After more than a decade of steady improvement, the average Americans credit score fell for the second year in a row.
Falling credit scores are just the latest sign that all is not well within the U.S. economy. According to a new report from the Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO), creator of the gold standard credit score used by most lenders, the average FICO score dropped to 715 between 2024 and 2025a two-point decrease and the biggest drop since 2009.
The data also shows that compared with 2021, more Americans are falling into the low and high ends of the credit score range rather than the middle. In 2021, 38% of scores were between 600 and 749; in 2025, that percentage is 33.8%. The highest FICO score is 850.
U.S. borrowers continue to grapple with high interest rates, a side effect of the Federal Reserves efforts to wrangle the soaring post-pandemic inflation that’s driving high prices. In spite of those effortsand with rate cuts imminentPresident Trumps tariffs are pushing inflation up yet again, making the cost of gas, groceries, clothes, and other essentials even less affordable.
The recent K-shaped economy has led to financial stress for some borrowers impacted by affordability concerns stemming from inflation and higher interest rates, while others have benefited from increases in their stock market portfolios and home price appreciation, the FICO report states. That data reflects Americas wealth gap, wherein the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, hollowing out the middle class in the process.
Americas two very different realities
Members of Gen Z, relatively early in their credit journeys, saw the biggest credit score decrease, dropping three points in 2025. The decrease is the most notable among any age group in this years report, but also the largest drop for any age group since 2020.
Falling credit scores among young people are linked to resumed student loan delinquency reporting, which reappeared on credit reports in February for the first time since the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was passed in March 2020. While only 17% of the broader U.S. population is still paying down a student loan, that percentage is 34% for Gen Z. Its no surprise then that 14% of Gen Zers had a 50-point score drop in the last year, with late student loan payments hitting their credit reports for the first time.
Earlier this year, the Education Department warned student loan borrowers behind on their payments that their wages would be garnished. American taxpayers will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for irresponsible student loan policies, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in April.
Younger people are less likely to hold investments in the stock market, leaving them out in the cold when it comes to recent market gains. Between higher prices on everyday goods and high interest rates, many Americans are stuck navigating a uniquely challenging economy, even as wealthy investors continue to reap market wins.
For people in the U.S distant from the stock markets highs, the economy is starting to feel like America during a very different eraa malaise backed by the new data. Delinquency rates on auto loans, credit cards, and personal loans are at or near their highest levels since 2009, during the Great Recessionand are more consistent with an economy in recession than one still in expansion, the FICO report states.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded its warning to consumers and retailers not to use or sell certain imported cookware that may leach significant levels of lead into your food.
The list of cookware has grown from the FDA’s initial alert in August, issued after tests showed some types of imported cookware made from brass, aluminum, and aluminum alloys (known as Hindalium/Hindolium or Indalium/Indolium) had leached into food when used for cooking, making food unsafe. On Friday, three additional cookware products used for cooking or food storage were added to the list.
The FDA investigation remains ongoing as it continues to collect and sample cookware, and the agency said other products may also be affected. It will continue to update the public. Here’s what to know.
Why is lead dangerous?
As Fast Company previously reported back in August, lead is toxic for humans. Even low levels can cause serious health problems.
Certain groups, such as children, women of childbearing age, and those who are breastfeeding may be at higher risk after eating food from cookware leaching lead. Babies and kids are more susceptible to lead toxicity due to their smaller body size, metabolism, and rapid growth.
Which cookware is listed in the expanded warning?
The original August 13 recall warning was issued for Saraswati Strips Pvt. Ltd., an Indian aluminum cookware company that sells Tiger White brand cookware. Because the FDA could not “identify and contact the distributor or responsible party to facilitate a recall,” this product may still be sold in retail stores.
On Friday, September 12, three additional products were added to the list, including Silver Horse cookware distributed by Patel Brothers, and JK Vallabhdas products distributed by Indian supermarket chain INDIACO.
