Business

San Francisco, Nov 17 (IANS) Elon Musk has said that he does not want to be the CEO of any company, be it Tesla or Twitter.

Musk made the comment during a testimony at a trial in the US on Wednesday, challenging his controversial pay compensation package at Tesla.

"I frankly don't want to be the CEO of any company," he said, reports The Verge.

"At SpaceX, it's really that I'm responsible for the engineering of the rockets and Tesla for the technology in the car that makes it successful," he was quoted as saying.

"So, CEO is often viewed as somewhat of a business-focused role, but in reality, my role is much more that of an engineer developing technology and making sure that we develop breakthrough technologies and that we have a team of incredible engineers who can achieve those goals," Musk elaborated.

He said he does not wish to remain CEO of Twitter forever.

"I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time," he added.

According to James Murdoch, the former Tesla board member, Musk is even thinking about stepping down as CEO of Tesla.

"Investors have expressed concern over Musk's ability to multitask and whether the billionaire is taking on too much to legitimately run as many companies as he does," the report mentioned.

Amid chaos at Twitter, Musk faced two court cases in the US this week, one defending his $56 billion pay package from allegations by Tesla shareholders and the other a manslaughter trial in Los Angeles state for a fatal crash.

Tesla has come under heavy scrutiny on the controversial Autopilot advanced driver assistance system that has allegedly killed many, with both the US federal and state regulators turning up the heat on electric car-maker.

In August, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in California accused Musk-run Tesla of running fake claims about its Autopilot and FSD features.

--IANS
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By Nishant Arora
Hawaii, Nov 17 (IANS) Despite several quarters of declining smartphone sales owing to rough macroeconomic conditions, chip major Qualcomm is confident it will weather the global condition with a strong focus on long-term growth, while delivering top-of-the-line features for the overall device ecosystem.


Chris Patrick, SVP and General Manager, Mobile Handset, Qualcomm, told IANS that despite a lot of ups and downs in the global market, the company is "really focused on the long term".

"Smartphone is the most indispensable device in our lives and we make sure we have the right mix of products for our customers for the long term. Structurally, we don't see anything really different in the current global scenario for our business," Patrick said on the sidelines of the company's flagship 'Snapdragon Summit 2022' here.

"We are witnessing the same demand for devices and the same kind of demand for advanced features," he added.

Qualcomm caters to a premium set of smartphones for most of the major smartphone players globally.

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide smartphone shipments declined 9.7 per cent (year-over-year) to 301.9 million units in the third quarter this year.

The drop marked the largest-ever third quarter decline and the fifth consecutive quarter of decline for the smartphone market as shipments continue to struggle amid weakened global demand and economic uncertainties, said the IDC report.

According to Patrick, some original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are facing the problem, especially those who "hit the accelerator maybe a little bit too hard".

"We are focusing very hard to provide optimum, next-generation features to our customers across the spectrum, be it gaming, camera, AI and the overall device performance. We've taken a big leap on delivering peak performance and we expect OEMs to have an easier time making a balance," Patrick told IANS.

In the latest Qualcomm quarterly results earlier this month, Cristiano Amon, President and CEO, said that the semiconductor industry is being impacted by significant macroeconomic headwinds and other short-term challenges from which "we're not immune.

However, "the fundamentals of Qualcomm's growth drivers remain unchanged with significant opportunities in the coming years," Amon mentioned.

In handsets, the company recently entered into a new multi-year agreement with Samsung, expanding the use of Snapdragon platforms for future premium Samsung Galaxy products globally.

"We also executed on the changing OEM landscape opportunity, securing key premium and high-tier design wins with our customers in China. Snapdragon has become synonymous with premium mobile experiences worldwide," said Amon.

(Nishant Arora can be reached at nishant.a@ians.in)

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San Francisco, Nov 17 (IANS) As Big Tech goes through the layoff season, e-commerce giant Amazon has confirmed job losses at the company, saying that in the current macroeconomic environment, some teams are "making adjustments" amid "consolidation of some teams and programmes".

