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Hello again, and thank you for reading Fast Companys Plugged In. In 2013, David Min came to Disney CEO Bob Iger with a big idea. Min, a founding partner at Disneys investment arm, Steamboat Ventures, was now head of innovation for the entire company. He had concluded that something fundamental needed to be done about Disneys relationship with the tech industry. Wemeaning The Walt Disney Companydidn’t really have a very good reputation at the time for working with startups, he remembers. Tech accelerators such as Y Combinator, 500 Startups, and Techstars were changing how high-potential concepts got their shot at becoming thriving businesses. Min thought Disney might learn something by investing in such an accelerator. Igers take: That idea wasnt big enough. His response to me was like, Why would we do that?we should just do it ourselves, remembers Min. So Disney did. The entertainment and media behemoth launched its own accelerator, partnered with Techstars to get it rolling, and gave it the most logical possible name: Disney Accelerator. In 2014, it unveiled its first cohort of 11 startups. Eleven years later, corporate accelerators within large companies are no longer such a daring notion. Actually, theyre quite common. But Disneys take on the idea has had time to grow well beyond its origin as an exercise in reputational repair. On Wednesday, Disney Accelerator held its 2025 demo day on the Disney studio lot. The event served to introduce this years cohort of four startups: animation studio Animaj, microdrama producer DramaBox, 3D printer Haddy, and 3D projection company Liminal Space. Bonnie Rosen and David Min [Photo: Courtesy of Disney] The Disney employees who gathered at the studios Main Theater to watch a video presentation about this years cohort and then mingle with this years startups and alumni companies in person came from across the companys myriad enterprises, including movies, broadcasting, theme parks, cruise ships, consumer products, and beyond. They represented a fraction of the almost 600 staffers who now engage with the accelerator program year-round. We had people all the way from facilities and maintenance to the chairman of that division coming in for this one particular company, says Disney Accelerator general manager Bonnie Rosen, whose résumé includes time at Techstars as well as a startup that was part of Disneys 2015 cohort. Those types of vertical conversations happen within each division. More than any other long-lived Hollywood titan, Disney prides itself on being innovative to its core. Its an understandable badge of honor given that Walt Disney himself embraced advances such as the talkies, Technicolor, and TV as they came along, making each fundamental to the way his namesake company entertained the world. Today, its usually no mystery why Disney was intrigued by any given company among the 60-plus that have been through its accelerator program. At demo day, for example, Liminal Space showed off its technology in the studios Stage One building, where the original Mouseketeers filmed The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s. It projects particularly crisp, vivid 3D video that can be viewed using simple polarized glasses. It can also be interactive: One of the demos involved The Guardians of the Galaxys Rocket Raccoon bantering with attendees. Liminals system isnt currently in use at Disneys parks, but it seems like a natural. Liminal Space’s 3D projection technology is far more impressive in person than in a flat image like this. [Photo: Harry McCracken] As for Animaj, its what Disney itself was in the beginning: a small but ambitious animation studio. Like Toonstar, which I recently profiled, the Paris-based company has built its own software platform that uses AI to help creators figure out which stories will resonate with audiences and then expedite the process of turning them into animation. In this case, theyre stories for little kids. Paris-based Animaj produces kid-friendly animation using its own software platform. [Photo: Courtesy of Animaj] The vision that we have with all of our properties is to turn them into global franchises with all the different layers, Antoine Lhermitte, the companys CTO, told me. So we start on YouTube. Then we create a premium production [version] to sell to linear platforms, digital platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, etc. Then we layer in consumer products, and then, if the traction continues, the idea is to go to theaters. Lhermitte says hes hopeful the accelerator might lead to Animaj and Disney creating content together; the startup doesnt want to be a service provider that just licenses its software to other studios. Then theres Haddy. At first blush, it might seem a bit of an outlier in the Disney Accelerator portfolio. The Florida-based company counts military, maritime, and furniture among the verticals its pursuing for its 3D printing technology, which tariffs have made newly enticing as a way to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. But the same factory that can crank out a 3D printed boat can also produce a full-size, real-world replica of King Louies throne from The Jungle Bookand has, as an experiment for Disneys Imagineering theme-park designers. (It took about 20 hours to print.) Furniture 3D-printed in Haddys factory [Photo: Courtesy of Haddy] Haddy was already working with Disney when it was invited to join this years accelerator program. The company has