The original product warning details are as follows:
Brand and product name: Pure Aluminium Utensils, Tiger White, RTM No. 2608606, an ISO 9001:2015 certified company
Retailer: Mannan Supermarket, 166-11 Hillside Ave., 1st Floor, Jamaica, NY
Manufacturer: Saraswati Strips Pvt. Ltd., India
Recall status: The FDA was unable to identify the distributor responsible for effectuating a recall.
Here are the details for the three additional products:
Brand and product name: Aluminium Mathar Kadai 26, Silver Horse, 7 6554273084 5
Retailer: Patel Brothers, 830 W. Golf Rd., Schaumburg, IL
Manufacturer: Goyal Group Inc., 179 Express St., Plainview, NY
Recall status: Distributor notification in progress
Brand and product name: Aluminium Milk Pan 4, Silver Horse, 7 6554272863 7
Retailer: Patel Brothers, 830 W. Golf Rd., Schaumburg, IL
Manufacturer: Goyal Group Inc., 179 Express St., Plainview, NY
Recall status: Distributor notification in progress
Brand and product name: Aluminium Kadai India Bazaar, JK Vallabhdas, #3 2000000772
Retailer: INDIACO, 15 Golf Ctr., #17, Hoffman Estates, IL
Manufacturer: Grain Market LLC, 12626 International Pkwy., Dallas, TX
Recall status: Distributor notification in progress
FDA recommendations
Consumers should check their homes for the products and throw away the cookware. Do not donate or refurbish it.
Consumers who are concerned they may have been exposed to lead or elevated levels of lead should contact their healthcare provider.
Retailers and distributors are encouraged to consult with the FDA regarding the safety and regulatory status of any products used in contact with food that they market or distribute.
Additional questions can be sent to the FDA via email at premarkt@fda.hhs.gov.
It seems like a terrible time to build an electric vehicle plant in the United States, but Rivian Automotive leaders say they’re confident as the company starts long-delayed work on a $5 billion facility in Georgia.
The money-losing California-based company breaks ground Tuesday east of Atlanta despite President Donald Trumps successful push to roll back electric vehicle tax credits. Starting Sept. 30, buyers will no longer qualify for savings of up to $7,500 per car.
Rivian Chief Policy Officer Alan Hoffman said the company believes it can sell electric vehicles not for environmental or tax incentive reasons, but because they’re superior.
We did not build this company based upon federal tax incentives, Hoffman said. And were going to prove that were going to be successful in the future.
Georgia plant is key to a mass market and profitability
The Georgia plant, first announced in 2021, is Rivians key to reaching profitability. Now the company makes the high-end R1T pickup truck and the R1S sport utility vehicle in Normal, Illinois, as well as delivery vans for Amazon and others. Its truck prices start at $71,000.
The Illinois plant will begin making smaller R2 SUVs next year, with prices starting at $45,000. An expanded Illinois plant will be able to assemble 215,000 vehicles yearly. But if the R2 is a hit, and if Rivian successfully produces an even smaller R3, it will need more capacity. The company has said the Georgia operation will be able to make 200,000 vehicles yearly starting in 2028. It plans another 200,000 in capacity in phase two, volume that would spread fixed costs over many more vehicles.
The projections would be a big leap from the 40,000 to 46,000 vehicles Rivian expects to deliver this year, down from 52,000 last year. The company says its limiting production now in part to launch 2026 models.
For Rivian, its do-or-die time, said Alex Oyler, North American director of auto research firm SBD Automotive. We saw with Tesla that the key to profitability is scale, and you cant scale if your cheapest vehicle is $70,000. So they need that plant online to achieve a level of scale of R2 and ultimately R3.
Challenges in the electric vehicle market
Sales growth is slowing for electric vehicles in the United States, rising only 1.5% in 2025’s first half, according to Cox Automotive.
Tesla accounted for almost 45% of U.S. electric vehicle sales in that period, according to Cox. But the giant is losing market share as others gain: General Motors’ slice of American EV sales has climbed to 13%. By comparison, Rivian had a 3% share in the first half of the year, behind Tesla and six traditional automakers.
But excluding Tesla, Rivian is the most successful of the startup automakers.
The company initially tapped a largely unfilled niche: demand for electric pickups and SUVs. But the competition now includes Fords F-150 Lightning and the electric Chevrolet Silverado.
