
<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h3>



<p>Elon Musk claimed Wednesday X, formerly known as Twitter, could one day become a trillion dollar company, a stellar valuation that few companies have achieved, despite the major turmoil arising since the billionaire took the helm last October.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h3>



<p>One of Musk’s first moves after acquiring Twitter was to immediately lay off most of the company’s workforce—staff numbers&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willskipworth/2023/07/12/twitter-and-elon-musk-face-500-million-lawsuit-for-allegedly-reusing-severance-for-fired-employees/">reportedly</a>&nbsp;fell from more than 7,500 to around 1,300—raising concerns the firm would not have enough staff to properly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/technology/twitter-outages-elon-musk.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">maintain</a>&nbsp;the platform,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/11/24/twitter-reportedly-leaves-brussels-europes-regulatory-hub-amid-concerns-about-musks-content-moderation-plans/">moderate content or comply</a>&nbsp;with regulatory requirements.</p>



<p>The abrupt nature of the layoffs and how they were handled have triggered numerous lawsuits from former employees that could end up&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willskipworth/2023/07/12/twitter-and-elon-musk-face-500-million-lawsuit-for-allegedly-reusing-severance-for-fired-employees/?sh=89bfd311d91c">costing</a>&nbsp;the platform hundreds of millions of dollars.</p>



<p>Unpopular policy changes, notably easing content moderation, implementing an&nbsp;<a href="https://mashable.com/article/half-of-twitter-blue-earliest-subscribers-no-longer-subscribed" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unpopular paid subscription</a>&nbsp;and overhauling the identity verification system, spooked users and sparked chaos when impersonators abused the new system, with advertising revenue&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/twitter-traffic-falls-under-elon-musk-threads-mastodon-bluesky-competition/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">plunging</a>&nbsp;as companies pulled ads.</p>



<p>Lawsuits from former staff are just a small fraction of X’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/07/12/twitter-troubles-here-are-all-the-big-legal-hurdles-twitters-faced-since-elon-musks-takeover/">legal woes</a>, which include numerous&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/07/03/twitter-faces-lawsuit-over-unpaid-office-fees-again/?sh=2e30ea122613">reports</a>&nbsp;of unpaid office bills, a major copyright lawsuit for letting users post video and audio using copyrighted&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/06/14/twitter-sued-for-250-million-by-music-publishers-claiming-copyright-infringement/?sh=69657fb72d14">music</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a8281bf4-bd83-42ac-875f-9061ee1b357b" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">potential brushes with regulators&nbsp;</a>failing to curb the spread of illegal content online and not paying&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/08/03/twitter-gets-sued-for-allegedly-not-complying-with-french-law-that-requires-it-to-pay-news-publishers/">news publishers for content</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/08/04/twitter-hq-landlord-paid-san-francisco-over-4000-in-fees-after-musks-team-installed-x-sign-on-roof/">fees</a>&nbsp;for installing a giant illuminated “X” sign on the roof of the company’s headquarters.</p>



<p>Tech issues have also plagued the platform since Musk’s arrival, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/13/23553161/third-party-twitter-clients-apps-outage-twitterific-tweetbot" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">unexplained</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/twitter-reports-glitches-outages-1235667776/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">outages</a>, privacy&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/03/twitter-circle-glitches-have-users-worried-about-privacy/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">glitches</a>, randomly&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/01/twitter-is-randomly-logging-out-users-youre-welcome/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">logging</a>&nbsp;out users,&nbsp;<a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/twitter-bug-marks-regular-users-as-spambots-restricting-their-accounts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">restrictions</a>&nbsp;on what users can see and throttling the number of posts users could see in a day.</p>



<p>X is also fending off a number of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/07/05/leaving-elon-musks-twitter-here-are-some-alternatives-from-meta-threads-to-mastodon-to-bluesky/">rivals</a>&nbsp;vying for Twitter’s spot, including Bluesky and Spill, headed by&nbsp;<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/13/tech/twitter-competitors/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">former employees</a>&nbsp;and notably Meta’s long awaited&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/07/04/metas-twitter-rival-threads-will-launch-thursday-as-chaos-continues-on-elon-musks-platform/">Threads</a>, which became the<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/07/10/with-100-million-users-in-five-days-threads-is-the-fastest-growing-app-in-history/">&nbsp;fastest growing app i</a>n history days after launching but has since seen a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/07/28/zuckerberg-implies-less-than-half-of-threads-users-have-stuck-around/?sh=678c145489cd">slump</a>&nbsp;in users.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news-peg">NEWS PEG</h2>



<p>A trillion dollar market cap for X “is not out of the question,” Musk said in a post on Wednesday. It is not the first time the billionaire has made such a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/23/musk-tesla-could-be-trillion-dollar-company-and-other-predictions.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">prediction</a>&nbsp;and he has a reputation for making sometimes outlandish forecasts. The figure would be a substantial markup from the $44 billion Musk purchased Twitter for in 2022. In a matter of months, Twitter has undergone a drastic transformation, including a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/07/25/elon-musks-twitter-rebrand-sets-stage-for-everything-app-x-to-takeoff-experts-say-heres-how/">rebrand to X</a>. Musk changed the iconic bird logo, which experts told&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;risks erasing billions in brand value. Though unconventional, the transformation signals a move towards transforming the platform into an “everything app” in the vein of China’s WeChat, something Musk has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/07/25/musk-says-x-name-change-is-a-result-of-his-push-to-build-an-everything-app/?sh=50e8e10675a1">been promising</a>&nbsp;to build a rival for. These superapps are like virtual Swiss army knives that combine features from multiple apps such as ride hailing, food delivery, payments, investing and messaging and they dominate markets in some parts of Asia where they are essentially ubiquitous in everyday life. There is significant&nbsp;<a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/financial-services/us-fsi-western-super-apps.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">potential</a>&nbsp;for such a model to take off in Western markets and experts&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/07/25/elon-musks-twitter-rebrand-sets-stage-for-everything-app-x-to-takeoff-experts-say-heres-how/">told</a>&nbsp;<em>Forbes&nbsp;</em>the rebrand is an opportunity for Musk to add features to elevate the platform beyond social media.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forbes-valuation">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>$231.2 billion. That’s how much&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=5c26ba107999">estimates</a>&nbsp;Musk is worth. He occupies the top position on&nbsp;<em>Forbes’</em>&nbsp;list of the world’s richest people, leading French luxury goods magnate&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bernard-arnault/?list=rtb/">Bernard Arnault</a>, who is in second place, by around $18 billion. Musk’s fortune is largely derived from his stake in electric carmaker Tesla and a cohort of valuable companies he cofounded, including rocket firm SpaceX, brain implant company Neuralink and tunneling firm Boring Company.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



<p>Very few companies have managed to hit a $1 trillion valuation but X would not be the first of Musk’s companies to reach that threshold. Tesla topped a $1 trillion market capitalization in&nbsp;<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/25/investing/tesla-stock-trillion-dollar-market-cap/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2021</a>, the sixth company in U.S. history to pass the milestone. Its value has since dropped well below that level, though is still valued at more than $730 billion.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/07/25/elon-musks-twitter-rebrand-sets-stage-for-everything-app-x-to-takeoff-experts-say-heres-how/">Elon Musk’s Twitter Rebrand Sets Stage For Everything App ‘X’ To Takeoff, Experts Say—Here’s How</a> (Forbes)</p>


Tesla Officially Opens Gruenheide Gigafactory

Elon Musk Thinks X Could Become A Trillion Dollar Company—Here Are The Challenges Facing The Platform Since He Took Over


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Tech executives Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk suggested in June they’d be interested in clashing in a UFC-style cage fight, and egged each other on while tensions escalated between the two billionaires and their companies—but Zuckerberg&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/08/13/zuckerberg-thinks-its-time-to-move-on-from-planned-cage-fight-with-musk-elon-isnt-serious/">downplayed the potential</a>&nbsp;of a billionaire brawl Sunday when he said Musk “isn’t serious” about picking a date.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>The idea of a cage match was first posed by Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1671364992665264131" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">over Twitter</a>, where the Tesla CEO responded to a thread about Instagram’s then-upcoming rival app Threads, saying, “I’m up for a cage match if he is lol.”</p>



<p>Zuckerberg responded the next day with an Instagram story showing a screenshot of Musk’s tweet captioned “send me location”—a reference to a famous line from former UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov (a Meta spokesperson confirmed to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/21/23769263/mark-zuckerberg-elon-musk-fight-cage-match-worldstar" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Verge</a>&nbsp;that Zuckerberg was being serious in his response to Musk).</p>



<p>As hype around a potential fight picked up, UFC president Dana White joined in on the anticipation, posting a video of himself sporting a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuCyF4HJQut/?img_index=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Zuckerberg vs Musk shirt</a>&nbsp;that was made available for purchase on the UFC’s website.</p>



<p>White was quoted in a July 1 story from the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/technology/elon-musk-mark-zuckerberg-cage-match.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>New York Times</em></a><em>&nbsp;</em>saying he would help organize an exhibition match between the tech CEOs and that they both wanted to fight—with both men agreeing there should be a charity component to the bout.</p>



<p>On July 3, photos of Musk training with UFC legend Georges St. Pierre, mixed martial arts coach John Danaher and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu black belt Lex Fridman surfaced online—with an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CuQLly_vqrT/?img_index=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Instagram post</a>&nbsp;from St. Pierre showing the four men in training gear.</p>



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<p>Zuckerberg, who is trained in the grappling combat discipline of Jiu-jitsu, also employed the training services of elite fighting talent in July—made evident by&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/stylebender/status/1678848822041255937" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">gym photos</a>&nbsp;taken with UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski on July 11.</p>



