Elon Musks' Twitter/X, Tesla and Space X

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Tesla speeds up odometers to avoid warranty repairs, US lawsuit claims

(Reuters) - Tesla faces a proposed class action claiming it speeds up odometers on its electric vehicles so they fall out of warranty faster, saving Elon Musk's company from having to pay for repairs.

https://local.newsbreak.com/los-angeles-ca/3967437464922-tesla-speeds-up-odometers-to-avoid-warranty-repairs-us-lawsuit-claims?

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Elon's White House stepback

Discussing brutal Tesla results, Elon Musk said on an earnings call that he'll take a major step back from his work at the White House, likely starting in May, and devote "far more of my time to Tesla," Axios' Nathan Bomey writes.

• "I think I'll continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the president would like me to do so and as long as it would be useful," Musk said.

Musk said his "time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly" likely starting in May, declaring the effort "mostly done."

• "I'll have to continue doing it for I think the remainder of the president's term just to make sure the waste and fraud that we stopped does not come roaring back, which it will do if it has the chance," Musk said.

🛣️ Between the lines: Tesla acknowledged for the first time that "political sentiment" may be undermining the company's financial performance and that tariffs are poised to do the same.

• The automaker fell well short of expectations on earnings and sales in the first quarter.

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Elon did it to himself

Photo illustration: Maura Losch/Axios. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Elon Musk arrived in Washington as the most powerful political outsider ever, brimming with Silicon Valley swagger and bipartisan buy-in for the goal of streamlining the federal government. He's leaving with his reputation wounded, relationships severed, companies in crisis, fortune diminished — and little to show for it. Why it matters: The disruption he unleashed inside the federal government — for better or for worse — will reverberate for decades, Axios' Zachary Basu writes. 📉 Zoom in: Musk's favorability ratings have plummeted. Tesla, battered by boycotts, protests and even firebombings, saw its net income plunge 71% in the first quarter. Musk's net worth has declined a staggering $122 billion this year — nearly matching the $160 billion in government savings claimed by DOGE, which budget experts believe is wildly inflated. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, a longtime Tesla bull, celebrated the end of "this dark chapter," but warned: "The brand damage caused by Musk in the White House/DOGE over the past few months will not go away." President Trump and Elon Musk attend a UFC fight earlier this month in Miami. Photo: Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald via Getty Images ✂️ Musk did take a wrecking ball to many parts of the federal government. DOGE shuttered USAID and has since gone agency by agency, infiltrating sensitive IT networks — including the Treasury Department's centralized payments system — in the name of rooting out "waste, fraud and abuse." But the savings it produced were nowhere near the $2 trillion Musk set as a target. And the DOGE team's credibility has been undermined by mistakes, duplications and false assumptions uploaded — then quietly deleted — on its online "wall of receipts." 😇 The other side: "I can't speak more highly about any individual," President Trump told reporters Wednesday, heaping praise on his billionaire adviser and top donor. "He was treated very unfairly by — I guess you'd call it the public, some of the public," Trump added. "He loves the country. He doesn't need to do this."

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🚗 Tesla evades crash transparency. Tesla’s stock rose nearly 10 percent last week after regulators announced a rule change allowing partial self-driving vehicles — like Elon Musk’s Teslas — to skip crash-reporting requirements in minor collisions requiring tow trucks, even though these requirements apply to other, fully autonomous vehicles, like those produced by Tesla competitor Waymo. Meanwhile, Tesla has more accidents than other automobile brands, and more than 800 of 1,040 self-driving vehicle crashes reported in the last year involved a Tesla.

The home of Elon Musk's SpaceX could become an official Texas city called Starbase

A vote is scheduled to turn the South Texas home of Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket company into an official city known as Starbase. That vote and other proposals to give the city new authority to close beaches for rocket launches has drawn critics who say the change would give Musk and his company town too much power. Read More.

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Musk gets his Texas wish. SpaceX launch site is approved as the new city Starbase

The South Texas home of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company is now an official city with a galactic name: Starbase. A vote to formally organize Starbase as a city was approved by a lopsided margin among the group of voters who live there and are mostly Musk’s employees at SpaceX.  Musk celebrated in a post on his social platform, X, saying it is “now a real city!” Read more.

