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      Elon Musk Hails Italian Leader Giorgia Meloni at Awards Ceremony

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      Mr. Musk described Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as “authentic, honest and thoughtful.” She used her Atlantic Council spotlight to defend Western values.Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, and Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, were the stars of a black-tie dinner in New York on Monday that highlighted Mr. Musk’s increasing involvement in politics.Ms. Meloni had chosen Mr. Musk to introduce her as she received a Global Citizen Award from the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank that cited “her political and economic leadership of Italy, in the European Union” and of the Group of 7 nations “as well as her support of Ukraine in Russia’s war against it.”The prime minister and the billionaire business leader have bonded over the years. They share concerns about artificial intelligence and declining birthrates in Western countries, which Mr. Musk has called an existential threat to civilization.He described Ms. Meloni on Monday as “someone who is even more beautiful inside than outside” and “authentic, honest and thoughtful.”“That can’t always be said about politicians,” Mr. Musk added, to laughter from the crowd of 700 at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Manhattan.After thanking Mr. Musk for his “precious genius,” Ms. Meloni delivered a passionate defense of Western values. While rejecting authoritarian nationalism, she said, “we should not be afraid to defend words like ‘nation’ and ‘patriotism.’”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Europe Slashes Tariffs for Tesla Vehicles Made in China

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      The European Commission will charge the U.S. automaker an additional duty of 9 percent, much lower than tariffs levied on its Chinese peers for electric vehicles imported to Europe.The European Union is proposing to charge Tesla an additional tariff of 9 percent on its vehicles imported from China while other automakers face rates as high as 36.3 percent, as part of efforts to protect European producers from unfair competition.The updated tariffs, announced in Brussels on Tuesday, would represent a significant increase for major companies making electric vehicles in China and are meant to level the playing field with Chinese E.V. manufacturers, many of which enjoy subsidies from Beijing. Final tariffs will come on top of the existing 10 percent already charged for electric vehicles produced in China.The European Union began investigating Chinese automakers in October. Officials said they lowered the rate for Tesla, down from a proposed 21 percent, because the company did not benefit from the same level of subsidies from the Chinese government as leading Chinese automakers. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The tariffs for Chinese automakers, which would go into effect for five years, all dropped slightly from an original proposal in June, ranging from 17 percent for China’s largest producer of electric vehicles, BYD, to 36.3 percent for SAIC Motor, the state-owned maker of MG Motor. Geely Auto, the parent company of Volvo Car, faces a rate of 19.3 percent.Companies that cooperated with the investigation, including the German automakers BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen, face tariffs of 21.3 percent for cars they produce in China. Unlike Tesla, which has its own independent production site in Shanghai, the German car companies are all involved in joint ventures with Chinese automakers. Because Volkswagen also has an entity with SAIC, some of its cars will be subject to the highest tariffs.Compared with the 100 percent tariffs the Biden administration imposed on Chinese E.V.s in May, the European proposals reflect what experts say is a desire to maintain trade with China, while protecting domestic production. Since the initial tariffs were announced several Chinese automakers have announced plans to shift production to Europe.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elon Musk Says Robotaxis Are Tesla’s Future. Experts Have Doubts.

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      Tesla says self-driving taxis will power its growth, but the company hasn’t said when such a service would be ready or how much it would increase profits.As sales of its electric cars have fallen, Tesla and its chief executive, Elon Musk, have sought to convince Wall Street that the company’s future lies not in the grinding business of making and selling cars but in the far more exciting world of artificial intelligence.In Mr. Musk’s telling, one of Tesla’s main A.I.-based businesses will be driverless taxis, or robotaxis, that can operate pretty much anywhere and in any condition. Tesla is very close to perfecting such vehicles and will easily secure regulatory approval to put them on roads, Mr. Musk said last week on a conference call to discuss the company’s second quarter results.Mr. Musk’s vision of autonomous vehicles, or A.V.s, is not limited to cars that drive themselves. He has also claimed that individuals who buy Teslas would be able to make money when they are asleep or at work by letting the company use their cars as robotaxis.The robotaxi service will, Mr. Musk has said, catapult Tesla’s stock market valuation, around $700 billion now, into the trillions of dollars.But first, a lot will have to go right.His idea would require major advances in technology and fundamental changes in the way people view cars. The experience of driverless taxi services like Waymo and Cruise in Phoenix, San Francisco and other cities raises questions about when such offerings will become profitable and how much money they will make.Tesla’s technology will face stiff competition from Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent company of Google; ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft; and Amazon’s self-driving business Zoox. Carmakers including General Motors, which owns Cruise, are also pursuing autonomous driving, along with Chinese tech and auto companies like Baidu and BYD.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Musk’s Friends and Fans Applaud Shareholder Vote on His Payday

