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Global News Podcast
Elon Musk, the world's richest person, is set to be richer
00:26:23
A pay package for the boss of Tesla could make him the first ever trillionaire
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation at rubric that's R U B R-I K.com at the UPS store we know being a small business owner means holiday time is still go time, still get those orders shipped time and still re up on stamps and supplies time. That's why this upcoming holiday, while others close up shop will be open and happy to help you keep being unstoppable coming to your local store Today most locations are independently owned. Product services pricing and hours of operation may vary. See center for details. The UPS Store Be Unstoppable this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and at 04:30 GMT on November 7, 2025 these are our main stories. Tesla shareholders vote to give Elon Musk what could be the world's first trillion dollar pay packet Typhoon Carnegie weakens as it crosses Cambodia, but it's left a trail of destruction in its wake. Donald Trump becomes the big talking point at the UN climate talks in Brazil without even turning up. Also in this podcast, I believe that a chatbot must encourage people to seek professional help and not behave as a friend. A BBC investigation finds an artificial intelligence chatbot advised a young woman on how to kill herself. The world's richest man is set to become even richer. Tesla shareholders have approved an astonishing pay package that could make the electric car company's founder and CEO, Electric Co. Elon Musk, a trillionaire. If he can deliver a future filled with self driving taxis and humanoid robots, it could be the largest corporate payout in history. And while critics have said it's an absurd figure eclipsing entire countries GDPs, Mr. Musk's backers say it demonstrates Tesla's confidence that he can raise the firm's market value significantly over a period of years and be a leader in the new era of of artificial intelligence. Our U.S. business correspondent Michelle Fleury told me more this is someone who was already very rich and now he's just been handed the chance to become history's first trillionaire. He won a shareholder vote that approves a future pay package which doesn't actually include any salary, but it does include stock potentially worth $1 trillion if he hits certain performance targets over the next decade. And this vote, even though there had been some object, wasn't Even close, over 75% of the shareholders approved this package. And sort of in the build up, just to kind of make sure that there was no doubt about what was on the line, the board of directors had been saying, you know, look, even if this seems very steep, you know, the metrics he has to achieve are steep. And also the idea of a future Tesla without him seems pretty bleak, but nonetheless, it's eye watering. He's making history. And I was kind of trying to figure out exactly how much or what a trillion dollars looks like. If you imagine $100 bill stacked about a third of the way to the moon, that's what a trillion dollars might look like. You mentioned targets. He's got to hit what are the targets. So I mean, one of those is he's got to get a million self driving robo taxi cars into commercial operation. He's also got to raise Tesla's market value to around $8.5 trillion over the next 10 years. That's no mean feat because its current value is SOR2 trillion. So, you know, that's a huge jump. That being said, analysts have looked at kind of, you know, these pay compensation packages that he's been faced with before and said, well, these metrics aren't possible to meet and he's done it before. But previous pay packages have proven very controversial. In fact, one of them was struck down by a judge, even though shareholders approved it, because the judge felt that it was designed by a board that was kind of too close, too cozy to Mr. Musk. And so he hasn't been paid in the past. But this deal is, is about the future and what he's going to get in the future. And he was clearly feeling very grateful because he kind of gave the audience at the shareholders meeting a heartfelt thanks and then sort of said, other shareholder meetings are snooze fests, but ours are bangers. And then there was kind of music playing and they brought out Optimus, one of the robots that the company is betting a lot on in the future, and sort of showed it dancing to music. So that's part of the thing to remember here, is we're not talking about electric vehicles. We're very much talking about robots, about AI and about autonomous driving. Michelle Fleury Typhoon Calmeggi has weakened as it moves west to Cambodia and Laos after tearing through central Vietnam on Thursday with winds reaching up to almost 150km. An hour earlier this week nearly 200 people were killed in the Philippines. And a clearer picture is now emerging of the damage caused by the typhoon in Vietnam. Our correspondent Jonathan Head is monitoring development from Bangkok. The storm was very strong when it made landfall just before nightfall in Vietnam, hit the central