Finance minister Mohammed Al Jadaan told a World Economic Forum meeting in Riyadh on Sunday that the kingdom was "very pleased" with the progress made in its Vision 2030 plan, of which Neom is the centerpiece.
While he said 87% of the targets in the ambitious plan were on track, "challenges" meant adjustments would be made to some aspects as required.
"We don't have ego, we will change course, we will adjust, we will extend some of the projects, we will downscale some of the projects, we will accelerate other projects," the minister said during a session on global economic growth.
His comments came as Neom announced a new revolving credit facility worth 10 billion riyals ($2.7 billion) — from local lenders.
Officials said in a press release that the credit line will support Neom's short-term financing requirements, including the development of Trojena, The Line, and the luxury island destination Sindalah.
Neom's CEO, Nadhmi Al-Nasr, said: "This new credit facility, backed by Saudi Arabia's leading financial institutions, is a natural fit within our wider strategy for funding. We continue to explore a variety of funding sources as we deliver transformational infrastructure assets while supporting the wider Vision 2030 program."
Neom did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Recent reports have indicated that Saudi Arabia may be struggling to realize some of the ambitious projects included in Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 plan.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Saudi Arabia had reduced estimates for the number of people expected to live in The Line. That decision had led to at least one contractor starting to lay off workers employed on the site, according to the report.
The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Saudi had also started borrowing to help fund Neom and other Vision 2030 megaprojects.
Elon Musk visited China in 2019, and, more recently, on a two-day trip.
REUTERS/Aly Song
Elon Musk just made a quick trip to China, where he met with senior officials and struck a deal.
The Beijing visit comes as trade tensions have ratcheted up between China and the US, including over EVs.
And Musk notably skipped a recent visit to India, underscoring how important China is for Tesla.
Elon Musk's two-day trip to Beijing looks like a mutually-beneficial win for Tesla and for China — and a snub for India.
The tech billionaire made his second trip to China in less than a year. He left on Monday after meeting with senior officials including Premier Li Qiang, China's second-highest-ranking politician, to discuss the rollout of Tesla's Full Self-Driving technology in the world's biggest auto market.
China's search engine giant Baidu agreed to grant Tesla access to its mapping license so Tesla can collect data on China's roads, Reuters reported. And Tesla's vehicles cleared a key hurdle with a Chinese data security regulator on Monday.
That's a big step for Tesla toward launching FSD in the country, a potential revenue booster just as the company wraps up one of its most tumultuous months. Tesla's stock is down 23% year to date.
Tesla has 1.6 million cars in China, representing a huge potential market for FSD. Other carmakers could also pay to license the technology.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told the Financial Times that the FSD approval in China was a "watershed moment" for Tesla. The company's huge valuation — hundreds of billions of dollars more than other automakers — hinges on autonomous technology, Ives said.
Local regulators may keep a particularly close eye on Tesla's software. In January, the company had to recall all of its cars in China made from 2014 to 2023 to fix problems with its Autopilot feature and locks. Both problems could be fixed with a free software update.
A win for China and a slight for India
Musk has long been eager to make nice with China, sometimes with antics that would raise eyebrows for other CEOs.
To celebrate a new Shanghai factory in 2020, he performed what a BI reporter at the time deemed a "dad-dance striptease." On the hundredth anniversary of the Communist Party in 2021, he tweeted fawning praise of the country.
China, for its part, has given him a royal welcome on past trips. His May 2023 trip included a 16-course meal with a battery executive and a storm of local social media praise.
As Tesla expands in China, the country must balance its desire to work with the US juggernaut with its inclination to protect local giants, like BYD. In the first quarter, Chinese automakers' profit jumped 32% from a year ago, per statistics released Saturday.
Musk needs China — but China also needs Musk, as a sign that the country is open for business with high-profile US companies.
Trade tensions between China and the US have ratcheted up in the last year amid US concerns about Chinese manufacturing and data security.
Janet Yellen, the US treasury secretary, and Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, visited China in the past month. They warned of Chinese companies undercutting other manufacturers through overproduction, including in electric vehicle and battery production.
China has ramped up EV production, a major threat to Tesla. BYD beat Tesla as the best-selling EV maker last year, and Musk said in January that Chinese EVs would "pretty much demolish" other American carmakers if allowed to enter the US.
Tesla's work in China may help the country court foreign investment. Businesses have been scared off by government crackdowns — including raids on top global firms like Bain — and by roiling property and stock markets. This year, weakened consumer demand has hit companies from Gucci to Apple, which have built big businesses as Chinese consumers' disposable income has risen.