The company did not reveal the exact number of employees being hit although earlier reports put the number at 10,000 employees or 3 per cent of its workforce.

"As part of our annual operating planning review process, we always look at each of our businesses and what we believe we should change," a company spokesperson was quoted as saying TechCrunch late on Wednesday.

"As we've gone through this, given the current macroeconomic environment (as well as several years of rapid hiring), some teams are making adjustments, which in some cases means certain roles are no longer necessary," the spokesperson added.

"We don't take these decisions lightly, and we are working to support any employees who may be affected."

Senior vice president of Devices and Services, Dave Limp, also wrote an internal post, saying that "after a deep set of reviews, we recently decided to consolidate some teams and programmes".

"One of the consequences of these decisions is that some roles will no longer be required," Limp wrote.

"In cases where employees cannot find a new role within the company, we will support the transition with a package that includes a separation payment, transitional benefits, and external job placement support," Limp added.

The massive job cuts have hit several divisions, especially the Alexa virtual assistant business and the Luna cloud gaming unit.

"Amazon employees were called into meetings with their managers across the country Tuesday, and many were told they had two months to find another job internally or accept severance payment," the Washington Post earlier reported.

Employees reacted harshly to the decision.

"The truth of the matter is that if the company was more transparent, we wouldn't have this shitshow. Now you have most of the population wondering if they are next," a senior company manager told Recode.

"I don't even know if I want to work for this company any more. This is a horrendous way to treat people," another Amazon senior manager said.

Meta, Twitter, Salesforce and others have already sacked thousands of employees, with Meta firing more than 11,000 alone.

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By Arul Louis
New York, Nov 16 (IANS) The US government has fined Air India $1.4 million for "extreme delays" in refunding passengers $121.5 million for flights cancelled or changed significantly.


Announcing the action against the Indian flag carrier and five other airlines on Monday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said: "A flight cancellation is frustrating enough, and you shouldn't also have to haggle or wait months to get your refund."

If passengers don't get refunds promptly for cancelled flights, "we will act to hold airlines accountable on behalf of American travellers and get passengers their money back", he warned.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) said that the six airlines together were made to return nearly half a billion dollars to affected passengers and it collected fines totalling about $7.25 million.

Some of the flight disruptions appeared to be linked to the Covid pandemic when international travel was curtailed by border closings and health restrictions.

India stopped international flights in March 2020 and resumed scheduled flights without restrictions only in March this year after having permitted limited flights to only some destinations.

"Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, DOT has received a flood of complaints from air travellers about airlines' failures to provide timely refunds after they had their flights cancelled or significantly changed," the Department said.

DOT said that most of the fines will be paid directly to the US government and the remaining portion will be given to the passengers in addition to the refunds.

US law requires airlines to make cash refunds to passengers whose flights to or from America have been cancelled or changed significantly and they refuse to accept alternatives.

Airlines are also forbidden to force affected passengers to accept vouchers instead of cash refunds.

In Monday's announcement, Frontier was the only US airline fined and was assessed the most, $2.2 million.

The other airlines were TAP Portugal, AeroMexico, El Al of Israel and Avianca of Colombia.

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)

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Mumbai, Nov 16 (IANS) Piramal Capital has withdrawn the insolvency proceedings against Reliance Power Ltd.

Reliance Power, in a stock exchange disclosure, has informed that the Piramal Capital and Housing Finance has withdrawn the application made against Reliance Power Ltd. under section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016.

This follows an out of court settlement between both the companies Rs 526 crores loan default by Reliance Power and it's subsidiary, Reliance Natural Resources Ltd. (RNRL).

RNRL had in 2010 merged with Reliance Power.

RNRL had defaulted on a loan of ?526 crore, obtained from the erstwhile Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFL).

The Piramal Group had acquired the DHFL in 2021 and merged with Piramal Capital and Housing.

Post that, Piramal Capital, in March this year, initiated bankruptcy proceedings against Reliance Power under section 7 of the IBC Code 2016, in NCLT Mumbai, to recover the dues.