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🤠 Elon's new city: Starbase, Texas

A statue of Elon Musk near the town of Boca Chica, Texas, that is becoming Starbase, Texas. Photo: Valerie Gonzalez/AP The South Texas home of Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket company is now an official city with a galactic name: Starbase. A vote over the weekend to formally organize Starbase — the area around SpaceX's facility and launch site — as a city of its own was approved by the small group of voters who live there and are mostly Musk's employees, AP reports. Friction point: "Some locals fear the move will give SpaceX more power across the Rio Grande Valley. They worry the approximately 280 people living in Starbase and eligible to vote will make decisions that affect a broad number of people nearby," The Wall Street Journal reports (gift link). For example, state legislators have floated giving Starbase powers to temporarily close beaches during weekdays to carry our rocket operations.

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Tesla's Cybertruck Is No Longer America's Best-Selling Electric Pickup Truck

The futuristic truck was knocked off the top spot by the Ford F-150 in Q1, with the Chevrolet Silverado EV following close behind.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/teslas-cybertruck-is-no-longer-americas-best-selling-electric-pickup-truck?

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🪫 Musk's brand hit

Data: Axios/Harris poll. Chart: Thomas Oide/Axios Tesla Motors and SpaceX saw their brand reputations crater in the past year, according to this year's Axios Harris Poll 100 brand reputation survey. Why it matters: Elon Musk's polarizing political activism appears to have come at the expense of his largest companies, Axios' Dan Primack writes. 🧮 By the numbers: Tesla was in 8th place in the 2021 reputation ranking of America's 100 most visible companies, but last year tumbled to 63rd and now is near the very bottom at 95th. It placed dead last in "character," while placing near the bottom in areas like "ethics" and "citizenship." SpaceX experienced a similar reputation decline between 2024 and 2025. Between the lines: Aside from the Trump Organization, Musk's three companies were the most politically divisive in the survey. Tesla, SpaceX and X all scored roughly 30 points higher with Republicans than Democrats. 🏆 America's favorite brands: Trader Joe's and Patagonia — both perennially near the top of the survey — were America's top two trusted brands. Full rankings ...

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💰 Musk's tightening wallet

Elon Musk speaks via video link at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha today. Photo: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg via Getty Images Elon Musk said he plans to spend "a lot less" on political donations moving forward during a remote interview at Bloomberg's Qatar Economic Forum today. Musk spent more than $250 million in a push to return Trump to the White House — and pulling back could come as a disappointment for Republicans in 2026. Via X The Tesla CEO also vowed to exact vengeance on people who violently targeted Tesla over his political support for Trump. "We are coming for those who organized the violence & death threats against Tesla," Musk said on X. "Remember this statement." Watch the full interview ...

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⚡ Musk eyes reputation rehab

Elon Musk pivoted to damage control in his final days as a "special government employee," publicly recommitting to Mars, cars and robots after a bruising year in the political limelight, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

• Why it matters: The billionaire CEO confirmed last night he is departing the Trump administration, though he will remain one of President Trump's most influential outside advisers.

By scaling back the time and money he spends on politics, Musk is seeking to claw back the credibility he torched during his toxic tenure in Washington.

• That won't be easy: SpaceX and Tesla saw their brand reputations crater over the past year, with the latter enduring violent protests and a steep drop in sales as a result of Musk's activism.

Still, Musk is clear-eyed about the task ahead — and has already taken steps to distance himself from Trump in a rare series of interviews over the last several days.

Via X

🔭 Zoom in: Musk told "CBS Sunday Morning" that he's "disappointed" by the "massive spending bill" passed by the House last week, arguing that it "undermines" the work of his DOGE team.

• In an interview with The Washington Post at his space base in Texas, Musk conceded that DOGE's efforts to slash the federal bureaucracy — including an original goal of $2 trillion in savings — proved far more challenging than he expected.

Between the lines: Musk's media blitz has functioned as part exit interview, part image rehab — an attempt to reassert his identity as an engineering visionary after a year mired in political scrutiny.

• In an interview with Ars Technica, he went deep on detail — waxing poetic about SpaceX's long-term goals before admitting he "probably did spend a bit too much time on politics."