networked with around 200 Disney executives as a result of this association, and has found that the experience redounds to the benefit of its other businesses, and vice versa. You’re always learning, says head of sales Erin Smith. A boat that we print for Brunswick boats, for example, makes us more experienced and smarter when we print a boat for the Disney Jungle Cruise. The fact that Haddy is well down the path of applying its technology to fields not at all tied to its Disney association reflects the accelerators investment strategy, which has evolved over time. At first, it focused on early-stage startups and offered each one a standard $120,000 investment (the same figure once offered by Y Combinator). Eventually, however, Disney concluded that it was better off striking bespoke deals with growth-stage startupsones whose future wouldnt be overly skewed by Disneys stake and the potential to sign up the company as a customer. These further-along businesses arent reliant on Disney for the health of their business development pipelines, says Min. Disney is a pillar of what they’re trying to accomplish, but it’s one of many things, and we encourage that. Which is not to say that even startups that are already booming cant benefit from being well-connected at Disney. ElevenLabs is best known for its ability to turn real peoples voices into uncannily accurate synthesized speech. When it joined the accelerators 2024 program, it had fewer than 100 employees but was already a unicorn. Now its at 350 people and is still hiring, and the contacts its made within Disney remain valuable. Sports, film, TVwe’re talking to all of them, because each of those divisions could use our product in so many different ways, says head of partnerships Dustin Blank. The conversations are always super interesting. In one case, the accelerator welcomed a company was already a venerated institution, an unorthodox arrangement that seemed to have worked out well for all involved. When Epic Gamesthe creator of Unreal and the game development platform based on itjoined the 2017 Disney Accelerator program, it was more than 25 years old and on the cusp of releasing something called Fortnite. The massive multiplayer game went on to truly epic success. In 2024, the two companies announced a partnership involving Disney taking a $1.5 billion stake in Epic and collaborating with it on new games based on Disney franchises. Like anyone investing in startups, Disney aims to see a financial return from its accelerators portfolio. It also clearly sees the potential to apply some of the technologies it learns about to keep its many businesses growing. (CFO Hugh Johnston spoke as part of the demo days video, during a presentation that name-checked the companys cofounder and original bean counter, Roy O. Disney, almost as often as his younger brother.) Mins original goal of bolstering the companys perception among techies remains crucial as well. Yet another goal is allowing Disney to help shape the future of technology. Consider robotics, a hot topic at the moment that Rosen mentions when I ask her about emerging technologies that Disney Accelerator cares about (besides AI, of course). She notes the challenges a free-range Disney bot faces, such as safely weaving its way around theme-park visitors and food carts. But she also says the company might make a contribution to figuring out how to make robots more personable. It’s that personality part where Disney creatives are uniquely positioned to [initiate] a real momentum shift in how robotics are thought about, she says. Those are areas that are very exciting, and we wouldn’t look at them in the same way that the broader market is. Given that the company happens to have more than 60 years of eperience in getting humans to bond with robotsdating to when Disneyland got its Enchanted Tiki Room and Mr. Lincoln first read the Gettysburg Address at the 1964 New York Worlds Fairits not an idle claim. And its one no mere stripling of a startup can match. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on FastCompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company Forget AI companions. This $249 AI ring lets you talk to yourselfStream believes the future of AI might live on your finger. Read More New court docs put Sam Altman’s honesty in spotlight againA lot is riding on the AI industry’s ability to apply AI productively and safely in business and personal life in the next decade. Trust is a major factor. Read More Nintendo wins suit against streamer who flaunted pirated gamesCrossing the gaming giant can be an expensive proposition. Read More Paul Allen’s AI nonprofit unveils satellite data platformAi2 wants OlmoEarth to help nonprofits and governments without the resources for state-of-the-art geospatial AI work. Read More Oops, I got emotionally attached to this $429 AI petCasio’s Moflin is perhaps the first AI ‘companion’ to deliver on its promise. Read More Here are the best mobile AI appsPrompt, research, design, prototype, and moreall from your phone. Read More
