5 Nov 2025

Musk the trillionaire? Debate over his Tesla pay package rages

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By BERNARD CONDON, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk turned off many potential buyers of his Tesla cars and sent sales plunging with his foray into politics. But the stock has soared anyway and now he wants the company to pay him more — a lot more.

Shareholders gathering Thursday for Tesla’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas, will decide in a proxy vote whether to grant Musk, the company’s CEO and already the richest person in the world, enough stock to potentially make him history’s first trillionaire.

It’s a vote that has sparked heated debate on both sides of the issue, even drawing the pope’s comments on it as an example of income inequality.

Several pension funds have come out against the package, arguing that the board of directors is too beholden to Musk, his behavior too reckless lately and the riches offered too much.

Supporters say Musk is a genius who is the only person capable of ushering in a Tesla-dominated future in which hundreds of thousands of self-driving Tesla cars — many without steering wheels — will ferry people and humanoid Tesla robots will march around factories and homes, picking up boxes and watering plants. The pay is necessary to incentivize him, they say, and keep him focused.

Musk has threatened to walk away from the company if he doesn’t get what he wants and has blasted some of the package’s critics as “corporate terrorists.”

What is up for a vote

To get his Tesla shares, Musk has to secure approval from a majority of the company’s voting shareholders. Improving the odds, Musk gets to vote his own shares, worth 15% of the company.

Shareholders first heard about the pay package in September when the board of directors proposed it in a detailed filing to federal securities regulators. The document, running 200 pages, also contains other proposals up for a vote at the meeting, including whether to allow Tesla to invest in another Musk company, xAI, and who should serve on the board in the future.

How Musk can get $1 trillion

Musk won’t get necessarily get all of that money, or even a cent of it, if the package is approved. He first has to meet several operational and financial targets.

To get the full pay, for instance, he has to deliver to the car market 20 million Teslas over 10 years, more than double the number he has churned out over the past dozen years. He also has to massively increase the market value of the company and its operating profits and deliver one million robots, from zero today.

If he falls short of the biggest goals, though, the package could still hand him plenty of money.

Musk will get $50 billion in additional Tesla shares, for example, if he increases the company’s market value by 80%, something he did just this past year, as well as doubling vehicle sales and tripling operating earnings — or hitting any other two of a dozen operational targets.

Musk v Rockefeller

Musk is already the richest man in the world with a net worth of $493 billion, according to Forbes magazine, and well ahead of some of the wealthiest of years past.

He’s worth more than two Cornelius Vanderbilts, the shipping and railroad magnate of the 19th Century whose inflation-adjusted wealth hit $200 billion or so at its peak. The steel giant, Andrew Carnegie, was once worth $300 billion, according to the Carnegie Corp., well below Musk’s wealth, too.

Musk is still trailing John D. Rockefeller, but he’s closing in fast. The railroad titan hit peak inflation-adjusted wealth of $630 billion in 1913, according to Guinness World Records.

What really drives Musk, or so he says

Musk says it’s not really about the money but about getting a higher Tesla stake — it will double to nearly 30% — so he can control the company. He says that’s a pressing concern given all the power Tesla may soon have, specifically something he referred to in a recent investor meeting as its future “robot army.”

That was a reference to Tesla’s Optimus division, which makes humanoid workers that will be so numerous that, as Musk put it recently, he wouldn’t want anyone else but himself to control them.

Split among shareholders

Many investors have come out in support of the package, including Baron Capital Management, whose founder called Musk indispensable to the company. “Without his relentless drive and uncompromising standards,” wrote founder Ron Baron, “there would be no Tesla.”

Critics include the biggest in the U.S. public pension fund, Calpers, and Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest. They argue the pay is excessive, with the Norway fund expressing concern that the board that designed it, which includes Musk’s brother, is not independent enough. Two giant corporate watchdogs, Institutional Shareholder Service and Glass Lewis, said they are voting against it, too.

Even the Vatican has weighed in, decrying the wealth gap in the world and blasting the trillion dollar offer in particular.