After an initial public offering in 2021, Rivian shares have fallen by more than 80%, while automaker shares overall have outpaced the broader stock market. Rivian lost $1.66 billion in 2025s first half.
At the same time, some automakers ardor for electric vehicles is cooling. Stellantis last week canceled Rams electric truck program. Ford has delayed production at a new Tennessee plant. And General Motors abandoned plans to build electric vehicles at a suburban Detroit plant.
With all the competition out there in this market and the slowing growth of EVs, it does not play in Rivians favor, said Sam Fiorani, a vice president at AutoForecast Solutions. However, there still is an EV market out there.
$1.5 billion in incentives for 7,500 jobs
Georgia has pledged $1.5 billion of incentives to Rivian in exchange for 7,500 company jobs paying at least $56,000 a year on average. Rivian cant benefit from most incentives unless it meets employment goals, but the state is already spending $175 million to buy and grade land and improve roads.
Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who has said he wants to make Georgia the electric mobility capital of America, acknowledges Rivian faces bumps, but says he remains confident the company can fulfill its promises.
While Tesla has thousands of employees in California and Texas, some new electric vehicle plants have sputtered. Two separate EV makers that hoped to assemble vehicles in a former GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio, went bankrupt. Georgias Hyundai complex near Savannah is faring better, with production underway. However, a battery plant there has been delayed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arresting 475 people on site, including more than 300 South Koreans.
Rivian was supposed to be making trucks by now at the 2,000-acre (800-hectare) site near Social Circle, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) east of Atlanta. As the company burned through cash in 2024, it paused construction. But German automaker Volkswagen agreed to invest $5.8 billion in Rivian in exchange for software and electrical technology. And then-President Joe Biden’s administration in November agreed to loan Rivian $6.6 billion/a> to build the Georgia plant.
Despite the Trump administration’s hostility toward EVs, Hoffman said Rivian hopes the U.S. Department of Energy will distribute the loan money, arguing it will boost domestic manufacturing.
Some neighbors still oppose the plant
Rivian also faces opposition from some residents who say the plant is an inappropriate neighbor to farms and will pollute the groundwater.
I planned on dying and retiring on the front porch and the biggest project in Georgia has to go next door to me, of all places in the country? asked Eddie Clay, who lives less than a mile away. He says his well water turned mud-choked after excavation at the Rivian site.
There are other challenges for Rivian, including tariffs costing $2,000 per vehicle, the Trump administration ending a tax-credit program that will cost the company $140 million in revenue this year, and long-term threats from low-priced, cutting-edge Chinese EVs. But Hoffman says Rivian is in this for the long haul.
We think that we can compete with anyone out there and that once given the opportunity, were going to excel, he said.
Jeff Amy and Alexa St. John, Associated Press
There was a time, back in the mid-2010s, when Starbucks was in its prime. It was an era characterized by handwritten notes on cups, signature purple chairs, and coffee houses teeming with people sitting down to enjoy a morning pick-me-up. Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol wants to revive that erastarting by adding hundreds of thousands of chairs back into its stores.
When its truly a third place, I think thats our point of difference, Niccol told audiences at the Fast Company Innovation Festival on September 16. Its why people fell in love with Starbucks. It’s why I fell in love with Starbucks 20 years ago.
Since those early days, Niccol added, Starbucks has become very transactional. Post-pandemic, the companys business model has been increasingly focused on mobile ordering, a system thats transformed the coffee house from a sit-down experience to something more like an endless, harried line. Niccols plan to turn the company around, called Back to Starbucks, hinges on the thesis that Starbucks is suffering from an overarching design problemand its using a design-led approach to make the Starbucks experience actually enjoyable again.
Starbucks to add hundreds of thousands of new seats in stores
In July 2024, Niccol was in between jobs. The restaurant industry executive had just exited his role at the helm of Chipotle, and was weeks away from starting his new gig at Starbucks. In the intervening time, he decided to visit as many Starbucks stores as possibleand what he saw was eye-opening.