<p>The two billionaires reinvigorated interest in a potential match in early August, when Musk said he was weightlifting to prepare for the fight, suggesting it would be live-streamed on X—the rebranded Twitter platform—and that all proceeds would go to a charity for veterans.</p>



<p>Zuckerberg responded to Musk’s posts via Threads, asking if a “more reliable platform” should be used for a live-stream of the fight and adding he was “not holding his breath” for a fight to materialize.</p>



<p>Although Zuckerberg has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.threads.net/@zuck/post/CvnechDSJeC" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">made clear</a>&nbsp;he is ready for a match, the same can’t be said for Musk, who said the date is “still in flux” and he&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1688377445957652480?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">may need surgery</a>&nbsp;before a fight can happen.</p>



<p>Days after calling the idea “in flux,” Musk said the Italian government agreed to an “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/08/11/elon-musk-says-italian-government-approved-epic-location-for-his-billionaire-clash-against-mark-zuckerberg/?sh=1d1742f043f9">epic location</a>” for a fight that would be managed by his and Zuckerberg’s respective foundations, not the UFC.</p>



<p>Zuckerberg shot down Musk’s plans, saying, “if he ever agrees on an actual date, you&#8217;ll hear it from me,” adding that he’d prefer to work with professional fight promotions such as UFC and ONE.</p>



<p>Just days after Zuckerberg expressed hesitation about Musk’s commitment to the match, the Meta CEO&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/08/13/zuckerberg-thinks-its-time-to-move-on-from-planned-cage-fight-with-musk-elon-isnt-serious/">posted on Threads</a>&nbsp;on August 13 “it’s time to move on” because Musk won’t confirm a date, adding Musk said he needs surgery—and months of recovery—before fighting and wanted to do a practice round in Zuckerberg’s backyard.</p>



<p>The same day Zuckerberg announced the desire to move on, Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1690747345674137600" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">posted</a>&nbsp;a screenshot to X of the purported conversation in which he suggested a practice round; Zuckerberg responded over text telling him he should train on his own and say when he’s ready to compete, adding he doesn’t “want to keep hyping something that will never happen.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



<p>In the background of Musk and Zuckerberg fight-related banter, tensions between the two have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2023/07/09/billionaire-brawl-now-whos-winning-the-fight-between-musk-and-zuckerberg/?sh=11d0221d26bc">increased</a>&nbsp;following the launch of Instagram’s Threads platform, a direct competitor to Twitter that launched July 5 and racked up its first&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/07/10/with-100-million-users-in-five-days-threads-is-the-fastest-growing-app-in-history/?sh=287d252549ab">100 million users</a>&nbsp;on July 10. That same day, Musk called Zuckerberg a “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/07/10/musk-hits-below-the-belt-with-latest-zuckerberg-attacks-zuck-is-a-cuck/?sh=356527f622ee">cuck</a>” over Twitter and proposed a “dick measuring contest” with him. An attorney for Twitter accused and threatened to sue Meta for allegedly misusing Twitter’s &#8220;trade secrets and other intellectual property&#8221; and employing former Twitter staffers for help with developing Threads, labeling it as a “copycat” app of Twitter.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-contra">CONTRA</h2>



<p>Musk biographer Walter Isaacson later claimed in a Twitter Spaces session that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mark-zuckerberg-cage-fight-match-unlikely-walter-isaacson-2023-7" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">he doubted</a>&nbsp;a fight would happen and that it was “a metaphor” for the competition between the CEOs’ rivaling social media sites.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>-160. That was the&nbsp;<a href="https://dknation.draftkings.com/pop-culture/2023/6/22/23769810/mark-zuckerberg-vs-elon-musk-odds-cage-fight-who-will-win-wheres-the-asteroid" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hypothetical line</a>&nbsp;DraftKings set in June for Zuckerberg to win the match, making him the betting favorite, with bettors needing to wager $160 on Zuckerberg to return a $100 profit. DraftKings set the odds for a Musk upset at +140, meaning a $100 bet would deliver a $140 profit. The sports betting company attributed the lines to Zuckerberg’s younger age and his regular physical activity.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>A cage match between the tech CEOs might involve some parameters to account for their difference in size. Notably, Musk told White that he would not be willing to “lose any weight” for a potential matchup. Musk, 52, stands around 6’1” tall and has made clear on Twitter that he&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1671699387620237312" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">almost never works out</a>. Zuckerberg, 39, is 5 &#8216;7” and regularly takes to physical training and competition, recently securing two medals in his first&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/09/business/mark-zuckerberg-jiu-jitsu-winner/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jiu-jitsu tournament</a>&nbsp;in May, though he was also choked out in one of his fights, according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/02/style/mark-zuckerberg-workout.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>New York Times</em></a>&nbsp;(Zuckerberg has denied the claim). Zuckerberg also seems to be the more avid fight fan, as he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, attended a UFC&nbsp;<a href="https://www.insider.com/video-mark-zuckerberg-attends-ufc-event-priscilla-chan-looks-shook-2022-10" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fight card</a>&nbsp;last October.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forbes-valuation">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>We estimate Musk is the richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?list=rtb/&amp;sh=5a59a8f87999">$225.2 billion</a>. Zuckerberg’s net worth is estimated at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-zuckerberg/?sh=350141a23e06">$107 billion</a>—placing him at No. 8 on&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>’ list of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#7b288cfb3d78">world’s real-time billionaires</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/07/11/mark-zuckerberg-training-with-ufc-champions-israel-adesanya-and-alexander-volkanovski-as-elon-musk-spat-intensifies/?sh=52e0cfd75d9a">Mark Zuckerberg Training With UFC Champions Israel Adesanya And Alexander Volkanovski As Elon Musk Spat Intensifies</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/technology/elon-musk-mark-zuckerberg-cage-match.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">A ‘Cage Match’ Between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg May Be No Joke</a>&nbsp;(New York Times)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/07/10/musk-hits-below-the-belt-with-latest-zuckerberg-attacks-zuck-is-a-cuck/?sh=356527f622ee">Musk Hits Below The Belt With Latest Zuckerberg Attacks: ‘Zuck Is A Cuck’</a> (Forbes)</p>


Elon Musk Vs Mark Zuckerberg Illustration

Zuckerberg Vs Musk: Disputes Heat Up Over Billionaire Cage Fight—Here’s Everything We Know


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Billionaire Elon Musk—the owner of X, previously known as Twitter—made a broad offer in a tweet late Saturday night, saying the platform will fund legal fees for people who “were unfairly treated” by their employers because of something they posted or liked on X.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Musk added in the tweet that there was “no limit” to the amount of fees X would cover and said in a following&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1688051512843395072" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet</a>&nbsp;that X “won’t just sue, it will be extremely loud and we will go after the boards of directors of the companies too.”</p>



<p>Musk has responded to a number of replies to his initial offering, including&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1688035428194988032" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">one</a>&nbsp;from right-wing account “Libs of TikTok” that claimed someone was fired for following its account and another that said former President Donald Trump was “unfairly treated” by the government for his Twitter usage, to which Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1688089619970088960" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;“such aggressive legal action against a former president is not right.”</p>



<p>There were no details provided on how Musk defined “unfairly treated” or how people should contact the former executive, and&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/bernybelvedere/status/1688025090925948928" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">some</a>&nbsp;have pointed out the offer could apply to Twitter employees who were fired shortly after Musk’s takeover.</p>



<p>It’s unclear what prompted Musk to make the offer, but it came shortly after a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/05/sport/nascar-noah-gragson-suspended-spt/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NASCAR driver was suspended</a>&nbsp;for allegedly liking a meme on Instagram mocking George Floyd.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Musk, who first arrived at Twitter after buying the platform in October 2022, immediately made headlines for firing thousands in cost saving measures and for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/technology/elon-musk-twitter-fired-criticism.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">firing</a>&nbsp;people who were openly critical of him. One employee was&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/twitter-musk-iceland-fired-wheelchair-haraldur-employee-0329405846dac8f1f08ac55594881bb6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">publicly mocked</a>&nbsp;by Musk after he tweeted about being cut off from access to his work computer, leading Musk to eventually&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633253950198624257" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">apologize</a>&nbsp;to the employee and tweet that he’s “considering remaining at Twitter.” Since Musk’s takeover—and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/07/23/elon-musk-directs-xcom-to-twitter-plans-to-ditch-twitter-bird/">rebranding</a>—of X, the platform has undergone a number of changes and struggles. Musk has maintained a focus on freedom of speech and&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1602278477234728960?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fighting</a>&nbsp;what he calls the “woke mind virus,” leading him to loosen X’s moderation policies and reinstate formerly banned accounts. Advertisers weren’t happy about the policy change, though, and Musk saw many back out of deals with the platform in response. One U.K.-based nonprofit&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/07/31/twitter-threatens-legal-action-against-nonprofit-for-claiming-hate-speech-rose-after-musks-takeover/?sh=320994364061">penned a report</a>&nbsp;last year finding X rarely removed hateful content posted by subscribers to the site’s paid Twitter Blue service, leading the social media company to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2023/08/03/elon-musk-is-suing-a-nonprofit-that-researches-hate-speech-for-driving-away-advertisers/?sh=613993835ea7">sue the group</a>&nbsp;last week.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



