Business, Financial & Legal

Tesla CEO has lost his bid to get a $56 billion pay package reinstated, according to a recent ruling by a Delaware judge who upheld the original ruling in January, which denied the pay package.

The ruling came on Monday when Tesla CEO lost his bid to have his 2018 CEO pay package reinstated, which is estimated to be worth approximately $56 billion, making it the largest compensation package of any executive of a publicly traded company. Musk rebukes the ruling by the Delaware judge, writing on X, formerly Twitter, that he plans to appeal the ruling, which he describes as "absolute corruption".

Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick voided the push for the pay package back in January, citing Musk's control over Tesla at the time that enabled him to curate the pay package as he saw fit, and through a process that McCormick stated was "deeply flawed." Following these decisions, Tesla conducted a shareholder vote on the pay package in June, and the results were used by Musk's lawyers to try and convince McCormick to overturn her decision. However, it didn't work. McCormick said, "Even if a stockholder vote could have a ratifying effect, it could not do so here."

Elon Musk has seized his opportunity to prevent OpenAI from converting into a for-profit company, with the Tesla CEO filing for an injunction against OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman.

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO has long been after OpenAI since the non-profit took an investment of $13 billion from Microsoft, claiming the company Musk originally helped create as a counterweight to Google, and the rapid development of artificial intelligence has now strayed away from its original non-profit mission of bringing transparency to artificial intelligence. Now, Musk has filed an injunction that will be heard in early January next year at the United States District Court, Northern District of California.

The injunction requests that OpenAI be prevented from performing activities such as investing in OpenAI's competitors - even xAI, Elon Musk's own AI company, utilizing "wrongfully obtained competitively sensitive information" through OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft, its conversion from a non-profit company into a for-profit company, and the transferring of any OpenAI assets to competitors, subsidiaries, or affiliates. Musk has also claimed in previous complaints that OpenAI swindled him out of $44 million by preying on "well-known concerns about the existential harms" of AI.

Intel has announced that its CEO, Pat Gelsinger, has retired from the company effective as of yesterday.

Gelsinger has vacated the chief exec post and stepped down from the board of the chip giant, following what Intel described as a "distinguished 40-plus-year career."

His temporary replacements will be David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, who will serve as interim co-chief executive officers, while Intel looks for another CEO to take the reins.

Microsoft has reportedly been asked by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to provide information on its business practises in the following markets: cloud, artificial intelligence, and infosec.

According to sources who spoke to CNN, The Washington Post, and Bloomberg, the FTC has launched a probe into Microsoft and requested that the company provide the regulator with information on the three aforementioned businesses and others that aren't listed. What could the regulator be investigating specifically? As for cloud practices that could be in violation, European authorities have pressed Redmond over its deals being exclusive to Azure customers.

Microsoft security could also be another point of interest for regulators as Microsoft's products have recently become compromised, leading to foreign adversaries infiltrating government email accounts and making off with valuable information. As for artificial intelligence, European authorities are already questioning if Microsoft's close $10 billion partnership with OpenAI is intentionally designed to avoid the microscope of an official acquisition but still maintain the level of influence or control on the market.

A former Google employee is being taken to court over allegedly leaking trade secrets about the company's Google Pixel smartphone.

Google has officially filed a lawsuit against a former employee for allegedly leaking trade secrets following his departure from the company. According to Google's legal action filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, Harshit Roy, a former Google employee whose LinkedIn's page states he was at the company for four years starting in 2020, is allegedly responsible for the distribution of internal documents revealing the hardware inside future generation Google Pixel smartphones.

According to the legal action, Roy, who was responsible for the design, development, and optimization of unreleased System-on-Chip (SoC) onto Pixel smartphones, posted confidential information on X about the unreleased chips, shared internal Google documents, and threatened Google with further disclosures. Additionally, Google alleges Roy ignored takedown requests for all of the leaked content he posted, along with Google's effort to resolve the matter "without judicial intervention."

TSMC's brand new 2nm fab in Kaohsiung has hit a huge milestone today, with its equipment installation ceremony taking place with clients, partners, and Taiwanese government officials.