I walked into stores, and outlets were covered. There weren’t enough seats. It was clear that we had prioritized a waiting area for mobile order, Niccol said, adding, We had done some things that did not deliver on having a great in-cafe experience.
The last several years have been fairly lackluster for Starbucks. Niccol told Fast Company in a recent interview that the once-dominant chains transactions peaked around 2019 and have remained fairly stagnant ever since. Starbucks brought in $36 billion in fiscal year 2024nearly flat with 2023by bumping costs to make up for dwindling customers. Other players, including the Chinese competitor Luckin Coffee and brands like Blank Street, Dunkin, and Dutch Bros, are slowly eating into Starbucks market share with creative, Gen Z-centric beverages.
So, Niccol is setting out to redesign the entire Starbucks experience. Already, hes brought back personalized touches like handwritten notes on cups and in-store condiment bars, as well as investing in new menu innovations for younger customers. And bigger changes are on the way: In the coming months, he said he plans to redesign 1,000 of Starbuckss 11,000 company-operated cafés in North America; revamp the brands pastry menu to offer more artisanal, protein-forward options; and bring ceramic mugs back to cafes.
Perhaps most notably, Niccol told audiences that hes reinstating the companys signature seating to the tune of hundreds of thousands of new seats in storesa major increase from his former estimate of 30,000 new seats. While these wont be the familiar purple seats of old, Niccol said they will be a contemporary version of that signature chair. Ultimately, he wants Starbucks to return to an institution that customers actually want to spend time in, rather than an experience to be endured.
I hear over and over and over again that the connection between the barista and our customers is unlike anything else, Niccol said. There are these examples where people walk in and the barista knows them so well that they’ve already made their drink before they’ve gotten to the [point of sale]. I wish every single one of our transactions was that intimate, that personal. That’s what we need to get to.
A Texas refinery that supplies green fuel to U.S. airlines has been purchasing animal fat from cattle raised on illegally cleared lands in the Amazon rainforest, according to a Reuters review of government tracking data, interviews and eyewitness accounts.
Louisiana-based Diamond Green Diesel, a joint-venture between biofuels producer Darling Ingredients and petroleum refiner Valero Energy, has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into a refinery in Port Arthur, Texas that turns cattle fatcalled tallowinto a cleaner alternative to petroleum-based jet fuel and diesel.
Diamond Green Diesel is a major player in the U.S. sustainable fuels market. It has collected over $3 billion in U.S. tax credits for producing biofuels since 2022, according to filings.
But interviews and documents show at least two Brazilian factories that supplied Diamond Green Diesel with tens of thousands of tons of cattle fat since 2023 are sourcing some of it from slaughterhouses that have bought animals from illegally deforested ranches in the Amazon rainforest.
Carriers such as JetBlue and Southwest Airlines, which struck deals with Valero to use the “green jet fuel, can claim credit for lowering their emissions because Diamond Green Diesel’s plant is certified under a United Nations agreement curbing the impact of aviation on the climate called CORSIA.
The global market for sustainable jet fuel is small, about $2.9 billion in 2025 according to analysis firm SkyQuest Technology Group, compared to the $239 billion global market for conventional aviation fuel. But government incentives are expected to help the market grow exponentially, pumping more resources into the Brazilian cattle industry, the leading driver of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
Pedro Piris-Cabezas, an economist at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, said any additional demand could result in the expansion of herds and directly or indirectly drive deforestation and forest degradation.
It could also violate Brazilian law. “Companies that profit from raw materials originating from a supply chain that involves deforestation, are also responsible for these illegalities,” said Ricardo Negrini, a Brazilian federal prosecutor who has opened a number of government investigations into the cattle industry.
Diamond Green Diesel, Darling Ingredients, Valero Energy, Southwest and JetBlue did not reply to multiple requests for comment, including detailed questions about the Brazilian tallow supply chain.
To track the tallow trade from illegally deforested ranches in the Amazon to Diamond Green Diesel, Reuters partnered with the nonprofit investigative outlet Reporter Brasil, which helped review court documents that link slaughterhouses to the tallow plants, corporate filings, trade data, and government cattle tracking records.
