*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.
Tim Cook is an excellent steward of Apple, but he's no Steve Jobs ー and what Apple really needs right now, is innovation, said Andy Cunningham, who worked with Jobs to launch the Macintosh.
Major indices followed Apple lower after the iPhone maker's unexpected announcement it would cut revenue guidance sparked fears that the days of Apple's hyper growth are over. The Dow closed down 2.8 percent or 660 points on Thursday, while the S&P finished trading down about 2.5 percent and the Nasdaq closed lower by more than 3 percent.
Netflix may benefit in the short-term from its decision to pull an episode of a comedy show that criticized Saudi Arabia's royal family, but in the long-term, the move could hurt the public's trust in the brand, Jack Crowe of the National Review told Cheddar Wednesday.
In a new era of transportation, safety testing is critical for cars that are now more dependent on tech than on steel and rubber. The American Center for Mobility is a 500-acre testing facility located in Ypsilanti, Mich., just over 30 miles from Detroit. On the center's highway speed loop, vehicles are tested for safety on a range of roadway and weather conditions. "It's gotta work all the time, every time," the center's interim CEO, Kirk Steudle, told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin.
As the electric vehicle movement takes off, SparkCharge is gearing up to save drivers from "range anxiety" with deliverable charging in 2019. "There's this huge gap in the market in terms of alleviating that pain over where, when, how you charge your electric vehicle," SparkCharge CEO Joshua Aviv told Cheddar Wednesday.
Tesla's latest production miss proves it is no longer a "hyper-growth story," Tesla short Mark Spiegel told Cheddar. Tesla shares tumbled close to 7 percent on Wednesday after the company missed expectations on car deliveries and broadly discounted its vehicles to offset subsidy cuts.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's "out of touch" year-end post foreshadows a challenging 2019 for the social media giant, said Mark Douglas, CEO of digital display advertising platform SteelHouse.
2018 has been transformative for retail: Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Toys “R” Us shuttered its doors, and Amazon entered the U.S. into an extravagant pageant to find a base for its second HQ. As the landscape of shopping changes yet again, 2019 promises another existential moment in retail. We’re forecasting the biggest trends and predicting which fads will get the boot from consumers.
Institutional investors changed the cryptocurrency market in 2018, veering away from their blockchain-not-bitcoin attitudes and trying out strategies for entering the new crypto asset class. Cheddar is gazing into our crystal ball to predict what's ahead for crypto in 2019.
As 2018 comes to an end, Cheddar is picking the year's top winners and biggest triumphs for Cheddar's Hall of Fame.