“If that is the only thing that has value anymore,” said Pope Leo XIV, “then we’re in big trouble.”

Musk’s record at Tesla is mixed

Judging from the stock price alone, Musk has been spectacularly successful. The company is now worth $1.5 trillion.

But a lot that runup reflects big bets by investors that Musk will be able deliver things that are difficult to pull off, and the way Musk has run the company recently doesn’t inspire confidence. He has broken numerous promises, and his tendency to say whatever is on his mind has sabotaged the company.

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Just this year, for instance, he vowed to deliver driverless taxis in several cities, secure regulatory approval in Europe for his self-driving software and push sales up 20% or 30%.

Instead, his driverless robotaxis in Austin and San Francisco have human safety monitors inside. Europeans still haven’t approved his software. And Tesla sales continue to plunge, with new figures out Monday showing a stunning 50% drop last month in Germany alone.

That said, Musk has pulled off the impossible before. His company a half dozen years ago was widely feared to be near bankruptcy because he wasn’t making enough cars, but then he succeeded and the stock soared.

“He frequently teeters on the edge of disaster,” said Tesla owner and money manager Nancy Tengler, “and then pulls back just in the nick of time.”

5 Nov 2025

Toyota reports a drop in profit as Trump’s taxes hurt Japanese automakers

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By YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press Business Writer

TOKYO (AP) — Toyota reported a 7% year-on-year drop in profit for April-September on Wednesday, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs slammed Japanese automakers.

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Net profit for the April-September period at Toyota Motor Corp. totaled 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion), down from 1.9 trillion yen a year earlier.

But the maker of the Camry sedan and Lexus luxury models lifted its profit forecast for the full fiscal year ending in March 2026 to 2.93 trillion yen ($19 billion), citing better vehicle sales and cost-cutting efforts.

The forecast would represent a 38.5% drop from the 4.77 trillion yen profit Toyota reported for the last fiscal year. It had earlier forecast 2.66 trillion yen ($17 billion) in profit for this year.

Although tariffs are hurting its business, Toyota said its sales grew in the U.S. and its home market of Japan.

U.S. tariffs on Japanese automobiles and auto parts fell to 15% in September from the 27.5% rate Trump initially ordered after returning to the White House. That’s much higher than the original 2.5%.

Japan’s exports to the U.S., including vehicles, have plunged recently.

But Toyota said its efforts, such as bigger sales, better model mix and cost cuts, will add more than 900 billion yen ($5.8 billion) to the company’s bottom line in this fiscal year.

“Despite the impact of U.S. tariffs, we have continued to build upon our improvement efforts such as increasing sales volume, improving costs and expanding value chain profits,” it said in a statement.

Members of the media and guests look at Toyota’s Corolla concept during the press day of the Japan Mobility Show, in Tokyo, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)

During the six months through September, it sold more than 1.5 million vehicles in North America and 970,000 vehicles in Japan.

First half sales grew 5.8% to 24.6 trillion yen ($160 billion). For the latest quarter through September, Toyota reported a 62% rise in profit to 932 billion yen ($6 billion) on 12.38 trillion yen ($80 billion ) in sales, up 8% on year.

5 Nov 2025

My University Just Taught Extremists How to Eliminate Academic Programs They Don’t Like

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On October 17, Texas Christian University announced it would close its Women and Gender Studies (WGST) and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) departments, folding what remains of the programs into the English department. The official reason given was “low enrollment.” But I know what this decision really means. I know because I’ve watched my university abandon my colleagues, then me, and now entire fields of study—all while extremists documented every capitulation as proof that public harassment campaigns can and do reshape higher education in Texas.

In July 2023, my WGST colleague Nino Testa received death threats severe enough that campus police instructed him to leave. His crime? Teaching a course on the art of drag. Over 200 faculty members signed a petition asking Texas Christian University (TCU) to publicly support LGBTQ+ faculty and students. The administration refused.

In August 2024, it was my turn. Conservative activists, including two elected Tarrant County officials, publicly called for my firing over social media posts made before I even worked at TCU. Local extremists called my work with CRES “anti-white.” Within days, my home address was published online. Death threats arrived in my work email inbox.