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📉 Tesla stock dives

Chart: Axios Visuals Musk's feud with Trump sent Tesla shares plunging this afternoon. The company's stock ended the day down 14%.

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Tesla EV sales plunge again after Elon Musk backlash

Tesla's electric vehicle sales plunged in the second quarter as the company continues to face a backlash from CEO Elon Musk's political turn.

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/02/tesla-ev-sales-elon-musk?

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Tesla EV sales plunge

Data: Financial Modeling Prep. Chart: Axios Visuals Tesla's electric vehicle deliveries — a close proxy for sales — plunged 13.5% in the second quarter as the company continues to face backlash from CEO Elon Musk's political turn, Axios' Nathan Bomey writes. Why it matters: EVs are an essential source of cash flow for Tesla as it pursues ambitious projects such as self-driving cars and humanoid robots. Go deeper.

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X CEO Linda Yaccarino resigns after two years at the helm of Elon Musk’s social media platform

X CEO Linda Yaccarino said she’s stepping down after two bumpy years running Elon Musk’s social media platform.

https://apnews.com/article/x-ceo-linda-yaccarino-elon-musk-grok-39ba18ec4851445967ce114a0a452928?

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👀 X's uncertain future

Data: Similarweb. Chart: Axios Visuals The abrupt resignation of X CEO Linda Yaccarino yesterday calls into question the fate of the world's largest and most politically relevant real-time social discourse platform, Axios Media Trends author Sara Fischer writes. Why it matters: Yaccarino was hired to rehabilitate X's ad business and bring stability to the company, but even she — one of the most experienced leaders in the ad industry — struggled to rein in Musk. He made his disdain for the ad business clear, telling advertisers engaging in boycotts against his platform to "go f**k yourself" in late 2023. Between the lines: Musk's attention then was more focused on turning X into an "everything" app — and now his attention has shifted again, toward turning X into a strip mine for AI training data, Axios' Scott Rosenberg writes. X's chief economic value to Musk now is its ability to feed mountains of human-generated text and live information into xAI's Grok — and then provide Grok with a ready base of users and testers. Flashback: One of Musk's big beefs with Twitter's previous leaders was that he said they let bots run rampant and drown out human voices. Now X's users feed and frequently interact with a bot, Grok.

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Tesla Autopilot Trial

The first federal jury trial against Tesla began in a Miami court yesterday involving its Autopilot driver-assistance system, designed to perform basic maneuvers and alert drivers to upcoming obstacles. Most previous lawsuits against Tesla were either dismissed or settled out of court.    The case centers on a 2019 crash in which a man was driving his Tesla Model S with Autopilot engaged (see how it works). As he bent to retrieve a dropped phone, the Tesla hit a parked SUV, killing 22-year-old Naibel Benavides Leon and severely injuring her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo. Benavides' family and Angulo are pursuing punitive damages against Tesla, alleging Autopilot malfunctioned and Tesla overpromised drivers about the technology’s capabilities. Tesla’s lawyers are expected to argue the driver was responsible for supervising the system and present data showing his foot was on the accelerator before the crash.    The trial comes as Tesla aims to expand its self-driving taxi service nationwide and faces a second year of declining sales, with last quarter’s deliveries falling 13.5% year over year.

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🍔 1 for the road: Tesla's new diner

A giant screen plays "Star Trek" ahead of the opening of Tesla's diner in LA yesterday. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images Elon Musk's long-awaited Tesla retro diner and charging station — which he first hinted at over seven years ago — officially opened yesterday in Los Angeles. The restaurant serves burgers in Cybertruck-shaped boxes and features giant screens that play movie clips. Musk said Tesla could open locations in major cities around the world if the restaurant "turns out well." What's on the menu.

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⚡ Tesla's budget model bet

Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photo: Hannibal Hanschke-Pool/Getty Images

Tesla said yesterday that it has begun production of "a more affordable model," Axios' Nathan Bomey writes. Why it matters: The automaker has long promised a cheaper EV, but has said little about it recently, fueling speculation that CEO Elon Musk had lost interest. 🔋 The big picture: Tesla has been facing a sales backlash over Musk's past political support of President Trump. The company said yesterday that revenue was down 12% from a year earlier. "We probably could have a few rough quarters," Musk said on an earnings call. "I'm not saying we will, but we could." Keep reading.