<p>In another late-night&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1688091377823895552" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet</a>&nbsp;from the weekend, Musk announced his much-anticipated UFC-style&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/07/12/zuckerberg-vs-musk-everything-we-know-about-the-possible-cage-fight/?sh=3e7845ef2cc8">fight</a>&nbsp;with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/08/06/elon-musk-says-fight-with-zuckerberg-will-be-live-streamed-on-x-for-charity/?sh=2dcbe26f711c">livestreamed</a>&nbsp;on X and “all proceeds will go to charity for veterans.” Musk and Zuckerberg have been teasing a fight since&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1671364992665264131'" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">June</a>, shortly before Meta released its Twitter-competitor, Threads.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forbes-valuation">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p><em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=11dfda637999">estimates</a>&nbsp;Musk to be worth $232.5 billion, making him the richest person in the world as of August 6.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/technology/elon-musk-twitter-fired-criticism.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NYTIMES<strong>Elon Musk Fires Twitter Employees Who Criticized Him</strong></a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/08/06/elon-musk-says-fight-with-zuckerberg-will-be-live-streamed-on-x-for-charity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MORE FROM FORBES<strong>Elon Musk Says Fight With Zuckerberg Will Be Live-Streamed On X For Charity</strong><small>By <strong>Mary Whitfill Roeloffs</strong></small></a></p>


Billionaire Elon Musk Receives Axel Springer Award

Elon Musk Promises To Cover Legal Fees For People Fired Over Tweets


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Bot accounts and tweets from Twitter owner Elon Musk amplified the prices of FTX-listed cryptocurrencies, according to a Network Contagion Research Institute&nbsp;<a href="https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/NCRI_FTXReport.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study published Wednesday</a>, which took a close look at the sort of spam accounts that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-twitter-vs-bad-bots-the-battle-goes-on-d25ce0ab" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Musk recently claimed</a>&nbsp;have been mostly tamed.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Researchers examined more than 3 million tweets about 18 cryptocurrencies from January 1, 2019 to January 27, 2023, a time range that includes Twitter activity before, during and slightly after Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the platform.</p>



<p>Using Botometer, a service that checks the activity of Twitter accounts and gives them a score based on how likely they are to be bots, researchers found that out of a total of 182,105 unique accounts that tweeted about FTX-listed coins, 172,451 accounts were given “bot” scores.</p>



<p>Researchers said the bots aided in pumping the price of crypto coins traded by insiders of defunct Alameda Research, a hedge fund and sister firm of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX platform—a cryptocurrency exchange that went bankrupt in November.</p>



<p>Following promotional tweets by FTX’s official Twitter account, researchers found “activity for the coins grew increasingly inauthentic over time,” with bot-like comments growing and accounting for about half of the total chatter about the 18 coins.</p>



<p>The study also concluded that tweets by Musk mentioning altcoins, such as PEPE and PSYOP, created considerable price spikes for the cryptocurrencies.</p>



<p>Researchers cited a May 13&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657318313532313600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1657318313532313600%7Ctwgr%5E5eb9c00b8a13cb78a726136639f2a12d3adb3131%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fco" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet from Musk</a>&nbsp;that featured a Pepe the Frog meme that contributed to a more than 50% increase in the price of PEPE within 24 hours, with price action being fueled by “a combination of both authentic and inauthentic bot-driven activity.”</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-surprising-fact">SURPRISING FACT</h2>



<p>The study did not directly link FTX or Alameda as being responsible for the bot accounts, but did note that FTX’s promotional tweets may have boosted bot engagement on coin chatter.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-twitter-vs-bad-bots-the-battle-goes-on-d25ce0ab" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">90%</a>. That is the percentage of scams on Twitter that Musk said in June had been eliminated from the platform, which has since been rebranded to X. However, the billionaire business owner has yet to provide data backing the claim.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“Since Musk’s team took over Twitter last year, API changes were made to deter bot creation, possibly reducing crypto promotion and scams,” Alex Goldenberg, lead intelligence analyst for NCRI, said in an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/02/elon-musk-tweets-twitter-bots-boosted-ftx-listed-crypto-researchers.html?__source=sharebar%7Ctwitter&amp;par=sharebar" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">interview with CNBC</a>, which first reported the study. “However, these changes come with trade-offs as they also hinder independent audits by third-party researchers.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forbes-valuation">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>We estimate Musk’s net worth at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=58ff69fc7999">$232.7 billion</a>&nbsp;as of Wednesday, making him the world’s wealthiest person.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Prior to his acquisition of Twitter,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517215066550116354" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Musk claimed</a>&nbsp;he would “defeat the spam bots or die trying!” Since then, bots on the social media platform&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-linda-yaccarino-elon-musk-exterminate-bots-2023-6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">have persisted</a>, though it is unclear how many bots are on the site as of today. Before Musk’s acquisition of Twitter,&nbsp;<a href="https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/is-elon-musk-right-about-the-bot-problem-on-twitter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Yale researchers</a>&nbsp;found the prevalence of active bots on the site varied from 1% to 14%. “In a study of the first impeachment of Donald Trump, we found that bots were 1% of the active users, but posted 31% of the tweets,” a Yale associate professor wrote in&nbsp;<a href="https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/is-elon-musk-right-about-the-bot-problem-on-twitter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">an article</a>&nbsp;about Twitter bots. Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-twitter-vs-bad-bots-the-battle-goes-on-d25ce0ab" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">claimed in June</a>&nbsp;at least 90% of the fake accounts littered throughout Twitter were eliminated. However, researchers found bots were still easy to find on the app, with an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University telling the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-twitter-vs-bad-bots-the-battle-goes-on-d25ce0ab" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Wall Street Journal</em></a>&nbsp;that “bad bots remain pervasive on Twitter.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2023/03/29/sam-bankman-fried-legal-fees-funded-by-alameda-money-gifted-to-father-joe-bankman/?sh=69a1063f5757">Sam Bankman-Fried’s Legal Defense Is Being Funded With Alameda Money He Gifted His Father</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/darreonnadavis/2023/06/02/what-happened-to-ftx-the-crypto-exchange-funds-collapse-explained/?sh=235bce7b3cb7">What Happened To FTX? The Crypto Exchange Fund’s Collapse Explained</a> (<em>Forbes</em>)</p>


Elon Musk Makes Twitter Account Private

Elon Musk Tweets And Bots Boosted Price Of Altcoins Listed On FTX, Study Suggests


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Elon Musk has replaced Twitter’s iconic blue bird logo with an “X” on Monday, part of a major rebrand teased over the weekend that takes the platform another step closer to the billionaire’s dream of creating an “everything app.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>The change appeared Monday morning on the web version of the platform.</p>



<p>The new logo, a white stylized “X” on a black background, has also replaced the bird as a badge signifying an account linked to a company employee.</p>



<p>Twitter’s official&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/Twitter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">account</a>—@Twitter—has also been changed in the rebrand and is now named “X,” showing just the new logo as a profile picture and a bio reading “What&#8217;s happening?!”</p>



<p>Other Twitter accounts appear to be in the process of being changed, with accounts for creators (@TwitterCreators) and verification (@verified) having been changed while others, notably the main support account (@TwitterSupport) still showing the blue bird at the time of writing.</p>



<p>Mobile apps still appear to feature the blue bird, though it is likely this will change once they are updated.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news-peg">NEWS PEG</h2>



<p>Musk’s decision to replace Twitter’s iconic bird is both shocking and inevitable. On the one hand, he is jettisoning one of the company&#8217;s most recognizable assets—<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66284304" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Larry</a>, as it’s known, has represented Twitter for more than a decade—and whose features, including color and “tweets,” permeate the entire platform. On the other hand, Musk has been open about his ambition to transform Twitter into an “everything app” called ‘X, in the vein of Chinese tech behemoth WeChat. Concrete steps had already been taken toward this goal, such as changing the business name to X Corp, but these were largely back end changes that didn’t have too much of an impact on users. Musk <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/07/23/elon-musk-directs-xcom-to-twitter-plans-to-ditch-twitter-bird/">escalated</a> the transition over the weekend, when he said the site “X.com” would now redirect to Twitter and <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1682964919325724673" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">forecast</a> “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” In a departure from the considered, glacial and often subtle rebrands of many companies, Musk elected to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-24/musk-declares-fan-submitted-x-new-twitter-logo-in-abrupt-shift" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">crowdsource</a> Twitter, or X’s, new logo from his followers. He later shared an image of the new logo <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1683378289031761920?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">projected</a> onto the company’s headquarters.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“X is here! Let’s do this,” tweeted freshly minted CEO Linda Yaccarino. It is “exceptionally rare” to have a second chance to make another big impression, Yaccarino <a href="https://twitter.com/lindayacc/status/1683213798386147329?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>, but X is Twitter’s chance to do just that. She said there is “no limit to this transformation” and that the team is “just getting started.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forbes-valuation">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>$236.5 billion. That’s how much&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=5c26ba107999">estimates</a>&nbsp;Musk is worth, according to our real time tracker. His fortune places him at the very top of&nbsp;<em>Forbes’</em>&nbsp;list of the world’s richest people. Musk’s wealth largely comes from his stake in electric carmaker Tesla and the cadre of valuable companies he cofounded, including rocket firm SpaceX, brain implant company Neuralink and tunneling enterprise Boring Company. He controversially purchased Twitter for $44 billion in 2022 and started on a series of drastic overhauls, including its content moderation and verification policies and slashing headcount.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/07/23/elon-musk-directs-xcom-to-twitter-plans-to-ditch-twitter-bird/">Elon Musk Directs X.com To Twitter, Plans To Ditch Twitter Bird</a> (Forbes)</p>


Twitter logo

Elon Musk Kills Twitter Bird Logo In ‘X’ Rebrand


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Facebook and WhatsApp parent Meta will launch the firm’s long awaited competitor to Twitter, Instagram Threads, on Thursday, escalating the personal rivalry between feuding billionaires Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and firmly throwing down the gauntlet after another chaotic weekend had the platform’s users searching for alternatives.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Meta’s app, Threads, is listed as “coming soon” on Apple’s App Store and is available for pre-order.</p>



