tech

Tesla sales fell in several European countries in October, including an 89% drop in Sweden

On the heels of Tesla’s record delivery quarter, early data from Europe suggests the bad news that has plagued the EV maker on the continent for much of the year is continuing. Tesla sales fell drastically in October in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, according to Reuters, while rising slightly in France compared with a year earlier.

Tesla continues to face political backlash in Europe for CEO Elon Musk’s involvement in far-right political campaigns there, as well as from steep competition from rivals like BYD and legacy European brands making the switch to EVs.

Of course, sales in what Musk has called Tesla’s “weakest market” weren’t very robust to begin with. In Sweden, for example, Tesla sales fell nearly 90% to just 133 vehicles, “lagging not just mainstream brands but also luxury German automaker Porsche,” Reuters said.

Tesla sales plunge again in some European markets in October

Tesla sales plunge again in some European markets in October

Tesla continues to face political backlash in Europe for CEO Elon Musk’s involvement in far-right political campaigns there, as well as from steep competition from rivals like BYD and legacy European brands making the switch to EVs.

Of course, sales in what Musk has called Tesla’s “weakest market” weren’t very robust to begin with. In Sweden, for example, Tesla sales fell nearly 90% to just 133 vehicles, “lagging not just mainstream brands but also luxury German automaker Porsche,” Reuters said.

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Microsoft pledges $8 billion for data centers, cloud computing in UAE

Microsoft announced another large AI-related investment in the United Arab Emirates today, pledging $7.9 billion for data centers and cloud computing.

The deal adds to the $7.3 billion it has already poured into the Gulf state, including a $1.5 billion equity stake in G24, the country’s sovereign AI company.

Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a post on X:

“This reflects a shared vision for AI innovation, economic growth, and ensuring that the benefits of AI are diffused broadly. Microsoft is committed to the future of the UAE and the strong ties between our two nations.”

Microsoft had previously been approved by the Biden administration to send the equivalent of 21,500 of Nvidia’s less powerful A100 GPUs. The Trump administration, which has made a big push for investments in the UAE since President Trump’s visit in May, recently approved shipments of several billion dollars’ worth of Nvidia chips to the nation.

The new deal involves the equivalent of 60,400 A100 GPUs, which include some of the state-of-the-art GB300 GPUs.

Microsoft Vows to Spend $8 Billion in UAE Through 2029 on Cloud, Chips

Microsoft Vows to Spend $8 Billion in UAE Through 2029 on Cloud, Chips

Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a post on X:

“This reflects a shared vision for AI innovation, economic growth, and ensuring that the benefits of AI are diffused broadly. Microsoft is committed to the future of the UAE and the strong ties between our two nations.”

Microsoft had previously been approved by the Biden administration to send the equivalent of 21,500 of Nvidia’s less powerful A100 GPUs. The Trump administration, which has made a big push for investments in the UAE since President Trump’s visit in May, recently approved shipments of several billion dollars’ worth of Nvidia chips to the nation.

The new deal involves the equivalent of 60,400 A100 GPUs, which include some of the state-of-the-art GB300 GPUs.

tech

Prediction markets think Tesla investors will approve CEO Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package on Thursday

Polymarket users are highly convinced that Tesla investors will approve CEO Elon Musk’s $1 trillion pay package later this week, with the market-implied likelihood on the event contract at one point stretching above 97% today, though it’s since come down to around 94%.

Of course, even if investors approve his 2025 CEO Performance Award at the November 6 shareholder meeting, that doesn’t necessarily mean Musk will get the full payout. The deal is performance-based and requires Musk and Tesla to hit a number of lofty goals over the next decade, including:

Boosting the company’s market cap to $8.5 trillion from today’s $1.46 trillion.
Delivering 1 million AI robots (it has so far delivered none).
Having 1 million robotaxis in commercial operation (there are currently about 30 in Austin without a Tesla employee in the driver’s seat).

Tesla’s board and Musk have been loudly campaigning for the pay package’s approval. Board Chair Robyn Denholm wrote in an investor letter last week that it’s integral to keeping Musk. Musk himself took over the company’s earnings call last month to argue that the 29% voting control that’s part of the pay package would be integral to guiding Tesla’s development of AI robots.

“If we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over that robot army?” Musk said.

Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.

Meta still wants to have its iPhone moment

More than a decade after Meta’s phone flop, it’s still trying to get in on hardware.

A masked man holding a light bulb

tech

Rani Molla & Jon Keegan5h

OpenAI inks $38 billion deal with Amazon for compute

Amazon managed to pull off its monster quarter without any of those juicy OpenAI deals on its books that many of its competitors had. But now it too has one. The company’s stock, which vaulted on its earnings report last week, jumped 5% in early trading.

The ChatGPT maker has signed a $38 billion multiyear deal with Amazon Web Services to use its compute and reduce its reliance on Microsoft.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy hinted at the as yet announced deal on the company’s earnings call last week when he described the company’s massive backlog of AWS business:

“Backlog grew to $200 billion by Q3 quarter end, and doesn’t include several unannounced new deals in October, which together are more than our total deal volume for all of Q3. AWS is gaining momentum.”

The deal notes that the agreement calls for “hundreds of thousands of state-of-the-art Nvidia GPUs.” Notably, this deal does not appear to use Amazon’s Trainium chips, which it has been pushing as part of its massive Project Rainier. The initiative will run 500,000 of the custom chips.

In a press release announcing the deal, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said:

“Scaling frontier AI requires massive, reliable compute. Our partnership with AWS strengthens the broad compute ecosystem that will power this next era and bring advanced AI to everyone.”

In a post on X, Jassy said the deal takes effect right away:

“OpenAI will start using AWS’s infrastructure immediately and we expect to have all of the capacity deployed before end of next year-- with the ability to expand in 2027 and beyond.”

In the wake of this news, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives bumped up his price target on the e-commerce and cloud giant to $340 from $330, writing that this deal “is a continued move in the right direction for Amazon as they broaden AI services.”

OpenAI signs $38 billion compute deal with Amazon, partnering with cloud leader for first time

OpenAI signs $38 billion compute deal with Amazon, partnering with cloud leader for first time

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy hinted at the as yet announced deal on the company’s earnings call last week when he described the company’s massive backlog of AWS business:

“Backlog grew to $200 billion by Q3 quarter end, and doesn’t include several unannounced new deals in October, which together are more than our total deal volume for all of Q3. AWS is gaining momentum.”

The deal notes that the agreement calls for “hundreds of thousands of state-of-the-art Nvidia GPUs.” Notably, this deal does not appear to use Amazon’s Trainium chips, which it has been pushing as part of its massive Project Rainier. The initiative will run 500,000 of the custom chips.

In a press release announcing the deal, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said:

“Scaling frontier AI requires massive, reliable compute. Our partnership with AWS strengthens the broad compute ecosystem that will power this next era and bring advanced AI to everyone.”

In a post on X, Jassy said the deal takes effect right away:

“OpenAI will start using AWS’s infrastructure immediately and we expect to have all of the capacity deployed before end of next year-- with the ability to expand in 2027 and beyond.”

In the wake of this news, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives bumped up his price target on the e-commerce and cloud giant to $340 from $330, writing that this deal “is a continued move in the right direction for Amazon as they broaden AI services.”

tech

Rani Molla & Jon Keegan10/31/25

Amazon closes at all-time high

Fresh off strong earnings Thursday, Amazon saw its stock price end the week at a record closing high of $244.22.

The stock is up 10% so far this year.

The e-commerce and cloud giant beat analysts’ revenue and earnings, and its massive gain was responsible for more than all of the positive return delivered by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF on Friday.

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