At the beginning of this year, Elon Musk had a fortune of $251 billion and could almost single-handedly solve world hunger. However, Tesla's stagnant sales, the endless struggle to buy Twitter, and the volatility of Tesla's stock price meant he lost a lot of money this year. According to Forbes, Musk is the billionaire with the most losses so far this year, with his wealth shrinking at a rate of about $5 billion a month. According to the website, his wealth shrank by more than 10% from the end of 2023 to June 28, 2024. As the website explains: Between December 31, 2023, and June 28, the last day of regular stock market trading for the first half of the year, Musk's net worth fell from $251.3 billion to $221.4 billion, a bigger drop than any other billionaire tracked by Forbes, but Musk remains the richest person on the planet. The main reason for the dip in Musk's pocketbook is that a Delaware judge in January canceled Musk's then-record Tesla compensation package worth $51 billion, which led Forbes to cut the value of the equity award by 50 percent because of uncertainty about whether Musk would receive those stock options. Excluding that bonus, Musk's wealth has remained volatile over the past six months, with the value of his 13 percent stake in Tesla shrinking by about $20 billion as falling profits and car deliveries sent the stock down 20 percent. But that was partly offset by the growth of Musk's stake in his generative artificial intelligence startup xAI to $14.4 billion (Musk also has a roughly $75 billion stake in private aerospace company SpaceX, a $7 billion stake in social media company X, And smaller stakes in other companies, such as brain experimentation startup Neuralink).

From the perspective of the two major markets of the United States and China, the autonomous driving industry has fallen into a low tide in recent years. For example, last year, Cruise Origin, one of the twin stars of Silicon Valley autonomous driving companies and once valued at more than $30 billion, failed completely, its Robotaxi (driverless taxi) operation qualification was revoked, and autonomous driving models have been discontinued. However, as a new track with the deep integration of digital economy and real economy, automatic driving is a must answer: on the one hand, automatic driving will accelerate the process of technology commercialization and industrialization, and become an important part of the game of major powers; On the other hand, autonomous driving will also promote industrial transformation and upgrading by improving the mass travel service experience, seeking new engines for urban development, and injecting new vitality into the urban economy.

On July 8, local time, former British Prime Minister Sunak announced the appointment of the Conservative Party Shadow Cabinet, which is the first shadow cabinet of the Conservative Party in 14 years. Several former British cabinet members during Sunak's tenure as prime minister were appointed to the Conservative Party Shadow Cabinet, including James Cleverly as Shadow Home Secretary and Jeremy Hunt as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. But former Foreign Secretary Cameron was not appointed as Shadow Foreign Secretary. In addition, the new leader of the Conservative Party will be elected as early as this week. On July 4, the UK held a parliamentary election. The counting results showed that the British Labour Party won more than half of the seats and won an overwhelming victory; the Conservative Party suffered a disastrous defeat, ending its 14-year continuous rule.

Samsung Electronics expects its profits for the three months to June 2024 to jump 15-fold compared to the same period last year. An artificial intelligence (AI) boom has lifted the prices of advanced chips, driving up the firm's forecast for the second quarter. The South Korean tech giant is the world's largest maker of memory chips, smartphones and televisions. The announcement pushed Samsung shares up more than 2% during early trading hours in Seoul. The firm also reported a more than 10-fold jump in its profits for the first three months of this year. In this quarter, it said it is expecting its profit to rise to 10.4tn won ($7.54bn; £5.9bn), from 670bn won last year. That surpasses analysts' forecasts of 8.8tn won, according to LSEG SmartEstimate. "Right now we are seeing skyrocketing demand for AI chips in data centers and smartphones," said Marc Einstein, chief analyst at Tokyo-based research and advisory firm ITR Corporation. Optimism about AI is one reason for the broader market rally over the last year, which pushed the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq in the United States to new records on Wednesday. The market value of chip-making giant Nvidia surged past $3tn last month, briefly holding the top spot as the world's most valuable company. "The AI boom which massively boosted Nvidia is also boosting Samsung's earnings and indeed those of the entire sector," Mr Einstein added. Samsung Electronics is the flagship unit of South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group. Next week, the tech company faces a possible three-day strike, which is expected to start on Monday. A union of workers is demanding a more transparent system for bonuses and time off.

After Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a video on his Facebook and Instagram accounts of his free time during the Independence Day holiday on the X platform, Musk said, "I prefer to work." Zuckerberg posted a video of himself surfing on a hydrofoil in a tuxedo, waving an American flag and drinking a beer, and wrote: "Happy birthday America." The video quickly went viral, and after greg shared it on the X platform, Musk replied: "I hope he continues to have fun on the yacht." I prefer to work." Musk, a workaholic, attended the 29th annual Barron Investment Conference in November 2022, where he said: "My workload went from 78 hours a week to 120 hours a week..." In 2018, he slept on the floor of the Gigafactory in Fremont in an effort to ramp up production of the Tesla Model 3.