TCU’s response? An email from the communications office with “suggestions on what to do when a faculty member is targeted on social media,” which included deleting my posts and making my accounts private. There was no public statement defending academic freedom. No acknowledgment that faculty shouldn’t have to “stay on the downlow”—the actual words used by my dean—in order to avoid targeted harassment. (In a statement to the Texas Observer, TCU said, “The university has a thorough process to notify faculty and staff members and provide them with appropriate guidance and support to mitigate potential risks.”) 

This September, another faculty member affiliated with these programs was targeted. Again, no public support from the administration. Now, both departments are gone. 

At the October 22 faculty meeting where this decision was officially presented to the English department, I watched my university’s leadership tell contradictory stories about what was happening. The provost insisted political pressure “had no influence” on the decision. But after he left the room, the dean told us something different: “I have been concerned for WGST and CRES since January 20″—the day of Trump’s second inauguration.

When faculty asked for the financial analysis justifying this supposedly “fiscal” decision, the provost said he had numbers but wouldn’t share them. A colleague asked whether we’d ever see this analysis. “No,” he said.

A decision justified by fiscal responsibility, but we’re forbidden from seeing the fiscal analysis. A decision supposedly unrelated to politics, but made by administrators who’ve supposedly been worried about political attacks since Inauguration Day. A decision affecting three academic departments, but made without consulting a single faculty member in those departments—a direct violation of our Faculty Handbook’s shared governance requirements.

(TCU said in its statement: “Changes are rooted in a review that began more than two years ago with a comprehensive academic program review of class sizes, demand for courses and program enrollment. That review has led to adjustments to many courses and programs as well as realignment of academic units.”)

There’s a particular kind of despair that comes from watching an institution abandon its principles in real time. It’s not the dramatic betrayal of a single moment. It’s slower than that. It’s watching your university refuse to defend a colleague, then refuse to defend you, then eliminate entire fields of study—and claim with a straight face that these events are unrelated.

It’s the sick feeling of recognizing that your employer has been making calculations about you that you weren’t privy to. Which faculty do we want to protect? Which programs can we be bothered to keep? What’s the political cost of supporting our own people versus the cost of quietly surrendering?

It’s realizing that when administrators said they supported “inclusive excellence” and “academic freedom,” what they meant was: only until someone complains.

The people who harassed my colleagues and me documented everything. They took screenshots, compiled spreadsheets, and, in some cases, leaked audio that could only have come from other campus employees. They hypothesized that if you target faculty systematically enough, if you get elected officials involved, if you generate enough outrage on social media and in the news, universities will eventually abandon the people and programs you’re attacking.

And my university just proved them right.

Here’s what TCU has taught anyone paying attention: 

First, identify faculty teaching about race, gender, or sexuality. Make them individually vulnerable through harassment, doxxing, and threats.

Second, wait for the university to refuse to defend them publicly. Universities are risk-averse institutions. They’ll tell targeted faculty to “stay on the downlow” rather than make themselves targets by defending academic freedom.

Third, keep up the pressure. The harassment doesn’t have to work immediately. Just keep targeting faculty in these fields, year after year. Document the university’s silence as evidence you’re winning.

Fourth, wait for the university to eliminate the programs “for other reasons.” They’ll cite enrollment numbers, budget constraints, or administrative efficiency. They’ll violate their own shared governance procedures if necessary. They’ll refuse to show the financial analysis. They’ll tell contradictory stories about whether politics was involved.

Finally, move to the next target. You’ve just proven the tactic works.

When these departments close, we lose more than two lines on an organizational chart. We lose scholars who have dedicated their careers to understanding how race and gender shape our society. We lose courses where students learn to think critically about power, identity, and justice. We lose intellectual community for faculty and students whose work doesn’t always fit neatly next to the business school.

But we also lose something harder to quantify: the belief that universities are places where difficult questions can be explored, where broad sets of ideas can be examined, where faculty can pursue scholarship without fear of harassment campaigns determining what gets taught.