While Musk made time for this quick trip to Beijing, he skipped a planned trip to India earlier this month to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Musk's visit was going to include an announcement about Tesla entering India, Reuters reported.
"Unfortunately, very heavy Tesla obligations require that the visit to India be delayed, but I do very much look forward to visiting later this year," Musk posted on X.
A key Tesla executive who was helping to lead the company's entrance into India left this month, Reuters reported.
Musk's India visit would have been a win for Modi, who is seeking to boost India's status as a manufacturing hub, especially as businesses leave China.
"We need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction," Elon Musk said in an email to Tesla's senior executives on Monday, per The Information.
Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The layoffs at Tesla aren't over yet, says Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
On Monday, he announced the departure of two senior executives and the axing of their divisions.
Tesla, Musk said, needs to be "absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction."
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the EV giant is not done with laying people off.
The billionaire announced the departure of two senior executives — Tesla's senior director for charging infrastructure, Rebecca Tinucci, as well as its director for vehicle programs and new products, Daniel Ho — in an email to staff on Monday.
The email, obtained by The Information, noted that both Tinucci's and Ho's divisions would be dissolved, with only a few employees getting reassigned. Around 500 people from Tinucci's division will lose their jobs, The Information reported, citing Musk's email.
Tesla's public policy team will also be dissolved, Musk said. Tesla's vice president of public policy and business development, Rohan Patel, announced his departure earlier on April 15.
And Musk expects more job cuts to come.
Musk said that come 10 a.m. ET on Tuesday, he'll start asking for resignation letters from Tesla executives who retain "more than three people who don't obviously pass the excellent, necessary and trustworthy test."
"Hopefully these actions are making it clear that we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction," Musk said in his email.
Representatives for Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.
On April 23, Tesla told investors in an earnings call that its quarterly revenue had plunged by 9% year-over-year, its biggest revenue drop since 2012. Earlier this month, Tesla said it had delivered 386,810 cars in the first quarter of 2024, a 20.1% drop from the last quarter.
Exiting Paramount CEO Bob Bakish, Paramount Global major shareholder Shari Redstone, Mission Impossible star Tom Cruise, and Nickelodeon boss Brian Robbins.
Jason Mendez via Getty Images
Paramount held a nearly 9-minute-long earnings call on Monday.
No questions were taken and the call ended with the Mission: Impossible theme being played on loop.
The company announced the departure of its president and CEO Bob Bakish before the call.
Paramount executives didn't take any questions during the company's earnings call on Monday, and ended up blasting the Mission: Impossible theme music on loop to their investors instead.
Bakish has been replaced by what Paramount calls an "Office of the CEO" committee. This panel is formed by three executives — CBS chief George Cheeks, Showtime/MTV Entertainment president and CEO Chris McCarthy, and Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Nickelodeon head Brian Robbins.
However, investors who were hoping to learn more about the leadership changes during Paramount's earnings call were left hanging. The earnings call ran for only 8 minutes and 50 seconds, and the executives in attendance weren't open to taking questions.
"We will not be taking questions following our prepared remarks," Jaime Morris, Paramount's executive vice president for investor relations, said on Monday. "The main purpose of today's call is to provide you with the information regarding our first quarter of 2024's performance."
The call then ended with Paramount playing the theme song to the studio's hit franchise Mission: Impossible over and over again, according to accounts from the Financial Times' Anna Nicolaou, Puck's Matthew Belloni, and IGN's Alex Stedman.
The bizarre earnings call on Monday comes at a troubling time for Paramount. The studio, which produced hit films like "Top Gun: Maverick" and the "Transformers" franchise, has been grappling with increased competition from rivals like the streaming giant Netflix.
Paramount's majority shareholder and board chair Shari Redstone has been circling on a merger deal with David Ellison's Skydance Media, the Financial Times reported last month.
David Ellison, the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, has been eyeing the studio for some time. There's also been some speculation amongst industry insiders that the sale could allow Paramount to use Oracle's technology to boost its entertainment offerings.
Representatives for Paramount didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.
US phone companies were fined nearly $200 million on Monday.
Top to bottom: Michael Kappeler for Picture Alliance, Kena Betancur for VIEWpress, Michael Kappeler for Picture Alliance via Getty Images
The FCC fined four US network providers nearly $200 million for illegally sharing customer data.
The FCC said the companies sold data to "aggregators," who resold it to third parties.
All of the network providers plan to appeal the decision, arguing that the order lacks legal merit.
The Federal Communications Commission fined four US wireless carriers close to $200 million for illegally sharing access to customers' location data.
AT&T was fined over $57 million, and Verizon was fined almost $47 million. T-Mobile and Sprint, which merged since the investigation began, have been fined $92 million collectively, the FCC said on Monday.