Reuters also interviewed over a dozen people involved in each step of the beef tallow supply chain, including traders, truck drivers, prosecutors, auditors and regulators.
Diamond Green Diesel sources tallow from multiple countries, and Reuters was unable to determine how much of it came from ranches in illegally-cleared land in the Amazon.
Tainted cattle
In 2022, Darling Ingredients CEO Randall Stuewe announced the $557 million acquisition of several plants in Brazil, including four in the Amazon region, that would supply waste fats to be used in the production of renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel,” according to a statement issued at the time.
Reuters found one of those rendering plants in Para state, called Araguaia, sourced cattle fat from at least five meatpackers that failed a May 2025 audit conducted by federal prosecutors for slaughtering 20,000 cattle from illegally deforested areas.
In 2023, Araguaia exported $4.4 million worth of beef tallow from the Amazon to Diamond Green Diesel, according to trade data from Import Genius.
In June, a Reuters journalist saw a truck with an Araguaia logo inside the Sao Francisco slaughterhouse, which failed an audit for buying cattle from farms on illegally deforested land.
The driver of the truck, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters he had been picking up carcasses at the Sao Francisco slaughterhouse and delivering them to the Araguaia plant for two years. Two other drivers and two Sao Francisco employees confirmed the slaughterhouse was an Araguaia supplier.
Sao Francisco didn’t confirm or deny that it is a supplier of the Araguaia plant. It said it has been cooperating with federal prosecutors since 2018 and that it hired an outside firm to monitor its supply chain.
Sao Francisco sources some of its cattle indirectly from Vale do Paraiso, a farm that had been blocked from grazing cattle since 2006 because 15 square miles of trees had been illegally razed, according to Brazil’s environmental protection agency, Ibama. Cattle tracking data shows that the cattle was moved from Vale do Paraiso to a farm with a clean record before it reached the slaughterhouse.
The agency unblocked Vale do Paraiso last year because a court determined that the statute of limitations had expired, but its owner Antonio Lucena Barros still owes over $3 million in fines for the deforestation there, according to government documents.
Barros lawyer Calebe Rocha said in a statement that his client is fighting the fines in court and has been granted an injunction that suspends the payment of the fine. He also said that no animals were sold from the part of Vale do Paraiso that Ibama had blocked due to deforestation.
Another plant owned by Darling Ingredients sourced fat from a slaughterhouse that confirmed to Reuters that it bought hundreds of cattle in 2022 and 2023 from rancher Bruno Heller, who Brazil’s Federal Police has described as possibly the Amazon’s biggest deforester in a 2023 investigation.
In a statement, Hellers lawyer Vinicius Segatto said Brazils environmental law is “excessively rigorous” and that the criminal case against his client is ongoing.
Fat to fuel
Airlines have been under pressure to buy more green jet fuel, which is now produced in tiny quantities, to meet industry targets of net zero emissions by 2050.
Supporters of the use of tallow as a biofuel assert that demand for it alone is unlikely to push ranchers to clear rainforest to grow their pastures because of its economic value less than 3% of what slaughterhouses get for each animal.
Diamonds imports from Brazil were certified as sustainable by the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC), a third-party certification body that approved Diamond’s plant for CORSIA.
To be eligible, biomass used for fuel cannot come from land that was deforested after 2008 or protected areas, but the ISCC told Reuters it did not investigate Diamond’s supply chain because it considers tallow a “byproduct” of the beef industry under CORSIA.
Three experts who helped design CORSIA told Reuters that the program allows producers to omit the score for carbon emissions and deforestation of the Amazon rainforest because it assumes demand for tallow is unlikely to push ranchers to grow their herds.
The International Civil Aviation Organization declined to comment when asked about whether it viewed deforestation in the tallow supply chain as a violation of its sustainability standards.
However, the agency said it is constantly monitoring the compliance of third-parties responsible for certifying sustainable aiation fuel producers and welcomes information on any potential deviations for further evaluation.
Fabio Teixeira, Manuela Andreoni, and Allison Lampert, Reuters
On Tuesday, AI startup OpenAI announced it would launch a new ChatGPT experience just for kids. The announcement explained that the latest ChatGPT was created as part of an effort to protect children’ s privacy.