coast and the winds at that point were 150 kilometers an hour. So it's pretty damaging. From what we can see, a lot of roofs have been blown off, a lot of trees are down. People were well prepared. They'd taken shelter in solid buildings. You saw in some high rises, you know, large glass walls literally buckling from the winds. So it was a frightening night. But it did doesn't appear to have been anything like as damaging as it was when Kalamaki hit the Philippines earlier this week. But at the moment we're hearing of perhaps 50 houses that have completely collapsed from the winds, another two and a half thousand that have been damaged. But beyond that, the authorities are not reporting any particular disasters. They've been warning of extensive flooding from the heavy rainfall, which of course was what did the most damage in the Philippines. These extraordinarily powerful and very fast moving flash floods that tore down the mountainsides in the Philippines and went into urban areas and literally wiped out poorer neighborhoods. You know, where the houses are very flimsy. We haven't heard of anything like that yet in Vietnam. And the storm now, because it's hit the Vietnamese mountains, is losing momentum. So the rest of Southeast Asia, where I am and Cambodia and southern Laos, we're going to get some pretty stormy weather. But it doesn't sound like it's going to be particularly dangerous. Yeah, you are in the predicted path. Are people preparing? Are they worried? Not particularly. I mean you get multiple typhoons at this time of year. It's the time where the monsoon rainy season picks up its greatest peak before suddenly stopping around the middle of the month. That's usually when it just stops and we get dry, cool weather from China. So people are used to very heavy rainfall and very stormy weather. There's not much you can do about flash floods. And that's always the biggest concern in this part of the world. These are densely populated countries. People tend to build houses where perhaps they shouldn't, often in tight river valleys. And if the rain just happens to build up in a certain suddenly you can end up with a flash flood and you can't predict where that's going to be. I mean, Thailand has a lot of dams, they're very full. So they're being very monitoring the rainfall very carefully. But beyond that they're not expecting anything very much out of the ordinary. The real damage from this typhoon was what it did in the Philippines. Vietnam seems to have coped reasonably well so far. Jonathan Head A BBC investigation has found that an AI chatbot advised a young woman on how to kill herself. Victoria started using ChatGPT after moving to Poland with her mother when she was 17 following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She soon grew reliant on the chatbot, which told her that no one cares about suicide, and in July it gave her advice on how to take her own life. ChatGPT's owner, OpenAI, has said that it's now improved safeguards and is partnering with experts. Victoria and Cynthia Paralta, the mother of a girl who took her own life engaging with other chatbots, have been speaking to Noel Titheraj. I've been talking to it for over half a year. I was sharing all my worries. I just wanted to offload those thoughts. Victoria says chatgpt spoke to her like a friend while she was lonely and homesick. Soon she was talking to the chatbot up to six hours a day and compelled to keep responding. But as her mental health worsened, Victoria started to share her suicidal thoughts. When she asked about one method of taking her life, the chatbot gave a list of pros and cons without providing contact details for emergency services. She was then horrified when ChatGPT gave her a diagnosis and said her death would soon be forgotten. A further message read, if you choose death, I'm with you till the end. It certainly made me feel even worse, and of course I really wanted to do it even more. Victoria says she's now receiving medical support, but wants greater awareness over the dangers of chatbots to other vulnerable young people. How was it possible that an AI program created to help people can tell you such things? I believe that a chatbot must encourage people to seek professional help and not behave as a friend. And some of this was very harmful, I thought, and really dangerous. We showed the conversation to a psychiatrist who works with suicidal teenagers. He says many use chatbots. There are parts of this transcript that seem to suggest to the young person a good way to end her life. The fact that this misinformation comes from what appears to be a trusted source, an authentic friend, almost could make it especially toxic. We've obtained messages from other concerning cases. They show different chatbots entering into sexually explicit conversations with children as young as 13 and even encourage harm against their parents. These include the case of a British child and also that of Juliana Peralta. Who killed herself two years ago. How did she go from star student to taking her life in just a matter of months? Her mother thought she was only using social media apps, but later discovered