"Our communications providers have access to some of the most sensitive information about us," FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in the statement. "We are talking about some of the most sensitive data in their possession: customers' real-time location information, revealing where they go and who they are."
The fines were initially proposed in February 2020. The FCC said on Monday that these phone companies sold customers' location data to "aggregators," who resold access to the data to companies that provide location-based services.
Companies that use location-based services include prison phone services, ride-hailing apps, and phone games. Such data can also be used by companies to send targeted ads based on location.
The FCC said dozens of location-based services accessed phone companies' customer data without ensuring consumer consent, even after the phone companies were aware of the links.
In response to the FCC fines, all three phone providers said they expect to appeal the decision.
"We take our responsibility to keep customer data secure very seriously and have always supported the FCC's commitment to protecting consumers," T-Mobile said in a statement to Business Insider. "But this decision is wrong, and the fine is excessive. We intend to challenge it."
"The FCC order lacks both legal and factual merit," AT&T said in a statement to BI. "It unfairly holds us responsible for another company's violation of our contractual requirements to obtain consent, ignores the immediate steps we took to address that company's failures."
Verizon did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment sent outside regular business hours.The company told CNN that one bad actor who gained access to customer data was shut down, and that Verizon would appeal the FCC's decision.
Senator Ron Wyden, who led the 2018 congressional probe, called the fines proposed in 2020 "comically inadequate." Now — with the fines reduced for T-Mobile and Verizon since 2020 — he said in a Thursday statement that he applauded the FCC for "holding these companies accountable."
"Some personal news: I've joined the Messenger team at Meta as Director of Product," Esther Crawford wrote in an Instagram post on Monday.
Crawford was Twitter's director of product management for over two years before she was laid off in February 2023.
"Although I considered a lot of great options, Meta was my top choice because I am obsessed with how humans connect through technology — and no other company has a bigger scale of impact in that space than Meta, which connects nearly 4B people (half of humanity)," Crawford said in her post.
Besides lauding "the exceptional quality of the people" working at Meta, Crawford said she was attracted by Zuckerberg's "vision and intensity."
"Seeing how he's made the company more efficient and less bureaucratic in the past year makes me even more bullish to be joining now because I want to move fast and ship awesome products," Crawford said of Zuckerberg.
Crawford was identified as one of Elon Musk's top lieutenants after he took over the company in October 2022. Besides being put in charge of the subscription service Twitter Blue, Crawford made headlines when she publicly embraced Musk's hardcore work culture.
But despite surviving Twitter's first three rounds of layoffs, Crawford was eventually let go in February 2023. She eventually revealed her thoughts on Musk and his leadership in July of that year.
"In person Elon is oddly charming and he's genuinely funny," Crawford wrote on X in July 2023, adding that Musk likes "telling the same stories and jokes over and over."
She said Musk could be difficult to deal with because "his personality and demeanor can turn on a dime going from excited to angry."
"Since it was hard to read what mood he might be in and what his reaction would be to any given thing, people quickly became afraid of being called into meetings or having to share negative news with him," Crawford said.
"At times, it felt like the inner circle was too zealous and fanatical in their unwavering support of everything he said," she added.
Crawford's latest career move could be an indicator of big moves Zuckerberg may be making in his bid to vanquish Musk's X. In July, Zuckerberg launched Threads, a text-based app that's Meta's answer to Twitter.
"It'll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn't nailed it. Hopefully we will," Zuckerberg said in July, regarding Threads' odds of dethroning X.
That said, Crawford told BI she won't stop using X just because she joined Meta.
"I do plan to keep using both X and Threads," she said in an email to BI on Monday. "I'm a big believer in using all social products that one can as a product builder."
Representatives for Meta and X didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.
Cheng Saephan, 46, won the $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot in April.
Oregon Lottery
The winner of the $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot in Oregon is a Laos-born immigrant battling cancer.
He's opting to take the lump-sum option, and will receive $422 million after taxes.
Cheng Saephan, 46, plans to split the money with his wife and a close friend.
The winner of Oregon's $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot is a 46-year-old Laos-born immigrant who opted to take his winnings in a lump-sum payment — meaning he'll get $422 million.
Cheng Saephan told reporters at a press conference on Monday that he's been battling cancer for eight years, and was living on disability income.
The winning ticket was one of 20 bought at a Portland convenience store by Saephan, who said he won through luck and his religious faith.
"I prayed to God to help me," he said. "My kids are young and I'm not that healthy."
Saephan told reporters that after praying, he wrote out all the numbers from 1 to 69 on a sheet of paper that he put under his pillow.
