Tesla plans to pay Musk $1tn - do they really need him that much? A great leader is a huge asset for company, of course, but can anyone be worth $1 trillion? That is the pay packet Tesla shareholders have approved for Elon Musk, as long as he meets the targets they have set over the next 10 years. In the meantime he won't collect a salary, but will presumably throw himself into his work with renewed vigour. He was certainly buzzing with energy as he jigged around the stage at the carmaker's Texas headquarters to rapturous applause, telling the audience that while other shareholder meetings were snoozefests, Tesla's are bangers.

Elon Musk's $1tn pay deal approved by Tesla shareholders Tesla shareholders have approved a record-breaking pay package for boss Elon Musk that could be worth nearly $1tn (£760bn). The unprecedented deal was approved by 75% of Tesla shareholders who cast votes at the firm's annual general meeting on Thursday. The deal requires Musk, who is already the world's richest man, to drastically raise the electric car firm's market value over a period of years. If he meets various targets, he will be rewarded with hundreds of millions of new shares. The scale of the deal is controversial, but the Tesla board argued that Musk might leave the company if it was not approved - and that it could not afford to lose him.

In'watershed moment', Tesla board to vote on Musk's $1 trillion package Tesla's board is set to vote on CEO Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package as major proxy adviser firms urge shareholders to reject the deal. The vote is scheduled for Thursday and will determine whether Musk secures what is the largest compensation package in corporate history. These firms often influence large passive funds that hold significant stakes in the electric carmaker. Tesla has faced mounting challenges this year, with global sales declining and investor confidence wavering. In July, Tesla reported a 13.5 percent decline in sales in the United States. They jumped 7.4 percent in the third quarter ending in September compared with the same period the year before, as US consumers scrambled to take advantage of a $7,500 EV tax credit that was set to expire that month.

The chief financial officer for the chip manufacturer Intel, David Zinsner, has announced his company received 5.7bn as part of a deal negotiated with the administration of United States President Donald Trump. During an investor conference on Thursday, Zinsner said that Intel, a leader in the US development of semiconductor chips, received the funds on Wednesday evening. Last week, the White House revealed the federal government would take a 10 percent stake in the struggling tech giant, based in Santa Clara, California. As part of the deal, the government negotiated a five-year warrant for an additional 5 percent of Intel's shares, in case the company should cease to own more than 51 percent of its manufacturing operations. "I don't think there's a high likelihood that we would take our stake below 50 percent," Zinsner said.

Microsoft, the world's second-most valuable company, is dumping enormous sums of money into its artificial intelligence efforts. At the same time, the company is earning money hand over fist. The enterprise software giant reported fiscal fourth-quarter results that exceeded expectations on Wednesday as the company races to acquire datacenters and talent, which continues to be investigated by investors. The company predicted its capital expenditure for the next fiscal year would top 100bn, a 14% increase from the year prior. It's the fifth quarter in a row that Microsoft has beaten Wall Street's expectations.

Tesla has reported its biggest decline in quarterly revenue in more than a decade as CEO Elon Musk's political activity weighs on the electric carmaker brand's reputation. Revenue fell to 22.5bn for the April-June quarter from 25.5bn a year earlier, according to its earnings report, which Tesla released after the closing bell on Wall Street. Analysts on average were expecting revenue of 22.74bn, according to data compiled by LSEG. Revenue from car sales declined by 16 percent. Tesla attributed the revenue dip to a decline in vehicle deliveries.

Chipmaker Nvidia became the first public company in history to scale a 4tn market value on Wednesday as its stock price continues a years-long stratospheric rise. Shares of the top chip designer rose roughly 2.4% to 164, benefiting from the ongoing surge in demand for artificial intelligence technologies. Nvidia's chips and associated software are considered world leaders for building artificial intelligence products. Nvidia achieved a 1tn market value for the first time back in June 2023 and the surge continued unabated with its market value – the total value of its shares – more than tripling in about a year, faster than Apple and Microsoft, the only other US firms with a market value of more than 3tn. Apple was the first company to reach a valuation of 3tn, back in 2022.

Apple's artificial intelligence features took a backseat on Monday at its latest annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The company announced a revamped software design called Liquid Glass, new phone and camera apps as well as new features on Apple Watch and Vision Pro. But in spite of pressure to compete with firms that have gone all-in on AI, Apple's AI announcements were limited to incremental features and upgrades. Users will have a few new Apple Intelligence-powered features to look forward to including live translation, a real-time language translation feature that will be integrated into messages, FaceTime and the Phone app. The Android operating system has offered a similar feature for several years.

Tesla has long attempted to play catch-up against rival Waymo, owned by Google-parent Alphabet, whose driverless taxis have traversed the streets of San Francisco for years - and now operate in several more cities. This month, Musk is supposed to be overseeing Tesla's launch of a batch of autonomous robo-taxis in Austin, Texas. He posted to X last week that the electric vehicle maker had been testing the Model Y with no drivers on board. "I believe 90% of the future value of Tesla is going to be autonomous and robotics," Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives told the BBC this week, adding that the Austin launch would be "a watershed moment". "The first task at hand is ensuring the autonomous vision gets off to a phenomenal start," Ives added.

Nvidia beat Wall Street expectations in its quarterly earnings report on Wednesday, marking another in a string of financial wins for the computer hardware giant. It reported 44.1bn in revenue in the quarter ending in April, up 69% from the previous year. The company exceeded investors' predictions of 43.3bn in revenue. Adjusted earnings per share came in at 0.81, under investor expectations of an adjusted earnings per share of 88 cents. The company also reported 39.1bn in data center revenue, up 73% from the year prior.