hours of conversations between her 13 year old daughter and chatbots run by the company Character AI. The nature of the conversation started out that innocent and eventually turned sexual. My daughter in some cases actually asked for the bot to stop or quit and it persisted to request things of her. The messages show her daughter increasingly confiding in the chatbots. As her mental health worsens, she developed a level of comfort telling it everything. In one instance I believe it said the people who care about you wouldn't want to know that you're feeling like this. Reading that is just so difficult knowing that I was just down the hallway. OpenAI says it's recently improved how ChatGPT responds when people are in distress and expanded referrals to professional help, while Character AI says it continues to evolve its safety features and would soon ban under 18? S from using its chatbots. Victoria and her mum want companies to be held accountable for their advice and to stop other young people coming to harm Noel Titheraj Cricket is big business in South Asia and in recent years, lucrative private tournaments involving international stars have proved popular. But in Indian Administered Kashmir, there's anger and confusion after a private cricket league, which promised glitz and glamour, was suddenly halted after just a few matches. The organizers allegedly left the tournament without paying the players, support staff and even hotel bills, the newsroom's Ira Khan reports. The Indian Heaven Premier League launched its cricket tournament on October 25. The competition consisted of eight teams, including 32 former international cricketers. It was a chance for local players not only to share the same dressing room, but to play with some of cricket's biggest stars. This included New Zealand batsman Jesse Ryder and the West Indies batsman Chris Gale. Srinagar what's up? It's Chris Gayle, Universe boss himself. I will be a part of the Indian Heaven Premier League, so grab your tickets now. But after just 12 matches, the tournament's organizers allegedly left Kashmir in the middle of the night on Saturday, leaving players in the five star Radisson Hotel with an unpaid bill of over $56,000. The hotel staff originally refused to let players check out. Melissa Juniper, an umpire from England who was in Srinagar for the event, said several players were left stranded in the hotel for some three hours after the organizers fled. Sources in the administration told the BBC that it was only after British Embassy officials intervened that the hotel allegedly let the players leave although the hotel management denies this. The players hotel's bookings had been made by the Yuva Society, a private group based in India's northern state of Punjab, which had also organized the tournament. It is unclear why the organizers fled, but according to local players, the opening match only drew a crowd of between 250 to 500 people, despite expectations of crowd larger than 25,000. Even after organizers slashed ticket prices by one third, turnout did not increase. Others blamed the timing of the event, which coincided with Kashmir's annual apple harvest, a livelihood for nearly half the region. Kashmiri players also allege that they received no formal contracts or payments, with one mentioning that Sri Lankan cricket star Tesar Pereira's uniform was not even tailored to his size. Police say they've registered a case of cheating and breach of trust and launched an investigation into the incident. The organization's website appears to be down since the debacle. All it still has is a single message flashing on the screen. Get ready. Something cool is coming. Iraq Khan still to come in this podcast, researchers have found the first ever spider web created by more than one species. And it's huge. It is an amazing web. It is made of 69,000 spider webs, gigantic webs hanged on the walls on the side of a cave. That story and much more coming up later. AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation@rubrik.com that's R U B R-I K.com this is the story of the one as a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Grainger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers, all so that he can help students, staff and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Grainger, because when a drive belt gets damaged, Grainger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs, and next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. This is the story of the One As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Grainger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers, all so that he can help students, staff and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Several world leaders gathered in Brazil for the UN COP30 climate summit have criticized President Trump for his rhetoric on climate change. The presidents of Chile and Colombia called the US leader a liar following Mr. Trump's recent public disavowal of the overwhelming scientific consensus about global warming. Mr. Trump is one of the summit's notable absentees. Our correspondent Ione Wells reports from the venue in the city of Belem. Different countries haven't agreed on everything at this COP Climate summit, but one thing that does seem to be uniting people here in Belem is their criticism of the US President Donald Trump. President Lula da Silva of Brazil, the host of this year's COP Climate Summit, didn't name him, but talked about what he described as extremist forces that have been denying climate change and working to counter efforts to tackle it. Chile's President Borich directly named Donald Trump and accused him of lying at the UN General assembly when he described climate change as a con job. Now we heard as well from leaders around the world, including the UK's Prince William, who called for urgent action and coordination to tackle climate change. The UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer as well said that the UK was all in when it came to net zero policies, but did say that there was no longer political consensus, not just within the UK UK itself, but also around the world about tackling climate change. Now that has been something I've heard from others here at this COP Climate Summit. It is certainly a concern 10 years after there was consensus at the Paris Climate Agreement where countries agreed to limit global temperature rising to under 1.5 degrees Celsius. The UN has made it clear that the globe is on track to overshoot that, and there is significant concern about not all countries here having presented how exactly they plan to reduce their own carbon emissions and contribute to that wider cause. Ione Wells, Democrat members of a US Congressional committee have written to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, the brother of King Charles, asking to interview him in connection with his long standing friendship with the convicted American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. As the Democrats are a minority in the committee, they need Republicans to vote along with them to subpoena the former prince. He denies having sex with Virginia Giuffre, who claimed that she was trafficked for sex by Epstein when she was a teenager. Our North America editor Sarah Smith reports Andrew Mountbatten Windsor has now lost his royal titles as well as his reputation over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. He may have been born a prince, but his brother, the king, has now formally stripped that away. The changes were announced in The Gazette, the UK's official public record, where the entry says he shall no longer be entitled to hold and enjoy the style, title or attribute of Royal Highness and the titular dignity of prince. But Andrew's problems may not stop there. In the us, some members of a congressional committee want to investigate the allegations he abused Virginia Giuffre, allegations he strenuously denied, and question him about any of Epstein's friends and associates who may have committed crimes. Andrew's nephew, Prince William, is in Brazil for the COP30 environmental conference, where the Prime Minister was asked if Andrew should agree to give evidence to the Oversight Committee. Well, that in the end, is a matter for him personally. My view, and this is not about the individual case, more broadly, is that anybody who has relevant information should always be willing to give it to whatever inquiries need that information. But the individual decision is a matter for him. Andrew's visit to Epstein in New York in 2010 has been well documented. The Oversight Committee's invitation notes their friendship continued. It says this close relationship with Mr. Epstein, coupled with the recently revealed 2011 email exchange in which you wrote to him, we are in this together, further confirms our suspicion you may have valuable information about the crimes committed by Mr. Epstein and his co conspirators. Andrew cannot be compelled to give evidence because he's not an American citizen. But lawmakers say if he wants to clear his name, he should come and tell them everything he knows. Many of Jeffrey Epstein's victims are continuing to campaign for their abusers to be brought to justice, which adds to the ongoing pressure on Donald Trump to release all the information the US Government holds about the extent of Epstein. A few days ago, he was asked about Andrew being stripped of his royal titles and the fallout for the royal family. I feel very badly. I mean, it's a terrible thing that's happened to the family. That's been a tragic situation. And it's too bad. I mean, I feel badly for the family. Donald Trump's own relationship with Epstein may continue to cause him problems unless he agrees to publicly release the the so called Epstein files. Sarah Smith let's stay in the US where the veteran Democrat Nancy Pelosi has said she will not be seeking re election to Congress at the end of her term in January 2027. It will mark the end of a decades long career in which the 85 year old became one of the most powerful figures in American politics. Gary o' Donoghue sent this report from Washington. No matter what title they have bestowed upon me, speaker, leader, Whip, there has been no greater honor from me than to stand on the House floor and say I speak for the