In July, during a hearing on the Piramal Capital's application, both the companies had informed the NCLT that they were engaged in talks to settle the matter, by consent.

--IANS
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Bengaluru, Nov 15 (IANS) Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has handed over the last of the 16 Advanced Light Helicopters (MK-III, Maritime role) to the Indian Coast Guard at a programme here on Tuesday.

The chopper was handed over to DG, Coast Guard, V.S. Pathania, in the presence of senior officials from the Indian Coast Guard and HAL.

"We are proud to be associated with HAL and happy to issue a Letter of Intent (LoI) for nine more helicopters. Despite Covid-19, HAL delivered all the helicopters at the shortest time with seamless production activities and this allows us to strengthen India's maritime security," Pathania said.

The DG had signed a contract with HAL for the supply of 16 ALH Mk-III in March 2017.

C.B. Ananthakrishnan, CMD, HAL, said a unique feature of the contract has been the performance based logistics (PBL) - the one stop solution for maintenance of these helicopters by HAL.

"This will serve as a benchmark for all our future contracts and boost our resolve to work with private partners to speed up the work in the interest of all our customers and strengthen Make-in-India activities in the defence eco-system," he said.

S. Anbuvelan, CEO (Helicopter Complex), HAL, pointed out the major challenges in execution of the contract that included integration of new systems sourced from foreign OEMs, conducting flight trials for certifications and overcoming disruptions in the supply chain due to lockdowns.

ALH Mk-III is indigenously designed, developed and produced by HAL. The company has so far produced more than 330 ALHs, a versatile helicopter which has logged more than 3.74 lakh flying hours.

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San Francisco, Nov 15 (IANS) Elon Musk said that he has fired Eric Frohnhoefer, a Twitter employee who had publicly corrected him on the micro-blogging platform.

The saga began on Sunday when Musk posted a tweet to apologise for the micro-blogging platform's bad performance in "many countries" and claimed that the application makes over 1,000 "poorly batched" remote procedure calls to "render a home timeline", reports The Verge.

Frohnhoefer, who tweeted that he had spent six years working on Twitter for Android, retweeted Musk's statement saying it was incorrect.

"I have spent 6 years working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong," he had said.

According to Frohnhoefer, the micro-blogging platform does not make any remote procedure calls.

Instead, he said that it makes around 20 background requests during startup, The Verge reported.

In his response, Musk said: "The fact that you don't realise that there are up to 1200 microservices being called when someone uses the Twitter app is not great."

Frohnhoefer disagreed again and tweeted that the "number required to generate the home timeline is closer to 200 than 1,200".

A Twitter user commented in the thread that Musk probably didn't want Frohnhoefer on his team after the developer tweeted that "maybe Musk should ask questions privately", to which the Twitter CEO replied: "He's fired."

--IANS
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San Francisco, Nov 15 (IANS) Amid chaos at Twitter, Elon Musk will face two court cases in the US this week, one defending his $56 billion pay package from allegations by Tesla shareholders and the other is a manslaughter trial set to begin in Los Angeles state for a fatal crash.

Taken together, the twin trials represent a critical test for Musk's multitasking skills, reports The Verge.

The pay package plan, approved by Tesla shareholders, relies on the electric car-maker hitting certain milestones in the next 10 years.

"The CEO is expected to earn the final batch early next year, allowing him to collect an estimated $56 billion, the largest compensation awarded to anyone on Earth from a publicly traded company," according to the report.

The trial will focus on whether the compensation package requires Musk to work full-time at Tesla.

In a separate trial in Los Angeles, Tesla's Autopilot technology was set to be put to a rigorous test on Tuesday.

Driver Kevin George Aziz Riad, 27, is on trial for manslaughter after running through a red light in his black Tesla Model S, slamming into a Honda Civic and killing two people.

Tesla has come under heavy scrutiny on the controversial Autopilot advanced driver assistance system that has allegedly killed many, with both the US federal and state regulators turning up the heat on electric car-maker.

