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Tesla could land $500 million dollar payday, courtesy of Fiat Chrysler in emissions tradeoff
Tesla and Fiat Chrysler have entered into a deal to help the legacy automaker weather strict European Union emissions regulations that are set to take effect next year, according to a report published by Financial Times. This arrangement is the first of its kind and is estimated by one Wall Street firm to equate to $500+ million dollars worth of credits to Tesla from Fiat Chrysler over the next 2-3 years.
Jefferies on the @Tesla @fiat open pooling arrangement:
"We assume that compensation to Tesla could be in excess of $500m relating to 2020 and 2021 each with payments possibly starting earlier (2019) to spread costs".
— Patrick McGee (@PatrickMcGee_) April 8, 2019
Beginning in 2020, 95% of automotive fleet-wide emissions in the EU must average under 95g of CO2 per kilometer, i.e., have a fuel efficiency of about 57 mpg for internal combustion vehicles. In 2021, full fleets must be compliant, and the penalties could add up to financial ruin for companies unable to meet the strict standards.
The EU rules further allow different auto companies and divisions to pool together to form an expanded fleet, thus averaging out emissions across larger numbers of vehicles. Companies with existing low or zero emissions divisions can combine with their higher emissions divisions to meet the standards, or if the benefit outweighs the awkward arrangement, they can combine with companies like Tesla whose all-electric, zero emissions fleets would provide significant average emissions reductions.
Tesla offered its “open pool” deal to other auto manufacturers, but the Italian-American car maker was the only one with an arrangement by Tesla’s March 25th deadline. Fiat Chrysler has been slower than its industry peers to adopt an electrification plan for its vehicles sold in the region and needed to buy more time until a strategy could be worked out. The company has announced a $10.5 billion dollar plan to bring alternative power to its vehicle lineup, but any efforts in that direction will not manifest into enough production vehicles to avoid the EU fines by the impending deadline.
Under EU rules, Tesla qualifies for “super-credits” which allow a trade-off of electric car sales against ICE vehicles; the company has already managed similar profitable credit trades in California that brought in $280 million dollars in 2017. This number may be where the estimated $500+ million payout figure from Jeffries Financial Group is stemming from. Altogether, the pooling arrangement looks to be a temporary win-win for the two companies, and the deal was reportedly agreed to on February 25th.
Tesla has become a proven leader in developing emissions-free transportation. Since the release of its flagship Model S luxury sedan, the car’s appeal has fueled both the growth of the company – now on its fourth mass-produced electric vehicle with a fifth on the way – and new market demand for electric cars. Tesla’s competitors have taken note and many have committed billions to electrification of their fleets, even without looming EU regulations. US auto industry giant Ford Motor Company, for example, is planning an $11 billion investment into 40 electrified vehicles by 2022, as announced at last year’s Detroit Auto show.
Overall, the “Tesla Effect” on the global market has only begun, and the beginning of the EU’s strict emissions regulations may be the tip of the iceberg of changes coming to the numerous industries impacted by the coming shifts in the automotive arena.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X goes down as users report major outage Friday morning
Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.
Elon Musk’s X experienced an outage Friday morning, leaving large numbers of users unable to access the social media platform.
Error messages and stalled loading screens quickly spread across the service, while outage trackers recorded a sharp spike in user reports.
Downdetector reports
Users attempting to open X were met with messages such as “Something went wrong. Try reloading,” often followed by an endless spinning icon that prevented access, according to a report from Variety. Downdetector data showed that reports of problems surged rapidly throughout the morning.
As of 10:52 a.m. ET, more than 100,000 users had reported issues with X. The data indicated that 56% of complaints were tied to the mobile app, while 33% were related to the website and roughly 10% cited server connection problems. The disruption appeared to begin around 10:10 a.m. ET, briefly eased around 10:35 a.m., and then returned minutes later.
Previous disruptions
Friday’s outage was not an isolated incident. X has experienced multiple high-profile service interruptions over the past two years. In November, tens of thousands of users reported widespread errors, including “Internal server error / Error code 500” messages. Cloudflare-related error messages were also reported.
In March 2025, the platform endured several brief outages spanning roughly 45 minutes, with more than 21,000 reports in the U.S. and 10,800 in the U.K., according to Downdetector. Earlier disruptions included an outage in August 2024 and impairments to key platform features in July 2023.