“We prioritize safety ahead of privacy and freedom for teens; this is a new and powerful technology, and we believe minors need significant protection,” CEO Sam Altman explained in a blog post on Tuesday.
ChatGPT will direct under 18 users to the experience specifically created for kids. If the person’s age is unclear, the technology will default to the experience for kids. However, OpenAI says it’s also developing “a technology to better predict a user’s age,” too. “In some cases or countries we may also ask for an ID; we know this is a privacy compromise for adults but believe it is a worthy tradeoff,” the blog explained.
The ChatGPT for users under 18 was designed with some new parental controls, such as “blockout hours” when kids can’t talk to ChatGPT. It blocks sexual content, can’t flirt, and won’t engage in discussions about self-harm. Altman said that OpenAI will flag such messages and contact a user’s guardian if suicidal thoughts are mentioned. If they can’t be reached, OpenAI will reach out to the authorities “in case of imminent harm,” it noted.
The new kid-friendly experience comes less than a week after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced an investigation into how AI companies, including OpenAI, impact the well-being of children. AI chatbots can effectively mimic human characteristics, emotions, and intentions, and generally are designed to communicate like a friend or confidant, which may prompt some users, especially children and teens, to trust and form relationships with chatbots, the FTC said.
At the time, OpenAI said that making the technology “safe for everyone” is its top concern. We recognize the FTC has open questions and concerns, and were committed to engaging constructively and responding to them directly,” an OpenAI spokesperson said.
According to the announcement, the ChatGPT for users under 18 will be available at the end of the month.
Featuring Artemis Patrick, President and CEO, Sephora North AmericaModerated by Elizabeth Segran, Senior Staff Writer, Fast Company
Sephora isnt just shaping beautyits shaping culture. From its trendsetting beauty festival to partnering with Hulu for its Faces of Music docuseries to sponsoring women’s sports, the brand has become a force at the intersection of beauty, entertainment, and lifestyle. Under the leadership of Artemis Patrick, CEO of Sephora North America, the company is amplifying this influence while also embarking on its largest capital project yet: a full redesign of all 600+ North American stores over the next five years. Hear from Patrick on how Sephoras cultural reach and bold retail transformation are redefining what it means to be a modern brand.
The European Union is falling further behind global rivals on growth and governments are failing to grasp the urgency to act, former European Central Bank president and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi said on Tuesday.
Draghi, who delivered a far-reaching report on EU competitiveness at the European Commission’s request 12 months ago, said the EU’s growth model was “fading fast”, vulnerabilities were mounting and there was no clear path to financing necessary investments.
Draghi said the bloc had come up with ambitious plans, but it was moving ahead too slowly and governments had “not grasped the gravity of the moment”.
“To carry on as usual is to resign ourselves to falling behind. A different path demands new speed, scale and intensity. It means acting together, not fragmenting our efforts,” he told an audience of EU officials, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in Brussels.
Squeezed by U.S. tariffs
Draghi addressed a number of challenges facing the European Union, now squeezed by U.S. tariffs and a trade deficit with China that has expanded by 20% since December 2024.
In AI, the European Union was building gigafactories and expanding data centre capacity, but gaps were clear. The United States produced 40 large foundation modelslearning based on large datasetslast year, China 15 and the EU just three.
Draghi said more action was needed to address barriers to scaling up in Europe, regulation on the use of data and adoption of AI by industry.
Energy prices, such as natural gas nearly four times higher than in the United States, were also a constraint on technology, with AI electricity demand set to rise 70% in Europe by 2030.
Europe had structural problems to fix, but the main step taken by EU countries had been to subsidise prices for temporary relief.
“The more we push reforms, the more private capital will step up and the less public money we will need. Of course, this path will break long-standing taboos, but the rest of the world has already broken theirs,” Draghi said.
Philip Blenkinsop and Tierney Kugel, Reuters
Nissan Motor has reduced its production plan for the new model of its Leaf electric vehicle by more than half for September-November owing to delays in battery procurement, the Nikkei business daily said on Tuesday.