<p>The listing said Threads is “expected July 6” and Meta’s countdown&nbsp;<a href="https://www.threads.net/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">website</a>&nbsp;for the launch indicates the app will go live at 10 a.m. ET (7 a.m. PT), though it’s unclear whether Meta plans to stagger the rollout in some way.</p>



<p>Details on the full nature of Threads are scarce but the listing describes the platform as a “text-based conversation app” and screenshots show a dashboard that appears very similar to Twitter’s app, with the ability to like, share, post and repost content.</p>



<p>Threads will be directly linked to Meta’s popular photo sharing platform Instagram and screenshots suggest users can keep their usernames and easily follow the same accounts they do on Instagram on the new platform.</p>



<p>From the listing, Threads looks likely to be a free service in exchange for personal data, a model in line with many of Meta’s other popular apps and other free online services.</p>



<p>Instagram Threads users will need to be at least 12 years old, according to the App Store listing.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-we-don-t-know">WHAT WE DON’T KNOW</h2>



<p>It’s not clear when Threads will be launched on Android systems or whether the network will be accessible without the app. A similar listing of Threads&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/1/23781271/instagram-threads-twitter-leak-android-google-play" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly appeared</a>&nbsp;on the Google Play store—which serves Android devices—on Saturday showing similar features, images and descriptions. The post, which did not list a release date, was seemingly in error and was swiftly removed from the store.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news-peg">NEWS PEG</h2>



<p>Meta’s release of a product to rival Twitter is both timely and expected. Meta, formerly Facebook, has a well documented history of lifting features from competitors—its short-form video feature Reels draws from TikTok,&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/13/meta-announces-discord-like-community-chats-on-messenger/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">community chats</a>&nbsp;from Discord and disappearing video and photo feature Stories from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-developer-mark-zuckerberg-invented-instagram-stories-copied-snapchat-2020-4?r=US&amp;IR=T" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Snapchat</a>—to varying degrees of success. Twitter is an obvious target, with many users keen to jump ship given the parade of controversy and service issues that has followed Elon Musk’s takeover last year, including drastic revisions to longstanding verification and content moderation policies, cutting company headcount to the bone, changes to who can access platform data and numerous system outages. Most recently, Musk limited the number of posts users—even paying users—could see on Twitter and required users to have registered for accounts to view tweets. With each new development, rivals like Bluesky, Trump’s Truth Social and Mastodon have&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/03/twitter-competitors-soar-after-yet-another-bad-musk-move/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">benefited handsomely</a>, though none have yet managed to gain the kind of traction needed to fully take on an established social media giant like Twitter. With its vast resources and established social networks, Threads’ arrival could pose a serious threat to Twitter.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-forbes-valuation">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>$101.5 billion. That’s how much&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mark-zuckerberg/?list=rtb/&amp;sh=470e77f63e06">estimates</a>&nbsp;Mark Zuckerberg is worth, according to our live tracker. Zuckerberg’s fortune is largely derived from his stake in Meta and it makes him the 10th richest person in the world. Musk is worth an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=595dbf9d7999">estimated</a>&nbsp;$249.4 billion and currently holds the top position in&nbsp;<em>Forbes’</em>&nbsp;list of the world’s wealthiest people. The two billionaires have reportedly been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-mark-zuckerberg-cage-fight-b71fa4ff" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">feuding</a>&nbsp;for years, though this recently spilled out into the public domain and the pair are apparently primed to settle things with a literal fight. It is unclear whether the agreed upon “cage match” will ever happen.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-mark-zuckerberg-cage-fight-b71fa4ff" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Behind the Musk-Zuckerberg ‘Cage Match’ Is a Yearslong Billionaire Feud</a> (WSJ)</p>


In this photo illustration, a user sees in his download

Meta’s Twitter Rival Threads Will Launch Thursday As Chaos Continues On Elon Musk’s Platform


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Elon Musk, the world’s richest man,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1580056291082280960?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced</a>&nbsp;a fresh foray into the perfume industry on Tuesday, hawking a “Burnt Hair” fragrance that he claimed sold 10,000 bottles within hours of launching, continuing the billionaire’s record of capitalizing on humor and his enthusiastic fan base to transform seemingly joke products into coveted merchandise.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Musk on Tuesday used social media to&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579971705447256064" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">promote</a>&nbsp;his new perfume, “Burnt Hair,” calling it the “finest fragrance on Earth” and changing his Twitter biography to “Perfume Salesman.”</p>



<p>The fragrance is on sale for $100 a bottle on The Boring Company’s website, Musk’s tunneling enterprise, which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.boringcompany.com/burnthair" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">described</a>&nbsp;the perfume as “the essence of repugnant desire.”</p>



<p>In addition to dollars, the Tesla chief&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579972303647301632?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;the popular meme-based cryptocurrency dogecoin could be used to purchase “Burnt Hair,” which he described as an “<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579975550919413761?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">omnigender product</a>.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579994860802932736?s=20&amp;t=RHsPDiZo1Zo-BFxbHNLiJQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;over 5,000 bottles of “Burnt Hair” had sold less than two hours after he posted the launch.</p>



<p>Perfume sales had already crossed the 10,000 bottle milestone early Wednesday morning, Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1580056291082280960?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>, meaning he had racked up $1 million in sales within six hours of the product going live.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The finest fragrance on Earth!<a href="https://t.co/ohjWxNX5ZC">https://t.co/ohjWxNX5ZC</a> <a href="https://t.co/0J1lmREOBS">pic.twitter.com/0J1lmREOBS</a></p>&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579971705447256064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 11, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long,” Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1579974298156306432?s=20&amp;t=b8wI69PYfpgdfQu-WaNrng" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">joked</a>&nbsp;on Twitter, acknowledging the pun of his last name in the scent industry.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>$215.4 billion. That’s Musk’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=161aa2f97999">estimated net worth</a>, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes’</em>real-time tracker. The figure makes him the richest person on the planet, comfortably ahead of French fashion tycoon&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bernard-arnault/?list=rtb/&amp;sh=40133a4b66fa">Bernard Arnault&nbsp;</a>($146.3 billion) and Amazon founder&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/?list=rtb/&amp;sh=5e5342051b23">Jeff Bezos</a>&nbsp;($135.6 billion), who come in second and third, respectively.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Musk, who has a dedicated and enthusiastic following, has a track record of bringing ostensibly joke products to market to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/take-a-look-elon-musk-merchandise-tesla-hot-pants-flamethrower-2021-2?r=US&amp;IR=T" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">roaring success</a>. Most notably, this includes a limited edition line of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2018/2/1/16954950/elon-musk-flamethrowers-sold-out" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">flamethrowers</a>, also sold by The Boring Company, which rapidly sold out and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/10/17445838/boring-company-flamethrower-elon-musk-tweets-party" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sparked</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/19/elon-musk-said-it-was-not-a-flamethrower/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">concern</a>&nbsp;among lawmakers and police officials. Other merchandise Musk has launched—through his electric vehicle firm Tesla, aerospace firm SpaceX and The Boring Company—includes launched surfboards, tequila and red satin short shorts. Musk’s jokes and online influence have landed him in hot water in the past, however, and the way his tweets&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/05/07/elon-musk-warns-people-to-invest-with-caution-as-dogecoin-rallies-ahead-of-his-snl-appearance/?sh=700d00fc7634">move</a>&nbsp;markets have triggered scrutiny from lawmakers, as well as numerous&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/11/16/jpmorgan-sues-tesla-for-162-million-in-warrant-dispute-tied-to-elon-musks-tweets/?sh=515b61ef69b4">lawsuits</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/feb/24/elon-musk-brother-under-investigation-insider-trading" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">regulatory</a>&nbsp;investigations.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/10/07/elon-musks-bizarre-week-twitter-deal-moves-ahead-tesla-stock-tanks-zooming-with-putin/?sh=4251f0b76dad">Elon Musk’s Bizarre Week: Twitter Deal Moves Ahead, Tesla Stock Tanks, Zooming’ With Putin</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Robert Hart, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon’s Musk: Tesla Billionaire Hawks ‘Burnt Hair’ Perfume For $100 A Bottle


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Elon Musk sold roughly $6.9 billion worth of Tesla stock over the past week, according to new Securities and Exchange Commission filings, in a surprise offload that comes more than three months after the world’s richest man&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519850299757846530?s=20&amp;t=5J_GRFHeqCKz9sNlbTRDjQ" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;there were &#8220;no further TSLA sales planned.&#8221;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Musk sold more than 7.9 million shares in dozens of transactions between Friday and Tuesday, at an average price of $875 per share, according to the filings.</p>



<p>The billionaire will owe an estimated $1.65 billion in federal capital gains taxes from the sale, leaving about $5.25 billion in take-home pay.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s not clear why Musk chose to sell—he did not immediately respond to a request for comment from&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p>More than $31 billion. That&#8217;s how much Tesla stock Musk has liquidated in a series of sales starting in November.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Unlike earlier transactions, Musk&#8217;s sales this week were unexpected. The Tesla CEO hinted about his late 2021 sales in a November tweet, and he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/04/29/elon-musk-sells-more-tesla-stock-bringing-total-sales-to-more-than-8-billion-this-week/?sh=6523c61530ed">raised around $8.5 billion</a>&nbsp;in pretax funds in a series of April sales after signing a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. The $8.5 billion was expected to go toward the purchase, but Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/08/elon-musk-terminating-deal-to-buy-twitter-platform-plans-legal-action/?sh=1dfce8712e21">reneged on the deal</a>&nbsp;last month over purported concerns about the number of bots and spam accounts that populate the platform. Twitter quickly responded by filing&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/07/12/twitter-sues-elon-musk-for-trying-to-cancel-acquisition-deal/?sh=3b8d40183d38">a lawsuit against Musk</a>&nbsp;in Delaware Chancery Court in an attempt to force the deal to go through. A trial is set to begin on October 17 if the two sides don&#8217;t reach a settlement.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FORBES VALUATION</h2>



