Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 49

Elon Musk sat down for an interview with Tesla Owners Silicon Valley to discuss gigafactory production, Full-Self Driving (FSD), and more.

The interview spans over an hour, but at the beginning, Musk is asked if anyone at Tesla is working on Car Sharing, which will allow Tesla owners to rent out their car, much like Uber. Musk replies by saying that no one at Tesla is working on that feature, and that the company is simply trying not to go bankrupt. The Tesla CEO explains that the company is focused on its making sure Tesla Gigafactory's are producing vehicles that will keep Tesla's revenue above its high cost.

Musk explains in the interview conducted on May 31, that at the moment, the Austin gigafactory and the new gigafactory in Berlin are "gigantic money furnaces", since both of the factories have only been able to manufacture a small number of vehicles due to a myriad of supply chain issues. Notably, a COVID-19 outbreak caused Shanghai to enter into a full lockdown that shut down Tesla's factory. Now Musk says the company is working hard to get all its factories up and running smoothly, so he can increase production to meet the overwhelming demand.

Recent reports indicate that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is preparing to shut down e-cigarette sales from Juul across the United States.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that the FDA is preparing to order Juul Labs to remove its e-cigarette products from the US following a two-year investigation by the regulator of the benefits of Juul's e-cigarettes and if they are effective at getting smokers to quit. The investigation also took into account health impacts, and explored if Juul's e-cigarette products provide benefits that outweigh the health damage.

According to people close to the coming decision by the FDA, the regulator is expected to announce a decision as early as next week. Following the report by the WSJ, Altria Group, a tobacco giant that owns 35% of Juul Labs, saw its stock fall by 8.5%. Notably, the FDA declined to comment on the report from the WSJ, and Juul, along with Altria, didn't respond to any questions for comment.

Samsung is expected to announce mass production of its next-gen 3nm semiconductors next week, meaning it would beat the industry dominator (not just leader) in TSMC.

The next-gen 3nm chips will see Samsung building them on Gate-All-Around (GAA) technology, which allows a 45% area reduction while driving 30% more performance, and lowering power composition by 50% when compared to the existing FinFET process.

Samsung showed off its new 3nm chips to US president Joe Biden last month when the Biden administration visited Samsung's Pyeongtaek complex -- which, by the way, is the world's largest semiconductor facility -- located 43 miles (70km) away from the capital of South Korea: Seoul.

Twitter wants to secure its $44 billion acquisition offer from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and the company's board is now pushing shareholders to back the deal.

The news comes from a recent regulatory filing by Twitter's board with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and asks Twitter shareholders to vote in agreement with the merger agreement between Twitter's board and Musk. Notably, Twitter's board unanimously gave its recommendation to Twitter shareholders to grant the approval for "the compensation that will or may become payable by Twitter to its named executive officers in connection with the merger".

Notably, Twitter's share price is currently sitting at around $38 a share, which is much lower than Elon Musk's initial offer of $54.20 per share. According to the filing, if the merger is completed, shareholders will receive $54.20, which is a premium of approximately 38% to Twitter's closing price of common stock on April 2022 - the last full trading day before Musk revealed his 9% stake in the company. Essentially, Twitter's board is pointing out to its shareholders that if they vote for the merger to go ahead, they will sell their stock for 38% more than they would if they sold it at current prices.

Google has been accused by US lawmakers of its search engine giving misleading results to pregnant women seeking an abortion.

A letter signed by fourteen Senators and seven members of the House of Representatives, was sent to Google last week and cited a study conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) that found 11% of search results from searches using the terms "abortion clinic near me" or "abortion pill" resulted in referrals to centers that oppose abortion rights "crisis pregnancy centers".

The lawmakers wrote in the letter that Google "should not be displaying anti-abortion fake clinics or crisis pregnancy centers", adding that if Google wishes to continue listing these types of results, they should, "at the very least, be appropriately labeled". Google didn't comment on the letter directed to Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai, but stated the following found below.

