Tesla Misses; Musk Buoyant

Tesla Misses; Musk Buoyant

The electric vehicle (EV) maker’s [TSLA] share price dropped as much as 12% after it reported that revenue dropped 7% year-over-year in Q2. In the post-earnings conference call, CEO Elon Musk said that Donald Trump’s potential withdrawal of support for the sector “would be devastating for our competitors” but in the long term would help Tesla. In addition, he said that “pretty soon” the EV maker would ask for regulatory approval of full self-driving technology in Europe, China and elsewhere, adding that “we are likely to receive that before the end of the year”. 

Meta Debuts New Llama

Meta [META] has released its new artificial intelligence (AI) model, Llama 3.1. Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was “state of the art” and would compete with rival products from OpenAI and Alphabet’s [GOOGL] Google. It supersedes Llama 3, released in April; the company is already working on Llama 4, Bloomberg reported. Elsewhere, Rob Sherman, Meta’s Deputy Privacy Officer and Vice-President of Policy, told the Financial Times that the EU’s approach to AI risks cutting the continent off from advances in the space.

Nvidia Greenlights Samsung Chip

Nvidia [NVDA] has approved the use of Samsung’s [SSNLF] fourth-generation, high-bandwidth HBM3 chips in its processors, according to Reuters. For now, however, the chips will only be used on the H20, one of Nvidia’s less powerful GPUs. The H20 was developed for the Chinese market, and thus does not violate any US export controls. Testing is continuing on Samsung’s fifth-generation HBM3E chips, which have not yet been approved by Nvidia.

CrowdStrike Outage: What Went Wrong?

CrowdStrike [CRWD] has blamed last week’s global IT outage on a “problematic Rapid Response Content configuration update” which carried an undetected error, according to a preliminary post-incident review, reported Business Times. In the report, the company said it regularly makes such updates, which are intended to detect malicious activity; it is still seeking to establish exactly what went wrong. Both CrowdStrike and Microsoft [MSFT] have since released fixes, and most systems have been restored. 

Wegovy Approved for Heart Treatment in UK

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has approved Novo Nordisk’s [NVO] blockbuster weightloss drug Wegovy to reduce the risk of serious heart problems in obese people. “This treatment option that prevents heart disease and strokes is an important step forward in tackling the serious health consequences of obesity,” said MHRA Deputy Director of Innovative Medicines Shirley Hopper. More than 7.6 million British people are living with cardiovascular diseases, Reuters reported.