<p>We&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=152b18687999">estimate Musk</a>&nbsp;to be worth $255.1 billion, making him the wealthiest person on Earth.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/04/29/elon-musk-sells-more-tesla-stock-bringing-total-sales-to-more-than-8-billion-this-week/?sh=6523c61530ed">Elon Musk Sells More Tesla Stock—Bringing Total Sales To More Than $8 Billion This Week</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/07/08/elon-musk-terminating-deal-to-buy-twitter-platform-plans-legal-action/?sh=1dfce8712e21">Elon Musk ‘Terminating’ Deal To Buy Twitter—Platform Plans Legal Action</a>(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/07/12/twitter-sues-elon-musk-for-trying-to-cancel-acquisition-deal/?sh=3b8d40183d38">Twitter Sues Elon Musk For Trying To Cancel Acquisition</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Nicholas Reimann, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and chairman of Tesla Motors at Tesla’s headquarters in San Carlos Tuesday Oct. 24, 3008.  Silicon Valley icon Musk became a billionaire founding PayPal, but he’s out to do something even more important – help humanity reach beyon

Elon Musk Sells $6.9 Billion Of Tesla Stock


<p>The fortune of the world’s richest person, Tesla chief Elon Musk, soared by $14.5 billion Tuesday, as shares of his electric vehicle maker rose 9.4%, outpacing the tech heavy Nasdaq’s 2.5% rebound from last week’s decline. Analysts attributed Tesla’s outperformance to both comments by Musk and broader market factors.</p>



<p>Referring to an interview Musk granted to Bloomberg at the Qatar Economic Forum Tuesday in which the Tesla chief highlighted the size of the company’s order backlog, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said that “positive demand comments from Musk have resonated with the Street and given some confidence in this white knuckle macro environment.” In the interview, Musk reiterated his concerns about a recession and the need to downsize Tesla’s workforce, but investors appear to have zeroed in on his comments downplaying the threat of competition, and identifying supply constraints as the main obstacle to fulfilling the company’s robust demand.</p>



<p>“As anyone knows who has tried to order a Tesla, the demand for our cars is extremely high and the wait list is long,” Musk told Bloomberg. “This is not intentional and we’re increasing production capacity as fast as humanly possible.”</p>



<p>According to RiskReversal Advisors’ founder and principal Dan Nathan, this commentary may have been encouraging to investors “buying into what they think is a ‘make the quarter at any cost mentality’ as Musk is known to send out encouraging messages to employees as he did last week.” Nathan adds that “over the last year, shares of Tesla in the last month of each quarter have had huge rallies in the last couple weeks of the month from their lows.” But he also cautions that Musk’s comments about a recession and lingering China production issues “might be setting investors up for a miss on Q2 deliveries and earnings.”</p>



<p>GLJ Research CEO Gordon Johnson says that Tesla’s soaring stock price is due to broader market factors, noting that with stocks coming off their worst week since March 2020 last week, “the 14-day relative strength index of the S&amp;P 500 suggests the stock market is currently oversold, and high-beta stocks like Tesla were due for a bounce.” (Stocks with high beta coefficients generally move more than the broad market in either direction.)</p>



<p>“But none of this is fundamental,” says Johnson, a Tesla bear, who says he expects the company’s Q2 deliveries and earnings to disappoint. “Thus, with Tesla trading at a ~50x forward P/E multiple vs. 4.6x for its peer group, we see any fundamental disappointments as likely sending the shares lower.”</p>



<p>That prospect may be daunting for both Tesla investors and the company’s TechnoKing Elon Musk. But at least for now, he remains the world’s richest person by a longshot, worth $228.4 billion, according to Forbes’ estimates–-$88 billion more than No. 2 richest Bernard Arnault of French luxury conglomerate LVMH.</p>



<p><strong><em>By Matt Durot, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


TIME Person of the Year

Why Elon Musk Is Nearly $15 Billion Richer Tuesday


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>Tesla produced and delivered record numbers of vehicles during the first quarter of 2022, despite supply chain issues, Covid surges and health restrictions in China causing it to shut down production during the first few months of the year.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>Tesla delivered 310,048 vehicles from January through March, up 70% from the&nbsp;<a href="https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-q1-2021-vehicle-production-deliveries" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">same period in 2021</a>, and produced 305,407 vehicles, it said Saturday.</p>



<p>The Model 3 and Model Y accounted for the vast majority of deliveries in the quarter, which were up only slightly from the&nbsp;<a href="https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-q4-2021-vehicle-production-deliveries" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fourth quarter</a>&nbsp;of 2021, when it delivered nearly 309,000 vehicles.</p>



<p>Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1510288141495640070" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweet</a>&nbsp;it was an “exceptionally difficult quarter due to supply chain interruptions &amp; China zero Covid policy,” and applauded the work from the Tesla team and key suppliers that “saved the day.”</p>



<p>Wedbush Securities analysts Daniel Ives and John Katsingris wrote Saturday the first-quarter sales were a “positive step in the right direction,” noting that most investors will look past the slight miss on deliveries – Wall Street analysts were on average expecting 312,000, they said.</p>



<p>They believe delivery of roughly 20,000 to 25,000 units was pushed out of the first quarter into the second due to logistical and factory issues, “which makes this underlying demand number still look strong with a robust trajectory” for the rest of the year.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Tesla is the largest electric vehicle seller in the world, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/01/02/tesla-says-it-delivered-record-936172-electric-vehicles-in-2021/?sh=70b2b7584d8b">reported a record</a>&nbsp;936,172 deliveries last year, but like all automakers, it is struggling with shortages of parts. The&nbsp;<em>New York Times</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/business/tesla-sales-electric-vehicles.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reports</a>&nbsp;Tesla has fared better than its competitors from the worldwide computer chip shortage because it was able to substitute chips needed for its vehicles. Covid-related shutdowns have also affected the company, as Tesla&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-suspends-production-shanghai-factory-4-days-comply-with-covid-curbs-2022-03-28/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly</a>&nbsp;had to suspend production at its Shanghai factory for four days due to a staggered Covid-19 lockdown in the city earlier this week. The company has moved to open new factories, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/03/22/teslas-stalled-german-plant-opens-amid-chip-and-water-woes-rising-metal-costs/">the launch</a>&nbsp;of a “Gigafactory” in Germany last week. Tesla plans to host a&nbsp;<a href="https://austonia.com/cyber-rodeo-giga-texas" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">“cyber rodeo”</a>&nbsp;as part of its grand opening of a vehicle production plant in Austin, Texas, next week.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR</h2>



<p>Tesla will&nbsp;<a href="https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-vehicle-production-deliveries-and-date-financial-results-webcast-first-quarter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announce</a>&nbsp;its financial results for the first quarter after market close on April 20.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/03/28/tesla-shares-jump-as-electric-car-maker-seeks-stock-split/">Tesla Shares Jump As Electric Car Maker Seeks Stock Split</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/01/02/tesla-says-it-delivered-record-936172-electric-vehicles-in-2021/?sh=70b2b7584d8b">Tesla Says It Delivered Record 936,172 Electric Vehicles In 2021</a> (<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/"></a>Anna Kaplan, Forbes Staff</strong></p>


Tesla Delivers Record 310,000 Vehicles During What Elon Musk Calls An ‘Exceptionally Difficult’ First Quarter


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=627b29af7999">Elon Musk</a>, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the richest person in history, was named&nbsp;<em>Time</em>&nbsp;magazine’s&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Person of the Year</a>&nbsp;for 2021 on Monday, capping a year of accomplishments and controversies for the billionaire.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>This year SpaceX completed the first all-civilian mission to space and was selected by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/as-artemis-moves-forward-nasa-picks-spacex-to-land-next-americans-on-moon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NASA</a>&nbsp;to build a new lunar lander, while Tesla’s market cap reached over $1 trillion after a deal with Hertz, making Musk the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/10/26/elon-musk-nearing-300-billion-fortune-is-the-richest-person-in-history/?sh=345fd6081933">richest person ever</a>.</p>



<p>He also hosted&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/05/13/elon-musk-is-20-billion-poorer-since-hosting-saturday-night-live/?sh=1d3ff9c3fcb6"><em>Saturday Night Live</em></a>&nbsp;and continued his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/style/elon-musk-memes.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">meme-filled</a>&nbsp;Twitter reign.</p>



<p><em>Time</em>&nbsp;named&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/entertainer-of-the-year-2021-olivia-rodrigo/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Olivia Rodrigo</a>&nbsp;as Artist of the Year for 2021, gymnast&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/athlete-of-the-year-2021-simone-biles/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Simone Biles</a>&nbsp;as Athlete of the Year and the scientists behind the Covid-19 vaccines as&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/heroes-of-the-year-2021-vaccine-scientists/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Heroes of the Year</a>.</p>



<p>The magazine did not release a shortlist of contenders for the Person of the Year position, unlike in years past.</p>



