Elon Musk Donated $2 Billion Dollars of Tesla Shares in 2022

February 21, 2023

By Lennon Cihak

Elon Musk donates Tesla shares to charity

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has reportedly donated 11.5 million shares, or about $2 billion, in Tesla shares to charity as a “bona fide gift,” as described in a US regulatory filing. It is unclear where he donated the shares, but it is assumed to be to his own, The Musk Foundation.

According to the SEC filing, Musk donated the shares between August and December 2022. They equated to about 1.6% of Musk’s total Tesla shares and are now worth around $2.4 billion after Tesla’s stock recovery from a tumultuous 2022.

Musk, who is frequently found atop the world’s richest people, currently has a net worth of $198.2 billion, according to Forbes’ real-time billionaire tracker. Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, tops the list with a mind-numbing $213.4 billion, $15 billion more than Musk.

The Musk Foundation, Elon Musk’s Charity

This is not the first time Musk has leveraged his massive wealth for good. In 2021, he donated $5.74 billion worth of shares, per a regulatory filing, to The Musk Foundation. That same year in January, he announced that he would donate $100 million to a person or company that develops the best carbon capture technology.

His $5.7 billion instantly made The Musk Foundation one of the largest in the United States, according to Fortune. During this period, Musk donated $55 million to the Memphis-based St Jude Children’s Research Hospital and another $54 million to the X Prize Foundation, which he partnered with to fund the carbon capture and removal projects.

Largest Donation in 2022

According to Chronicle of Philanthropy, which was completed last year before Musk’s SEC filings, Microsoft founder Bill Gates landed at the No. 1 spot with a whopping $5.1 billion in donations. Michael Bloomberg’s $1.7 billion garnered him the No. 2 spot.

New Twitter CEO

Recently, Musk said that he was looking for someone to replace him as the CEO of Twitter, his newly acquired social media platform. With Musk’s workload being quite significant, he’s looking to appoint a new CEO by the end of 2023 so he can step-down and focus on other things. He even considered hiring philanthropist and YouTube star MrBeast as Twitter’s CEO.

“I think I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s in a financially healthy place and that the product roadmap is clearly laid out,” Musk said at the World Government Summit in Dubai. “I’m guessing probably towards the end of this year should be good timing to find someone else to run the company because I think it should be in a stable position around the end of this year.”

Tesla Increases Price of Model S; Starts Offering Free Lifetime Supercharging

December 14, 2024

By Karan Singh

Not a Tesla App

For the first time in quite a while, Tesla has increased the price of one of its vehicle offerings. The Model S Long Range and the Model S Plaid have both received a hefty price increase. However, not all is bad - as Tesla also added a new benefit for buyers.

Price Increase

The price increase for the Model S is $5,000 - currently only in the United States. This price increase will likely impact other markets, including Canada, in the coming days.

The Model S Long Range now starts at $79,990, while the Model S Plaid now starts at $94,990. The Model S and Model X now have the same starting price. Interestingly, that’s also the same pricing point for the Cybertruck AWD and Cyberbeast Trimotor non-Foundation Series.

The vehicle configuration does not appear to have changed, so the new pricing is simply an increase rather than the addition or removal of features. Tesla previously cut the price of the Model S and Model X by 15% in 2023, so this could simply be an adjustment to ensure that the vehicle pricing stays in line with inflation and other factors.

Free Lifetime Supercharging

For those on the fence about ordering a Model S, Tesla has brought back Free Lifetime Supercharging when you order a new Model S on or after December 13, 2024. As always, Free Lifetime Supercharging is restricted to the buyer’s Tesla account and to that specific vehicle. It cannot be transferred to another vehicle or another owner after ownership transfer. It’s worth noting, that it also doesn’t exclude the owner from receiving Supercharger idle fees or congestion fees. There is currently no end date for this promotion.

There are currently no changes to the Model X, neither a price increase nor the addition of Lifetime Superchargering. However, when Tesla makes changes to one of their premium vehicles, it usually affects the other one as well. So be on the lookout for potential changes to the Model X offering in the coming days.

We’ve seen Tesla value Lifetime Supercharging at $5,000, so this falls in line with the price increase we’re seeing. It’s possible that Tesla will begin to bring back Lifetime Supercharging as a perk for buying into their more premium Model S and Model X cars, or this could be another temporary promotion to get buyers who are on the fence to go ahead and make their purchase while this promotion lasts.

Tesla’s Optimus Robot Learns to Walk Without Vision [VIDEO]

December 13, 2024

By Karan Singh

Optimus Falls - but catches itself!

Not a Tesla App

Tesla recently showed off a demo of Optimus, its humanoid robot, walking around in moderately challenging terrain—not on a flat surface but on dirt and slopes. These things can be difficult for a humanoid robot, especially during the training cycle.

Daily walks help clear your mind pic.twitter.com/dUsW58trS6
— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) December 9, 2024

A Look Behind the Curtain

Most interestingly, Milan Kovac, VP of Engineering for Optimus, clarified what it takes to get Optimus to this stage. Let’s break down what he said.

Optimus is Blind

Optimus is getting seriously good at walking now - it can keep its balance over uneven ground - even while walking blind. Tesla is currently using just the sensors, all powered by a neural net running on the embedded computer.

Essentially, Tesla is building Optimus from the ground up, relying on as much additional data as possible while it trains vision. This is similar to how they train FSD on vehicles, using LiDAR rigs to validate the vision system’s accuracy. While Optimus doesn’t have LiDAR, it relies on all those other sensors on board, many of which will likely become simplified as vision takes over as the primary sensor.

Today, Optimus is walking blind, but it’s able to react almost instantly to changes in the terrain underneath it, even if it falls or slips.

What’s Next?

Next up, Tesla AI will be adding vision to Optimus - helping complete the neural net. Remember, Optimus runs on the same overall AI stack as FSD - in fact, Optimus uses an FSD computer and an offshoot of the FSD stack for vision-based tasks.

Milan mentions they’re planning on adding vision to help the robot plan ahead and improve its walking gait. While the zombie shuffle is iconic and a little bit amusing, getting humanoid robots to walk like humans is actually difficult.

There’s plenty more, too - including better responsiveness to velocity and direction commands and learning to fall and stand back up. Falling while protecting yourself to minimize damage is something natural to humans - but not exactly natural to something like a robot. Training it to do so is essential in keeping the robot, the environment around it, and the people it is interacting with safe.

We’re excited to see what’s coming with Optimus next because it is already getting started in some fashion in Tesla’s factories.