Elon Musk made history in 2022 by becoming the first person ever to sustain a personal loss of more than $200bn – mainly thanks to a 63% landslide in Tesla’s stock price from its peak.
Tesla shares fell by another 3% in premarket trading on Tuesday, after sales growth in its most recent quarter “missed analysts’ expectations”, reported DealBook in The New York Times. After a disastrous year for Musk, the “pressure” is still on.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Covid lockdowns in China, and knock-on supply chain disruption, haven’t helped, said Martin Strydom in The Times. Neither has the threat of global recession. Tesla is still working on a “generation 3” vehicle that would be “cheaper and smaller” than its Model 3 and Model Y cars, but progress will not be revealed until March.
Meanwhile, a growing roster of new rivals is revving on the sidelines – with challengers stretching way beyond traditional carmakers.
Two of the most potentially disruptive hail from Asia, said Reuters Breakingviews. The giant Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn (best known for churning out Apple iPhones) is making a “well-timed pivot” into EVs, via US and Thai joint ventures – threatening to become a sector “powerhouse”, producing both parts and cars.
Another racy outfit is VinFast, which made its name selling gas-guzzlers in Vietnam before turning “fully electric”. The company’s boss, Le Thi Thu Thuy, is planning 70 showrooms across North America and Europe in 2023 in a bid to undercut Tesla. “Vietnam is an unlikely home of the next Elon Musk.” But don’t rule Thuy out.
-
Nick Fuentes’ Groyper antisemitism is splitting the rightTalking Points Interview with Tucker Carlson draws conservative backlash
-
Jamaicans reeling from Hurricane MelissaSpeed Read The Category 5 storm caused destruction across the country
-
Nigeria confused by Trump invasion threatSpeed Read Trump has claimed the country is persecuting Christians
-
Why Britain is struggling to stop the ransomware cyberattacksThe Explainer New business models have greatly lowered barriers to entry for criminal hackers
-
Wikipedia: Is ‘neutrality’ still possible?Feature Wikipedia struggles to stay neutral as conservatives accuse the site of being left-leaning
-
AI: is the bubble about to burst?In the Spotlight Stock market ever-more reliant on tech stocks whose value relies on assumptions of continued growth and easy financing
-
Your therapist, the chatbotFeature Americans are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence for mental health support. Is that sensible?
-
Supersized: The no-limit AI data center build-outFeature Tech firms are investing billions to build massive AI data centers across the U.S.
-
Jaguar Land Rover’s cyber bailoutTalking Point Should the government do more to protect business from the ‘cyber shockwave’?
-
iPhone Air: Thinness comes at a high priceFeature Apple’s new iPhone is its thinnest yet but is it worth the higher price and weaker battery life?
-
Google: A monopoly past its prime?Feature Google’s antitrust case ends with a slap on the wrist as courts struggle to keep up with the tech industry’s rapid changes
