Musk's troubled tryst with India: Tesla, Starlink in limbo for over a year

 Musk clearly needs to take a relook at his overall India plan

Last week, world headlines buzzed with Elon Musk’s announcement that he was shelving his audacious bid for social media platform Twitter. Away from the media spotlight, questions are being asked about the maverick billionaire’s plans in India, too. A few days ago, a Reuters report said Musk’s flagship Tesla had put on hold its plan to launch electric cars in India. Tesla has abandoned its search for showroom space, reassigned its small India team around the globe and set itself a deadline next year of February 1, when the Union Budget is usually announced, to check …

Nearly half of Elon Musk’s 90 million Twitter followers are ‘fake’

 According to Twitter auditing tool SparkToro, of Musk’s 87.9 million followers (at the time of the research audit), roughly 48 per cent are fake, reports Time

As Tesla CEO and soon-to-be Twitter boss Elon Musk aims to crack down on spam bots, nearly half of his own followers on the micro-blogging platform are fake. According to Twitter auditing tool SparkToro, of Musk’s 87.9 million followers (at the time of the research audit), roughly 48 per cent are fake, reports Time. These are the accounts that are “unreachable and will not see the account’s tweets because they’re spam, bots, propaganda, etc. or because they’re no longer active on Twitter”. Musk currently has nearly 90 million followers on Twitter.

He has nearly 7 per cent more fake followers than the median 41 per cent accounts with a similar sized followings have, according to SparkToro. The auditing tool found that “accounts that are on an unusually small number of lists, accounts that have no url or a non-resolving url in their profile, and accounts that have a suspiciously small number of followers were some of the most frequently observed traits of a sample of 2,000 random accounts from the most recent 100,000 accounts that followed Musk”….

Elon Musk not joining Twitter board; CEO Parag Agrawal reveals why

 Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and now the largest shareholder in the micro-blogging site Twitter, has decided not to join the Twitter board. He owns a 9.2% stake, worth nearly $3 billion, in Twitter Inc

Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk, who was to officially become a member of the Twitter board from April 9, has decided not to do so, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal wrote in a post on Monday. In his Twitter post, Agrawal said, “Elon’s appointment to the board was to become officially effective 4/9, but Elon shared that same morning that he will no longer be joining the board.” “I believe this is for the best. We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input.,” the CEO added.

Tesla's Elon Musk says he'll pay over $11 billion in taxes this year

 The billionaire may face a tax bill of more than $10 billion for 2021 if he exercises all his options due to expire next year, calculations last week by Bloomberg News showed.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., said on Twitter that he’ll pay more than $11 billion in taxes this year, an amount that could constitute a record payment to the U. S. Internal Revenue Service. The billionaire may face a tax bill of more than $10 billion for 2021 if he exercises all his options due to expire next year, calculations last week by Bloomberg News showed.

The unusually high levy comes after Elon Musk Musk exercised almost 15 million options and sold millions of shares to cover the taxes related to those transactions. That was following a Twitter poll last month when he asked followers whether he should sell 10% of his stake in the electric carmaker, whose shares have rocketed more than 2,300% over the past five years.

Tesla overcomes Covid-19 shutdown to post surprise profit of $104 mn in Q2

It was the company’s fourth-straight positive quarter, qualifying it to be included in the S&P 500 index of corporate titans

Tesla overcame a seven-week pandemic-related shutdown at its US assembly plant to post a surprising $104 million net profit for the second quarter. It was the company’s fourth-straight positive quarter, qualifying it to be included in the S&P 500 index of corporate titans. A decision on that will be made later. Local government restrictions forced the electric car and solar panel maker to close its only US assembly factory in Fremont, California, from March 23 to May 11. 

ALSO READ: How Tesla is heralding a new culture in auto industry, one car at a time

The company paid roughly 10,000 workers for part of the shutdown and continued health care and other benefits. Excluding one-time items such as $347 million in stock-based compensation, Tesla made $2.18 cents per share. That beat Wall Street estimates of a break-even quarter, according to FactSet.