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Tesla awards CEO Musk millions in shares valued at about $29 billion

Tesla is awarding CEO Elon Musk 96 million shares of restricted stock valued at approximately $29 billion, just six months after a judge ordered the company to revoke his massive pay package. Read More.

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🔋 Tesla turnaround

Data: Factset, Tesla investor relations. Chart: Axios Visuals Tesla notched an all-time quarterly high for vehicle deliveries as consumers rushed to capitalize on the federal EV tax credit before it expired Sept. 30. The automaker reported 497,099 deliveries in the third quarter, up 7.4% from a year earlier, Axios' Nathan Bomey reports. 📈 Between the lines: The showing suggests that the sales backlash from CEO Elon Musk's association with President Trump may be fading. Go deeper: Wall Street Journal front-page story, "Tesla Sets New Sales Record as EV Subsidy Ends" (gift link). ps:the key statement here is "EV Subsidy Ends!" This is why did record sales!! Lets see what happens after they are gone!!

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Desperate Musk Tells Plummeting Tesla to Fire Him if He Goes ‘Insane’

The world’s richest man really wants his money.

Billionaire Elon Musk begged Tesla investors to give him his $1 trillion pay package despite cratering profits, assuring them he can be fired if he goes “insane.”

The world’s richest car salesman has had the huge stock-based pay package dangled in front of him by the board if he meets specific criteria. That criteria centers on profit, stock valuations, and sales, and it is due to be voted on on Nov. 6.

Musk, the man who led Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting drive, commandeered the end of a Tesla. Inc earnings call to plead with investors to make sure that happens.

He wants them to give him more control of the company ahead of the delivery of key projects, including the rollout of Optimus humanoid robots and driverless cars. Musk’s plan would see him with voting control of almost 29 percent of company shares.

“I just think that there needs to be enough voting control to give a strong influence,” Bloomberg reported him as saying. He interrupted his CFO to add, “But not not so much that I can’t be fired if I go insane.”

It comes after advisory firm Glass Lewis joined with the Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) to encourage board members not to vote in favor of the chief executive’s unprecedented pay package.

Musk, however, claims it isn’t about money, but control, according to The New York Times.

“I just don’t feel comfortable building a robot army here and then being ousted because of some asinine recommendations from ISS and Glass Lewis who have no freaking clue,” Musk said during the meeting.

His supporters on the board feel that the company’s success isn’t about the money he earns them, but rather about delivering the projects he has promised.

It might be just as well. This quarter’s earnings report was always likely to strike an upbeat tone ahead of the vote, but the numbers involved won’t make for pleasant reading for investors.

Profits plummeted 37 percent in the third quarter despite a 12 percent rise in revenue to $28.1 billion.

The Times reported that was due to Tesla lowering their prices. July to September saw more cars sold, but a combination of low-interest loans and slashed prices ensured profits sank.

Among the changes to its price structure were versions of its cars with lower spec, which retailed for up to $5,000 less than the previous lowest point on the range.

Donald Trump’s administration has also ransacked the clean air credit system in another major blow to the electric car company.

Tesla also cited the impact of tariffs on its profits, having been affected by the increased cost of importing materials.

Competition from abroad, especially China, has also played its part.

Despite the grim numbers, Musk said during the meeting he wants the company to expand. A number of the business’s flagship projects now have short timeframes including driverless taxis which have been touted for the end of the year.

“I feel like we’ve got clarity, and it makes sense to expand production as fast as we can,” he said.

Tesla has hit back at the Glass Lewis recommendations, which expressed “significant concern” over shareholder value and the structure of the deal, Reuters reports.

In a post on X, Tesla claimed the recommendations “attempt to override the mandate our shareholders delivered to Elon and ignore the staggering financial results delivered under Elon’s leadership, elevating their rigid policies over shareholder value.”

The Daily Beast has contacted Tesla for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/musk-pleads-for-his-1-trillion-pay-package-as-tesla-profits-plummet/?