MADE Conversations: Innovation and workplace culture
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — In the second episode of MADE Conversations, News 8's Mike Cerulli and WICC's Melissa Sheketoff talked about innovation, workplace culture, hiring and entertaining employees.
Connecticut's Chief Marketing Officer Anthony Anthony, Public Policy Associate at Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA) Jenna Grasso and Managing Director at the Connecticut Office of Innovation Jessica Dodge were guests on the show.
Watch the episode in the video above.
The first event of the MADE series, a quarterly business leadership series designed to support Connecticut's industry professionals and entrepreneurs, took place in April at Rentschler Field in East Hartford.
Upcoming MADE events include:
Reputation MADE | October 2025 in the greater Fairfield County area, addressing how businesses can differentiate themselves and stand out in a crowded media ecosystem with authentic and strong brands.
Learn more at https://connecticut-made.com/.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Tesla's China-Made EV Sales Drop Y/Y in May: Is Price War a Suspect?
Tesla's TSLA sales of China-made EVs continued to decline for the eighth consecutive month in May due to intensifying price wars in the world's largest auto market. Per the China Passenger Car Association data, combined domestic and export deliveries to Europe and other markets of the Model 3 and Model Y dropped 15% year over year in May to 61,662 units, following a drop of 6% in April. Tesla's EV sales slump persisted across much of Europe last month, primarily due to its aging lineup and the negative impact of CEO Elon Musk's political involvement on consumer boost demand in China, its largest market in the first quarter, Tesla allowed smart-assisted driving features to be transferred to new vehicles in China starting in late May and continuing through the end of June. Additionally, the Model 3 and Model Y were included in a government initiative promoting EV adoption in rural areas for the first time this year. TSLA carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) at present. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks which triggered a price war in 2023 that now involves more than 40 brands and shows no signs of easing, is under pressure from new, competitively priced EVs offering strong performance. China has called for an end to aggressive price wars, especially after BYD Company Limited BYDDY introduced new incentives on more than 20 models in late May, leading Geely Automobile Holdings Limited GELYY and Chery to adopt similar measures. BYD, Tesla's key contender, slashed the price of its cheapest model, the pure battery-powered Seagull EV, to 55,800 yuan. BYD's global passenger car sales rose 14.1% year over year in May, but the growth slowed from April's 19.4%.Geely Auto, an auto manufacturer based in Hangzhou, China, also reduced prices, offering discounts between 9,000 yuan and 16,000 yuan on selected models, such as the Xingyuan EV and entry-level Galaxy E8 sedan. Through these limited-time promotions, which ended June 1, Geely Auto aimed to stimulate sales, reduce inventory and benefit from government incentives intended to support EV transitions. Tesla has underperformed the Zacks Automotive-Domestic industry year to date. TSLA shares have lost 17.8% compared with the industry's decline of 14.8%. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research From a valuation perspective, Tesla appears overvalued. Going by its price/sales ratio, the company is trading at a forward sales multiple of 10.23, higher than its industry's 2.75. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2025 and 2026 EPS has moved down 13 cents and 16 cents, respectively, in the past 30 days. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. (GELYY) : Free Stock Analysis Report Byd Co., Ltd. (BYDDY) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Inicia sesión para acceder a tu portafolio
CNBC
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Tesla already had big problems. Then Musk went to battle with Trump
Tesla has been facing massive challenges trying to get back on track after a disastrous first quarter. Those headwinds strengthened considerably this week. CEO Elon Musk officially concluded his term with the Trump administration at the end of May, hitting the 130-day mark, the maximum time allowed for a "special government employee." On his way out the door, Musk expressed sharp criticism of the Trump's signature spending bill that's being debated in Congress due to its expected impact on the national debt. What started off as a policy disagreement quickly escalated into an all-out online brawl, with Musk and President Donald Trump hurling insults at one other from their respective social media platforms. After Musk called the "one, big beautiful bill" an "abomination" and rallied his followers on X to "kill the bill," Trump said Musk had gone "CRAZY" and threatened to end government contracts and cut off subsidies for Musk's companies. Musk responded, "Go ahead, make my day." The rift sent Tesla shares plummeting 14% on Thursday, wiping out roughly $152 billion in value, the most for any day in the company's 15 year-history on the public market. While Musk is still the richest person in the world on paper, his net worth plunged by $34 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. More importantly, the spat brought about the collapse to a relationship that blended business, politics and power in a manner virtually unprecedented in U.S. history. The ramifications to Tesla, which fell out of the trillion-dollar club on Thursday, could be severe, and not just because Trump is reportedly considering selling or giving away the red Model S he purchased in March after turning the White House lawn into a Tesla showroom. A senior White House official told NBC News on Friday that the president was "not interested" in having a call with Musk to resolve their feud. Ire from the Trump administration could influence everything from future regulation, investigations and government support for Tesla, to decisions on tariff exemptions the company has been seeking in order to purchase Chinese-made manufacturing equipment. Tesla shares were badly underperforming the broader market before the Musk-Trump breakup. Revenue slid 9% in the first quarter from a year earlier, with auto revenue plummeting 20%, due to the combination of increased competition from lower-cost EV makers in China and a consumer backlash to Trump's political activities and rhetoric. It's certainly not what Tesla shareholders were expecting, when they sent the stock up about 30% in the days following Trump's election victory in November. After spending close to $300 million to return Trump to the White House, Musk was poised to have a major role in the administration and be in position to push through regulatory changes in ways that benefited his companies. Instead, his company has suffered, and Musk's behavior is largely to blame. One of his most divisive actions in leading the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was the dismantling of USAID, which previously delivered billions of dollars of food and medicine to more than 100 countries. Beyond the U.S., Musk has endorsed Germany's far-right extremist party AfD, and gave a gesture that many viewed as a Nazi salute at an inauguration rally. In response, in recent months, there were numerous cases of vandalism or arson of Tesla facilities or vehicles in the U.S., as well as waves of peaceful protests at Tesla stores and service centers in North America and Europe. Advertisements in protest of Musk have appeared in New York's Times Square, and at bus shelters in London, urging people to boycott Tesla, some labeling the company's EVs as "swasticars." The Vancouver International Auto Show even removed Tesla from its exhibitors' list fearing the company's presence would cause safety problems. On top all that are President Trump's sweeping tariffs, which have led to concerns that costs will increase for parts and materials crucial for EV production. In its first-quarter earnings report in April, Tesla refrained from promising growth this year and said it will "revisit our 2025 guidance in our Q2 update." Pension funds that invest in Tesla have said the "crisis" at the company requires a leader to work a minimum of 40 hours per week to focus on solving its problems. Public officials are echoing that sentiment, and calling on Tesla's board to take action. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said on Thursday in s statement to CNBC that the "schoolyard fight" between Trump and Musk highlights how "Tesla's weak accountability measures and poor governance threaten not only the company's financial stability and shareholder value, but also the future of homegrown EV production." Brooke Lierman, comptroller of Maryland, told CNBC in an email that the company's board "is not doing its job to ensure that there is a CEO at Tesla who is putting the company's interests first." Since Musk's name is synonymous with Tesla, the board needs to ensure that Tesla can stand on its own regardless of who's leading the company, she added. "Musk's behavior continues to threaten the future of Tesla," Lierman said. "As long as Tesla is identified with Elon Musk and he continues to be a polarizing figure, he will continue to damage the brand which is a huge part of Tesla's value." Musk didn't respond to a request for comment. CNBC also reached out for comment to board chair Robyn Denholm and directors and executives who work in government relations and in the office of the CEO. None of them responded as of the time of publication. Tesla investors focused on business fundamentals are justified in their skepticism. The company has failed to roll out innovative and affordable new model EVs, while Chinese competitors like BYD have flooded the market, particularly in Europe. Analysts at Goldman Sachs on Thursday lowered their price target on Tesla mostly due to the outlook for 2025. Deliveries this quarter are tracking lower for the U.S., the analysts noted, while European sales saw a 50% year-over-year decline in April and another double-digit drop in May. China sales from those two months were down about 20% from a year earlier. Quality is also a problem. Tesla has announced eight voluntary recalls of the Cybertruck in 15 months due to a range of issues including software bugs and sticking accelerator pedals. Musk is urging investors to largely ignore the core business and look to the future, which he says is all about autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots. But even there, Tesla is behind. In AVs the company has ceded ground to Alphabet's Waymo, which is operating commercial robotaxi services in several U.S. markets. After a decade of missed deadlines, Musk has promised a small launch of a Tesla driverless ride-hailing service in Austin this month. The Austin robotaxi service will operate in a geofenced area, Musk said in a recent interview with CNBC's David Faber, and will begin with a small fleet of just 10 to 20 Model Y vehicles with Full Self-Driving (FSD) Unsupervised technology installed. If all goes well, Musk has said, Tesla will try to rapidly expand its driverless offerings to other markets like San Francisco and Los Angeles. What consumers won't be seeing anytime soon are the Cybercab and