A Delaware judge on Tuesday ruled in favor of the investors who challenged billionaire Elon Musk’s $56bn Tesla pay package as excessive, a court filing showed. The judge found that Musk’s compensation was inappropriately set by the electric-vehicle maker’s board and struck down the package. If the decision survives any potential appeal, the Tesla board will have to come up with a new compensation package for Musk.“Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware,” Musk responded on X, formerly Twitte ...

Microsoft beat analyst expectations Tuesday as its heavy bets on artificial intelligence bore fruit, particularly for its Azure cloud computing unit.The software giant reported revenue of $62bn, up 18% year-over-year, surpassing anticipated earnings of $61.1bn.CEO Satya Nadella said: “We’ve moved from talking about AI to applying AI at scale. By infusing AI across every layer of our tech stack, we’re winning new customers and helping drive new benefits and productivity gains across every sector.”Microsoft C ...

Paypal is planning to cut about 2,500 jobs, or 9% of its global workforce, this year, according to its CEO, Alex Chriss.In a letter to staff sent on Tuesday, the newly appointed CEO said the decision was made to “right-size” the company through both direct cuts and the elimination of open roles throughout the year. The staff that will be affected are expected to be notified by the end of the week.“We are doing this to right-size our business, allowing us to move with the speed needed to deliver for our cust ...

GM’s Cruise self-driving car unit on Thursday revealed US Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission probes stemming from an October collision in which one of its autonomous vehicles dragged a pedestrian who had been struck by another vehicle.Cruise reported the government investigations in a blog post in which the company also vowed to reform its culture stemming from a “failure of leadership” around the incident. The blog post did not disclose the status of the victim, who was dragged 20 ...

The United States trade regulator launched an inquiry on Thursday into generative artificial intelligence investments and partnerships.The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said in a statement that it issued orders to five companies requiring them to provide information on the matter. The companies were Google’s parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, and ChatGPT maker OpenAI, the agency’s statement said. The inquiry will focus on what authority and rights the tech giants’ investments in the fle ...

The chief executive of Boeing insisted on Wednesday that the planemaker only allows jets to fly when “100%” confident of their safety, as it faces intense scrutiny – and anger – following a cabin panel blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight.Boeing fully understands “the gravity of the situation”, Dave Calhoun said in Washington, as he prepared to meet a string of US senators.His company has been trying to reassure airlines, regulators and passengers after a cabin panel blew off a brand-new 737 Max 9 jet durin ...

A leading online travel agent has added filters to let users exclude flights that use Boeing’s troubled 737 Max planes, after a piece of fuselage falling off an Alaska Airlines flight led to a surge of user interest in avoiding the airliners.Kayak first introduced an aircraft filter in March 2019, to add and exclude specific models of plane, but the company says it saw little use compared with the more prominent filters of the number of stops or airports.Following the Alaska Airlines incident, it says there ...

Sheryl Sandberg is to step down from the board of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, nearly two years after quitting her executive role at the business.Sandberg was the lead architect of Facebook’s digital advertising-driven business model as Meta’s chief operating officer.The 54-year-old stepped down from that role in June 2022 and has now announced that she will leave the Meta board after her term ends in May.“The Meta business is strong and well-positioned for the future, so this feels like the right time ...

The Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, said he would be uncomfortable growing the automaker to be a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics without having at least 25% voting control of the company, nearly double his current stake.Musk said on Monday in a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that unless he got stock in the world’s most valuable automaker that was “enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned”, at Tesla, he would prefer to build products o ...

The US supreme court agreed to consider a challenge by Starbucks to a judicial decision requiring the world’s largest coffee chain to rehire seven union activists in Memphis, Tennessee. A federal agency determined the workers were fired for supporting unionization.A lower court found that Starbucks – grappling with a wave of unionization across the United States – probably discouraged other employees from exercising their rights under US labor law by dismissing the workers, dubbed the “Memphis Seven”, in 20 ...