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When fewer people belong to unions and unions have less power, the impact goes beyond wages and job security. Those changes can hurt public health and make people more unhappy. Were economists who research labor and health issues. Those are two of the main findings of studies that we have conducted. More unionization, more happiness In the first study on this topic that we published in 2023, we found that increasing levels of union membership tends to make working-class people happier. We zeroed in on a question in the General Social Survey, which the University of Chicago makes available. It asks respondents to choose whether they are very happy, somewhat happy or not at all happy with their life. We found that, from 1993 to 2018, when the share of workers in counties along the borders of states with and without right-to-work laws who belong to unions rose by 1 percentage point, the average level of happiness for low-income residents moved 15% closer toward being very happya seemingly modest but noticeable change. Right-to-work laws let workers skip paying union dues when theyre employed by a company that has negotiated a contract with a labor union. In states without right-to-work laws, those dues are mandatory. As a result, right-to-work laws weaken unions ability to negotiate better working conditions and reduce the share of workers who belong to unions. But a higher rate of union membership didnt significantly affect the happiness of higher-income people. Right-to-work laws The first right-to-work laws were adopted by states in the 1940s. After a long lull, the pace picked up around 2000. These laws were in force in 26 states as of late 2025. Four of those states made the switch between 2001 and 2015: Oklahoma in 2001, Indiana in 2012, Michigan in 2012 and Wisconsin in 2015. We used data collected in these four states to conduct what is known in economics as an event studya research method that provides before-and-after pictures of a significant change that affects large numbers of people. Michigan repealed its right-to-work law in 2024, but our data is from 2001-2015, and Michigan became a right-to-work state during that period and remained one for the rest of that time. Less unionization, more opioid overdoses In a related working paper that we plan to publish in an upcoming edition of an academic journal, we looked into other effects of right-to-work laws. Specifically, we investigated whether, as more states adopted those laws, the gradual decline in union strength those statutes produce was contributing to an increase in opioid overdoses. We used a research technique called the synthetic control method to assess whether declining union power has affected the number of opioid overdoses. We drew our data from a variety of sources, including the Treatment Episode Data Set, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Multiple Cause of Death database, the Census Bureaus Current Population Survey, the union membership and coverage database, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illness and Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. We found that both fatal and nonfatal opioid overdoses increased within six years of the enactment of right-to-work laws in all four of the states we studied. We primarily found a connection between opioid overdoses and right-to-work laws among men and male teens between ages 16 and 64making them of working agewith dangerous jobs, such as roofing or freight moving, and little job security. They were people who tend to feel more job stress because they dont have control over their work tasks and schedules. We didnt observe those same results for women or deaths from non-opioid drugs, such as cocaine. Lower levels of unionization are linked to weaker job security and reduced workplace protections, previous research has shown. Our work suggests these factors may play a role in increasing demand for opioids. Declining union membership The share of U.S. workers who belong to unions has fallen by half in the past four decades, declining from just over 20% in 1983 to a little under 10% in 2024. Because unions advocate for better and safer working conditions, they can raise wages and living standards for their members. Interestingly, some of these benefits can also extend to people who dont belong to unions. An opioid use disorder crisis has devastated communities across the U.S. for more than 25 years. The death toll from drug overdoses soared from 17,500 in 2000 to 105,000 in 2023. The number of overdose deaths did fall in 2024, to about 81,000, but it remains historically high. Most fatal drug overdoses since te crisis began have been caused by opioids. Throughout this crisis, government policies have focused largely on reducing the supply of prescription opioids, such as OxyContin, and illegal opioids, especially fentanyl, distributed outside the health care system. Causes of despair Despite successful interventions to shut down pill millsclinics that prescribe opioids without a valid medical reasonand expand access to prevention and treatment, drug overdoses remain a leading cause of death. And we believe that our findings support results from earlier studies that determined despair is not just an emotional or biological reactionit can also be a response to social and economic conditions. We are continuing to research the connections between union membership and public health. The next question we are working on is whether a decline in union membership can have a multigenerational impact, going beyond the workers employed today and affecting the lives of their children and grandchildren. Samia Islam is a professor of economics at Boise State University and Kelly Chen is an associate professor of economics at Boise State University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Quantum computing insiders, investors, and skeptics have been waiting on an announcement from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that