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A group of Tesla investors asked CEO Elon Musk for more commitment to the electric vehicle (EV) company in an open letter published last week, specifically requesting that he spend less time posting derogatory tweets. The letter also urged Musk to address accusations of a toxic work environment at Tesla and concerns about future profitability.

The self-described progressive investor group demanded a plan to overhaul the composition of the board, including the removal of directors close to Musk, and a policy that would limit his commitments to his other companies, SpaceX, Neuralink, and X Corp (formerly known as Twitter).

We each initially added Tesla to our portfolios because we saw Tesla as a true leader in producing products and services essential for our transition to a sustainable and green economy, the letter said. Over time, however, we have grown increasingly concerned with governance and leadership issues at the company.

The investors cited Teslas broader culture of being above the law, accusing Musk of ignoring investigations into its autopilot system while compulsively tweeting at anyone who criticizes him.

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The letter was signed by a coalition including the New York City Comptrollers Office and Amalgamated Bank, which is union-owned. Together, the group owns $1.5 billion in Tesla shares, less than 1% of the companys total value.

Musk currently takes no salary for his role as CEO of Tesla after cashing outhis stock options from a 2018 package earlier this year, fueling speculation that the EV company isnt at the top of his list of priorities.

In the past week alone, Musk launched a rocket, accused Microsoft of illegally using Twitter data, slashed the prices for two Tesla models, and announced the development of his own AI chatbot. He still seemingly had enough time to take away blue checks from celebrities on Twitter, before giving them back when his plan backfired.

This all happened during a week that Tesla reported dwindling quarterly earnings, including a 24% plunge in net income. The company also reported thatdespite boosting car deliveries by more than a thirdits operating margin had fallen from 19.2% last year to 11.4% now.

During the earnings call, Musk said hes focused on his grand vision for Tesla, not on creating profit, telling investors that the company is the only one making cars that technically could sell for zero profits now and yield tremendous profits in future through autonomy.

This strategy falls in line with his recent grandiose plans to turn Twitter into the app for everything and bypass philosophers to create an epistemic AI chatbot that focuses on maximum truth-seeking. It isnt difficult to imagine why investors are concerned.

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Tesla investors are worried Elon Musk enjoys operating "above the law" - Quartz

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Hours after Fox News and the Fox Corporation settled a massive defamation lawsuit minutes before a trial started, Tucker Carlson prepared his viewers for what he characterised as an imminent race war provoked by Democratic officials.

A few days later, while hovering over an open pizza box, he closed out his Friday show with a plug for his 25-minute special in his line of Tucker Carlson Originals winking at a far-right conspiracy theory that world leaders are forcing people to eat bugs.

Well be back on Monday, said Carlson, moments before taking another bite. In the meantime, have the best weekend with the ones that you love, and well see you then.

Those would be his last words on what would be his last appearance on Fox News, the home for his massively influential and most-watched programme on the nations most-watched cable news network.

On Monday morning, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott informed Carlson he was going off air. He lost access to his email account. A four-sentence press release announced Fox agreed to part ways with Carlson. A figurehead for far-right commentary and conspiracy theories beamed into airports, military bases and homes and businesses across America suddenly wouldnt be.

His surprise departure follows a chaotic week for the network in the aftermath of its $787m settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, closing out more than two years of litigation only after hundreds of pages of court documents revealed embarrassing behind-the-scenes statements among Fox executives, producers and its top stars.

Carlson and his programme are also central to a lawsuit from a former producer alleging a toxic workplace where truth remains a fugitive and where women are routinely verbally violated by a poisonous and entrenched patriarchy.

Abby Grossberg, who was terminated for her role as a senior producer at Tucker Carlson Tonight while in the middle of litigation against the network, said in a statement that his exit is a step towards accountability.

This is some justice for the American people and for Fox News viewers whove been manipulated and lied to for years, all in an attempt to boost the channels ratings and revenue, she added.