Drake recently released his surprise album Honestly, Nevermind, and one of the songs on the album is titled "Texts Go Green".

Google tried to use the release of Drake's seventh album to explain the references Drake used in the song "Texts Go Green". Android took to its Twitter account, where it shared a video explaining that when a text is sent from any device that isn't an iOS device and received on iMessage, it's subjected to the "ugly" green color, or when an iPhone user has blocked the sender.

The Android team then pointed to the problem being entirely solvable by Apple, as the company just has to "adopt RCS (Rich Communication Services protocol)," which will, according to Android, "make texting more secure, too". Android then called upon one "super-talented engineer" to carry out its request, but as you may have expected, Apple hasn't replied.

Tesla has expanded its EV manufacturing to Germany, and now that construction on its new production facility has completed, it's rolling out new cars.

The Tesla Germany factory, or to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Giga Berlin is capable of producing 500,000 vehicles each year, as well as 50 GWh of batteries. The new factory opened in March this year, and as of reports at the end of May, approximately 3,500 employees are working there, with there being an employment capacity of 12,000. Notably, the factory is about 300 hectares and is pushing to expand its domain by an additional 100 hectares per a recent application.

Now, Elon Musk has taken to his Twitter account to praise the efforts being made at Giga Berlin as the factory produced 1,000 Model Y vehicles in the span of a week. A Tesla and Elon Musk enthusiast replied to the Twitter post by Tesla with a graph he made that is tracking the weekly Model Y deliveries in Norway. The graph shows that on the week of June 06, Tesla made about 180 Model Y's, and the following week it delivered about 420.

Elon Musk described himself on Twitter on March 5 as a "free speech absolutist", and has now reportedly fired several employees for being involved in an internal letter that criticized him.

The New York Times has reported that an internal letter was circling SpaceX that criticized the company's CEO and founder and said that SpaceX needs to separate itself from Musk's personal brand. The letter was seen by Reuters and headed "an open letter to the Executives of SpaceX" and demanded that "hold all leadership equally accountable to making SpaceX a great place to work for everyone" and "define and uniformly respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior".

SpaceX executives discovered the letter and have fired at least five employees involved with it, according to The New York Times, which states it communicated with three of the fired employees. Notably, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell wrote via email that the company recently investigated its creation and "terminated a number of employees involved".

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has just unveiled its updated process technology roadmaps, some new information on the next-gen N3 process nodes, and more at its 2022 TSMC Technology Symposium.

TSMC unveiled its new FinFlex technology for N3, which allows chip designers -- like Apple, AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and others -- to choose the best options for the key functional blocks on the same die, using the same design tool set.

Godfrey Cheng, Head of Global Marketing, TSMC, explained on the official TSMC website that TSMC's new FinFlex technology: "extends the product performance, power efficiency and density envelope of the 3nm family of semiconductor technologies by allowing chip designers to choose the best option for each of the key functional blocks on the same die using the same design toolset. These options include a 3-2 FIN, 2-2 FIN and 2-1 FIN configuration with the following characteristics".

China has a very itchy 'non-war' trigger finger for Taiwan, mostly to seize and take control of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) with its own "special military operation"... and no one will be able to condemn China if it launches the attack.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has signed a new directive that allows for the "non-war" use of its military, described as a "special military operation". It went into effect on Wednesday and could allow China to invade Taiwan -- and seize TSMC: which makes chips on Taiwanese soil for the biggest companies in the world (Apple, AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and many more) -- without anyone being able to condemn China if it invades.

The directive will provide "provide 'the legal basis for troops to carry out military operations other than war", these include peacekeeping operations, disaster relief, humanitarian efforts, and more. Considering that US president Joe Biden has said that the US would military defend Taiwan if China attacked, if Jinping does launch an assault on Taiwan with a "special military operation", Biden would have to sit on his hands... along with NATO, the UN, and every other leader in every other country on the planet.