My university just taught me that belief was naive.

The students majoring and minoring in these departments deserved an institution that would stand behind the fields they’d chosen to study. The faculty who built these programs over decades deserved consultation before their departments were dissolved. The hundreds of students who take these courses to fulfill core requirements deserve to know their university believes this scholarship matters.

Instead, they got a Friday afternoon announcement and a provost who claims he has a financial analysis he’ll never share.

TCU is a private institution. The Texas Legislature didn’t force this decision. No law required the school to close these departments. They did it willingly.

That should terrify anyone who cares about academic freedom.

Public universities can point to legislative pressure and budget cuts mandated by the state. They can say—truthfully—that their hands are tied. But when private universities eliminate programs studying race and gender without any external requirement to do so, it reveals something darker: institutions are abandoning these fields because they’ve decided the political cost of supporting them is too high.

If private universities won’t defend scholarship, where exactly is it safe? If institutions with the resources and autonomy to protect academic freedom choose not to, what message does that send to scholars considering this work?

The answer is already visible. Faculty are leaving the academy. Graduate students are choosing safer dissertation topics. Scholars self-censor before anyone asks them to. And universities are discovering that there’s always another program that might make them a target, always another reason to quietly divest from real intellectual inquiry.

The question isn’t whether my university will eventually regret this decision. The question is whether we’ll recognize the pattern before it’s too late—before every institution has learned that the easiest way to deal with harassment campaigns is to eliminate what the harassers are attacking.

I don’t know what comes next for me in academia. I’ve already been doxxed and threatened for my research, teaching, and First Amendment-protected speech. I’ve already watched my university refuse to defend me or my colleagues publicly. I’ve already seen what happens to programs that study the topics I care about.

But I know this: when universities abandon faculty under attack, when they violate their own governance procedures, when they tell contradictory stories about their motivations, when they refuse basic transparency about their decision-making—they’re not protecting their institutions. They’re hollowing them out.

TCU’s motto is “Learning is power.” I agree. But after watching my university systematically abandon every principle it claims to uphold, I understand the motto differently now. Power goes to whoever is willing to use it. And my university just handed its power to the people working hardest to dismantle learning itself.

The post My University Just Taught Extremists How to Eliminate Academic Programs They Don’t Like appeared first on The Texas Observer.

5 Nov 2025

How key demographic groups voted in 2025, according to the AP Voter Poll

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By LINLEY SANDERS, AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX and HYOJIN YOO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic candidates saw victories across key races Tuesday, and there were signs there’s plenty of room for the Democratic Party to make up ground among groups that moved toward President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

That finding comes from the AP Voter Poll, a sweeping survey of more than 17,000 voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City that explains who voted in each election and their views on top issues in their state.

Even with major wins, the survey also exposed fault lines for Democrats. Young men were less likely than young women to support Democrats in the governor’s races, and Jewish voters in New York City appeared wary of supporting Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani.

Here’s a look at how key demographic groups in 2025 voted, according to the AP Voter Poll.

Vast majority of young voters in NYC voted for Mamdani

Mamdani, 34, will be the city’s youngest mayor in over a century. Young voters in New York City overwhelmingly backed him in his generational showdown with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

About three-quarters of New York City voters under 30 cast a ballot for Mamdani. They were a relatively small portion of the city’s electorate, and they also were much more likely than older voters to say it was their first time voting in a mayoral election.

Older voters were more likely to back Cuomo than Mamdani, but a significant share still backed the Democratic nominee. About 2 in 10 Mamdani voters were under 30, while voters for Cuomo and Sliwa skewed much older.

Mamdani has identified as a democratic socialist throughout his campaign, following the brand of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. About one-quarter of New York City voters said they identified as a democratic socialist, with about 4 in 10 voters in New York City under 30 saying they identify this way.

People wait to cast their ballot at the Horatio Williams Foundation in downtown Detroit, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)

Sherrill performed well among Black, Asian and Hispanic voters

Democrats’ strong performances with non-white voters in New Jersey and Virginia were promising for the party, after Trump made inroads with Black and Hispanic voters in 2024.