<p>Last year the magazine&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/12/11/joe-biden-kamala-harris-named-times-person-of-the-year-beating-out-trump-fauci-and-racial-justice-movement/?sh=1d00a60c6ba4">co-named</a>&nbsp;Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the title.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Musk is a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/08/elon-musk-snl-saturday-night-live-host-internet-controversy-485781" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">divisive</a>&nbsp;figure. While his&nbsp;<em>Time</em>&nbsp;profile makes clear he is widely considered a visionary, it also mentions that his companies have faced allegations of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043336212/tesla-racial-discrimination-lawsuit" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">racism</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-sued-by-second-female-worker-over-sexual-harassment-retaliation-2021-12-10/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sexual harassment</a>&nbsp;and been accused of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/18/tesla-workers-factory-conditions-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">poor working conditions</a>, as well as extensive fines by regulators. As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/13/media/slug-time-person-year-elon-musk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CNN</a>&nbsp;pointed out,&nbsp;<em>Time</em>’s Person of the Year is “not necessarily considered an honor, since the selection could have wielded negative influence.” Past title holders include everyone from Greta Thunberg and Pope Francis to Vladimir Putin and even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/08/19/fact-check-hitler-time-magazine-man-year-1938-not-honor/8149799002/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Adolf Hitler</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?sh=627b29af7999">$265.4 billion</a>. That’s Musk’s net worth as of Monday, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>The&nbsp;<em>Time</em>&nbsp;Person of the Year profile describes Musk a number of ways, including: “This is the man who aspires to save our planet and get us a new one to inhabit: clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman, cad; a madcap hybrid of Thomas Edison, P.T. Barnum, Andrew Carnegie and&nbsp;<em>Watchmen</em>’s Doctor Manhattan, the brooding, blue-skinned man-god who invents electric cars and moves to Mars.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p>“<a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021</a>” (<em>Time</em>)</p>



<p>“<a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk-choice/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Why TIME Chose Elon Musk as the 2021 Person of the Year</a>&nbsp;(<em>Time</em>)</p>



<p>“<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/13/media/slug-time-person-year-elon-musk/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Time Person of the Year: Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, named most influential of 2021</a>” (CNN)</p>



<p>“<a href="https://www.today.com/news/time-2021-person-year-elon-musk-t242943" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Time 2021 Person of the Year: Elon Musk</a>” (<em>Today</em>)</p>



<p>“<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/10/26/elon-musk-nearing-300-billion-fortune-is-the-richest-person-in-history/?sh=345fd6081933">Elon Musk, Nearing $300 Billion Fortune, Is The Richest Person In History</a>” (<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p>“<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/time-person-of-the-year/3/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Complete list of every TIME Person of the Year for the last 25+ years, from Trump to Putin to Obama</a>” (CBS News)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/teakvetenadze/"></a><strong><em>By Téa Kvetenadze, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Elon Musk Named Time Person Of The Year


<p><strong>One is Elon Musk (duh), and the other is&nbsp;JB Straubel. But there were three more—and there’s a cautionary tale in why they aren’t billionaires too.</strong></p>



<p>Electric car upstart Tesla gathered reporters at a Santa Monica Airport hangar on a July afternoon in 2006 to unveil its battery-powered roadster, an audacious, $100,000 two-seater for which few automotive experts saw much hope of success. The company’s brash, tech-savvy CEO, Martin Eberhard, declared that Silicon Valley ingenuity would teach Detroit’s auto giants how to make compelling zero-emission cars. Tesla’s first effort, a modified Lotus Elise chassis packed with 7,000 tiny lithium-ion cells, was a high-end concept that would soon be followed by a lower-priced family sedan, the chief executive said. The vision he laid out that day ultimately came to pass, but not with him in charge.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Tesla this month became the first carmaker to hit an astonishing $1 trillion valuation, but the CEO who introduced the company to the press 15 years ago didn’t become synonymous with the brand. And he certainly didn’t wind up as the wealthiest person in history. That’s Elon Musk, of course, Tesla’s earliest investor and the company’s current CEO. Musk was also present at Tesla’s debut in 2006, but he assumed a lower profile that day, mainly arguing for the need to shift cars away from gasoline power as quickly as possible.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Tesla’s original CEO, Eberhard, and another early executive named Marc Tarpenning, who in 2003 dreamed up the idea of naming the company’s vehicles in honor of inventor Nikola Tesla, are Tesla’s original shareholders — the first men to claim ownership of the upstart brand that would go on to shake up the Detroit establishment. But neither of them retained enough Tesla stock to achieve billionaire status, much less Musk’s current net worth that&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;estimates at $282 billion as of Nov. 10. It was Musk’s seed capital—the result of an early payday investing in payments processor PayPal—that turned Eberhard and Tarpenning’s vision into a reality. Ultimately, it also set Musk on a path to take full control of Tesla by steadily raising his ownership stake in a series of nine funding rounds prior to the company’s 2010 IPO, each of which further diluted the stakes of Eberhard and Tarpenning. Even today Musk’s stake grows as he continues to receive quarterly stock awards, in lieu of salary, worth billions of dollars.</p>



<p>In an interview, Eberhard says he retains a “relatively small” stake in the carmaker, while declining to be specific.&nbsp; “I sold a good chunk of my stock a long time ago,” Eberhard, 61, says from his home in Washington state’s San Juan Islands. “People somehow have the idea that I was a zillionaire when I started Tesla. I was not.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Had Eberhard been wealthier from the sale of the Rocket eBook, an early handheld electronic reader he and Tarpenning created in the late 1990s, there would have been no need to seek initial funding from Musk, he says.</p>



<p>Musk has often said he doesn’t care about wealth and sold his Los Angeles mansions last year to live in a humble, prefab box house on his SpaceX campus in Boca Chica, Texas. Nevertheless, he keeps amassing wealth at a remarkable pace. That’s because of an early ownership stake of nearly 20% in the company and a long-term compensation plan announced in 2018 that rewards him with billions of dollars of additional Tesla stock every time it hits quarterly performance targets based on financial and valuation metrics. (He’s also preparing to sell 10% of his stake, worth about $15 billion as of Nov. 9, to avoid a massive tax hit as some long-term options mature.)</p>



<p>“I own no Tesla stock now. Of course I could not imagine a $1 trillion valuation!”&nbsp;Tesla cofounder Ian Wright</p>



<p>Eberhard, meanwhile, sold much of his stake after being pushed out of Tesla in 2007, before the Roadster’s launch. He sued Musk in 2009 over his ouster and for slander, before settling the case for undisclosed terms. As part of a settlement, he dropped opposition to Musk, former Tesla Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel and Ian Wright, an early engineer with the company, also being called cofounders, in addition to himself and Tarpenning.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“When I got kicked out of Tesla I had no money—I mean I really had no money,” Eberhard says. “Worse than that, I had no possibility of employment for about a year” because of a restrictive intellectual property agreement with Tesla, he says. “I did not participate in any investment rounds after I left.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Eberhard won’t provide details of his Tesla stake, but he confirms he’s not a billionaire. Tarpenning, these days a partner at Spero Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, has said he, too, still owns Tesla stock, but he isn’t listed among its top shareholders. He didn’t respond to inquiries from&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>.</p>



<p>Of the five official cofounders, only Straubel, who left Tesla in 2019, is likely to have attained billionaire status from his holdings. His stake may be worth about $1.3 billion, assuming he retains a significant portion of Tesla stock held when he left. Straubel, currently CEO and cofounder of battery recycling startup Redwood Materials, declined to comment on the matter. Engineer Wright, who joined Eberhard and Tarpenning a few months after they created Tesla, left in 2004 to start another EV company. He sold his stake years ago.</p>



<p>“I own no Tesla stock now,” he tells&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>. “Of course I could not imagine a $1 trillion valuation!”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Beyond making Musk the world’s richest person, the company that’s become synonymous with a global car revolution has also enriched investors and board members including venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, as well as Elon’s younger brother, Kimbal, and countless investors inspired by the potential for a clean energy future.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large"><p>“Whatever my opinion is about Musk, I am still super happy to see the electric car revolution—that we after all started—I&#8217;d like to see that revolution winning.”Martin Eberhard</p></blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<p>For all the company’s success in the electric vehicle space and newfound financial stability, as well as the non-stop attention Musk seeks and generates, Tesla’s earliest days were marked by a high degree of management and strategic turbulence that left a single cofounder in control. Other tech-oriented giants that attained trillion-dollar valuations, such as Microsoft and Alphabet, created several billionaires among their cofounders, though Musk’s singular financial gains aren’t so unusual.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“While it does seem true that other notable technology firms minted multiple financial winners, a somewhat similar dynamic at Tesla played out at Apple,” says David Hsu, professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Cofounder Steve Jobs’ Apple stake was worth an estimated $2 billion at the time of his death in 2011 and Steve Wozniak’s wealth is an estimated $100 million, though Ronald Wayne, Apple’s little-known third cofounder, sold his stake early for $800, Hsu says. Musk’s rewards today simply flow from a risky early bet that’s paid off big for him.</p>



<p>“It’s not only ownership stakes of cofounders; we could also point to cases of missing out by investors, including angel and VC investors,” Hsu said. “At the time Musk invested in the Series A round, and for a considerable amount of time afterward, there was a lot of uncertainty about the ability of the firm to execute its bold vision. Some might argue that sentiment is still somewhat true today.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Citing a “non-disparagement” clause that was part of the 2009 settlement, Eberhard declines to elaborate on his views about Musk these days. By contrast, Musk himself has shown far less restraint. He described Eberhard as “literally the worst person I’ve ever worked with” in a January 2020 interview for the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxmO_QuD4Do" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Third Row Tesla podcast</a>, hosted by Musk fans.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>Still, the company’s original CEO, who owned “somewhat less” than 5% when he left Tesla, says he’s not unhappy these days, despite not profiting more from its surge.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“The valuation is what it is. What I&#8217;m happy about is the success of the company. It&#8217;s crucial that we get off of fossil fuels and Tesla has been the major driver of that, which is what we had hoped for from the beginning,” Eberhard says.</p>



<p>“Whatever my opinion is about Musk, I am still super happy to see the electric car revolution—that we after all started—I&#8217;d like to see that revolution winning. It has to.”&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong><em>By Alan Ohnsman, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


GettyImages-760016751

Tesla Had 5 Founders. Why Did Only Two Get Really Rich?


