Tesla shareholders have officially approved Elon Musk’s 2025 CEO Performance Award plan, with over 75% of votes in favor, marking a pivotal moment for the company as it aligns executive compensation with ambitious long-term goals.

The approval, announced during the 2025 Annual Shareholder Meeting at Gigafactory Texas, Thursday evening, was met with enthusiastic applause and celebration from attendees, including Musk dancing on stage alongside Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots, which also performed synchronized movements.

The landmark pay package, worth up to $1 trillion over a decade, is contingent on Tesla achieving specific performance benchmarks, including reaching a $8.5 trillion market capitalization, delivering 1 million Optimus robots, and operating 1 million robotaxis.

The 2025 CEO Performance Award requires Musk to grow Tesla’s market capitalization from approximately $1.1 trillion to $8.5 trillion within ten years, a target that would make Tesla the most valuable company in history.

Additional requirements include increasing Tesla’s operating profit from $17 billion to $400 billion annually, delivering 20 million vehicles cumulatively, securing 10 million active Full Self-Driving (FSD) subscriptions, and achieving 1 million robotaxi operations.

The vote was supported by major institutional investors like Schwab Asset Management, which cited alignment with shareholder value, despite opposition from proxy advisors such as Glass Lewis and ISS.

Musk expressed gratitude for the approval, celebrating on stage with a dance and acknowledging the support of fellow tech leaders like Jack Dorsey and Michael Dell, who publicly endorsed the pay package as a governance and engineering necessity.

The approval was facilitated by Tesla’s reincorporation in Texas, allowing Musk to vote his 15% stake, unlike in a previous Delaware-based vote.

The meeting also featured major announcements on Tesla’s AI, robotics, and vehicle development, including the planned production of the Cybercab, Optimus robots, and the AI5 chip, all central to Tesla’s new mission of "Sustainable Abundance."

Tesla confirmed a rapid production ramp of Optimus humanoid robot, starting with a 1 million unit line in Fremont and a future 10 million unit line in Texas. The robot is expected to cost around $20,000 in current dollars and is seen as a tool to eliminate poverty and provide advanced medical care. Musk suggested that future versions could potentially host human consciousness via Neuralink, though this is likely over 20 years away.

At the meeting, Musk claimed that Optimus robots “will eliminate poverty,” “give everyone amazing medical care,” and will be “bigger than cell phones, bigger than anything.” He also said the robots could be used for “containment of future crime” by following criminals around and stopping them from “doing crime.”

The fully autonomous Cybercab, designed without pedals or steering wheels, will begin production in April 2026 at Gigafactory Texas. Tesla aims for a production cycle time of under 10 seconds, with a theoretical goal of five seconds.

The event featured a video of the unboxed manufacturing process of the Cybercab, with sightings of the vehicle on public roads becoming increasingly frequent, signaling progress toward its commercial rollout.

Musk revealed details about Tesla’s next-generation AI5 chip (formerly Hardware 5), which will be manufactured by Samsung and TSMC and is designed to power self-driving systems, Optimus robots, and other AI applications. The chip promises a 50x improvement over the AI4 chip, with 5x block quantization, 9x memory capacity, and 10x raw compute increase.

The final production iteration of the Tesla Semi, with a 500-mile range and 800kW drive power, will begin volume production in Nevada in 2026, targeting 50,000 units annually.

The new Tesla Roadster (V2) supercar Roadster will be unveiled on April 1, 2026, with production expected 12–18 months later, according to Musk.

The electric vehicle company is moving toward allowing "texting and driving" with Full Self-Driving, FSD V14, based on safety data, with the goal of opening this feature within months. FSD use has already led to 85% fewer crashes and 35,000 fewer fatalities over the past year, according to Musk.

Tesla’s new lithium refinery in South Texas is now the largest outside of China, capable of producing 50 GWh of lithium annually. A new Giga Texas cathode factory is under construction to strengthen supply chain resilience.

The company reaffirmed its mission to achieve "Sustainable Abundance," encompassing EVs, solar, energy storage, Optimus, and charging infrastructure.

Tesla is exploring space-based solar power and considering building a Tesla TeraFab for chip production. The company also plans to expand Tesla Insurance and the Tesla App to new languages like Hebrew.

The pay package approval has already had a market impact, with Tesla shares rising about 2% in after-hours trading, reflecting investor confidence in Musk’s long-term vision for autonomous vehicles, robotaxis, and humanoid robotics.

