Day After Elon Musk's Exit, His Right-Hand Steve Davis Also Quits DOGE
Like Musk, Davis was serving as a special government employee, a designation that allowed him to keep his job as CEO of one of the billionaire entrepreneur's companies, the Boring Co., even as he worked on the DOGE effort. SGEs are limited to 130 days of work for the government in any year.
Davis's move was detailed on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel moves not yet made public.
The Boring Co. is a tunnel construction and equipment company. Davis has also worked at other Musk enterprises, including SpaceX and Twitter, which Musk rebranded as X.
Davis's departure leaves the future of the effort to scale back US government spending up to lower-profile officials at the White House and federal agencies. Anthony Armstrong, who helped Musk buy Twitter as a banker at Morgan Stanley, and Antonio Gracias, a Musk confidant and CEO of Valor Equity Partners, are also top Musk lieutenants at DOGE.
Trump created the White House unit of experts from computer engineering and finance in January as Musk sought to find $2 trillion in savings. The effort was expected to last through July 4, 2026.
But after shuttering agencies and canceling contracts early in Trump's second term, the effort to find savings sputtered after allegations of widespread fraud never materialized.
Musk said Wednesday that his time as a formal adviser to Trump is coming to a close. His high-profile political work for the president had spurred worries among investors about the fallout for his companies, most prominently Tesla Inc.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
39 minutes ago
- Mint
Wall Street rebounds as Fed rate cut bets intensify on weaker payrolls
(For a Reuters live blog on U.S., UK and European stock markets, click or type LIVE/ in a news window) Indexes up: Dow 1.06%, S&P 500 1.2%, Nasdaq 1.58% Tesla rises on 96 million share award to CEO Musk Spotify to raise premium subscription price, shares jump (Updates with analyst comment, early afternoon prices) By Nikhil Sharma and Pranav Kashyap Wall Street's main indexes bounced back on Monday after a sharp pullback in the previous session, buoyed by growing expectations of deeper Federal Reserve interest rate cuts following an unexpectedly weak jobs report. At 11:39 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 463.55 points, or 1.06%, to 44,052.13, the S&P 500 gained 74.56 points, or 1.20%, to 6,312.57 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 325.95 points, or 1.58%, to 20,976.08. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were on track for their biggest single-day jump in more than two months. This is in contrast to Friday, when a dismal U.S. jobs report hammered the S&P 500 and sent it to its steepest intraday drop since May 27. The bleak data that also accompanied steep downward revisions for May and June forced market participants to amplify their bets for Fed rate cuts this year, noting signs of a weakening labor market. "When you have a Fed that operates in a lagging sense, you're going to have the market moving around as the data comes, that's what we're seeing with the weaker jobs report," said Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management. Odds for a September rate cut now stand at about 84%, according to CME Fedwatch. Market participants see at least two quarter-point cuts by the end of this year. Underscoring uncertainty, Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer the same day, her of faking the jobs numbers. "The revisions ... it brings a level of skepticism into the data sets," Allianz Investment Management's Ripley added. Investors also weighed Fed Governor Adriana Kugler's unexpected resignation, which could open the door for President Donald Trump to reshuffle the central bank's leadership to his favor. Trump has repeatedly threatened to fire Chair Jerome Powell, believing that rates should be much lower than they are. Meanwhile, Tesla rose 1.2% after CEO Elon Musk 96 million shares worth about $29 billion. All S&P 500 sub-sectors were trading in the green, with communication services leading gains with a 2% jump. U.S. factory orders tumbled 4.8% in June after an upwardly revised 8.3% increase in May, owing to a sharp drop in commercial aircraft orders. Meanwhile, Trump threatened to substantially raise tariffs on India over its purchases of Russian oil. Last week, Trump slapped a 25% tariff on goods imported from the country. After a big week for Big Tech earnings, companies from various sectors, including Palantir, Eli Lilly and Disney, will report this week. Among notable movers, Joby Aviation rose 20.7% after Bloomberg News reported that the company was exploring the acquisition of helicopter ride-share operator Blade Air Mobility . Blade Air's shares surged 26.6%. IDEXX Laboratories soared 26.8% after the animal diagnostics maker its full-year profit and revenue forecasts and reported better-than-expected second-quarter results. Spotify jumped 6.8% as the music streaming platform announced plans to raise the monthly price of its premium individual subscription in select markets from September. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 4.76-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 2.8-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq. The S&P 500 posted 25 new 52-week highs and seven new lows, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 52 new highs and 72 new lows. (Reporting by Nikhil Sharma and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Elon Musk pay reboot: Tesla approves $29bn award after court setback, board bets big to retain CEO's focus on AI
Tesla has approved a new stock award for CEO Elon Musk worth an estimated $29 billion, offering him 96 million shares as part of a fresh compensation deal aimed at keeping him at the company's helm. The move comes just months after a Delaware court voided Musk's earlier 2018 pay package, which had been valued at over $50 billion, ruling that the board's approval process was flawed and unfair to shareholders, Reuters reported. Musk, who holds a 13% stake in Tesla, is currently appealing the Delaware court's decision. His legal team has argued that the judge made 'multiple legal errors' in striking down what was then the largest executive compensation plan in corporate history, valued at over $50 billion. Earlier this year, Tesla said a special board committee had been formed to revisit Musk's compensation, though it did not initially disclose details. The new award — nearly $29 billion based on current market prices — will require Musk to pay $23.34 per share of restricted stock, the same as the exercise price of his voided 2018 package. "While we recognize Elon's business ventures, interests, and other potential demands on his time and attention are extensive and wide-ranging ... by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Dolly Parton, 79, Takes off Her Makeup, and the Whole World Is Stunned The Noodle Box Undo we are confident that this award will incentivize Elon to remain at Tesla," the special committee said in its filing. Tesla's board and Musk have repeatedly stated that increasing his voting power was essential to securing his continued leadership at the company, especially as it undergoes a strategic pivot. Musk has redirected Tesla's focus away from its long-promised affordable electric vehicle platform, instead pushing toward autonomous robotaxis and humanoid robots — a move that positions Tesla more as a technology and AI-driven company than a traditional automaker. The announcement of Musk's new compensation plan helped lift Tesla shares, which rose more than 2% in premarket trading Stay informed with the latest business news, updates on bank holidays and public holidays . Discover stories of India's leading eco-innovators at Ecopreneur Honours 2025