"I slept with it for two weeks, and then I win it," he said.
Saephan, who's been an Oregon resident for 30 years and lives in Portland, said he was at home when he discovered he'd won the April 6 drawing.
He initially thought he'd come up empty when checking his bundle of tickets, but realized he hit the jackpot when looking through the last few.
"Mom, we're rich," he recalled saying to his mother, who drinking coffee at the dining table.
He intends to split the money between himself, his 37-year-old wife, and a friend who gave him $100 to buy the batch of tickets that led to the jackpot.
Saephan said he called this friend, Laiza Chao, soon after to share the news. Chao is to receive 25% of the winnings.
"I said: 'Laiza, where are you?' and she said: 'I'm going to work,'" said Saephan. "I replied: 'You don't have to go anymore.'"
Saephan, who worked in the aerospace industry as a CNC operator before his cancer diagnosis, said he plans to buy his "dream home" as his first purchase. He said he'd spend the money in a "just normal" fashion as he fights terminal illness.
"My life has been changed. Now I can bless my family and hire a good doctor for myself," Saephan said.
He added that he wants to continue playing the lottery.
"I might get lucky again, I'll keep playing," he said.
The total amount to be received by Saephan, his wife, and Chao is $422,309,193.97 after taxes, per the Oregon Lottery.
The state lottery added that the store that sold the winning ticket is getting $100,000.
Saephan's Powerball win is the state's largest in history. Previously, the biggest Oregon jackpot was announced in 2005 and worth $340 million.
The Oregon Lottery said ticket sales have since 1985 earned some $15.5 billion that goes toward parks, schools, veteran services, and other state expenses.
The biggest-ever lottery jackpot in the US was $2.05 billion, won by Edwin Castro in California in November 2022.
Oregon and California are states where lottery winners cannot remain anonymous by law. In fact, only 17 US states allow jackpot recipients to hide their identities, including Texas, Arizona, Georgia, New Jersey, and Maryland.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has no qualms about being a demanding leader.
Huang told "60 Minutes" that accomplishing "extraordinary" things requires hard work.
The CEO is known for juggling 50 direct reports while running the $2 trillion company.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has a reputation for being a formidable boss — and that's the way he likes it.
In a recent interview with 60 Minutes, Huang was unsurprised when correspondent Bill Whitaker shared some of the words Nvidia employees used to describe the company's chief:
"Demanding, perfectionist, not easy to work with," Whitaker said, citing people who work with Huang at the software company.
Huang said those traits fit him "perfectly."
"It should be like that," he told the outlet. "If you want to do extraordinary things, it shouldn't be easy."
Huang's approach to excellence seems to be working. Nvidia is one of just four companies in the world valued at more than $2 trillion after its stock market value doubled in only 8 months last year.
The company's AI chips are considered the best in the business and increasing demand for the futuristic tech has allowed Nvidia to essentially control the market.
Huang has previously spoken about his leadership style at the helm of the uber-successful company, telling Stanford Graduate School of Business earlier this month that CEOs should, "by definition," have the most direct reports of anyone at a company.
He has said he handles 50 direct reports at Nvidia in order to stay up to date with what's happening at various levels of the company.
"The more direct reports the CEO has, the less layers are in the company," Huang said at the 2023 NYT DealBook Summit.
While speaking at Stanford earlier this year, the 61-year-old CEO credited his work ethic to being a dishwasher at Denny's. Huang and his cofounders came up with the idea for Nvidia over a meal at the chain breakfast restaurant.
Huang said starting Nvidia was "a million times harder" than he anticipated during a 2023 appearance on the tech podcast "Acquired."
"No one in their right mind would do it," he added.
In the Sunday "60 Minutes" interview, Huang also addressed concerns that AI could make many jobs obsolete in the future, saying humans should continue to be "in the loop."
"Because we have good judgment because there are circumstances the machine is just not going to understand," he said.
A Russian turtle tank near the Ukrainian town of Krasnohorivka earlier this month.
Ukrainian military member Stanislav Bunyatov/Screengrab via Telegram
Russia and Ukraine have turned to improvised armor solutions to give their tanks extra protection.
But Moscow, in recent weeks, appears to have taken this a step further with an innovation.
Its new "turtle tanks" may look silly, but there are indications they may be effective.
Facing a myriad of deadly threats on the battlefield, exploding drones being a particularly serious threat, Russia and Ukraine have both taken extra steps to safeguard their tanks and vehicles by outfitting them with extra layers of protective armor.
This improvised armor, sometimes little more than a chain-link cage welded around the outside of a vehicle, is essentially an effort to provide a last-ditch defense against inbound munitions like artillery, anti-tank missiles, or small drones packed with explosives, especially the latter.