The announcement of Carlsons departure also came after 60 Minutes profiled Ray Epps, a Trump supporter who was in Washington DC on 6 January, 2021, but has become a maligned figure among far-right conspiracy theorists and election deniers who believe Mr Epps is a federal plant who incited the riot that brought violence into the halls of Congress.

Lawyers for Mr Epps, whose life and family has been upended by the allegations, wrote to Fox and Carlson demanding a retraction for the false and defamatory statements about him.

Dominion accused Fox News Network and its Fox Corporation leadership of amplifying false and damaging claims about the company in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, when conspiracy theories surrounding the election and its outcome swirled throughout Republican politics, amplified by Donald Trump and his allies, and across right-wing media, including Foxs far-right competitors.

On 19 April, attorneys for Fox and Dominion scrambled towards a settlement before a high-profile six-week trial in Wilmington, Delaware, where Fox leadership including Rupert Murdoch and on-air personalities were expected to testify. Only after 12 jurors and 12 alternates were sworn in did the two parties announce that the case was settled.

Meanwhile, outside the courthouse, a truck with the words TUCKER CARLSON KNEW circled around the building for two days.

The night that Dominions legal team announced the largest libel settlement in US history and Fox published a statement acknowledging the Courts rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false, Carlson returned to his primetime programme, making no mention of one of the biggest media stories of the century.

What ended up being Carlsons final week on the network relied on familiar themes from a nightly lineup that has grown increasingly more extreme in recent years, tilting at far-right fringe conspiracy theories, racism and anti-trans attacks.

The night of the Dominion settlement, he brought on Heather Mac Donald, author of When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty and Threatens Lives. Today were seeing the change that Barack Obama brought to America, said Carlson, introducing his guest.

Carlson also aired a second part of his interview with Elon Musk, who shared his dubious warnings about global collapse due to allegedly low birth rates, which he appeared to blame on access to birth control and abortion. Civilizations gonna crumble, he said.

On what would be his final broadcast on 21 April, Carlson downplayed the well-documented impacts of a racially biased housing market with a critical segment against the Biden administrations plan for a home appraisal workforce.

The only job training this administration has gotten behind in the last two years is getting Black people to sell more weed in the cities, literally, Carlson said.

He also compared gender-affirming care for transgender people to Heavens Gate cult members, among several recent segments devoted to raising specious arguments about LGBT+ people, on a network consumed by anti-trans activism.

It sounds familiar. Heavens Gate is proof that when religious fanatics command you to surrender your gender and become androgynous, castrate yourself and your children, its probably not gonna end well.

In what were his programmes final moments, framed by several pizza boxes across his desk while holding a slice, he promoted Let Them Eat Bugs, a special described as an investigation into environmentalists pushing people to eat bugs.

Court filings show that Carlson appeared to reject debunked claims about Dominion and allegations of vote manipulation, while at the same time fearing drops in Fox stock prices and viewership if network hosts and reporters publicly admitted that there is no evidence to support false election claims.

Carlson privately raged over the networks correct prediction that Joe Biden won the state of Arizona, which enraged Trumps campaign and far-right figures

We worked really hard to build what we have. Those f*****s are destroying our credibility. It enrages me, he wrote to his producer on 5 November, according to Dominions filings. What [Trumps] good at is destroying things. Hes the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us If we play it wrong.

Five days later, he told his viewers that voter fraud happened, and we can prove it. His segment about dead Americans casting ballots prompted a correction.

On 19 November, Carlson ended his broadcast by suggesting that Trump-connected Sidney Powell should publicly reveal the evidence for her baseless claims about widespread voter fraud and manipulation that fuelled conspiracy theories about Dominion and the 2020 election. We are certainly hopeful that she will, he added.

The following night, he told his viewers that if Powell could prove mass fraud that manipulated the outcome, no one will be more grateful for that than us.

But just four days earlier, he told a producer that Sidney Powell is lying. F****ing b****.

Sidney Powell is lying by the way. caught her. Its insane, he later told Laura Ingraham.