In a new report from Economic Daily News and UDN, we're hearing that TSMC's inaugural 12-inch fab in Kaohsiung is preparing for mass production of 2nm chips in 2025. Additionally, the equipment installation is 6 months ahead of schedule, and finally, once the new 2nm fab is operational, it will be making the world's most advanced chips.

But which companies will be first to use TSMC's new 2nm process node? Apple and AMD are expected to be amongst the first customers of TSMC and its next-gen 2nm process node. Not only that, but TSMC's 2nm production strategy in Taiwan is moving full-steam ahead on two paths: Hsinchu Baoshan fab and the Kaohsiung plant, both gearing into mass production in 2025.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has inquired about purchasing MSNBC amid rumors that Comcast could be preparing to sell it.

The media stir about Musk possibly purchasing MSNBC began when Donald Trump Jr tagged Musk in an X post about Comcast being rumored to be quietly preparing the sale of MSNBC, with Trump Jr writing, "Hey Elon Musk, I have the funniest idea ever!!!". The inquiry from Musk comes after news broke that Comcast was rolling its media properties into a new company called SpinCo, which will sever those media assets from Comcast's NBC broadcast network.

Despite this severing, Comcast has said that none of its media properties are for sale, but that hasn't prevented speculation of sales on social media platforms, especially now that Musk has lit a fire. Musk replied to Trump Jr's X post with a similar response to what the Tesla CEO wrote when inquiring about purchasing Twitter back in 2017. "How much does it cost?".

TSMC's new Arizona fab opening ceremony has reportedly been delayed from December 2024 until January 2025, after President-elect Trump is inaugurated and US (and TSMC, and the world) enters the "Trump 2.0" generation.

In a new report from DigiTimes, we're learning that the "supply chain revealed" that TSMC has informed invited guests to its Arizona fab completion ceremony -- something both President Biden and President-elect Trump are expected to attend -- and "may be postponed until after Trump takes office in January or then, depending on the atmosphere".

TSMC is the key player in the technology industry, making chips for the largest tech companies on the planet -- most of them from the USA -- including NVIDIA, Intel, Qualcomm, Apple, and more. TSMC is aware of the geopolitical risks, and that the changing of the administration in the US will change across the next 4 years. DigiTimes reports that the "script had to be rewritten again, and it (TSMC) was once again on alert and combat readiness".

A UK consumer group has filed a £3 billion (US$3.82 billion) claim against Apple over its iCloud pricing and packaging details, which the consumer group alleges violates consumer practices in the UK and has resulted in Apple gaining an "unfair advantage" in the market.

The claim comes from Which?, a consumer watchdog that tests products and services. Which? alleges in the claim that Apple's practices may have impacted as many as 40 million people across the UK, spanning back to October 1, 2015. Which? alleges Apple's practices has gained it market dominance, mentioning a "key tactic" that is used is Apple encouraging users to sign up to iCloud for "storage of photos, videos, and other data while simultaneously making it difficult to use alternative providers."

Moreover, the claim points out that "Apple does not allow customers to store or back up all of their phone's data with a third-party provider" and that once iCloud storage has exceeded the free 5GB limit, users are prompted with notifications reminding them to upgrade their iCloud storage to continue backing up photos, videos, and other data. Which? is seeking damages for approximately 40 million customers that have had iCloud services since October 2015, and the consumer watchdog believes £70 per customer is appropriate.

Samsung will be showing off its innovations for AI and automotive technologies at the electronica 2024 event, with the likes of its new HBM3E AI memory and GDDR7 memory for graphics cards, and so much more shown off at the event.

Samsung is showcasing its latest innovations in AI and HPC including HBM3E, CXL-based CMM-D, and GDDR7 memory as well as DDR5 RDIMMs for the data center. The company is supporting automotive innovation in the "Server on Wheels" era with automotive LPDDR5X and Detachable AutoSSDs being on display at electronica 2024.

Here's what Samsung will be showcasing at electronica 2024: