Tesla rehires some Supercharger workers

Tesla has begun hiring back some of the almost 500 members of its Supercharging team that Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk dismissed late last month.

Chief among the personnel who have returned is Max de Zegher, the director of charging for North America, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

De Zegher was one of the top managers after Rebecca Tinucci, the senior director Musk fired late last month along with virtually everyone else in the charging group.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many laid-off workers have been rehired. Musk and de Zegher didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

Musk’s dissolution of the team stunned the broader electric vehicle sector, as Superchargers arguably have been Tesla’s shrewdest product. In the past year, the company persuaded competitors to embrace its plugs as an industry standard and signed agreements with many of the world’s biggest manufacturers to open its network to their customers.

After widespread blowback, Musk pledged last week to spend “well over” $500 million on growing Tesla’s network this year.

Days earlier, the CEO said the company planned to add chargers at a slower pace and focus more on uptime and existing locations.

GameStop shares soar amid ‘Roaring Kitty’ rumors

GameStop Corp. shares surged as speculation swirled around a return to social media by Keith Gill, who drove the meme-stock mania of 2021 under the moniker “Roaring Kitty.”

The account’s post on X showed a man leaning forward with what looked like a gaming controller, which some traders interpreted to mean that Gill is coming back into action.

Gill, whose account has long been dormant, shot to fame in 2021 by rallying day traders on Reddit in an effort to squeeze GameStop short sellers.

The post had attracted more than 12 million views in the hours since its publication. Gill posted on X again at 11 a.m. New York time, this time a short video clip stating “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

More than 46 million shares changed hands before 10:15 a.m. in New York, roughly 21 times what’s been normal in that stretch over the past month. Shares rose as much as 119% Monday.

GM’s Cruise to start testing robotaxis in Arizona

General Motors’ troubled Cruise autonomous vehicle unit said Monday it will start testing robotaxis in Arizona this week with human safety drivers on board.

Cruise said that during the testing, it will check the vehicles’ performance against the company’s “rigorous” safety and autonomous vehicle performance requirements.

Testing will start in Phoenix and gradually expand to Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler and Paradise Valley, the company said.

The vehicles will operate in autonomous mode, but the human drivers will be ready to take over if needed as the company takes a step toward resuming driverless operations.

Human drivers are important in testing the vehicles’ performance “and the continuous improvement of our technology,” Cruise said.

Cruise suspended operations in October when one of its Chevrolet Bolt autonomous electric vehicles dragged a San Francisco pedestrian roughly 20 feet to the curb at roughly 7 miles per hour, after the pedestrian was hit by a human-driven vehicle.

Compiled from reports by The Associated Press and Bloomberg.