationary site that could increase its output tenfold to billions of doses.



The “microfactories” would be built at Tesla Grohmann Automation in Germany, Musk said in a Twitter thread late on Wednesday night.



Tesla acquired the company that develops automated manufacturing systems for batteries and fuel cells in 2016 to expand its production.



CureVac has been working with Tesla Grohmann to develop the mobile printer technology, a person familiar with CureVac said.



Musk did not elaborate on his plans. Tesla and CureVac were not immediately available to comment.



Musk, who is known to make impromptu announcements on Twitter, had in March said that Tesla has extra FDA-approved ventilators that can be shipped free of cost to hospitals within regions where the electric-car maker delivers.

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Elon Musk

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