Elon Musk’s trial regarding Tesla’s 2018 acquisition of SolarCity in Wilmington, Delaware, took an interesting turn today. One attorney vomited in the jury box, and Musk’s brother Kimbal took the stand for questioning on Wednesday.
The trial was brought to a temporary halt for two hours as one attorney, who was seated in the jury box, vomited, the Independent reported. After a routine cleanup by janitorial staff at the Delaware courtroom, the trial finally resumed, and Wednesday brought Kimbal Musk to the stand. Kimbal, a Tesla board member and a businessman in the food sector, said he was not aware of Elon’s activities regarding the SolarCity acquisition.
“I was unaware of my brother’s activities,” Kimbal said to Judge Joseph Slights. The trial is attempting to solve the question of whether Elon pressured Tesla board members to acquire SolarCity, a solar panel manufacturer that was founded by cousins of the Musk family. At the time, Elon held a 22% stake in both Tesla and SolarCity. Still, the Tesla CEO maintains that he did not allow himself from voting on the potential acquisition as he was the largest shareholder of both companies at the time of the vote. Musk reportedly “urged a speedup of due-diligence review of the deal in mid-2016 even as advisors at Evercore Partners wanted to dig deeper into a cash crunch at the maker of solar roof panels,” the Bloomberg report indicates.
Kimbal added later that he was unaware that Evercore advisors and some bankers were surprised to see SolarCity struggling with cash flow. The company was in danger of triggering default provisions if its cash reserves sunk below $116 million. Kimbal said he didn’t think it was “a lot of money” but realized “cash in the bank is what matters” when it comes to provisions.
“Were you aware that while Evercore wanted to slow down the diligence review, your brother was pushing to speed things up,” Lee Rudy, a lawyer for the shareholders, asked. “I was not aware of that,” Kimbal replied. However, after his successful career as a businessman that has included many acquisitions and mergers, Kimbal said he doesn’t consider bankers’ opinions to be of significant value. “I avoid them whenever I can. Bankers are involved to make a deal happen. I don’t put much stock in what they have to say.”
Shareholders of Tesla stock feel that the acquisition was unfair and may have been a bailout plan for SolarCity founders Lyndon and Peter Rive, cousins of both Elon and Kimbal. The shareholders who brought the trial on believe that Musk might have applied unfair pressure to the Tesla board. Musk denies these claims and said he had “no material role” in the decision to acquire SolarCity.
Elon Musk makes opening remarks in SolarCity trial, defends Tesla’s $2.6B acquisition
Elon Musk has sparred with opposing lawyer Randy Baron since the beginning of the trial. The Tesla CEO has called Baron “a bad human being” and has called his questions “deceptive.”
The trial is expected to go on for two weeks, according to Judge Slights. Slights will then deliberate and come to a verdict on his own.
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Anti-Tesla union leader ditches X, urges use of Threads instead
Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now.
Marie Nilsson, chair of Sweden’s IF Metall union and a prominent critic of Tesla, has left X and is urging audiences to follow the union on Meta’s Threads instead.
Tesla Sweden and IF Metall have been engaged in a bitter dispute for over two years now.
Anti-Tesla union leader exits X
In a comment to Dagens Arbete (DA), Nilsson noted that her exit from X is not formally tied to IF Metall’s long-running labor dispute with Tesla Sweden. Still, she stated that her departure is affected by changes to the platform under Elon Musk’s leadership.
“We have stayed because many journalists pick up news there. But as more and more people have left X, we have felt that the standard has now been reached on that platform,” she said.
Jesper Pettersson, press officer at IF Metall, highlighted that the union’s departure from X is only indirectly linked to Tesla Sweden and Elon Musk. “Indirectly it does, since there is a lot of evidence that his ownership has caused the change in the platform to be so significant.
“We have nevertheless assessed that the platform had value for reaching journalists, politicians and other opinion leaders. But it is a microscopic proportion of the public and our members who are there, and now that value has decreased,” Petterson added.
