Model 3 output short of goals
Electric car maker Tesla increased production of its Model 3 mass-market car in the first quarter but still fell far short of the 20,000-per-month rate it promised last summer.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company said it made just under 9,800 Model 3s from January through March. Still, its shares rose nearly 6 percent Tuesday on Wall Street.
U.S. auto sales up 6.3 percent
DETROIT — U.S. auto sales grew 6.3 percent in March because of rising sales of SUVs and pickup trucks.
Automakers sold more than 1.6 million vehicles for the month as buyers came out of hibernation after a cold, snowy winter in much of the country. Truck and SUV sales rose 16.3 percent, while car sales plunged 9.2 percent, according to Autodata Corp. Nearly twothirds of all vehicles sold were trucks or SUVs.
Bank will aid local veterans program
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is committing $100,000 to Combined Arms, which will build a 14-week program to coach, incubate and accelerate veteran-owned businesses.
Roughly 3,000 military veterans move to Houston each year, making it the secondlargest city for veterans to start, manage and expand small businesses, the bank said. Many need help translating their military skills into the marketplace.
“After risking their lives for our country, too many veterans come home to unemployment or underemployment,” Marty Goossen, vice chairman of the J.P. Morgan Private Bank, said in a news release. “This investment is our way of saying, ‘We must do better.’ ”
Combined Arms, a local support organization for military veterans, is partnering with Bunker Labs to build the 14-week program.
Bunker Labs provides educational programming, access to resources and networking opportunities to help military veterans start and expand their businesses.
Sky News could be sold to Disney
Sky News could be sold to Walt Disney or completely ring-fenced in concessions put forward Tuesday by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox as it seeks to bolster its chances of taking full control of the U.K. satellite broadcaster Sky.
The proposals are aimed at easing some of the regulatory concerns over the extent of Murdoch’s influence on British media if his 21st Century Fox is cleared to buy the 61 percent of Sky it doesn’t already own for $16.4 billion.
Google’s AI leader is going to Apple
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple has hired Google’s chief of search and artificial intelligence, John Giannandrea, a major coup in its bid to catch up to the artificial intelligence technology of its rivals.
Apple said Tuesday that Giannandrea will run Apple’s “machine learning and AI strategy,” and become one of 16 executives who report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook.
App to stop sharing users’ HIV status
Grindr, a gay dating app, will stop sharing users’ HIV statuses with third parties after a report disclosed that the company passed the information on to two vendors.
The company’s policy change came after a BuzzFeed report Monday that said personal data was being passed to two outside vendors hired by Grindr to test the performance of its app.
Grindr’s vendors, Apptimize and Localytics, are fed user data that includes HIV statuses, GPS data, phone numbers and e-mail addresses that, when combined, could expose someone’s private health information, researchers said.
In response to an outcry, Grindr will stop sharing users’ HIV status to outside vendors, according to someone close to the company who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In a separate statement Monday, Grindr said it would never sell personally identifiable information to third parties, including advertisers. Apptimize and Localytics are under contract to safeguard user privacy and security, the company said.
Morgan Stanley dismisses adviser
Morgan Stanley said Tuesday that it had fired a star financial adviser who has been accused by multiple former wives and girlfriends of physical abuse and stalking.
The New York Times reported last week that Morgan Stanley executives for years had known about the allegations against the financial adviser, Douglas Greenberg. The Wall Street firm placed Greenberg, who worked in Portland, Ore., on administrative leave last week after being contacted by the Times.
A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman said the bank needed to “do better” at handling such employee misconduct issues.