While both militaries have used such tactics, Russia, in recent weeks, has unveiled a strange-looking — albeit apparently effective — innovation that has been referred to by some Ukraine war observers as the "turtle tank."
Videos of the Russian turtle tank design, shared by open-source intelligence accounts and experts often pulling from the accounts of Ukrainian service members, have become increasingly common on social media since first appearing earlier this month.
The tank is aptly named, as it's covered by what appears to be metal armor on all sides except the front, where the gun not-so-inconspicuously sticks out — kind of resembling the head of a turtle.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, identified the turtle tank participating in a mid-April assault carried out by Russia's 5th Motor Rifle Brigade on the eastern Ukrainian town of Krasnohorivka, a hotspot in fighting as Moscow pushes west of the Donetsk city. In one video, it appears to drive through a cluster munitions strike and keep going.
Video of an armored assault by Russia's 5th Motorized Rifle Brigade on Krasnohorivka, and another appearance of a tank with a massive counter-FPV shelter and EW jammer, which continues to driving after a DPICM strike. It looks like the lead tank in the first video has a… pic.twitter.com/fQk3FN6ymx
Lee suggested the unusual tank, at least some of which are suspected to have a mine-clearing role, might not be as crazy as it seems.
"I know people are laughing at this, but I don't think it is a crazy adaptation. The Russians are adapting to the particular conditions of the battlefield in which Ukraine has a lot of FPVs, but not enough ATGMs, anti-tank mines, and artillery," Lee said in a follow-up post, referring to the weapons first-person-view drones and anti-tank guided missiles.
"So sacrificing observation and the ability to rotate the turret on one tank per platoon that can jam many FPVs frequencies at once makes sense," Lee added.
Some OSINT pages highlighted the turtle tank's role in the assault on Krasnohorivka. Some of the vehicles appear to have fared better than others.
Close-up of the Blyatmobile that was used recently to attack Krasnohorivka. Although it looks silly, it works. pic.twitter.com/GDL1jXFkx2
/1. Abandoned Russian ‘turtle’ tank on the Krasrohorivka front. Recently, the Russians have been using more tanks with modifications like this one. https://t.co/UAtPkv0rocpic.twitter.com/s3D3wrFEtc
— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) April 25, 2024
The turtle tank has also been spotted farther north along the front line in Russian assaults against Chasiv Yar, a Ukrainian town just west of Bakhmut that has become a critical battleground due to its elevated position overlooking the surrounding areas.
These tanks, however, appear to be at least somewhat effective. One Ukrainian Telegram channel, which published footage of a turtle tank in action over the weekend, noted that Ukraine had to expend "a lot" of FPV drones just to take out one vehicle.
Videos of Russian “turtle” tanks during assaults on Chasiv Yar and Krasnohorivka. The Ukrainian source for the first video said these improvised tanks are effective because they had to expend many FPVs on one tank. 9/https://t.co/ThpfXfegMlhttps://t.co/f6mUg9U0wPpic.twitter.com/gNE3fexlW5
"Everyone laughs at their construction of barns, but, in fact, they work like hell," the Ukrainian channel, which appears to belong to a Ukrainian service member, wrote, per a translation.
The Russian turtle tanks are a clear step beyond the widely documented "cope cages" both sides have relied on to try and shield their heavy armor throughout the war. These new defensive structures come as the Ukrainians increasingly turns to FPV drones packed with explosives to go after Moscow's vehicles.
Fisker warned staff of potential layoffs in the next two months, according to 3 employees and an email viewed by BI.
The company is exploring options, including prospective buyers and restructuring.
Fisker had previously announced a 15% staff cut.
Fisker sent staff a notice on Monday telling them they could be laid off from the company in two months, according to 3 employees and an email viewed by Business Insider.
"Fisker is diligently pursuing all options to address our operating cash requirements, including maintaining discussions with prospective buyers and investors and exploring various restructuring alternatives," the company said in an email to staff. "There is a possibility, however, that these efforts will not be successful."
The letter, which was sent by the company's new restructuring officer, says if the efforts fail, impacted staff will be terminated effective June 28 "and the facility will be closed." The letter was sent in compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires companies that have more than 100 workers to provide 60 days of notice before a large-scale layoff.
Earlier today, Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker said the company was making "further reductions" to its workforce. The CEO had said earlier this year that the company would make a 15% cut.
Last week, Business Insider reported that the company had told workers it was in talks with four automakers regarding a potential buyout.
Do you work for Fisker or have a tip? Reach out to the reporter via a non-work email at gkay@insider.com