*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.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressed staff about workplace culture concerns after they expressed issues with what they perceived as a lack of honesty, candor, and humility from their executives. Pichai attributed some of the challenges to remote communication during the ongoing pandemic.
The boys discuss President Biden's plans to send out free rapid tests as the testing supply chain starts to buckle ahead of the holidays. Also, why aren't Americans having more babies, and The Matrix returns.
NASA is launching its new generation of space telescopes just before Christmas. The James Webb Space Telescope, set to launch on December 24th, will succeed the Hubble space telescope as the world's most powerful complex space observatory. The project has been 30 years in the making and is one of the most highly anticipated space science missions of the 21st century. Klaus Pontoppidan, astronomer and JWST Project Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
Electric vehicle companies took a tumble Monday after Senator Joe Manchin killed Biden's 'Build Back Better' plan. Shares of Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian all fell rapidly as the plan had included significant incentives for the growing EV sector. Rich Steinberg, former executive at Nissan, BMW and Electrify America joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
As the popularity of Bitcoin and other digital tokens grew this year, more financial institutions and payment apps added ways for customers to trade or make payments using cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, companies like theater chain AMC started accepting major cryptocurrencies for tickets and concessions, and retailers are rumored to be entering the space soon. What does this mean for cryptocurrency's wider adoption — and will 2022 be the year that the average consumer is exposed to digital coin payments on a regular basis? João Almeida, Co-Founder and CTO of OpenNode joins Cheddar News' Crypto Craze: The Year of the Token to discuss.
