Musk says he's not stepping down as Tesla CEO, tells shareholders the company will advertise
Austin (US) (AP): Elon Musk on Tuesday dismissed speculation that he might step down as Tesla's CEO and told the company's annual shareholders meeting that the the electric car and solar panel company would start doing some advertising.
"Say it ain't so," one shareholder asked Musk about stepping down as Tesla's leader. "It ain't so," he replied without further discussion.
When another shareholder suggested that Tesla try advertising, Musk said he is open to it.
"This has some merit," he said to the shareholder at the meeting at Tesla's factory site near Austin in Texas. "We'll try a little advertising and see how it goes."
Tesla famously has avoided paying for advertising like its competitors, relying a lot on Musk's ability to generate free publicity he has 140 million followers on Twitter, the social media company bought for USD 44 billion last fall.
Musk told shareholders that the company's "Full Self-Driving" software is getting close to where it's safer than human driving. He previously has said the system should be ready this year, a pledge he has made for several years.
Tesla says on its website that the cars can't drive themselves and humans must be ready to intervene at all times. The company also has been forced by US safety regulators to recall the software because it didn't obey traffic laws in some cases. The problems noted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are to be fixed with an online software update.
During Tuesday's meeting, Musk cautioned that the next 12 months could be challenging for the Austin-based company, largely because rising interest rates have increased the cost of buying a car.
"Tesla is not immune to the global economic environment," he said, predicting that the company will get through the period and do well, even when a lot of companies will go bankrupt.
Later on CNBC he talked about affordability of Tesla cars. "If the car payments or your home payments go up you have less money for other things," he said.
He told the gathering that sometimes the pain of working has been "quite excruciating".
He called his time as CEO of Twitter a "short term distraction" and said the company needed open heart surgery to ensure its survival.
It's now in a stable place, and he's happy to have Linda Yaccarino, whom he hired away from NBCUniversal, to run Twitter. Musk said the amount of time he'll devote to Twitter will be "relatively small" compared with the last six months since he bought the social media platform.
Before Musk's talk, shareholders voted to place Tesla co-founder and former chief technology officer JB Straubel on the company's board for the next three years. Straubel left Tesla in 2019 to start a battery materials recycling company.
Shareholders also re-elected Musk and Chairwoman Robyn Denholm to the board.
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UP: Fake IAS officer marries woman, flees with Rs 15 lakh dowry
Gorakhpur (UP) (PTI): A newly married man fled with the Rs 15 lakh given to him as dowry by the bride's family, and it came to light later that he was an alleged serial scammer, police said on Sunday.
The accused, identified as Pritam Kumar Nishad from Etawah, allegedly posed as an IAS officer to deceive the woman into marrying him. He is currently absconding with his sister, and a case has been filed against him for cheating, dowry harassment, and forgery, officials said.
According to the police, the woman's family claimed that they spent nearly Rs 30 lakh for the wedding that was solemnised on March 11.
The match was arranged through a matrimonial group, where the accused introduced himself as an IAS officer, sharing purported interview clips, office visuals, and photographs with politicians to gain the family's trust.
Despite initially claiming he would marry without dowry, the accused allegedly demanded Rs 15 lakh shortly before the engagement. The bride's family paid Rs 10 lakh in cash during the engagement and the remaining Rs 5 lakh on the wedding day, the police said.
The fraud came to light on Saturday after the woman reached Etawah, and a wedding attendee informed the family that the accused was not a civil servant. When her relatives visited the address provided by him, they found her in a small rented room, while the accused and his sister had fled, the police added.
The woman has also alleged that the accused planned to take her to Goa and sell her, and accused him of inappropriate behaviour.
The police suspect that the accused may have been involved in multiple such marriages in the past. Based on a complaint lodged at the cantonment police station, an FIR was registered on Saturday evening.
Senior Superintendent of Police Dr Kaustubh said efforts are underway to arrest the accused.
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