Revenue was down 4.9 per cent from a year ago to $6.04 billion for the quarter. That still beat estimates of USD 5.15 billion. The company said its progress in the first half of the year has positioned it for success in the second half as production output continues to improve. Telsa also said it has picked a site for its second U.S. assembly plant, although the location wasn’t released. The Austin, Texas, area appeared to be the front-runner but Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a possibility.

Coronavirus update: Key developments in the last 24 hours and takeaways

Yesterday, in a video conference with chief ministers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi indicated the nationwide lockdown could be extended beyond May 17, but with eased restrictions for businesses

The total number of Covid-19 cases in India has reached 70,765, with more than 3,600 cases being reported in 24 hours. Here are some key takeaways: Delhi has added 319 new cases in a day. It has consistently added more than 200 cases for 11 days. Total cases added on these days comes to 3718, which is 51.5% of all case tally of 7233.

Also Read: Centre releases Rs 6,195 crore to 14 states to fight coronavirus crisis

Gujarat has added 347 new cases in 24 hours. It has consistently added more than 300 cases on each of the past 13 days. Total cases added during this period, 4767, is 56% of its case tally of 8541. Maharashtra has added 1230 new cases in 24 hours. The state has consistently added more than 1,000 cases on seven of the past eight days. Its addition of cases in the past eight days is 10427, which is 44.5% of its case tally of 23401…

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk to testify in defamation case over ‘pedo guy’ tweet

In his opening statement, Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro told the jurors that his client meant no harm when he hit out at Unsworth and that his words were spoken in anger.

Tesla co-founder Elon Musk went on trial in Los Angeles in a defamation case involving a British caver he allegedly called a pedophile during a spat on Twitter. A jury of six women and two men were selected to hear the case with the tech billionnaire set to testify early on in the trial, possibly Tuesday afternoon.

Musk will likely be asked about his state of mind when he called British diver Vernon Unsworth — who helped rescue youth soccer players trapped in a cave in Thailand in July 2018 — “pedo guy” in a tweet. The 48-year-old entrepreneur had lashed out at Unsworth in a series of tweets after the latter dismissed Musk’s proposal to build a mini-submarine to rescue the youths as a “PR stunt.”

Unsworth said the custom-built device would never have fit in the cave and suggested that Elon Musk could “stick his submarine where it hurts.” In his opening statement, Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro told the jurors that his client meant no harm when he hit out at Unsworth and that his words were spoken in anger. “The tweets are not allegations of crimes, they are joking, taunting tweets in a fight between two men,” Spiro told the court.

He noted that Musk had apologized for the ‘pedo guy’ tweet and removed it from his feed, repeating his clients’ claim that the term was a common insult in South Africa, where Musk grew up. “Pedo guy (means) creepy old guy,” in South Africa, Spiro said. He added that Musk felt compelled to write the tweets as he was hurt by the suggestion that he was seeking publicity when he offered to help in the cave rescue...

Tesla launches new $45,000 version of Model 3 sedan with mid-range battery

Although Tesla has promised a base-level version of the Model 3 priced at $35,000, so far it has only produced higher-cost versions

Automobile News : Tesla Inc on Thursday introduced a new $45,000 version of its Model 3 sedan on its website, launching the car as U.S. tax breaks for Tesla cars are about to decrease.

According to the website, the rear-wheel-drive model has a “mid range” battery, a range of 260 miles, 50 miles less than the long-range battery that the more expensive Model 3 is equipped with. (BS) 

The new version has a delivery period of six to 10 weeks, according to the website, which would customers eligible for the current $7,500 U.S. tax credit if they take delivery by the end of the year. The tax credit for Tesla cars will drop by half on Jan. 1.

Although Tesla has promised a base-level version of the Model 3 Sedan priced at $35,000, so far it has only produced higher-cost versions starting at about $49,000. Tesla has said that it would not manufacture the base-level version of the Model 3 this year.

Adding the mid-priced version of the Model 3 appears to be a strategic way to lure possible buyers who had been waiting for the lower-priced version. It is not clear how many of the more than 400,000 reservations for the Model 3 are for the base models.

| Business Standard |