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Six months after Elon Musk left the Trump administration to the great relief of Tesla investors worried about boycotts, the world’s richest man has announced some good news: Sales of Tesla cars are back. Well, maybe. The electric vehicle maker run by Musk reported Thursday that car sales jumped 7% in the three months through September after plunging for most of the year, as people turned off by his embrace of President Donald Trump and far-right politicians in Europe balked at buying his cars. But the jump comes with a significant caveat: Tesla benefited from consumers taking advantage of a $7,500 tax credit before it expired on September 30, a surge in buying that helped all EV makers. In fact, many Tesla rivals saw sales jump more. Fellow EV maker Rivian Automotive reported a 32% increase. Tesla stock rose sharply on the sales news, but then fell into losses as financial analysts expressed skepticism about whether the new number signals a true turnaround, given all the anti-Musk backlash. I dont think most people are any more enamored with Elon now than they were a few months ago,” said Telemetry Insight’s Sam Abuelsamid. “I expect this is more a blip for Tesla than the restart of growth. Even a big Tesla bull, Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities, was cautious, noting there are “still demand issues. Tesla stock dropped 3%, to $446, in early afternoon trading in New York. Still, it was a blowout number with sales hitting 497,099 vehicles versus 462,890 in the same period last year. Analysts expected sales to fall slightly to 456,000. Investors cheered Musks decision in April to leave Washington for Austin, Texas, where Tesla is headquartered. But he is still heavily involved in political and social wars, alienating potential car buyers. On Wednesday, he posted on X that he was canceling his Netflix subscription because of critical comments made by an employee of the streaming services company, which appeared to spark a wave of cancellations in turn. The sharp fall in Tesla stock Thursday was remarkable, as investors have been surprisingly optimistic about the company in recent weeks despite terrible financial figures. Investors drove the stock up 34% in September alone in a bet that Musks planned new, cheaper version of his best-selling Model Y will recharge sales. Musk has also been successful in shifting investor attention away from cars to other aspects of the businessthe rollout of its driverless robotaxi service planned for several cities and its Optimus robots for factory work and household chores. Driving the stock higher has also been Musks apparent renewed focus on the company. To help keep his attention on the company, Tesla’s board proposed last month a new pay package that would allow Musk to earn $1 trillion over the next several years if he meets certain financial goals. The pay package, unprecedented for U.S. companies already known for outsized CEO compensation, recently drew criticism from Pope Leo in an interview lamenting widening income gaps. If Musk meets his pay goals, he could be setting a record on top of his own record. He recently became the first person ever to hit $500 billion in net worth, at least according to rich list compiler Forbes magazine. The 7% sales rise in the last quarter compares with a 13% plunge in the first three months of the year when Musk led Trumps government cost-cutting efforts at the Department of Government Efficiency. In the following three months through June, sales plunged 13% again. The anti-Musk backlash in Europe had also been fierce, with sales plunging 40% in more than two dozen countries after he publicly supported far-right politicians there. Musk called the British prime minister an “evil tyrant” who belongs in prison and told Germans that “things will get very, very much worse” in their country if they didnt vote for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party. Protests broke out in several cities, including a hanging of the billionaire in effigy in Milan and posters in London likening him to a Nazi. For her part, the Tesla head of the board of directors who approved Musks latest pay package recently told Bloomberg that she is not sure if Musks politics have had any impact on the companys finances. Robyn Denholm has earned nearly $700 million in compensation for serving on the board since 2014, a package that itself has drawn criticism. Tesla reports third-quarter earnings later this month. Profits for the previous quarter fell 16% as the company continued to lose market share to European EV makers and fast-growing Chinese rivals, such as BYD. Musk’s new robotaxi service launched in Austin in June and has had some hitches, with reports of the cabs stopping suddenly for no reason and driving in the opposing lane in one instance. But Musk has said the driverless rides will be available in several other cities by the end of next year. By Bernard Condon, AP business writer
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With the help of generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Googles Gemini, and Anthropics Claude, creating content is easier and faster than ever. Here are a few quick and easy methods you can use to create content, summarize information, and even brainstorm new ideas.
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Working with AI as a team isnt about knowing the latest technology. Its about changing your mindset to build skills AI cant replace, focusing on outcomes, not optics, and leaving room for strategic tests.
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Organizations are scrambling to keep up with employees using AI tools like ChatGPT, text generators, and automation platforms to help them at work. The phenomenon is known as Bring Your Own AI. And while workers are hitting performance goals faster, theyre also exposing companies to unprecedented legal and security risks.
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ChatGPT maker OpenAIs value has soared to a sky-high $500 billion following a secondary sale of its shares held by current and former employees. Reuters reported Thursday that the group of employees unloaded around $6.6 billion in shares in the deal, pushing OpenAIs valuation well north of its current valuation of $300 billion. During the secondary sales open window, OpenAI shareholders offloaded their stock to an investor group that included SoftBank, Thrive Capital, T. Rowe Price, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Emirati state-owned AI investment firm MGX, according to a source who described the deals details to Reuters. While $6.6 billion in shares changed hands during the secondary market sale, OpenAI reportedly authorized the sale of more than $10 billion in stock. The discrepancy suggests that plenty of shareholders are confident holding onto their shares and opted not to sell. CNBC and Bloomberg reported rumors of an upcoming sale in August, noting that the talks were then in early stages but an OpenAI secondary sale could value the company at $500 billion. Exponential growth, exponential change OpenAIs trajectory has been uniquely stratospheric since it first launched ChatGPT in 2022just three years ago. In March, OpenAI raised a $40 billion round, led by Japanese investment firm SoftBank, which was joined by Microsoft, Altimeter, Coatue and Thrive Capital. In the six months since, the company has already tacked on an additional $200 billion to its valuation. With its new valuation, OpenAI easily eclipses SpaceXs $400 billion valuation and takes the lead as the worlds most valuable private company. The secondary sale comes as OpenAI navigates a plan to restructure itself as a for-profit company, moving away from its unusual and complex structure, which sees the company managed by a nonprofit parent company. OpenAI wants to evolve into a public benefit corporation (PBC), a for-profit company that answers to shareholders while orienting itself toward a stated mission, ostensibly one that benefits society. The shift has caused friction with Microsoft, OpenAIs largest investor, and could eventually clear the way for OpenAI to become a publicly traded company. Even as it moves toward remaking its corporate structure, OpenAI continues to release new products with unprecedented societal implications at a breakneck pace. Just this week, OpenAI unveiled an app called Sora. Powered by its text-to-video generator Sora 2, the app invites users to upload yourself with a short audio and video sample and drop their own likeness into uncannily realistic AI-generated deepfakes. The result is a kind of synthetic TikTok stocked with AI shortsa novelty to be sure, but, like an AI-generated short story, one that offers little compelling reason to stick around to see what happens. Hours after launching, social media channels were awash in the hyperrealistic short videos, many of them depicting OpenAIs Sam Altman himself being chased by stampeding animals, swirling around a toilet Skibidi-style, or shoplifting GPUs from Target. Like OpenAIs other innovations, Soras synthetic videos are nearly indistinguishable from real, human-made media, and the $500 billion company is yet again poised to wholly upend the way that people make senseor dontof what they see online.
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