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      On the social media platform X, which Mr. Musk owns, reactions to a vote that reaffirmed Mr. Musk’s $45 billion package were buoyant.Tesla shareholders reaffirmed a pay award worth more than $45 billion for Elon Musk on Thursday, but before the announcement was made official at the company’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas, Mr. Musk posted the news on X, his social media platform.“Both Tesla shareholder resolutions are currently passing by wide margins!” he wrote in a post late Wednesday night. “Thanks for your support!!”For months, Mr. Musk’s supporters have used the social media site, which he purchased for $44 billion in 2022, to drum up support for his massive payday, and Tesla board members warned he could leave the company if shareholders voted against him.But for some Tesla investors, Mr. Musk’s involvement with X has been the primary cause of concern, stirring complaints that the pay package has drawn his attention away from Tesla and into other ventures. Mr. Musk has also used the platform to promote right-wing conspiracy theories and vulgar content, offending some of his employees and investors.On X, shareholder approval of the pay package was met with praise from Mr. Musk’s legion of supporters — some cheering before the official vote was announced. They included retail investors, friends in the technology industry and media personalities.“Congrats on getting paid what you’re owed E!” wrote Jason Calacanis, a prominent tech investor and podcast host who is close to Mr. Musk.“The most important message of the vote,” wrote Alex Voigt, a blogger and YouTube personality, “is that Elon knows now he has the support of 90% of retail investors and more than 73% of all shares, and that matters for him personally and for the future of Tesla.”“Means a lot,” Mr. Musk replied.“Looks like Tesla shareholders are approving Elon’s CEO package by a wide margin — good for them,” wrote Lulu Cheng Meservey, a tech executive with 80,000 followers on the platform. “People with actual skin in the game can see the business logic that a Delaware judge blinded by her personal agenda could not.”“The vast majority of Tesla shareholders approved Elon’s comp package in 2018 and have re-approved it now. An activist judge voided it for nothing. The trial lawyers who are asking for billions in fees should get nothing,” wrote David Sacks, a Silicon Valley tech investor, who is also close to Mr. Musk.Critics of Mr. Musk also chimed in, albeit in smaller numbers.“It’s official — Tesla shareholders are the stupidest humans to walk the face of the planet,” one poster wrote.But many Tesla shareholders who were critical of the pay package in the weeks leading up to the vote were mostly silent in the hours after the decision. More

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      Elon Musk Reaches Deals in China on Self-Driving Teslas

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      Elon Musk met with the country’s premier, a longtime Tesla ally, and secured regulatory nods and a necessary partnership with a Chinese tech company.Tesla has concluded a series of arrangements with regulators and a Chinese artificial intelligence company during a quick trip to Beijing on Sunday and Monday by Elon Musk, the car maker’s chief executive, potentially clearing the way for the company to offer its most advanced self-driving software on cars in China.Tesla had faced a couple hurdles to offering the latest level of autonomous driving, which it calls supervised Full Self-Driving. It has needed approval from Chinese regulators, who questioned whether the company took adequate precautions to protect data. And it has needed access to extremely high-resolution maps across the country.Mr. Musk flew on his private jet to Beijing on Sunday morning and met almost immediately with Premier Li Qiang, China’s No. 2 official after Xi Jinping. Mr. Li is a longtime ally of Mr. Musk who, when he served as Communist Party secretary in Shanghai, helped clear the way for Tesla’s construction there of what is now the company’s largest car assembly plant.The government-linked China Association of Automobile Manufacturers later announced that Tesla and five Chinese automakers had obtained approval from authorities and the association for their data security precautions on dozens of car models. The rules bar automakers in China from using software that would identify the faces of anyone outside their vehicles, and include many other restrictions. Self-driving systems use cameras to guide vehicles.The cars included Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y. The five Chinese manufacturers included BYD, which is China’s dominant electric vehicle company and Tesla’s primary global rival, and Nio, a longtime player in China’s auto sector. Tesla has run a data center in Shanghai for the past three years that handles the extensive information accumulated by the cars it has sold in China as they navigate the country’s roads. China has tightened its data security regulations in recent years to severely limit information leaving the country.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Beijing Stands to Gain from Elon Musk’s Visit

