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Volkswagen CEO Diess future in jeopardy, no terms met with Supervisory Board

(Credit: Daniel Aharonoff/Twitter)

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Volkswagen Auto Group CEO Herbert Diess and a Supervisory Board were unable to meet terms that would solidify Diess’ future at the automaker, reports from Germany indicate.

Diess has been on the hot seat at Volkswagen for several months following his vocalization of plans to cut 30,000 or more jobs from the German company’s employment population. Diess warned Volkswagen during an internal meeting that failure to accelerate the company’s transition to electric vehicles could cost some jobs, especially as the automaker continues to lag behind industry leader Tesla.

Herbert Diess (Credit: Volkswagen AG)

Diess and the Supervisory Board, which is comprised of prominent members of Volkswagen and other brands, as well as representatives from large shareholder groups, were unable to come to terms that would extend Diess’ term as VW AG CEO. Handelsblatt writes (paywalled):

“After intensive discussions, the leading supervisory board members from the Porsche and Piëch families, the state of Lower Saxony and the employee representatives were unable to agree on a compromise on the future of the 63-year-old.”

Volkswagen is arguably the world’s most committed and established automaker to the electric vehicle movement. Volkswagen is one of the only well-known, global, mass-market automotive brands to embrace the EV transition with such fervor, and this may have something to do with the tension between Diess and the board. Diess has primarily been the main reason for the accelerated transition, which has solidified Volkswagen as one of the more popular EV brands that came from ICE production. Diess is set on keeping up with Tesla by any means necessary, and losing time and falling further behind Elon Musk’s company is something Diess has warned VW executives about. Speaking of time, “It is precious,” Diess said in the Supervisory Board meeting, according to sources.

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Stephan Weil, a member of the Supervisory Board and leader of the Social Democratic Party in Lower Saxony, gave Diess words of approval during his presentation. However, he is not totally on board with Diess’ strategy, calling it “styleless.” Head of the Works Council, Daniela Cavallo, supported Weil’s analysis of Diess’ job performance.

The Board’s discontent with Diess seems to lie on “a lack of strategy of how he wants to develop the Group,” the report from Handelsblatt continues. Unfortunately, Diess’ emphasis on EVs has led to widespread support from other electric car companies, including Tesla, whose CEO Musk has accumulated the respect of Diess in an evident friendship. It appears Diess may not continue at VW if the Supervisory Board meeting has anything to do with it.

Volkswagen recently reported EV delivery totals in Q3 2021 that doubled the same period in 2020, led by the ID.4 all-electric crossover.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Investor's Corner

Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’

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Credit: MarcoRP | X

Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.

In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.

In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:

“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”

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This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.

The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.

The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building

Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.

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The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.

This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.

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Investor's Corner

SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull

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SpaceX Starship V3 flight 12
SpaceX Starship V3 flight 12 (Credit: SpaceX)

Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).

Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.

“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”

Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12

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Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.

It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”

Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.

There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:

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“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”

SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.

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Tesla expands massive safety feature worldwide in latest update

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has expanded the footprint of a massive safety feature worldwide with a recent Software Update labeled as 2026.20.6. The expansion of the “Blind Spot Warning While Parked” feature represents the more widespread availability of the feature, which aims to prevent “dooring.”

Dooring is when a driver or passenger opens a car door into the path of an oncoming road user, usually a cyclist or motorcyclist. It is among the most common types of cycling accidents, the League of American Bicyclists says.

For this reason, Tesla created a feature that warns occupants not to open the door because an object is approaching. The feature will sound a chime, and it will also delay the opening of the door to prevent an incident.

The release notes state (via Not a Tesla App):

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“If you attempt to open a door while an approaching object is detected in your blind spot (for example, a bicyclist approaching from behind) a chime sounds, and your door will not open upon initial button press. Wait a short time and press the button a second time to override the warning.”

Tesla initially rolled out this feature back in 2024 with the Model 3 “Highland.” However, it remained with the Model 3 exclusively for over a year; that was until Tesla added it to the Cybertruck this past Spring.

Now, it is making its way to the new Model Y, 2021 and newer Model S, and 2021 or newer Model X.

The prevention of dooring incidents could eliminate many injuries to cyclists, especially in an urban setting. Dooring accounts for 10-20 percent of bike-related crashes in major cities, and over 17,000 dooring-related incidents were treated in the U.S. over the course of a decade. These usually involve fractures, contusions, and head trauma.

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