🔻 Tesla deliveries are slowing

Yesterday’s market performance 🏆️ 

S&P 500: -1.23% 📉 
Nasdaq: -1.40% 📉
Dow 30: -1.35% 📉 
Russell 2000: -1.08% 📉 

TOP STORY
📉 Tesla has first quarterly delivery decline since 2019… What’s next for EVs?

Tesla ($TSLA) opened the new quarter by releasing its delivery and production numbers from the previous quarter (Q1 2024); the results weren’t good…

• Total Deliveries: 386,810 (vs. 431,000 expected) ❌ 

• Total Production: 433,371 (vs. 494,989 in Q4 2023) 📉 

Tesla attributed the delivery miss to factory closures due to shipping disruptions from the Red Sea conflict and an arson attack at the Berlin Gigafactory.

The bad news: This past quarter saw the first year-over-year decline in deliveries in nearly four years, and it came just a quarter after the company hit a delivery record of 484,507 deliveries in Q4 2023.

The good news: They overtook BYD ($BYDDF), China’s biggest electric car maker, in global EV sales, after losing the top spot in Q4 2023.

The competition released delivery numbers too, and they don’t look so pretty either:

• Tesla ($TSLA): 387k deliveries (down 20% from the previous quarter).

• BYD ($BYDDF): 300K deliveries (down 42% from the previous quarter).

• General Motors ($GM): 594K deliveries (down 1.5% from the previous quarter), but EV sales were down 20%.

• Rivian ($RIVN): 13,588 deliveries (down 2.8% from the previous quarter).

• Fisker ($FSRN): 40K orders canceled (down 57% from the previous quarter).

• XPeng ($XPEV): 21,821 vehicles (down 63% from the previous quarter).

• Nio ($NIO): 30,053 vehicles (down 39% from the previous quarter).

• Li Auto ($LI): 80,400 deliveries (down 39% from the previous quarter).

FROM OUR FRIENDS @ THE RUNDOWN AI
🤖 Stay on top of AI news with The Rundown AI Newsletter

Learn how to make AI work for you.

How do you stay up-to-date with the insane pace of AI? Join The Rundown – the world’s fastest-growing AI newsletter with over 500,000+ readers learning how to become more productive using AI every morning.

1. Our team spends all day researching and talking with industry experts.

2. We send you updates on the latest AI news and how to apply it in 5 minutes a day.

3. You learn how to become 2x more productive by leveraging AI.

Subscribe with one click.

MUSIC
🥊 Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, and other musicians are fighting back against AI in music

Over 200 artists, including Katy Perry, Billie Eilish, and Nicki Minaj, have signed an open letter urging AI developers and tech firms to stop using AI to undermine human artists' rights.

Keyword: human.

The letter's main concerns are copying artists' voices, using their work for AI training without pay, and reducing royalty payments.

Who are they calling on? Artists want AI developers and tech firms to promise not to create or use AI for music-making. They clearly recognize AI's inevitable growth in the creative world but want protection against the harm it can do to their intellectual property and music rights.

This letter is a nice gesture and will definitely help sway some public opinion. 

However, in reality, AI-generated voices and beats are already mainstream. Stopping it would be like trying to pump the brakes on a runaway locomotive—basically impossible.

ENTERTAINMENT
🕰️ A timeline of the Disney Board of Directors saga, which just concluded this week

On Wednesday, Disney successfully fought off America’s most renowned “activist” investor, Nelson Peltz.

The company is estimated to have spent $40 million fighting off Peltz in this board dispute.

Late 2022: Trian Fund Management, led by Nelson Peltz, wants to change Disney's board, aiming to replace two current members with Peltz and former Disney CFO Jay Rasulo because the company is losing money and needs new leadership.

Early 2023: Trian Partners launches the “Restore the Magic” campaign.

Late 2022 - Early 2023: Disney counters Trian's claims by highlighting its progress in turning around its business, price increases on streaming services and theme parks, and password-sharing crackdowns, including the simpler ad-supported tier for Disney+.

Early 2023: Peltz continues to fight for board seats, and activist investor Blackwells Capital joins in on the fun, urging shareholders to add its three nominees to the board.

March 2024: Things really start to heat up when Disney receives support from notable figures and firms, including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Star Wars creator George Lucas, while Peltz secures backing from influential proxy advisory firms and investors like ISS and CalPERS.

April 3, 2024: At Disney's annual shareholder meeting, the company announced it had defeated Peltz and Blackwells Capital, maintaining the current board arrangement by a large margin of shareholder votes.

Here’s what else you might’ve missed…

Apple ($APPL) is developing their very own home robots

Taiwan was rocked by a 7.4-magnitude earthquake.

General Electric ($GE) has broken up into 3 separate companies

Meta ($META) allowed Netflix ($NFLX) to access Facebook users' messages for almost 10 years, breaking privacy and competition rules.

Palantir ($PLTR) and Oracle ($ORCL) team up to provide cloud AI solutions to clients.