The lawsuit from Ms Grossberg, formerly a producer on Carlsons programme, alleges that not only did Foxs legal team coerce her testimony in the Dominion case, but she also paints a disturbing work environment bloated by systemic chauvinism that repeatedly undermined her decisions and retaliated against her when she complained.

Ultimately, feeling ignored and unprotected by Fox News, and suffering from severe anxiety due to the unlawful treatment she received from her male supervisors and colleagues, Ms Greenberg sought medical leave as recommended to her by a therapist, according to her complaint.

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Tucker Carlsons final days at Fox News: Dominion bombshells, Elon Musk and eating bugs - The Independent

You know that supposed Musk family-owned emerald mine that Elon has recently been saying is just a rumor, despite previously saying on record that the mine definitely existed?

Well, according to Errol Musk, the unsurprisingly eccentric and in one major way, extremely creepy father of Elon, the mine definitely exists. And come to think of it, he'll take that Dogecoin, thanks!

"When I read that, I wondered, 'Can I enter, because I can prove it existed," Errol told The Sun in a new interview, referring to his son's Dogecoin tweet. "Elon knows it's true. All the kids know about it."

"Elon saw them (the emeralds) at our house," he added. "He knew I was selling them."

The emerald mine is a particularly strange piece of Muskian lore not strange due to the mine's existence per se, but because of Elon's more recent decision to suddenly and completely backtrack on his previous claims.

Per his new Sun interview, however, Errol seems intent on setting the record straight, explaining to the tabloid that he happened upon the Italian owner of the mine at a Zambian airstrip that said Italian also owned. The Italian apparently told Errol that he paid Zambian locals to dig for the gems, and Errol decided to go into business with the gentleman (you know, as one does.)

"What Elon is saying is that there was no formal mine. It was a rock formation protruding from the ground in the middle of nowhere," Errol told the tabloid, noting that he kept his involvement with the operation "under the table."

"There was no mining company. There are no signed agreements or financial statements," he explained. "No one owned anything. The deal was done on a handshake with the Italian man at a time when Zambia was a free for all."

Errol went as far as to say that emerald money paid for his son's move to the US, where Elon would go on to attend the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School on scholarship with, apparently, emerald-generated cash in his pocket for living expenses.In other words, according to the senior Musk, it sounds a lot like Elon's entire road to wealth and fame beyond South Africa was paved with Zambian emeralds.

"During that time," said Errol, speaking to Elon's college years, "I managed to send money I made from emerald sales to him and [Elon's brother, Kimbal Musk] for living expenses."

Look, Errol isn't at all a capital Good Dude, and the Musk family is seemingly pretty strained. But somehow, "I met a random Italian on an airstrip and got into emerald mining from there" seems to check out for these folks, and some clarity on behalf of the world's second-richest man who doesn't exactly have the soundest relationship to truth himself would be welcome.

And as for why Errol thinks his son won't just admit that the mine was real?

"Elon's main concern is not to appear to be a 'trust fund kid' who got everything given to him on a plate," Errol told the tabloid, though did add that the belief that his son was born with a silver or, well, emerald spoon in his mouth "isn't true."

"Elon took risks and worked like blazes to be where he is today. The emeralds helped us through a very trying time in South Africa, when people were fleeing the country in droves, including his mother's whole family, and earning opportunities were at an all-time low," he continued. "That's all."

More on Elon's emerald denial: Elon Musk Now Denies That His Family's Emerald Mine Existed, In Spite of Previously Bragging About It

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Elon Musk's Dad Says His Son's Whole Career Was Funded by That Emerald Mine - Futurism

A group of Tesla investors has accused the company of mismanagement and is seeking a meeting with its board to discuss the performance of Chief Executive Elon Musk.

The 17 shareholders, who hold more than $1.5 billion of Tesla stock, said Musk is distracted by his commitments to other companies and must be reined in, according to an open letter they sent Friday to Chairwoman Robyn Denholm and Director Ira Ehrenpreis. They want the board to come up with a plan to do so and seek to remove directors too closely tied to the CEO.