In August, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in California accused Musk-run Tesla of running fake claims about its Autopilot and FSD features.

In September, another Tesla owner sued the electric car maker, saying the company and its CEO Elon Musk are "deceptively and misleadingly" marketing the Autopilot and "Full Self-Driving" software.

Briggs Matsko from California said that he paid a $5,000 premium for his 2018 Tesla Model X to get 'Enhanced Autopilot', which was sold as a precursor to FSD software that now costs $15,000 but is still in Beta phase.

"Plaintiff brings this consumer class action lawsuit to hold Tesla and its representatives, including CEO Elon Musk, accountable for years of making misleading and deceptive statements regarding the company's advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) technology," read the lawsuit.

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San Francisco, Nov 15 (IANS) Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has announced plans to donate most of his $124 billion fortune during his lifetime, at a time when the e-commerce giant is reportedly set to lay off nearly 10,000 workers.

Bezos told CNN that the money will go towards fighting climate change and "supporting people who can unify humanity in the face of deep social and political divisions".

Bezos' partner, the journalist-turned-philanthropist Lauren Sanchez, said the couple is "building the capacity to be able to give away this money".

Asked by CNN whether he intends to donate the majority of his wealth within his lifetime, Bezos said: "Yeah, I do."

The fourth-wealthiest person in the world, however, declined to identify a specific percentage or to provide concrete details on where it would likely be spent.

The Amazon founder has committed $10 billion over 10 years, or about 8 per cent of his current net worth, to the Bezos Earth Fund co-chaired by Sanchez.

In May this year, Bezos donated $118 million to a nonprofit, but it was unclear to which nonprofit he made the donation.

According to a Securities and Exchange Filings (SEC) filing, Bezos transferred 47,727 shares of Amazon stock to an unnamed nonprofit, worth a total of $118 million based on that day's closing stock price, reports Forbes.

Bezos does most of his philanthropy through gifts of Amazon shares, which the receiving nonprofit is allowed to sell without paying capital gains taxes.

Since the beginning of this year, Bezos has gifted 84,030 Amazon shares worth $233 million to unnamed nonprofits, according to SEC filings.

Bezos is not required to disclose which nonprofits receive his shares, though he tends to publicly announce his large donations sometime after he has transferred the stock, the report said.

In 2021 alone, he gave $100 million to former President Barack Obama's Foundation, as well as to World Central Kitchen's chef Jose Andres and nonprofit founder Van Jones to give to charities of their choice.

He also made a $200 million pledge to the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in July last year.

Bezos has also been giving away $100 million per year to organisations helping homeless families as part of his Day One Fund initiative.

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San Francisco, Nov 15 (IANS) Beleaguered Japanese investment firm SoftBank has reportedly written off about $100 million it invested as part of its Vision Fund 2 in now bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.

According to MarketWatch, the investment is now marked down to zero with SoftBank saying "it would not face a material markdown in the value of its stake".

SoftBank had backed FTX after the startup raised $400 million in January, valuing it at $32 billion.

SoftBank has now disclosed a $100 million venture capital investment in crypto broker FTX.

Softbank CFO Yoshimitsu Goto was quoted as saying that $100 billion Vision Fund invested in FTX "as a minor stake in the company".

"If any case of markdown but still that is very not material for us," Goto said during the company's second quarter (Q2) results.

SoftBank has a history of pouring money in bad startups, like the $18.5 billion investment in WeWork.

The Japanese VC firm also infused $500 million into digital mortgage lender better.com which laid off thousands of employees under its Indian-origin Co-founder and CEO Vishal Garg.

Crypto exchange FTX has admitted that "unauthorised transactions" have drained hundreds of millions of dollars from its wallets, saying the company has moved many digital assets to a new "cold wallet custodian".

FTX, which last week filed for bankruptcy in the US, did not reveal how much it lost in unauthorised transactions but reports claimed the amount could be as high as $600 million.

--IANS
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