About 7 in 10 voters in New Jersey were white, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill won about half that group. But she made up for it with a strong showing among Black, Hispanic and Asian voters. The vast majority — about 9 in 10 — of Black voters supported Sherrill, as did about 8 in 10 Asian voters.

Hispanic voters in New Jersey were more divided, but about two-thirds supported Sherrill; only about 3 in 10 voted for the Republican nominee, Jack Ciattarelli.

The pattern was similar in Virginia, where Democrat Abigail Spanberger performed well among Black voters, Hispanic voters and Asian voters, even though she didn’t win a majority of white voters.

Muslim voters supported Mamdani, while most Jewish voters supported Cuomo

Mamdani will be New York’s first Muslim mayor, and he won the vast majority of Muslim voters. About 9 in 10 Muslim voters supported Mamdani, according to the AP Voter Poll. They made up a very small voter group in the city: about 4% of New York City voters were Muslim.

No other candidate had such uniform support from a religious group, but Cuomo claimed the support of about 6 in 10 Jewish voters, while only about 3 in 10 cast a ballot for Mamdani.

Jewish voters’ support for Cuomo was the culmination of months of anxiety and division within the country’s largest Jewish community, as many voters and leaders expressed concern about Mamdani’s harsh criticism of Israel.

About half of Jewish and Muslim voters in New York City said the candidates’ positions on Israel were “a major factor” in their vote.

Voters form a line at a polling station on the UCLA campus Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Young voters broke hard for Democrats — but especially women

Most voters under 30 voted for the Democratic candidates in the New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races, and the New York City mayoral campaign, but young women were particularly likely to support Democrats.

About 8 in 10 women under 30 supported Sherrill in New Jersey, compared to just over half of men under 30. That was similar in Virginia, where roughly 8 in 10 women under 30 voted for Spanberger and about 6 in 10 men under 30 did.

There were gender divides among older voters as well, but they weren’t as large. Just over half of women ages 65 and older, for instance, supported Sherill, compared to about 4 in 10 men ages 65 and older.

Federal government worker households supported Spanberger

Disruptions to the federal workforce over the past year, including the ongoing government shutdown, were felt particularly in Virginia. About 2 in 10 Virginia voters said they live in a household with someone who is currently employed by the federal government or as a federal contractor, according to the poll.

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Voters with a federal government worker in their household were likelier than other voters to support Spanberger. About two-thirds of voters who live in a household with a current federal employee or contractor voted for Spanberger, compared to just over half of voters in households without a family member who works for the government.

About 6 in 10 Virginia voters also reported that their family’s finances had been affected “a lot” or “a little” by federal government cuts this year. About two-thirds of those voters supported Spanberger, while about 6 in 10 voters who said they hadn’t been affected by the cuts supported Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.

Veteran households voted against Sherrill, but she won anyway

Veteran households did not back Sherrill — but she won without their support.

Sherrill is a Navy veteran who faced questions surrounding a cheating scandal during her time at the U.S. Naval Academy. She won about 4 in 10 voters from a U.S. military household, while about 6 in 10 voters in veteran households voted for her opponent, Ciattarelli. Veteran households made up about one-quarter of voters in New Jersey.

Even more Virginia voters, roughly 4 in 10, said someone in their household had ever served in the U.S. military. Spanberger won about half of veteran households in Virginia.

The 2025 AP Voter Poll, conducted by SSRS from Oct. 22 to Nov. 4, includes representative samples of registered voters in California (4,490), New Jersey (4,244), New York City (4,304) and Virginia (4,215). The AP Voter Poll combines data collected from validated registered voters online and by telephone, with data collected in-person from election day voters at approximately 30 precincts per state or city, excluding California. Respondents can complete the poll in English or Spanish. The overall margin of sampling error for voters, accounting for design effect, is plus or minus 2.0 percentage points in California, 2.1 percentage points in New Jersey, 2.2 percentage points in New York City and 2.1 percentage points in Virginia.