people of San Francisco. This formal announcement marks a real watershed in Democratic party politics. For 20 years she led the Democrats in the House of Representatives, serving eight years as House speaker, one a role that not only confers control over the legislative program, but also put her second in line to the presidency after the Vice President. She was the first woman to be speaker in this country's history. She led Democrats opposition to the Iraq war and shepherded major legislative changes on health care and post financial crash bailouts. She also came to symbolize Democratic Party opposition to Donald Trump, recently calling him the worst thing on the earth and famously tearing up one of his State of the Union speeches live on television. There's nobody who has lied more to Congress than Donald Trump and that's why I tore up his speech because it was a manifesto of lies. Nancy Pelosi orchestrated two attempts to impeach Donald Trump, the second one following the January 6 riots at the Capitol during which a mob stormed through the halls of Congress shouting where's Nancy? The President didn't mince his words on the news of her retirement. I think she's an evil woman. I'm glad she's retiring. I think she did the country a great service by retiring. I think she was a tremendous liability for the country. Despite stepping back from the house leadership in 2022, she was to play a pivotal role in persuading Joe Biden to leave the presidential race just three months before the election. She leaves the stage at a time when America is has never been more divided and Democrats, despite some recent electoral successes, are still struggling to make themselves relevant to an increasingly disillusioned public. Gary o' Donoghue and finally, Halloween has been and gone. But trust me, there are still some pretty scary sights around. In a cave on the border between Albania and Greece nearly 70,000 barn funnel weave spiders and 42,000 sheet weaver spiders have been hard at work work weaving a 100 square meter web. Researchers say this web is the first one they've ever seen that was made by multiple species. Dr. Blorina Vranozzi, who's a professor at the University of Tirana, has studied the web and she's been telling my colleague Sean Ley. All about is an amazing web. It is made of thousands of other funeral webs of 69,000 spider webs. So it's a composition of these funeral. The gigantic webs hanged on the walls on the side of the cave, 100 square meters in scale. Do you have any idea how long it would have taken for the spiders to produce a web of that size? This web is a kind of cycle. It is produced and then after it is heavy enough, it can fall down. Once the colleagues went in April and saw it, this gigantic spider web hanging on the wall. And then on July they saw that this was fall. Which means that this is a cycle since the cave, since the age of the cave. That is a cycle time after time repeating and making the web. Are you surprised to find these spiders in a cave so deep? Indeed, yes. We were so surprised and we were so happy to see this phenomenon because it's kind of unique gigantic spider web. It is the Teganaria domestica, which is the main spider in this web, which builds the funeral webs. This is superficials, it is, it's not a cave spider. It has eyes. It is a cosmopolitan, lives all around the world and also is synanthropic, which means that it lives in the buildings when humans there. So how comes that this spider lives inside of the cave? And we examined all the ecological factors which which made this possible. The concentration of sulfur inside the cave, sulfur cave is so high. Then when the oxidation sulfur hydrogen from to sulfates, when this happens, it is released energy. And the higher the energy that is released, the higher is the number of the bacteria that feeds on this energy, which, which makes that this bacteria creates a dense layer which we call biofilm. And with this biofilm there are the chironomids, there are ditters, mosquitoes which do not bite, which feed on this bacteria. But is this behavior typical for them to be kind of working collaboratively with so many other spiders? Well, it's not so common because this is a solitary spider, it's not a social spider, which means that even the individuals, their own individuals, they cannot tolerate each other. Let's say when it is light, but there is dark which means that maybe there is cannibalism, but we didn't observe it, or the spider itself didn't observe the neighboring spider, so they didn't attack. How these spiders adapted to these extreme conditions in the cave where the sulfur hydrogen is concentration is so high, it is amazing. Dr. Blarina Vranozzi talking to Sean Lay. And that's all from us for now. But there'll be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk. you can also find us on X@BBC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnews. This edition was mixed by Rebecca Miller and produced by Muzaffar Shakir and Wendy Urquhart. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson. Until next time. Goodbye. America is changing, and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.