*By Carlo Versano*
Shares of Tesla jumped more than 15 percent in the pre-market Monday on news that CEO Elon Musk settled a lawsuit with the SEC over Musk's social media use.
Under the terms of the settlement, Musk will step down as chairman of Tesla ($TSLA) for at least three years but can remain in the chief executive role. He and the company must each pay $20 million in fines. Two independent board members will also be appointed.
Federal regulators sued Musk last week, arguing that his infamous Aug. 7 "funding secured" tweet amounted to securities fraud. The lawsuit was filed after Musk reportedly scuttled a last-minute deal with the agency under which he would resign as chairman and pay a fine but not admit to any wrongdoing. Talks restarted soon after, and by Saturday a new settlement was in place.
The settlement takes care of one major headache for investors, who will now look to the car maker's third-quarter production and delivery numbers, which may be reported as early as Monday. Musk [reportedly] (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/30/elon-musk-tells-tesla-to-ignore-distractions-hints-at-profitability.html) emailed employees over the weekend, telling them to "ignore all distractions" and that the company was approaching profitability.
Like the big changeover to e-commerce for retail, the COVID-19 pandemic has moved car buying trends to the digital showroom. Karl Brauer, an executive analyst at iSeeCars.com, joined Cheddar to talk about the "mindset shift" in consumers and businesses to order-based systems in the United States (something more common in other countries). While more than 60 percent of consumers still prefer to visit dealerships in-person, Brauer noted that consumers are better off ordering a car to spec, which would also help improve supply constraints. "It's really bad right now to be building cars and not really knowing who's going to buy them or when they're going to sell," he said. Manufacturing a car to order would maximize the efficiency of obtaining materials through the supply chain rather than "shotgunning it" at dealerships.
Mark MacDougall, attorney and former prosecutor with the criminal division of the Department of Justice, joined Cheddar to discuss the fraud conviction of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. MacDougall addressed Holmes' stance that what she did was no different than any other Silicon Valley startup's approach to business and how this will shake out for the industry going forward. "I can't imagine it doesn't have some salutary effect on entrepreneurs and people involved in new ventures going forward," he said. Holmes was found guilty on 4 of 11 counts, with each carrying a maximum of 20 years in prison, but MacDougall explained that the lengthy prison sentences were unlikely.
Sports betting is going mainstream in the United States. Dozens of states have legalized it, California is set to do the same this year. Arizona, which legalized sports betting in September, set new national records for gambling in its first months. Daniel Graetzer, CEO of Maximbet, joins Cheddar News to discuss what's next for the booming industry.
A new report from ProPublica and the Washington Post found that Facebook Groups played a major role in the spread of misinformation linked to the January 6 insurrection with more than 650,000 posts claiming that Joe Biden's election victory was illegitimate.
On this episode of Cheddar Reveals, Dr. Anita Gupta, Adjunct assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, shares her forecast for the healthcare industry in 2022; Waseem Asghar, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Computer & Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Florida Atlantic University, breaks down the latest progress, trends, and innovations in wearable health tech; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Hacking our Biome.'
Waseem Asghar, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Computer & Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Florida Atlantic University, joins Cheddar Reveals to break down the latest progress, trends, and innovations in wearable health tech.
Ford is accelerating production of its highly anticipated electric F-150 Lightning with an expectation to pump out 150,000 vehicles annually to meet surging demand. Kumar Galhotra, Ford president of the Americas and international markets group, joined Cheddar to detail the plan to get more customers behind the wheel and to become the top of the competition in the electric vehicle space. "Within the next 24 months, we will have capacity, globally, to deliver 600,000 battery-electric vehicles per year," he said.
