Lora Kolodny | |
|---|---|
 Kolodny in 2016 | |
| Education | Williams College (BA) |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Employer | CNBC.com |
Lora Kolodny is an American technology journalist who has written over 2000 articles for CNBC.com, TechCrunch, and other publications. [1] Kolodny is best known for her work on electric vehicle companies and climate technology, specifically for her coverage of Tesla. [2] [3] She is one of the journalists Elon Musk intentionally blocked on Twitter. [4]
Kolodny's early journalism career involved writing for Inc. magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, and FastCompany. [5] During this period, Kolodny also wrote for TechCrunch in New York as a cleantech writer and trends editor. [6] She then handled the venture capital beat for the Dow Jones VentureWire and The Wall Street Journal for four years, starting in 2012. [7] While at The Wall Street Journal, Kolodny broke stories about the Thiel Fellowship and celebrities investing in startups. [8] [9]
In 2016, Lora Kolodny rejoined TechCrunch as the publication's emerging technologies editor and video host, [6] and served as a moderator during TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016. [10] She joined CNBC.com in 2017 and continues to operate from San Francisco. [11]
Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman known for his key roles in the space company SpaceX and the automotive company Tesla, Inc. He is also known for his ownership of X Corp., and his role in the founding of the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink, and OpenAI. Musk is the wealthiest individual in the world; as of January 2025, Forbes estimates his net worth to be US$421 billion.
Tesla, Inc. is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar shingles, and related products and services.
Gary S. Gensler is an American government official and former investment banker serving as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Gensler previously worked for Goldman Sachs and has led the Biden–Harris transition's Federal Reserve, Banking, and Securities Regulators agency review team. Prior to his appointment, he was professor of Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
The Thiel Fellowship is a fellowship created by billionaire Peter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation in 2010. The fellowship is intended for students aged 22 or younger and offers them a total of $100,000 over two years, as well as guidance and other resources, to drop out of school and pursue other work, which could involve scientific research, creating a startup, or working on a social movement. Selection for the fellowship is through a competitive annual process, with about 20–25 fellows selected annually.
Carbon, Inc. is a digital manufacturing company that manufactures and develops 3D printers utilizing the Continuous Liquid Interface Production process. The company was founded in 2013, and maintains its headquarters in California, United States.
Tesla Energy Operations, Inc. is the clean energy division of Tesla, Incorporated that develops, manufactures, sells and installs photovoltaic solar energy generation systems, battery energy storage products and other related products and services to residential, commercial and industrial customers.
Marc Tarpenning is an American engineer and technology entrepreneur who co-founded Tesla Inc. with Martin Eberhard in 2003. Tarpenning served as the chief financial officer (CFO) and vice president of engineering of Tesla.
Tesla Autopilot is an advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) developed by Tesla that amounts to partial vehicle automation. Tesla provides "Base Autopilot" on all vehicles, which includes Autosteer, and traffic-aware cruise control. Owners may purchase or subscribe to Full Self-Driving (FSD) which adds semi-autonomous navigation that responds to traffic lights and stop signs, lane change assistance, self-parking, and the ability to summon the car from a garage or parking spot.
The Tesla Semi is a battery electric semi-trailer truck built by Tesla, Inc. since 2022. The truck is powered by three motors, and according to Tesla has approximately three times the power of a typical diesel semi truck, a range of 500 miles (800 km), and can operate at an energy use of less than two kilowatt-hours per mile (1.2 kW⋅h/km).
Gigafactory New York is factory leased by Tesla, Inc. in the Riverbend section of Buffalo, New York. The factory, owned by the State of New York, was built on brownfield land remediated from a former steel mill. Construction of the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. It produces the Tesla Solar Roof and Tesla Superchargers. Additionally, Tesla employs data analysts for its Autopilot software at the site.
Classy is a software company and online fundraising platform designed for nonprofit organizations. Headquartered in San Diego, California, Classy was founded by CEO Scot Chisholm, Pat Walsh, and Marshall Peden in 2006, originally to host fundraising events that benefit charities. The firm transitioned to a software and services company in 2010. Its software as a service products launched in 2011 and focus on peer-to-peer fundraising, crowdfunding, events, supporter management and marketing automation. In September 2016, Classy closed $30 million in Series C funding from JMI Equity, Peter Thiel's Mithril Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and Bullpen Capital. In April 2021, it raised $118 million in series D funding, making Classy a Public Benefit Corporation.
Andrej Karpathy is a Slovak-Canadian computer scientist who served as the director of artificial intelligence and Autopilot Vision at Tesla. He co-founded and formerly worked at OpenAI, where he specialized in deep learning and computer vision.
TSLAQ is a loose, international collective of largely anonymous short-sellers, skeptics, and researchers who openly criticize Tesla, Inc. and its CEO Elon Musk. The group primarily organizes on social media, often using the $TSLAQ cashtag, and on Reddit to coordinate efforts and share news, opinions, and analysis about the company and its stock. Edward Niedermeyer, in his book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors (2019), pinpoints the July 2018 doxxing of Twitter user Lawrence Fossi, a Seeking Alpha writer and Tesla short seller operating under the pseudonym Montana Skeptic, as the catalyst for the formation of TSLAQ.
PlainSite is a US based website dedicated to legal data transparency advocacy developed in conjunction by Think Computer Corporation and the charitable organization Think Computer Foundation. PlainSite provides both free and paid access to legal documents and information about the US legal system on a variety of subjects and caselaw. The website previously collected legal documents via the Free Law Project's RECAP archive until the archive adopted a fee-based approach.
Tesla, Inc. has been criticized for its cars, workplace culture, business practices, and occupational safety. Many of the criticisms are also directed toward Elon Musk, the company's CEO and Product Architect. Critics have also accused Tesla of deceptive marketing, unfulfilled promises, and fraud. The company is currently facing criminal and civil investigations into its self-driving claims. Critics have highlighted Tesla's downplaying of issues, and Tesla's alleged retaliation against several whistleblowers.
Optimus, also known as Tesla Bot, is a general-purpose robotic humanoid under development by Tesla, Inc. It was announced at the company's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Day event on August 19, 2021, and a prototype was shown in 2022. CEO Elon Musk stated in 2022 that he thinks Optimus "has the potential to be more significant than [Tesla's] vehicle business over time." Media and expert opinions based on corporate showcases have been mixed.
Edward "Ed" Niedermeyer is an American author, analyst, and critic who focuses on the automotive industry and mobility innovation. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The Truth About Cars, and The Wall Street Journal, and in 2019, his book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors was released. Niedermeyer cohosts The Autonocast, a podcast about autonomous vehicles technology and its effects.
X.AI Corp., doing business as xAI, is an American startup company working in the area of artificial intelligence (AI). Founded by Elon Musk in March 2023, its stated goal is "to understand the true nature of the universe".
Elon Musk is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$486 billion as of December 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $464 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla, Inc. and SpaceX. In November 2021, he became the first person in the world to have a net worth above $300 billion, and in December 2024, he became the first person to reach a net worth of $400 billion.