Robovan vehicles that Tesla touted at its "We, Robot" event last year to drum up customer and investor enthusiasm. On Friday, Milan Kovac, Tesla's vice president of Optimus robotics, announced he was leaving after joining the company in 2016. Musk thanked him for his "outstanding contribution" in a post on X. Still, there are plenty Tesla bulls and Musk fanboys who are believers in the CEO's vision. The stock's 4% rebound on Friday is a sign that some saw an opportunity to buy the dip. "I think the real story here is the investor base of Tesla literally doesn't care about anything," Josh Brown, CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and CNBC PRO contributor, told CNBC's "Halftime Report" Friday. "This is still a nothing matters stock." FundStrat's Tom Lee said the Tesla selloff was "overdone." Tesla's market cap, which is dramatically inflated relative to every other U.S. car maker, is built on Musk's vision of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots doing factory work and babysitting our children, while self-driving Cybercabs and Robovans make money carting around passengers. Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas wrote in a note this week that, "Tesla still holds so many valuable cards that are largely apolitical," pointing to what he sees as the company's "AI leadership, autonomy/robotics, manufacturing, supply chain re-architecture, renewable power, [and] critical infrastructure." In terms of Tesla's existing business, the most immediate impact from what's happening in Washington D.C., is the rollback of EV credits in the current budget bill that Musk loudly opposes and that's struggling to find sufficient support in the Senate. There's also the matter of the tariffs and whether Tesla is able to get preferred treatment, a proposition that seems increasingly unlikely with the Musk-Trump fallout. Matthew LaBrot, a former Tesla staff program manager, told CNBC that he's not surprised that Musk blew up his relationship with the president. LaBrot was terminated earlier this year after sending an open letter in protest of Musk's divisive political activity. "I am devastated for the country and the climate, though Elon only has himself to blame," LaBrot said in an interview. "Back a loose canon, expect stray canon fire." Tesla investors can't know at the moment how much of Musk's energy and time will now return to his lone public company, and the business responsible for the vast majority of his wealth. Even without politics, he still has SpaceX, AI startup xAI and brain tech startup Neuralink, among other businesses. As of Thursday, Musk still had a West Wing office that hadn't been cleaned out, two administration officials told NBC News. The space will likely be packed up in the coming days, one of the officials said. And while his time in the Trump camp may be over, Musk has called on his followers to form a new party in the U.S. "Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?" he wrote on X on Thursday, in a post that's now pinned at the top of his page. According to the post, 80% of 5.6 million respondents to the unofficial poll said "yes." Musk's actions this week may have caused a permanent rift with the president. But one thing is clear — his company can't get away from the White House.
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4 hours ago
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Class-Action Lawsuit Accuses the Archery Industry of Price Fixing
A proposed class-action lawsuit filed in federal court last week is accusing the archery industry of colluding to fix prices of products at all levels. The suit, which was filed May 30 in U.S. District Court in Utah, names big-box store retailers like Bass Pro Shops, bowmakers like Mathews, and the Archery Trade Association for conspiring 'to fix the prices of — and eliminate price discounting and competition for — archery products.' The suit was first reported by Reuters on Monday. The 63-page lawsuit hinges on a policy known as Minimum Advertised Pricing, or MAP. Many archery companies and outdoor retailers won't sell their archery equipment, particularly compound bows, for less than a certain amount. If a bow shop undercuts agreed upon prices, manufacturers can — and have — enforced their MAP policies by revoking a shop's authorized dealer status for their brand. The lawsuit accuses the ATA of a 'campaign to artificially raise prices through MAP policies.' MAP policies grew from a need to combat online retail giants like Amazon. The global retailer began undercutting brick and mortar shops by selling products at discount, and without the previously included advice and bow servicing that local sporting goods stores offered customers for free when they purchased equipment. For example, flagship bows from top companies like Mathews, Hoyt, PSE, Bowtech, and others are not sold online. So if you want to purchase the new Mathews, you must show up in person at an authorized dealer. Usually, your local bow shop won't sell you a new bow below the MAP. While there, however, you'll have the opportunity to test-shoot bows and have a bow technician set up your bow properly. If new top bows were to be sold online and shipped directly to your home, industry insiders agree that local bow shops would be doomed. In recent years there's also been a rise in knock-off companies ripping off the design and packaging of top archery products, then selling them at discounted prices online. Customers would think they were buying a brand's top-tier broadheads, but actually receive a cheaper Chinese-made product. Warranty claims began to increase, and archery companies found themselves dealing with quality control and brand degradation. MAP policies were designed to help address this. MAP is a complicated issue, according to industry insiders, but such practices are legal when executed correctly and do not qualify as price fixing as defined by the Federal Trade Commission. The key distinction is that price fixing usually occurs between competitors, while MAP pricing occurs throughout the entire industry. 