There is collective frustration, said Ivan Frishberg, chief sustainability officer for Amalgamated Bank, a union-owned bank that has 722,070 shares in Tesla across its various funds. Over the last year, it became quite clear that Tesla suffers from a governance problem.

Tesla didnt respond to a request for comment about the letter.

Although governance complaints are nothing new for Tesla, they only add to the list of challenges facing the EV maker. Last week, the company reported lackluster first-quarter earnings after aggressive price cuts it undertook to fend off competitors squeezed profits. Musk said he plans to slash prices further, even if it hurts margins, sending the stock plunging more than 10% on Thursday.

Amalgamated Bank, New York City pension funds and other signatories to the letter want Musk to focus so he can navigate the increasingly competitive EV market and regulatory scrutiny. The company is facing investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Californias Department of Motor Vehicles over its autopilot system.

While Teslas stock plummeted Thursday, the billionaire CEO was watching a rocket from another company he founded and runs SpaceX explode above Boca Chica, Texas, shortly after liftoff.

The Austin, Texas, carmaker is now worth half its $1.2-trillion market cap on April 4, 2022, when Musk first disclosed his stake in Twitter Inc., the investors pointed out. He ultimately bought the social media company and has run it since October.

It is unprecedented to be a CEO and also be running two other companies at the same time, said Courtney Wicks, executive director of Investor Advocates for Social Justice, which represents several faith-based investors. I cant imagine any other board allowing a CEO to have as many outside business activities.

Earlier this year, another Tesla investor who isnt associated with the letter filed a resolution asking the company to create a plan to address its reliance on Musk. Teslas board has recommended shareholders vote against the proposal at the companys May 16 annual meeting. Although those types of resolutions face a tough road to success, the carmakers poor recent stock performance may rankle investors otherwise inclined to side with the company.

Some of the shareholders who signed onto the letter have brought resolutions to the companys annual meeting in the past. This years proxy contains just one resolution, down from eight in 2022 in large part because news Tesla was rescheduling the meeting was buried in a regulatory filing.

The letter goes on to list other issues that the investors argue put the company at risk. Among them: the companys litigation with the state of California over the treatment of Black employees at Teslas Fremont factory, the use of mandatory arbitration and the termination of employees who were involved in a union organizing effort in Buffalo, N.Y.

The group also criticized Tesla for opening a showroom in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. Activists and politicians have accused China of committing human rights abuses in the area.

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Tesla is hurt by Elon Musk's multitasking with SpaceX, Twitter, investors say - Los Angeles Times

A vapor trail of broken Musk promises and failed predictions, all of which became news stories, have been documented by the elonmusk.today website. Musk vowed to build an everything Twitter app, but hasnt. A full-time litigation shop? No sign of it yet. To convert atmospheric CO2 into rocket fuel? A no-show. The list continues: To create a super-fast Starlink service. Produce ventilators. Build a flying car. Distill a Tesla liquor (Teslaquila). Start a candy company. Sorry, not yet. When not making news by making promises, Musk enters our news diet by insulting people. Hes knocked a U.S. senator with a vulgar tweet, called a Thai cave rescuer a pedo guy, ridiculed Bill Gates beer belly and mocked a disabled Twitter employee. When predictions and insults fail to win him publicity, Musk has gained public attention by sharing conspiracy theories, signaling his support of the presidential candidacy of Ye, better known as Kanye West (and then withdrawing it), endorsing hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment and by making a poop emoji the auto-response to questions the press sends to Twitter.