IF Metall sees Threads as an X alternative
After leaving X, IF Metall has begun using Threads, Meta’s alternative to the social media platform. The union described the move as experimental, noting that it is still evaluating how effective the platform will be for outreach and visibility.
Pettersson acknowledged that Meta also does not operate under Sweden’s collective bargaining model, but said the union sees little alternative if it wants to remain visible online.
“In a perfect world, all large international companies would be supporters of the Swedish model when they come here. But unfortunately, the reality is not like that. If we are to be visible at all in this social media world, we have to play by the rules of the game. The alternative would be to become completely invisible, and that would not benefit our members,” he said.
Despite many recent rumors and various reports, Elon Musk confirmed today that SpaceX is not developing a phone based on Starlink, not once, but twice.
Today’s report from Reuters cited people familiar with the matter and stated internal discussions have seen SpaceX executives mulling the idea of building a mobile device that would connect directly to the Starlink satellite constellation.
Musk did state in late January that SpaceX developing a phone was “not out of the question at some point.” However, He also said it would have to be a major difference from current phones, and would be optimized “purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.”
Not out of the question at some point. It would be a very different device than current phones. Optimized purely for running max performance/watt neural nets.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 30, 2026
While Musk said it was not out of the question “at some point,” that does not mean it is currently a project SpaceX is working on. The CEO reaffirmed this point twice on X this afternoon.
Musk said, “Reuters lies relentlessly,” in one post. In the next, he explicitly stated, “We are not developing a phone.”
Reuters lies relentlessly
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2026
We are not developing a phone
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2026
Musk has basically always maintained that SpaceX has too many things going on, denying that a phone would be in the realm of upcoming projects. There are too many things in the works for Musk’s space exploration company, most notably the recent merger with xAI.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
A Starlink phone would be an excellent idea, especially considering that SpaceX operates 9,500 satellites, serving over 9 million users worldwide. 650 of those satellites are dedicated to the company’s direct-to-device initiative, which provides cellular coverage on a global scale.
Nevertheless, there is the potential that the Starlink phone eventually become a project SpaceX works on. However, it is not currently in the scope of what the company needs to develop, so things are more focused on that as of right now.
Tesla has added a notable improvement to its Dashcam feature after complaints from owners have pushed the company to make a drastic change.
Perhaps one of the biggest frustrations that Tesla owners have communicated regarding the Dashcam feature is the lack of ability to retain any more than 60 minutes of driving footage before it is overwritten.
It does not matter what size USB jump drive is plugged into the vehicle. 60 minutes is all it will hold until new footage takes over the old. This can cause some issues, especially if you were saving an impressive clip of Full Self-Driving or an incident on the road, which could be lost if new footage was recorded.
This has now been changed, as Tesla has shown in the Release Notes for an upcoming Software Update in China. It will likely expand to the U.S. market in the coming weeks, and was first noticed by NotaTeslaApp.
The release notes state:
“Dashcam Dynamic Recording Duration – The dashcam dynamically adjusts the recording duration based on the available storage capacity of the connected USB drive. For example, with a 128 GB USB drive, the maximum recording duration is approximately 3 hours; with a 1 TB or larger USB drive, it can reach up to 24 hours. This ensures that as much video as possible is retained for review before it gets overwritten.”
Tesla Adds Dynamic Recording
Instead of having a 60-minute cap, the new system will now go off the memory in the USB drive. This means with:
- 128 GB Jump Drive – Up to Three Hours of Rolling Footage
- 1TB Jump Drive – Up to 24 Hours of Rolling Footage
This is dependent on the amount of storage available on the jump drive, meaning that if there are other things saved on it, it will take away from the amount of footage that can be retained.
While the feature is just now making its way to employees in China, it will likely be at least several weeks before it makes its way to the U.S., but owners should definitely expect it in the coming months.
It will be a welcome feature, especially as there will now be more customization to the number of clips and their duration that can be stored.
Anti-Tesla union leader ditches X, urges use of Threads instead
Elon Musk confirms SpaceX is not developing a phone