'MAP is generally legal if it's implemented unilaterally by the manufacturer,' says one former archery industry insider, who asked not to be identified due to the pending litigation. 'Price fixing is when competitors agree to a fixed price. And of course, a manufacturer and a retailer aren't competitors: one is a supplier, one is the seller.' The key, they emphasize, is 'unilaterally.' That means a manufacturer cannot favor one shop or distributor by offering one better pricing. Meanwhile, as e-commerce sales of low-priced and knock-off archery products continued to grow, bow manufacturers and accessory makers looked for an industry-wide solution. To protect their brand values and the industry itself, many companies began implementing MAP policies. 'MAP was completely legal,' the source says. 'No one was suggesting retailers fix prices and force consumers to buy X product at Z price. That never happened and never would have happened. And obviously retailers wouldn't have agreed to it. Retailers want the ability to do things their own way.' Another consideration is that price fixing is often done secretly — because it's illegal. MAP policies are widely publicized by everyone from the ATA to individual manufacturers. (You can find Bowtech's MAP policy here.) One key allegation the lawsuit may be seeking to prove, however, is that the industry tried to enforce not just the advertised price, but the sales price of archery equipment. 'Do I think there's price fixing? No, I've never participated in it. I know that I have dealers sell way below MAP in their store, but they do not advertise that way. And that is their decision. That is their store. I cannot dictate what they sell it for,' said one bow company executive who was not authorized by their legal team to speak publicly about the lawsuit. 'It's a slippery slope because if there's no protection from an advertising standpoint, the big guys are gonna gobble up the small guys. There are shops in the country right now that sell Mathews at $50 to a $100 over cost so that they will sell every Mathews within a 150 mile radius and try to push the smaller guys out of business. I've been told that by big dealers. They don't advertise it but people just know they go in there, you know, they're gonna pay $50 to a hundred over as opposed to $350 to $400 over. So if they could start advertising on what they want and there's nothing we could do, it would drive half the shops in this country out of business.' Because ATA is a non-profit organization, its records are subject to public records requests. The lawsuit is packed with excerpts of these statements that are intended to bolster the price-fixing argument. Here are a few examples: 'These coordinated MAPs have benefited the industry collectively, allowing retailers and distributors to 'strive for a minimum of 40% profit,' according to the industry trade association National Archery Buyers Association ('NABA'). As one Archery Products retailer observed, 'Every dealer I have ever talked to thinks everything in archery is overpriced today, just as I do . . . . [I]s archery overpriced, absolutely.' 'The ATA explained that 'MAP . . .policies help retailers stay in tune with the market and margin expectations. In other words, if you understand and follow a manufacturer's MAP policy, you'll be better positioned to make more money and run a successful business.' The suit is brought by plaintiff Joseph Santarlas from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, 'on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated.' In other words, anyone who has bought the archery products referenced in the suit. Santarlas was working Friday and was not immediately available for comment when reached by phone. None of the eight attorneys who signed their names to the lawsuit have replied to Outdoor Life's repeated requests for comment this week. Four different firms, with offices in California, Washington D.C., New York, and Pennsylvania, are listed as counsel for the plaintiff. Most of the firms specialize in antitrust and class-action lawsuits. One industry insider noted that the defendants named in the suit are all larger companies with deeper pockets that might be able to settle such a lawsuit before ever reaching court. Smaller manufacturers and mom-and-pop bow shops are not named. The lawsuit names: Hoyt Bowtech Mathews PSE Cabela's Dick's Bass Pro Shop Jay's Sporting Goods Kinsey's Outdoors Lancaster Archery Supply Archery Trade Association Two software companies that helped companies track MAP pricing Most companies listed in the lawsuit, including Bass Pro Shops, did not return requests for comment or declined to comment to OL. The Archery Trade Association also did not return a call for comment, but issued a brief public statement via email on Friday shortly after OL reached out. Read Next: The Heavy Arrow Trend Is Dead. Speed Is Back 'The Archery Trade Association has learned of a recently filed lawsuit against the ATA and a group of archery manufacturers, distributors and retailers,' reads the statement. 'The complaint seeks relief related to Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP) policies dating back more than a decade. The ATA is in the process of preparing an appropriate response to the complaint and looks forward to a swift and favorable conclusion to this matter.' Scott Einsmann contributed reporting.