News
Tesla wins top loyalty and conquest honors in S&P Global Mobility 2025 awards
The electric vehicle maker secured this year’s “Overall Loyalty to Make,” “Highest Conquest Percentage,” and “Ethnic Loyalty to Make” awards.
Tesla emerged as one of the standout winners in the 2025 S&P Global Mobility Automotive Loyalty Awards, capturing top honors for customer retention and market conquest.
The electric vehicle maker secured this year’s “Overall Loyalty to Make,” “Highest Conquest Percentage,” and “Ethnic Loyalty to Make” awards.
Tesla claims loyalty crown
According to S&P Global Mobility, Tesla secured its 2025 “Overall Loyalty to Make” award following a late-year shift in consumer buying patterns. This marked the fourth consecutive year Tesla has received the honor. S&P Global Mobility’s annual analysis reviewed 13.6 million new retail vehicle registrations in the U.S. from October 2024 through September 2025, as noted in a press release.
In addition to overall loyalty, Tesla also earned the “Highest Conquest Percentage” award for the sixth consecutive year, highlighting the company’s continued ability to attract customers away from competing brands. This achievement is particularly notable given Tesla’s relatively small vehicle lineup, which is largely dominated by just two models: the Model 3 and Model Y.
Ethnic market strength and conquest
Tesla also captured top honors for “Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make,” a category that highlighted especially strong retention among Asian and Hispanic households. According to the analysis, Tesla achieved loyalty rates of 63.6% among Asian households and 61.9% among Hispanic households. These figures exceeded national averages.
S&P Global Mobility executives noted that loyalty margins across categories were exceptionally narrow in 2025, underscoring the significance of Tesla’s wins in an increasingly competitive market. Joe LaFeir, President of Mobility Business Solutions at S&P Global Mobility, shared his perspective on this year’s results.
“For 30 years, this analysis has provided a fact-based measure of brand health, and this year’s results are particularly telling. The data shows the market is not rewarding just one type of strategy. Instead, we see sustained, high-level performance from manufacturers with broad portfolios. In the current market, retaining customers remains a critical performance indicator for the industry,” LaFeir said.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft is heading to jury trial
The ruling keeps alive claims that OpenAI misled the Tesla CEO about its charitable purpose while accepting billions of dollars in funding.
OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft will face a jury trial this spring after a federal judge rejected their efforts to dismiss Elon Musk’s lawsuit, which accuses the artificial intelligence startup of abandoning its original nonprofit mission. The ruling keeps alive claims that OpenAI misled the Tesla CEO about its charitable purpose while accepting billions of dollars in funding.
As noted in a report from Bloomberg News, a federal judge in Oakland, California, ruled that OpenAI Inc. and Microsoft failed to show that Musk’s claims should be dismissed. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers stated that while the evidence remains unclear, Musk has maintained that OpenAI “had a specific charitable purpose and that he attached two fundamental terms to it: that OpenAI be open source and that it would remain a nonprofit — purposes consistent with OpenAI’s charter and mission.”
Judge Gonzalez Rogers also rejected an argument by OpenAI suggesting that Musk’s use of an intermediary to donate $38 million in seed money to the company stripped him of legal standing. “Holding otherwise would significantly reduce the enforcement of a large swath of charitable trusts, contrary to the modern trend,” Judge Gonzalez Rogers wrote.
The judge also declined to dismiss Musk’s fraud allegations, citing internal OpenAI communications from 2017 involving co-founder Greg Brockman. In an email cited by the judge, fellow OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis informed Musk that Brockman would “like to continue with the non-profit structure.”
Just two months later, however, Brockman wrote in a private note that he “cannot say that we are committed to the non-profit. don’t want to say that we’re committed. if three months later we’re doing b-corp then it was a lie.”
Marc Toberoff, a member of Musk’s legal team, said Judge Gonzalez Rogers’s ruling confirms that “there is substantial evidence that OpenAI’s leadership made knowingly false assurances to Mr. Musk about its charitable mission that they never honored in favor of their personal self-enrichment.”
OpenAI, for its part, maintained that Musk’s legal efforts are baseless. In a statement, the AI startup said it is looking forward to the upcoming trial. “Mr. Musk’s lawsuit continues to be baseless and a part of his ongoing pattern of harassment, and we look forward to demonstrating this at trial. We remain focused on empowering the OpenAI Foundation, which is already one of the best-resourced nonprofits ever,” OpenAI stated.
Elon Musk’s X goes down as users report major outage Friday morning
Tesla wins top loyalty and conquest honors in S&P Global Mobility 2025 awards