Tucker Carlson, appearing alongside Megyn Kelly at a SiriusXM live event at the Westchester County Center, in White Plains, New York, dismissed criticism of his recent interview with right-wing commentator Nick Fuentes, telling detractors to "buzz off" as he defended his right to host provocative guests. He slammed Jewish neoconservatives like commentator Ben Shapiro and Florida Congressman Randy Fine, accusing them of being "shills" for Israel, arguing their criticism was unpatriotic.

Carlson, who has been a central figure in a recent conservative media firestorm, defended his decision to interview Fuentes, saying he views Fuentes as the most influential commentator among young men, with millions of supporters.

The popular journalist dismissed criticism from figures like Congressman Fine, who labeled him "the most dangerous antisemite in America," and Shapiro, whom he accused of "shilling for Israel" and being too extreme for his "tiny brain" to process.

“Nick Fuentes has said a long list of very vile things,” Kelly said, mentioning the interview that has sparked a civil war within MAGA.

“Big time, including attacking my dad, which was the most vile of all, in my opinion,”  Carlson added.

“Yeah. I mean, I personally have watched videos of him questioning the Holocaust, likening it to baking cookies in the oven. ‘And there’s no way you could have gotten to six million’ seems to be his theory. He seems to think that we’ve way overstated the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. He’s ripped on poor Usha Vance in the most offensive terms. I mean, so what do you say to those people who say, ‘Why didn’t you raise any of that?’” Kelly asked.

“You know, do your own interview the way that you want to do it. You’re not my editor. Buzz off. I mean, I don’t know. You want to go yell at Nick Fuentes? I’ll give you his cell. Call him and go sit and yell at him and feel virtuous or whatever,” Carlson replied, adding:

"That’s up to you. I got the same thing with Putin. 'Why aren’t you yelling at him?' Okay, why? So I can show that I’m a good person? I care about what my wife thinks, my children think, and God thinks. And that’s it. I don’t need to prove that I am a good person to you! You may think I’m a terrible person. Okay, I’m just doing my thing, which is I want to understand what people think. And I’m committed to that. And if you don’t like it, don’t watch. That’s my view."

The event, part of Kelly's nationwide live podcast tour, highlighted the duo's shift to independent media after leaving Fox News, with Kelly emphasizing their newfound freedom from corporate constraints.

Kelly, who has also faced criticism for past controversies, including her 2018 defense of blackface, used the platform to draw parallels between her own past backlash and Carlson’s current situation, stating, "I was a racist in literally every newspaper in the country."

The controversy surrounding Carlson’s interview with Fuentes continues to ripple through conservative circles, with prominent pro-Israel figures facing backlash for their effort to 'cancel' Carlson and by extension, his friend Vice President JD Vance who are beloved on the American right.

Rocket Lab successfully launched its 74th Electron mission, "The Nation God Navigates," on Wednesday, deploying the iQPS QPS-SAR-14 satellite, nicknamed YACHIHOKO-I, into a 575 kilometer circular orbit from Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand. The rocket lifted off at 1951 UTC, with Electron's kick stage deploying the satellite about 50 minutes after liftoff, marking Rocket Lab’s sixth dedicated mission for iQPS and solidifying its role as the primary launch provider for the Japanese company’s growing Earth-imaging constellation.

The QPS-SAR-14 satellite, nicknamed YACHIHOKO-I after the Japanese god of nation-building and navigation, is the 13th satellite from iQPS to reach orbit, despite its designation as the 14th in the series.

iQPS aims to build a constellation of 36 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites to provide near-real-time Earth imagery, with the goal of capturing images of Earth’s surface every 10 minutes.

"This satellite will join the rest of the QPS-SAR constellation in providing high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images and Earth monitoring services globally," Rocket Lab wrote in a mission description. "iQPS aims to build a constellation of 36 SAR satellites that will provide near-real-time images of Earth every 10 minutes."

Wednesday's launch was part of a multi-launch agreement between Rocket Lab and iQPS, with six additional dedicated missions planned to further expand the constellation.

"The Nation God Navigates" mission was the 16th Electron launch of 2025, matching the company’s record high for annual launches set in 2024. The Electron rocket, a two-stage launch vehicle powered by liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene, has become the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket annually since its first orbital flight in January 2018.

Rocket Lab’s success with this mission reinforces its position as a leading provider of launch services for small satellite constellations, with plans to debut its larger Neutron rocket in the near future. The company also operates a suborbital version of the vehicle known as HASTE ("Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron"), which has flown five times since debuting in June 2023.