Lower than expected battery yields at a Nissan affiliate had caused the revision, the Nikkei said, adding that the Japanese automaker planned to release the new EV model by the end of the year.
The newspaper did not specify the original or revised production targets but said that the output plan has been cut by up to several thousand vehicles a month at its Tochigi plant in eastern Japan, where the new version of the Leaf is made for the U.S. and Japanese markets.
Nissan said it did not have any comment on speculative reports, adding that the new model was progressing on schedule towards its planned launch.
The company, which has gone from mass-market EV pioneer to laggard since its first model entered showrooms in 2010, is betting on the new version of its Leaf model to revive its fortunes.
This is not the first time Nissan’s EV production has hit a snag. Another of Nissan’s electric vehicles, the Ariya, was hampered by problems at its high-tech production line at the Tochigi plant in 2023, Reuters reported at the time.
Shares in Nissan closed 0.4% down before the Nikkei report, underperforming a 0.3% gain for the benchmark Nikkei average.
Daniel Leussink, Kiyoshi Takenaka and Satoshi Sugiyama, Reuters
Shares in Tesla Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) are finally positive again for the year, after the companys stock price closed up nearly 3% yesterday to $410.04. The companys stock price is up another point today as of the time of this writing to just above $415marking its highest point for the year since late January, when the electric vehicle makers stock began crashing. The companys stock price was trading below $400 on the first trading day of 2025.
However, while Teslas stock price is back in the black this year, its latest rise doesnt have anything to do with the companys fundamentals. Instead, it has to do with the actions of Elon Musk himself. Heres what you need to know about TSLAs recent return to growth.
Musk announces he bought $1 billion in TSLA shares
On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the previous Friday, his family foundation purchased 2.57 million shares in TSLA in various tranches throughout the day, reports CNBC. The total value of the TSLA shares Musk purchased totaled about $1 billion.
Following the news of Musks Friday share purchase, on Monday, TSLA stock rose, and it is again up today. The main reason for this is that investors see Musk’s family foundations purchase as a vote of confidence in the beleaguered EV maker. If Musk is buying shares in the company, many are likely to argue that he believes their value will increase, which causes other investors to buy into the stock, too.
But investors also seem to be taking Musks purchase of $1 billion worth of Tesla shares as a sign that Musk will also be devoting more time to the company. Throughout 2025, Musks attention has been diverted to his government and political antics. The Tesla CEO spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) during the first half of 2025and continues to be an outspoken critic of progressive and liberal politics in the United States and Europe.
Musks political antics have alarmed Tesla investors, who think his politics are distracting him from running his company. The Tesla CEOs controversial involvement in politics has also served to alienate many of Teslas more liberal customer baseone of the factors leading to declining Tesla sales in the United States and abroad throughout much of 2025.
With Musks $1 billion Tesla share purpose, many investors are hoping it signifies the CEO will redouble his focus on the company and away from alienation politics. Whether that happens, however, remains to be seen.
TSLAs chaotic 2025
Tesla shares began trading for the year just below $400 per share. They rose to above $428 by mid-January. But as Musks involvement with the Trump administration deepened and protests broke out at Tesla dealerships around the world, Teslas stock took a hit.
President Trumps Libaeration Day tariffs, announced in April, didnt do TSLA shares any favor either. That month, TSLA shares bottomed out below $220. Since then, however, Teslas stock has made a slow, cautious comeback, despite many hurdles for the company remaining, including increased competition from Chinas BYD and a slow robotaxi rollout.
However, as of yesterday, TSLA shares are now up more than 85% from their April lowsand are finally positive for the year.
Before Fridays roughly $1 billion TSLA share purchase, CNBC notes that Elon Musk last bought TSLA shares in 2020, when he purchased around 200,000 shares that were then worth about $10 million.
And in the future, Elon Musk could own even more shares of Tesla. The company has recently introduced a proposed pay package for Musk worth nearly $1 trillion, which would see the CEO get millions more shares in the company should Tesla, under his leadership, meet certain goals. This deal, if approved by shareholders, could make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