has enormous implications for the future of the industry: the list of companies that have survived Stage A of the agencys Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI) and are advancing to Stage B. The QBI was launched in July 2024 to rigorously verify and validate whether any quantum computing approach can achieve utility-scale operation by 2033, according to DARPA. In essence, the QBI seeks to determine if a quantum computer technology is worth pursuingif its benefits will be greater than the effort and resources it takes to pursue them. For a technology that could produce world-changing feats but remains far from maturityand into which billions of investment dollars have been flowing in recent monthsthe QBI validation is profound. The QBIs first judgments, announced yesterday, reconfigure the competitive landscape, bolstering some powerful incumbents and boosting lesser-known players and outlier approaches. They also delivered a formidable gut punch to a couple of industry pioneers. QBI is not a competition to narrow the field to a few winners. Rather, the aim is to evaluate each companys approach on its own merits DARPA said in a press release. The agency makes clear that multiple participants could demonstrate a path to an industrially useful quantum computer, or perhaps none of them. The new quantum computing playing field During Stage A of QBI, companies had six months to provide detailed technical concepts that showed feasibility for creating utility-scale quantum systems. The initial stage included 18 companiesIBM, Quantinuum, Atom Computing, Alice & Bob, IonQ, Rigetti, and Xanadu, among them. These companies, which were eligible for up to $1 million in funding, represent a variety of approaches to building a quantum computer, down to their technology for constructing qubits, the fundamental building blocks of a quantum computation. The 11 companies that were selected to move onto Stage B are pursuing different systems. Two companies, Atom Computing and QuEra Computing, use neutral atom qubits. IonQ and Quantinuum both use so-called trapped ions. Several companies use silicon spin qubits. IBM is pursuing superconducting qubits. And Xanadu uses a photonics-based qubit. Now, moving into Stage B, they will be asked for a comprehensive research and development plan capable of realizing their quantum computer, with an assessment of the risks associated with the plan, and their mitigation approaches. In Stage C, companies will work with the government to verify and validate that their utility-scale quantum computer concept can be constructed as designed and operated as intended. DARPA anticipates that additional teams will advance through stages A, B, and C. And companies have entered the evaluation process on varying timelinesGoogle Quantum AI, for example, joined lateresulting in staggered advancement across stages. Two companies, Microsoft and PsiQuantum, have already advanced to Stage C in a separate but related DARPA initiative called Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC). IBMs progression to Stage B of DARPAs Quantum Benchmarking Initiative is a firm validation of IBMs approach to delivering a large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer, said IBMs director of research Jay Gambetta in a company press release. As the industry advances, we look forward to working with DARPA as they continue an unbiased review of potential viable strategies across the field. It’s not that we got in that matters as much as making sure we didnt not get in, says Christian Weedbrook, CEO and founder of Toronto-based Xanadu Quantum Technologies. A lot of late nights the team was pushing themselves, and I said, we don’t want a black mark across us now for getting the stage B. One of the great things about [the process] is that it really forced us in different teams to work harder together. Earlier this week, Xanadu announced plans to go public via SPAC, which Weedbrook expects to happen in the first or second quarter of 2026. This would be the only way, currently at least, that investors can invest in a photonics-based approach, he says. Soul searching, and new funding Even if you are able to do months of diligence, nothing really beats the team of scientists and researchers from across the [Department of Defense] labs, the national labs, and the intelligence and universities ecosystem that DARPA has assembled to do this diligence, says Prineha Narang, a professor of physical sciences and electrical and computer engineering at UCLA and a partner at deep-tech venture firm DCVC. This is far more than any VC or anyone on the private capital side could do. Narang says that companies that didnt make it to Stage B should take it very seriously. It doesn’t mean that they dont have an approach that could eventually work, but just that today they couldn’t articulate and present [that plan] to DARPA, she adds. The Stage A contenders that didnt make the cut include Alice & Bob, which uses innovative cat qubits, Atlantic Quantum, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oxford Ionics, and Rigetti Computing, which was founded in 2013 and is the first full-stack, universal pure-play quantum computing company. On the other hand, Narang notes that a few companies that made it to Stage B have term sheets that call out the QBI outcome as a condition for the next round of funding. Several investments and deals are now in flight, she says. [They are] happening, and happening faster than the usual pace of these.