This unbroken stream of Musk blarney and BS should be enough to deter the press from automatically reporting the tycoons publicity hounding. But as with Donald Trump, the press seems unable to resist splashing coverage on Musks unnewsworthy high jinks, even though the stories have now become as common as dog-bites-man. Reporters on the Musk beat have a point when they say you never know which one of Musks outrageous stabs at grabbing attention will actually blossom into genuine news. For instance, when he first said he was going to buy Twitter, who among us could look at his track record and think he would actually complete the deal? Few of the acorns Musk tosses out there end up sprouting into a tree, but enough of them do that maybe his every burp does justify coverage.

But that cant be the main reason the press covers every Muskism that comes over the transom. This column suggested late last year that journalists wean themselves from the Musk habit. But instead of giving the once-over twice to his antics, the press corps has further devoted itself to his promotion. He offers reporters table scraps. They turn it into a banquet. He picks a petty fight. They report it as if it were a global war. Hes got the media machines number, and keeps pressing it.

Heres how it works: Too many editors are eager to assign an easy-to-assemble story from the components of a Musk prediction, threat or stunt. And readers seem to love the copy. Its Musk-press synergy all the way down. Musk didnt invent the mock news event, hes only perfected it. Con men, pranksters and publicity agents have been jamming the press for more than a century with bogus stories like him. In recent decades, hoaxers have persuaded the press to chase the story that Paul McCartney was dead. Another time, a man made worldwide news by claiming to have cured his arthritis by injecting cockroach hormones. Not that long ago, Volkswagen pranked the press with a press release to publicize its electric car by saying it was changing its name to Voltswagen. And in 2009, a Colorado family claimed a helium balloon wafted their son into the heavens.

Some of these pranks can be dismissed as good-natured fun. But most of them stand as critiques of the press, showing how credulous and easily manipulated journalists can be. When Musk engages in his kind of publicity hounding, he consciously exploits the medias frailty and appetite for copy. His promises, his kayfabe Twitter spats, his controversy-mongering offer the press a preassembled cast of characters, an element of conflict and questions to answer. A grateful press appreciates how the wow factor of a Musk publicity stunt makes the routine coverage of quarterly reports, city council meetings and weather seem mundane. If Musk isnt on the press corps payroll, he should be.

Whats in it for Musk? He has long disdained advertising, believing that the unearned media of a stunt (or the quality of a great product) is advertising enough. According to Ashley Vances book, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Musk ordered his Tesla staff to produce at least one barnburner of a public relations announcement a week to stimulate interest in the companys cars. But in a 2021 court appearance, Musk made transparent how he keeps playing the press. If we are entertaining, then people will write stories about us, and then we dont have to spend money on advertising that would increase the price of our products, he said.

Naming one of his children X A-12, as he did in 2020, or pushing a Tesla roadster into space or challenging Vladimir Putin to single combat or issuing a Ukraine peace plan or selling 20,000 flamethrowers are prime examples of how Musk garners notice for his brands and his products. These advertisements for himself, to pinch a phrase from Norman Mailer, create a buzz about him and his ventures, and project the image of an omnipresent, charismatic guy who makes hot copy. When the press briefly turned against him in 2018 for some of his business miscues, Musk went all meta on reporters by announcing a press-watch site called Pravduh.com. Like so many Musk projects, it arrived stillborn and was soon forgotten, but not before he got a burst of publicity out of it. Which was the point, anyway.

Since acquiring Twitter, Musk has made media stunt-work one of his prime occupations announcing plans, ending them, releasing Twitter files to Matt Taibbi and other journalists, and even tweeting from the toilet. Hell do anything to keep it and himself in the news, and every day the news media rewards his showboating with an avalanche of running coverage and commentary. But youve got to wonder. Is Elon Musk the problem here? Or is it the press, which understands how its being manipulated by Musk but just cant quit him?

******

Every journalist on the Musk beat should read Edward Niedermeyers Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motor. Send your favorite empty Musk stunt to [emailprotected]. No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed is all about regenerative braking. My Mastodon and Post accounts wish Musk would buy them. My Substack Notes is less than inspired. My RSS feed says Venus, not Mars, should be our destination.

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Elon Musk Figured Out the Media's Biggest Weakness - POLITICO