<p><strong>TOPLINE</strong> Shares of Tesla, one of the past year&#8217;s best-performing stocks, continued to rack up massive losses Tuesday after Chief Executive Elon Musk over the weekend sparked concerns that he would sell 10% of his stake in the electric car maker, casting doubts on the long-term viability of the stock’s meteoric gains.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>After falling nearly 5% on Monday, shares of Tesla plummeted another 12% Tuesday to $1,023.50, pushing the firm’s market capitalization down by about $140 billion and marking the stock’s worst one-day drop since falling 21% on Sept. 8, 2020.</p>



<p>Fueling concerns on Tuesday, storied hedge fund investor Michael Burry, who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/opinion/04burry.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">famously predicted</a>&nbsp;the housing bubble that sparked the Great Recession,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/the-big-short-investor-michael-burry-says-elon-musk-may-want-to-sell-tesla-stock-to-cover-his-personal-debts-and-compares-the-current-market-to-the-dutch-tulip-bubble/ar-AAQuZMw" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">emerged</a>&nbsp;from a Twitter hiatus to say Musk “NEEDS to sell” to help personal service loans he’s taken using Tesla shares as collateral.</p>



<p>Though Musk remains the richest person in the world, his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/">fortune</a>&nbsp;tanked by about $33.7 billion Tuesday,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/11/09/elon-musks-fortune-plunges-by-nearly-29-billion-tuesday-as-tesla-shares-slide/">falling</a>&nbsp;to $271 billion and racking up two-day losses of nearly $50 billion.</p>



<p>Triggering the two-day stock decline, Musk on Saturday&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1457064697782489088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1457064697782489088%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fembedly.forbes.com%2Fwidgets%2Fmedia.html%3Ftype%3Dtext2Fhtmlkey%3Dcfc0fb0733504c77aa4a6ac07caaffc7schema%3Dtwitterurl%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Felonmusk%2Fstatus%2F1457064697782489088image%3Dhttps3A%2F%2Fi.embed.ly%2F1%2Fimage3Furl3Dhttps253A252F252Fabs.twimg.com252Ferrors252Flogo46x38.png26key3D8804248494c144f5b4765c41f66c6ed5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">called</a>&nbsp;on Twitter users to help decide whether he should sell 10% of his roughly 23% stake in Tesla in response to a short-lived proposal in Congress that would have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/10/27/new-billionaire-wealth-tax-targeting-assets-of-700-richest-americans-unveiled-heres-how-the-democratic-plan-would-work/">taxed</a>&nbsp;billionaires’ unrealized stock gains to help curb tax avoidance among the ultrawealthy.</p>



<p>Despite the selloff, analysts at both Wedbush and Jefferies increased their Tesla price targets on Monday to $1,800 and $1,400, respectively, with Wedbush’s Dan Ives saying the stock could soar as much as 65% over the next year thanks to better-than-expected profit margins unveiled in the third quarter.</p>



<p>But other analysts aren’t so sure: Tesla stock holds an average price target of $810 based out of 35 firms issuing such guidance, according to Bloomberg, representing about 25% downside to Tuesday’s closing price.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number">BIG NUMBER</h2>



<p><strong>$1 trillion.</strong>&nbsp;That’s Tesla’s market value after the two-day plunge. Shares have slipped nearly 17% from an all-time high on Thursday, but are still up 150% over the past year, compared to 32% for the S&amp;P 500.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



<p>Musk’s weekend tweets sparked investor concerns that Tesla’s stock could struggle to hold on to its recent gains amid a massive liquidation after the poll&nbsp;<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2021/11/07/elon-musks-twitter-followers-vote-for-him-to-sell-10-of-tesla-stock/">closed</a>&nbsp;with nearly 58% of the more than 3.5 million respondents voting in support of the proposal. Musk, who pledged in a separate tweet to “abide by the results of [the] poll,” owns about 23% of Tesla’s total shares. On Monday, Ives said investors should not be “overly concerned about” the possible transaction because it was already expected that Musk would sell about 6% of his stake to help pay a big tax bill coming due from stock options set to expire next August. In a note, Oanda analyst Ed Moya also chalked up Musk’s motivations to the impending tax bill.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE</h2>



<p>“We would rather Musk rip the Band-Aid off now and sell this portion of stock rather than it lingering over the next year and feeding into any bear thesis,” Ives said Monday.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">TANGENT</h2>



<p>Since Tesla went public on the Nasdaq exchange in 2010, Musk has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2021/11/07/heres-how-much-elon-musk-would-pay-in-taxes-if-he-sells-10-of-his-tesla-stock/?sh=5c90d8c1115a">only sold</a>&nbsp;stock twice. In July 2010, Musk sold slightly more than 1.4 million shares for $24 million, and in 2016, he sold another 2.7 million shares for about $593 million.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/11/09/elon-musks-fortune-plunges-by-nearly-29-billion-tuesday-as-tesla-shares-slide/">Elon Musk’s Fortune Plunges By Nearly $29 Billion Tuesday As Tesla Shares Slide</a>&nbsp;<em>(Forbes)</em></p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2021/11/07/heres-how-much-elon-musk-would-pay-in-taxes-if-he-sells-10-of-his-tesla-stock/">Here&#8217;s How Much Elon Musk Would Pay In Taxes If He Sells 10% Of His Tesla Stock</a>&nbsp;<em>(Forbes)</em></p>



<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2021/11/07/elon-musks-twitter-followers-vote-for-him-to-sell-10-of-tesla-stock/">Elon Musk&#8217;s Twitter Followers Vote For Him To Sell 10% Of Tesla Stock</a>&nbsp;<em>(Forbes)</em></p>



<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisakim/2021/11/06/elon-musk-says-hell-sell-10-of-his-tesla-stock-if-twitter-users-vote-for-him-to/">Elon Musk Says He&#8217;ll Sell 10% Of His Tesla Stock If Twitter Users Vote For Him To</a> <em>(Forbes)</em></p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/"></a><strong><em>By Jonathan Ponciano, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Tesla Stock Wipes $140 Billion In Worst One-Day Decline This Year After Elon Musk Teases Massive Sale


<p id="h-the-company-is-at-a-standoff-with-the-modi-government-which-wants-musk-to-commit-to-building-electric-vehicles-locally-before-providing-subsidies-or-waiving-tariffs-that-make-importing-teslas-prohibitively-expensive"><strong>The company is at a standoff with the Modi government, which wants Musk to commit to building electric vehicles locally before providing subsidies or waiving tariffs that make importing Teslas prohibitively expensive.</strong></p>



<p><em>by&nbsp;Aayushi Pratap&nbsp;and&nbsp;Alan Ohnsman</em></p>



<p>AFP PHOTO/ROBERTO SCHMIDT/PATRICK PLEUL/DPA-ZENTRALBILD/GETTY IMAGESGETTY IMAGES. DESIGN BY FORBES</p>



<p>W<strong>hen Tesla opened pre-orders</strong>&nbsp;for its Model 3 electric sedan in India in 2016, Arun Bhat, a businessman in the southern city of Bengaluru and an ardent Elon Musk fan, was among the first in the country to pre-book his dream car. Bhat even got rid of four luxury vehicles to make space for it.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“I thought Tesla would launch in India in the next couple of years,” Bhat says. “I just love the product and the minimalist interior.” Five years later, his wait continues.</p>



<p>The world’s most valuable automaker, with a market cap now topping $1 trillion that makes Musk the richest person in history, is at a high point, both in profit and global sales this year. The company has a shot at delivering a record 1 million electric vehicles worldwide in 2021. Yet after years of floating the idea of selling Teslas in India, Musk has yet to figure out how to do that, even as his focus on the market intensifies. In recent weeks the company has stepped up its push,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-lobbies-modis-office-india-slash-taxes-before-it-enters-market-sources-2021-10-20/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">led by the company’s local policy chief, Manuj Khurana</a>, to get a waiver of steep import fees that would almost double the price of imported Teslas. Instead, the Modi government wants Tesla to commit to local production.</p>



<p>India&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href="https://vahan.parivahan.gov.in/makermodel/vahan/dashboard.xhtml" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ministry of Road Transport and Highways</a>&nbsp;approved four Tesla variants for local sale earlier this year. And although Tesla has yet to announce a formal plan for India, it’s already secured retail space in Mumbai, registered an office in Bengaluru and is making key hires to support sales in the country. For now, things are at an impasse. Setting up local manufacturing would take at least a year and a hefty investment from Tesla, and starting with sales of imported vehicles is a non-starter without a tariff waiver. India’s “import duties are the highest in the world by far of any large country!” Musk told a local&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1418641920595791872?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fan on Twitter</a>&nbsp;in July. Without waiver relief, India’s import tariff means that a Tesla Model 3, which starts at about $44,000 in the U.S. would have to sell for about $80,000 in India for the company to turn a profit, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cardekho.com/cars/Tesla" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">local estimates</a>.&nbsp;</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large"><p>“India’s import duties are the highest in the world by far of any large country!”—Elon Musk via Twitter</p></blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<p>But that’s not the only hurdle. There’s limited electric vehicle charging infrastructure, a lack of significant incentives for electric car buyers and India’s road infrastructure presents challenges. Despite a massive population of 2.2 billion people, India is also a relatively small auto market, with sales of fewer than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ibef.org/industry/india-automobiles.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">3.5 million passenger and commercial autos in 2020</a>. There’s even less demand for both EVs and luxury autos. Only about 5,000 battery-powered vehicles were purchased in India last year, such as those made by Bangalore-based Mahindra Electric, accounting for less than 0.5% of total sales.</p>



