Tesla doubles down on Musk, Spotify hikes prices, and BP strikes oil

5th August, 2025

Tesla reignites controversy with a fresh $29B award for Elon Musk as regulatory drama lingers, while Spotify tries to regain market favor with another round of global price hikes. BP announces its largest oil discovery in decades, and Palantir’s AI-fueled government contracts help push quarterly revenue to $1 billion. All this and more in today’s Read It And Eat!

Major Headlines

• Tesla hands $29B comp package to Elon Musk amid ‘AI talent war’

  
  

• Tesla has awarded CEO Elon Musk a compensation package worth around $29 billion in shares, citing an “ever-intensifying AI talent war” and Tesla’s position at a critical inflection point. The package, tied to a 2019 Equity Incentive Plan already approved by shareholders, doesn’t require a new vote, according to Tesla’s regulatory filing.

  The package includes 96 million options that vest over two years, contingent on Musk maintaining a senior leadership role and holding the stock for five years. Musk will pay a $23.34 purchase price per share, bringing the current value of the award to roughly $26.7 billion. 

  
  

  However, this award will be voided if the Delaware Supreme Court upholds a January 2024 decision to strike down Musk’s prior $56 billion 2018 compensation plan, citing flawed processes and Musk’s influence on the board.

  Musk and his brother Kimbal, both Tesla board members, recused themselves from the new package process. The board formed a special committee to oversee the new deal. This comes as Musk expands AI efforts outside Tesla through xAI, which now owns X, while Tesla faces stalled growth and political entanglements, including Musk’s ties to the Trump administration.

  
  

  The new award is not linked to performance goals like previous packages. If the Delaware Supreme Court allows the 2018 award to stand, Musk cannot keep both packages. “There cannot be any ‘double dip,’” Tesla said.

  The decision follows months of internal and legal turmoil. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who struck down the 2018 package, criticized it for lacking guardrails binding Musk to Tesla. She reaffirmed her decision in December 2024, calling Tesla’s legal theories “unprecedented” and contrary to settled law. Tesla has since reincorporated from Delaware to Texas, where shareholder protections are weaker. TechCrunch 

  
  
  
  

• Spotify raises subscription prices globally, shares bounce after 11% post-earnings dip

  
  

• Spotify announced on Monday that its premium subscription prices will increase for users in multiple markets across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region. Over the next month, impacted subscribers will receive an email explaining that their monthly subscription cost will increase from €10.99 to €11.99. Spotify made a similar change last year for users in the U.S., increasing  prices from $10.99 to $11.99 — at the time, it marked the second instance when they had hiked prices over the last year. These price hikes arrive after Spotify’s rough earnings report last week, when the platform missed revenue expectations, causing its stock price to drop 11%.

  
  

  On the corresponding earnings call with investors, CEO Daniel Ek stated that he is “unhappy with where [Spotify is] today,” but remained “confident in the ambitions we laid out for this business.” Spotify’s shares rose 5% in premarket trading after announcing the price hikes.  TechCrunch 

  
  
  
  

• Palantir lifts outlook as AI boom sends quarterly revenue to $1B

  
  

• The Denver-based AI software company beat analyst estimates Monday with adjusted earnings of 16 cents per share on $1 billion in revenue, topping LSEG projections of 14 cents and $940 million, respectively. The stock peaked at more than 5% in after-hours trading compared to when the market closed at 4 p.m ET.

  Palantir's commercial revenue in the US nearly doubled since last year's second quarter to $628 million, while government revenue climbed 53% year-over-year to $426 million, mostly thanks to a 10-year, $10 billion contract with the US Army, which consolidated 75 contracts into one. Ryan Taylor, chief revenue officer and chief legal officer, said that the US Space Force awarded the company a $218 million delivery order and raised the spending ceiling for Palantir's Maven Smart System to $795 million in preparation for "significant demand."

  
  

  The company also raised its full-year revenue guidance midpoint to just north of $4 billion, a nine-point increase from last quarter. CEO Alex Karp concluded the call with a message for investors. “Maybe stop talking to all the haters — they're suffering.” Financial Times 

  
  
  
  

• Amazon denies Wondery shutdown but confirms layoffs and strategic  overhaul

  
  

• Amazon is denying that it’s shutting down Wondery, the podcast studio it acquired in late 2020, after Bloomberg reported on Monday that the company was closing the studio and cutting 110 jobs. Amazon told TechCrunch that Wondery will continue to develop creator-led podcasts under the Wondery brand within a new team. What’s changing is that the company is separating the teams that oversee Wondery’s narrative podcast efforts from those developing its creator-led shows.

  
  

• Wondery is combining its narrative podcast studio, which includes podcasts like Dr. Death and American Scandal, with Audible. “The podcast landscape has evolved significantly in the past few years, particularly with the rise of video-forward, creator-led content,” Amazon said in an emailed statement. “These changes reflect that evolution and will streamline how Wondery integrates further into Amazon. By making these changes, we can better support creators in monetizing their content across multiple channels, help them expand their brand IP, and simplify the process for advertisers while making content more accessible to audiences wherever they prefer to consume it.” Despite securing big names in the business, the company is now shifting its strategy in an effort to better compete with rivals like Spotify and YouTube as the podcasting industry embraces video formats. TechCrunch 

  
  
  
  

• BP hits major pre-salt oil find in Brazil, its largest discovery in 25 years

  
  

• BP has announced a major hydrocarbon discovery at the Bumerangue exploration well in the Santos Basin, 404 km offshore Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Drilled to a total depth of 5,855 metres, the 1-BP-13-SPS well encountered a 500-metre gross hydrocarbon column in high-quality pre-salt carbonate reservoirs, with an estimated areal extent of over 300 square kilometres. Initial rig-site analysis showed elevated CO₂ levels, and lab tests are now underway to evaluate the reservoir and fluids. This is BP’s tenth discovery in 2025 and its largest in 25 years. It follows other finds this year in Trinidad, Egypt, the Gulf of America, Libya, Angola, and Namibia. BP holds 100% of the Bumerangue block and plans further appraisal, pending regulatory approval.

  
  

  The company aims to grow its global upstream output to 2.3–2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030, with capacity through 2035. EVP Gordon Birrell called the discovery a milestone and emphasized Brazil’s importance in BP’s upstream ambitions.  BP

Minor Headlines

• Rivian sues to gain right to sell EVs directly in Ohio —  TechCrunch

  
  

• Foxconn offloads ex-GM factory to unknown buyer after EV plans flop —TechCrunch

  
  

• Banned from Dribbble, top designer builds rival platform — TechCrunch

  
  

• Perplexity accused of scraping sites that blocked AI crawlers —TechCrunch 

  
  

• Fed Governor Kugler resigns, clearing seat for potential Trump pick — CNBC

  
  

• OpenAI says ChatGPT is on track to hit 700M weekly users — TechCrunch 

  
  

• Trump again threatens India with tariffs over trade with Russia Politico

  
  

• The AI Race Has Big Tech Spending $344 Billion This Year Yahoo.Finance