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E-Commerce
President Donald Trump is adjusting his messaging strategy to win over voters who are worried about the cost of living with plans to emphasize new tax breaks and show progress on fighting inflation.The messaging is centered around affordability, and the push comes after inflation emerged as a major vulnerability for Trump and Republicans in Tuesday’s elections, in which voters overwhelmingly said the economy was their biggest concern.Democrats took advantage of concerns about affordability to run up huge margins in the New Jersey and Virginia governor races, flipping what had been a strength for Trump in the 2024 presidential election into a vulnerability going into next year’s midterm elections.White House officials and others familiar with their thinking requested anonymity to speak for this article in order to not get ahead of the president’s actions. They stressed that affordability has always been a priority for Trump, but the president plans to talk about it more, as he did Thursday when he announced that Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk would reduce the price of their anti-obesity drugs.“We are the ones that have done a great job on affordability, not the Democrats,” Trump said at an event in the Oval Office to announce the deal. “We just lost an election, they said, based on affordability. It’s a con job by the Democrats.”The White House is keeping up a steady drumbeat of posts on social media about prices and deals for Thanksgiving dinner staples at retailers such as Walmart, Lidl, Aldi and Target.“I don’t want to hear about the affordability, because right now, we’re much less,” Trump told reporters Thursday, arguing that things are much better for Americans with his party in charge.“The only problem is the Republicans don’t talk about it,” he said. The outlook for inflation is unclear As of now, the inflation outlook has worsened under Trump. Consumer prices in September increased at an annual rate of 3%, up from 2.3% in April, when the president first began to roll out substantial tariff hikes that suddenly burdened the economy with uncertainty. The AP Voter Poll showed the economy was the leading issue in Tuesday’s elections in New Jersey, Virginia, New York City and California.Grocery prices continue to climb, and recently, electricity bills have emerged as a new worry. At the same time, the pace of job gains has slowed, plunging 23% from the pace a year ago.The White House maintains a list of talking points about the economy, noting that the stock market has hit record highs multiple times and that the president is attracting foreign investment. Trump has emphasized that gasoline prices are coming down, and maintained that gasoline is averaging $2 a gallon, but AAA reported Thursday that the national average was $3.08, about two cents lower than a year ago.“Americans are paying less for essentials like gas and eggs, and today the Administration inked yet another drug pricing deal to deliver unprecedented health care savings for everyday Americans,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai.Trump gets briefed about the economy by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other officials at least once a week and there are often daily discussions on tariffs, a senior White House official said, noting Trump is expected to do more domestic travel next year to make his case that he’s fixing affordability.But critics say it will be hard for Trump to turn around public perceptions on affordability.“He’s in real trouble and I think it’s bigger than just cost of living,” said Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal economic advocacy group.Owens noted that Trump has “lost his strength” as voters are increasingly doubtful about Trump’s economic leadership compared to Democrats, adding that the president doesn’t have the time to turn around public perceptions of him as he continues to pursue broad tariffs. New hype about income tax cuts ahead of April There will be new policies rolled out on affordability, a person familiar with the White House thinking said, declining to comment on what those would be. Trump on Thursday indicated there will be more deals coming on drug prices. Two other White House officials said messaging would change but not policy.A big part of the administration’s response on affordability will be educating people ahead of tax season about the role of Trump’s income tax cuts in any refunds they receive in April, the person familiar with planning said. Those cuts were part of the sprawling bill Republicans muscled through Congress in July.This individual stressed that the key challenge is bringing prices down while simultaneously having wages increase, so that people can feel and see any progress.There’s also a bet that the economy will be in a healthier place in six months. With Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s term ending in May, the White House anticipates the start of consistent cuts to the Fed’s benchmark interest rate. They expect inflation rates to cool and declines in the federal budget deficit to boost sentiment in the financial markets.But the U.S. economy seldom cooperates with a president’s intentions, a lesson learned most recently by Trump’s predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, who saw his popularity slump after inflation spiked to a four-decade high in June 2022.The Trump administration maintains it’s simply working through an inflation challenge inherited from Biden, but new economic research indicates Trump has created his own inflation challenge through tariffs.Since April, Harvard University economist Alberto Cavallo and his colleagues, Northwestern University’s Paola Llama and Universidad de San