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
2 hours ago
- Business Standard
Tesla's brand loyalty collapsed after Musk backed Trump, shows data
Tesla for years had more repeat US customers than any other major automotive brand but its loyalty has plunged since CEO Elon Musk endorsed President Donald Trump last summer, according to data from research firm S&P Global Mobility shared exclusively with Reuters. The data, which has not been previously reported, shows Tesla customer loyalty peaked in June 2024, when 73 per cent of Tesla-owning households in the market for a new car bought another Tesla, according to an S&P analysis of vehicle-registration data in all 50 states. That industry-leading brand loyalty rate started to nosedive in July, that data showed, when Musk endorsed Trump following an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on the Republican nominee. The rate bottomed out at 49.9 per cent last March, just below the industry average, after Musk launched Trump budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency in January and started firing thousands of government workers. Tesla's US loyalty rate has since ticked back up to 57.4 per cent in May, the most recent month the S&P data is available, putting it back above the industry average and about the same as Toyota but behind Chevrolet and Ford. S&P analyst Tom Libby called it "unprecedented" to see the runaway leader in customer loyalty fall so quickly to industry-average levels. "I've never seen this rapid of a decline in such a short period of time," he said. Tesla and Musk did not respond to requests for comment. The timing of Tesla's plunging brand loyalty suggests the CEO's involvement in politics turned off customers in the EV pioneer's eco-conscious customer base, some analysts said. "If they have Democratic leanings, then perhaps they consider other brands in addition to Tesla," said Seth Goldstein, an analyst at Morningstar. Tesla's aging model lineup also faces stiffer competition from an array of EVs from legacy automakers including General Motors, Hyundai and BMW. The only new model Tesla has released since 2020, its triangular Cybertruck, has proved a flop despite Musk prediction of hundreds of thousands of annual sales. On an April earnings call, Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja singled out "the negative impact of vandalism and unwarranted hostility towards our brand and people," but also said there were "several weeks of lost production" when the company retooled factories to produce a refreshed version of its top-selling Model Y. Musk on the April call said that "absent macro issues, we don't see any reduction in demand." Tesla vehicle sales overall are falling globally and have declined 8 per cent in the United States the first five months of 2025, according to S&P. Sales fell 33 per cent over the first six months of the year in Europe, where public backlash to Musk politicking has been particularly fierce. Musk's increased political activism was "very bad timing" for Tesla, said Garrett Nelson, an analyst who tracks the EV maker at CFRA Research, because it came exactly as the company faced heightened competition from Chinese EV makers and other traditional automakers. He said his top concerns for Tesla are its loss of market share and "what can be done to repair the brand damage." LOYALTY NOSEDIVE Tesla remains the US electric-vehicle sales leader but has seen its dominance erode as Musk last year delved into politics and focused Tesla more on developing self-driving technology than on new affordable models for human drivers. Customer loyalty is a closely watched auto-industry metric because it is “much more expensive� to take new customers from competitors than to retain existing ones, said S&P Libby. S&P offers some of the most detailed industry data on automotive purchases because it analyzes vehicle registration data from all 50 states on a household-by-household basis. Unlike survey data, it follows actual vehicle transactions to track how consumers migrate among brands and models. From the fourth quarter of 2021 through the third quarter of last year, more than 60 per cent of Tesla-owning households bought another one for their next car purchase, the data show. Only one other brand Ford posted a quarterly loyalty rate exceeding 60 per cent during the period, and only once. CUSTOMER DEFECTIONS S&P data also examines another aspect of the automotive market: Which brands and models are taking customers away from others, and which ones are losing them? Until recently, Tesla was in a different stratosphere than other automotive brands on this metric. For the four years prior to July 2024, Tesla, on average, acquired nearly five new households for every one it lost to another brand. No other brand from a major automaker was even close: Hyundai's luxury Genesis brand was the next best, acquiring on average 2.8 households for every one it lost, followed by Kia and Hyundai, which acquired on average 1.5 and 1.4 households, respectively, for every one they lost. Ford, Toyota and Honda lost more households on average than they gained during that period. Tesla average inflow of customers started to decline in July 2024 along with its loyalty rate. Since February, Tesla has been gaining fewer than two households for every one it loses to the rest of the industry, its lowest level ever, according to the data. The data shows clearly that the net migration to Tesla is slowing, Libby said. Brands that now attract more Tesla customers than they lose to Tesla include Rivian, Polestar, Porsche and Cadillac, the data show. Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Tesla investor Zacks Investment Management, said he isn't concerned about Tesla long-term earnings because he expects enormous profits from its plans to operate robotaxis and license self-driving technology to other automakers. Tesla launched a small test of robotaxis in Austin in June, giving rides to hand-picked fans and Internet personalities but the service isn't available to the general public. If Tesla succeeds in expanding the technology, Mulberry said, “there a case to be made that Tesla doesn need to sell cars and trucks anymore.