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      Tesla’s C.E.O. appears to have landed a deal that moves the company closer to bringing fully autonomous driving to a giant market. But Beijing is keen to exploit the visit for its own purposes.Elon Musk meeting with Premier Li Qiang, China’s second-highest official, on a weekend visit to Beijing that boosted Tesla stock.Wang Ye/Xinhua, via Associated PressWhy Elon Musk went to China Just days after Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Beijing and warned China about unfair trade practices, Elon Musk landed in the Chinese capital. The Tesla boss’s meeting with China’s No. 2 official may have paid off: Musk reportedly cleared two obstacles to introducing a fully autonomous driving system in the world’s biggest car market.The split screen again reveals the gap between Western diplomacy and corporate imperatives. Tesla has to stay committed to China even as it faces big headwinds — a conundrum that other multinationals also face, and one that Beijing is eager to exploit.Musk is betting big on self-driving, and China is key. Tesla last week reported its worst quarter in two years as a price war hurts profit. Tesla shares have plummeted (though they’ve rebounded in recent days, and are up more than 8 percent in premarket trading) amid plans for big layoffs.Musk has tried to reassure the market by pushing ahead with a low-cost model. Fully autonomous driving is also crucial. Musk told analysts last week that if investors don’t believe Tesla would “solve” the technological challenge that is autonomous driving, “I think they should not be an investor in the company.”The carmaker faces challenges in its second biggest market. Heavily subsidized Chinese rivals are eating into sales, led by the Warren Buffett-backed BYD, which is vying with Tesla for the crown of world’s biggest E.V. maker.Teslas are banned from many Chinese government sites because of concern about what data the American company collects. President Biden’s move to declare Chinese E.V.s a security threat probably won’t have made it any easier for Tesla in China.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Auto Safety Regulator Investigating Tesla Recall of Autopilot

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      The National Highway Safety Administration said it had concerns about how Tesla handled the recall based on recent crashes and testing of cars that had been updated.The federal government’s main auto safety agency said on Friday that it was investigating Tesla’s recall of its Autopilot driver-assistance system because regulators were concerned that the company had not done enough to ensure that drivers remained attentive while using the technology.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents posted on its website that it was looking into Tesla’s recall in December of two million vehicles, which covered nearly all of the cars the company had manufactured in the United States since 2012. The safety agency said that it had concerns about crashes that took place after the recall and results from preliminary tests of recalled vehicles.The investigation adds to a list of headaches for Tesla, the dominant electric vehicle maker in the United States. The company’s sales fell more than 8 percent in the first three months of the year compared with the same period a year earlier, the first such drop since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.Tesla announced in December that it would recall its autopilot software after an investigation by the auto safety agency found that the carmaker hadn’t put in place enough safeguards to make sure the system, which can accelerate, brake and control cars in other ways, was used safely by drivers who were supposed to be ready at any moment to retake control of their cars using Autopilot.The agency said it had identified at least 13 fatal crashes tied to use of Autopilot. The company is also facing lawsuits from individuals who claim the system is defective, and its design contributed to or is responsible for serious injuries and deaths.The recall, which entails a wireless software update, includes more prominent visual alerts and checks when drivers are using Autopilot to remind them to keep their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road. The recall covers all five of Tesla’s passenger models — the 3, S, X, Y and Cybertruck.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tesla Settles Lawsuit Over a Fatal Crash Involving Autopilot

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      A Tesla driver’s family had sought damages for the 2018 crash, which happened while the carmaker’s driver-assistance software was in use.Tesla on Monday settled a lawsuit that blamed the automaker’s driver-assistance software for the death of a California man in 2018, averting a trial that would have focused attention on the company’s technology several months before it plans to unveil a self-driving taxi.The trial stemming from the death of Wei Lun Huang, an Apple software engineer who went by Walter, was scheduled to start Monday with jury selection. The case was one of the most prominent involving Tesla’s Autopilot software, attracting significant public attention and prompting an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.Terms of the settlement with Mr. Huang’s children and other members of his family were not disclosed, and Tesla filed court documents seeking to prevent them from being made public.Testimony in the trial would have put Tesla’s autonomous driving software under close scrutiny, further fueling a debate about whether the technology makes cars safer or exposes drivers and others to serious injury or death.Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, has said the company’s self-driving software will generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue. Investors have used his claims to justify the company’s lofty stock market valuation. Tesla is worth more than any other carmaker even though its shares have plunged in recent months.Mr. Musk said on X last week that Tesla would introduce a self-driving taxi, Robotaxi, in August. If Tesla has in fact perfected a vehicle that can ferry passengers without a driver — which many analysts doubt — the development will help answer criticism that the company has been slow to follow up its Model 3 sedan and Model Y sport utility vehicle with new products.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More