<p>“It’s like what they used to say about China: ‘a billion people without money is not a market,’” says Michael Dunne, a long-time analyst and advisor on the auto industry in Asia who runs San Diego-based consultancy&nbsp;<a href="https://www.zozogo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Zozo Go</a>. “That&#8217;s kind of where we are with India. You have an active concentration of wealth and then everybody else who&#8217;s just scraping by. The median average price of a new car sold in India is going to be less than $10,000—a lot less than a Tesla.”</p>



<p>So why bother? Tesla is growing quickly throughout the world, expanding production and sales in China, awaiting German government permission to start building electric vehicles at its Giga Berlin plant and preparing to make Teslas in Austin, Texas.&nbsp;</p>



<p>India, although it’s the world’s second-most populous country, isn’t a particularly attractive market today, but it has a growing, tech-savvy middle class. And like China, its consumer market has massive long-term potential. India’s government is also starting to take steps to encourage EV sales to curb toxic emissions, offering buyers enticements including lower registration fees and road taxes—though it isn’t offering the kinds of incentives seen in the U.S. and Europe that can knock thousands of dollars off the purchase price.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Geopolitical tension between India and China is a further complication as Tesla lobbies the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-lobbies-modis-office-india-slash-taxes-before-it-enters-market-sources-2021-10-20/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Modi government</a>&nbsp;for tariff relief. Road and Transportation Minister Nitin Gadkari has warned the carmaker against shipping vehicles built at its Shanghai plant for sale in India, telling Musk to build locally. “You should manufacture electric cars in India and also export cars from India,” he said in media interviews this month. If Musk agrees to do that, Gadkari said he assured the CEO that Tesla will receive significant government support.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Mercurial billionaire Musk has teased the possibility of Indian production—as an enticement for a tariff waiver. “If Tesla is able to succeed with imported vehicles, then a factory in India is quite likely,” Musk&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1418656085267865602?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted in July</a>. But the Modi government hasn’t bent in its demand for the company to commit to local production before it considers a waiver or subsidies. Tesla didn’t respond to email inquiries on the matter, and Tesla executives didn’t provide an update on the company’s plans for the country during its quarterly earnings call in October.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large"><p>“You (Musk) should manufacture electric cars in India and also export cars from&nbsp;India”.–Nitin Gadkari, India’s Road and Transportation Minister</p></blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



<p>India would be a compelling base to build vehicles for other markets Musk has yet to enter, including much of Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, says Dunne of Zozo Go. Tesla may want to follow the path of Hyundai Motor, which has turned its Indian operations into a massive source of exports, shipping&nbsp;<a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/auto/cars/story/hyundai-exports-2020-21-creta-venue-i20-verna-nios-others-1791729-2021-04-16" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">more than a 1 million cars and crossovers to 88 international markets</a>&nbsp;during its last fiscal year.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>In the years to come an Indian export base could also become “a counterbalance or counterweight to all the eggs (Musk) currently has placed in China,” Dunne says.</p>



<p>Despite some eager local fans, auto analyst Bakar Sadik Agwan with GlobalData in Hyderabad, India, sees significant local hurdles for Tesla. Notably, there are so few charging stations that using a Tesla to travel between cities will be impossible unless the company sets up its own network. “They will need a strong sales network, they need a service network and as well as they need their own charging infrastructure,” says Agwan.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Pricing is also a big hurdle. In the U.S. the cheapest Tesla Model 3 starts at $40,000. Even if Musk gets a tariff waiver, that&#8217;s too expensive for the vast majority of locals, putting Tesla in the luxury car bracket. In 2020 Indians bought just 30,000 luxury vehicles, Agwan says.</p>



<p>As a result, Tesla might sell fewer than 150 cars in its first five years in India, according to Soumen Mandal, a Counterpoint Technology Market Research analyst in Gurugram, India.</p>



<p>Local roads are yet another challenge. Many aren’t mapped on GPS and traffic in dense cities is often blocked—in some places by stray&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-08-23/stray-cattle-india-get-glow-dark-horns-prevent-crashes-vehicles" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cattle and dogs</a>. Tesla’s Autopilot feature “where you just plug in the address from point A to point B won&#8217;t work in India,” says Jay Shah, a businessman in Ahmedabad in western India who has also pre-booked his Tesla. “The roads are not marked, there are animals on the road, there are two-wheelers on the roads, so it is next to impossible.”</p>



<p>Long-time Tesla fan Bhat is optimistic he’s close to finally getting his vehicle. (He’s now more interested in a Model Y compact SUV than the Model 3 he pre-ordered.) To ensure that Musk knows he’s got local support, Bhat created a Twitter page with fellow enthusiast Nikhil Chaudhary to “pester” their hero and share the latest on Tesla’s India plans. In 2020, when other fans asked Musk on Twitter whether there was progress on the local launch, the American CEO replied “next year for sure.” The phrase has become an inside joke between Bhat and Chaudhary.</p>



<p>Even if Bhat has to pay a steep price for his Tesla, he says it will be worth it was given the long-term fuel savings. But mainly he just really wants one.&nbsp;</p>



<p>“We have everything figured out,” Bhat says. “Only the car is missing.”<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/aayushipratap/"></a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/aayushipratap/">Aayushi Pratap</a>. </p>


Tesla’s India Fans Are Eager To Buy Elon Musk’s Cars, But Politics Is Getting In The Way


<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">TOPLINE</h2>



<p>The stock market reached new record highs again on Monday thanks to a positive third-quarter earnings season so far, with investors largely optimistic about upcoming results from Big Tech companies.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">KEY FACTS</h2>



<p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 0.2% on Monday, while the S&amp;P 500 gained 0.5% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.9%.</p>



<p>Both the Dow and S&amp;P 500 closed at new record highs as the stock market’s winning streak continued on the back of positive third-quarter earnings.</p>



<p>Of the 117 companies in the S&amp;P 500 that have reported earnings so far, some 84% have posted results that were above expectations, according to data from Refinitiv.</p>



<p>While earnings season has been upbeat so far, investors are looking ahead to earnings from major technology companies this week, including Facebook, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple.</p>



<p>Shares of Facebook, which reports after the market close on Monday, fell earlier in the day before rising over 1% in afternoon trading; The company has been under pressure recently following the release of the ‘<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/10/25/here-are-the-biggest-facebook-papers-charges-zuckerberg-caves-to-communist-government-and-lets-celebrities-break-the-rules-more/">Facebook Papers</a>’ whistleblower documents.</p>



<p>Tesla stock, meanwhile, surged 12% to a new all-time high on Monday—bringing the company’s market value to more than $1 trillion—after Hertz&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/10/25/tesla-amasses-1-trillion-in-market-value-after-hertz-places-biggest-electric-vehicle-order-ever/?sh=6366c038156e">announced</a>&nbsp;it placed the company’s biggest order ever and bought 100,000 Tesla cars.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-number-26-billion">BIG NUMBER: $26 BILLION</h2>



<p>That’s how much Elon Musk’s net worth&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizahaverstock/2021/10/25/elon-musk-is-nearly-14-billion-richer-after-hertz-order-pushes-tesla-stock-to-record-levels/?sh=5d56b6ef7248">jumped</a>&nbsp;on Monday as Tesla shares skyrocketed. With a net worth of $255.8 billion, according to&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>’ estimates, the Tesla cofounder and CEO is the richest person on the planet—worth more than any billionaire&nbsp;<em>Forbes</em>&nbsp;has ever tracked.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">KEY BACKGROUND:</h2>



<p>The major averages have all registered strong gains so far this month, with the Dow and S&amp;P both up more than 5%, while the Nasdaq has gained more than 4%.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-crucial-quote">CRUCIAL QUOTE:</h2>



<p>Despite supply-chain concerns and labor shortages, the “rising tide of earnings is lifting all the boats and adding fuel to the bull market fire,” says Anu Gaggar, global investment strategist at Commonwealth Financial Network.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-for">WHAT TO WATCH FOR:</h2>



<p>“There could be more gains to come in the final two months of the year,” predicts Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist for LPL Financial. “Seasonal tailwinds, improving market internals, and clear signs of a peak in the Delta variant all provide potential fuel for equities heading into year-end.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">FURTHER READING:</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/10/25/tesla-amasses-1-trillion-in-market-value-after-hertz-places-biggest-electric-vehicle-order-ever/?sh=6366c038156e">Tesla Hits $1 Trillion In Market Value After Hertz Places Biggest Electric Vehicle Order Ever</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/10/25/pinterest-shares-plummet-12-after-paypal-ends-rumors-of-a-45-billion-deal/">Pinterest Shares Plummet 12% After PayPal Ends Rumors Of A $45 Billion Deal</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/10/22/heres-why-facebook-twitter-and-google-shares-are-sinking-even-as-the-market-sits-near-record-highs/">Here’s Why Facebook, Twitter And Google Shares Are Sinking Even As The Market Sits Near Record Highs</a>&nbsp;(<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/10/25/here-are-the-biggest-facebook-papers-charges-zuckerberg-caves-to-communist-government-and-lets-celebrities-break-the-rules-more/">Here Are The Biggest ‘Facebook Papers’ Charges: Zuckerberg Caves To Communist Government And Lets Celebrities Break The Rules, More</a> (<em>Forbes</em>)</p>



<p><strong><em>By Sergei Klebnikov, Forbes Staff</em></strong></p>


Tag: Elon Musk

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