Andres’ Franco Vazquez, have been tracking the impact of the import taxes on consumer prices.In an October paper, the economists found that the inflation rate would have been drastically lower at 2.2%, had it not been for Trump’s tariffs.The administration maintains that tariffs have not contributed to inflation. They plan to make the case that the import taxes are helping the economy and dismiss criticisms of the import taxes as contributing to inflation as Democratic talking points.The fate of Trump’s country-by-country tariffs is currently being decided by the Supreme Court, where justices at a Wednesday hearing seemed dubious over the administration’s claims that tariffs were essentially regulations and could be levied by a president without congressional approval. Trump has maintained at times that foreign countries pay the tariffs and not U.S. citizens, a claim he backed away from slightly Thursday.“They might be paying something,” he said. “But when you take the overall impact, the Americans are gaining tremendously.” Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report. Josh Boak, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Yesterday, Tesla, Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) shareholders overwhelmingly approved the controversial and historic pay package deal for the electric vehicle makers CEO, Elon Musk. That package is worth up to nearly $1 trillion in compensation for Muskprovided the company reaches certain milestones. But if those milestones are met, it would make Musk, already the worlds richest man, the worlds first trillionaire. Heres what you need to know about the historic pay package and how investors and Teslas shares are reacting to the news. Whats in Musks historic Tesla pay deal? At Teslas investor meeting yesterday, over three-quarters of shareholders voted to approve Musks nearly $1 trillion compensation package. However, the package isnt a blank check filled with thirteen digits before the decimal place. Instead, it is an agreement that includes a series of milestones Tesla needs to reach under Musks leadership. With each milestone reached, Musk receives some of the pay packages agreed-upon sum, mostly in the form of Tesla shares. As Fast Company previously reported, those milestones wont be easy. They include the following: 20 million Tesla vehicles delivered 10 million active Full Self-Driving subscriptions 1 million robots delivered 1 million Robotaxis in commercial operation A series of adjusted EBITDA benchmarks A market cap for Tesla of at least $8.5 trillion All of these are a tall order, particularly the last one. No company in history has ever come close to an $8.5 trillion market capitalization. Last month, NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) briefly became the worlds first $5 trillion company. Today, it retains its number one spot, with a market cap of around $4.4 trillion. Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) currently come in at numbers two and three, with market caps of $4 trillion and $3.6 trillion, respectively. As for Tesla, the company currently ranks as having the 10th largest market cap in the world, at $1.4 trillion. That means Teslas stock price would have to increase by more than six times todays valuation if Musk is to get the full compensation deal payout. And thats not even to mention the other lofty milestones Tesla needs to achieve under Musk, including delivery of one million robots into the wild. Still, the majority of voting shareholders seem to believe that the historic pay deal is not only appropriate to retain Musk as the companys leader, but that he, of all people, could take Tesla to a place itand no other companyhas ever been before. How has Wall Street reacted? As you would expect from such a controversial pay package, opinions on Tesla shareholders approving the $1 trillion compensation are mixed. Reuters spoke to a number of Wall Street insiders. Among them was Mike ORourke, chief market strategist at Jones Trading, who said that given Musk could easily abandon the struggling Tesla to run his other private companies, it was worth it for shareholders to lock his leadership in. Nonetheless, ORourke added, it is highly unlikely this works out well when a $1.5 trillion company needs to award a $1 trillion pay package to the richest man in the world.” Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, told the outlet that given the demanding milestones required by the compensation package, Tesla investors had little to lose: If Musk does get the $1 trillion, shareholders will have done very nicely indeed. As could be expected, many everyday retail investors on social media who are Musk fans and Tesla bulls cheered the passage of the compensation package. How have TSLA shares reacted? While Tesla shareholders have now approved the historic package, nothing much actually changes for Tesla today. Still, shares in Tesla have fallen since the markets opened this morning, their first day of trading after shareholders approved the pay package. As of the time of this writing, TSLA shares are currently down about 2.5% to $434.40. They had fallen by over 4.5% at one point right after the markets opened. Yet its hard to take any meaning from TSLAs price drop this morning. A low single-digit drop could just be due to everyday profit taking, and not a signal that investors think the approval of the compensation package was bad news for the company (indeed, the majority of voting investors clearly thought the deal was a good thing). Year to date, TSLA shares are now up around 6% as of the time of this writing. Over the past 12 months, TSLA shares have risen more than 44%.
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E-Commerce
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