Global News Podcast - Elon Musk, the world's richest person, is set to be richer

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Tesla shareholders have approved a record-breaking pay package that could make the electric car company's founder Elon Musk a trillionaire if he can deliver a future filled with self-driving taxis and humanoid robots. More than three quarters of shareholders backed the plan which requires Mr Musk to substantially raise Tesla's market value over a period of years. Also: Typhoon Kalmaegi is weakening but the devastation and lives lost in the Philippines and Vietnam has been overwhelming; Artificial Intelligence and the chatbot which has been encouraging a young woman to kill herself; the Kashmir cricket scandal; and Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as the speaker of the US House of Representatives, bows out of politics at 85.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. America is changing, and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a 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 will bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and at 4.30 GMT on November the 7th, 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 Kalmagi 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 chartboard 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 Elon Musk a trillionaire if he can deliver a future filled with self-driving taxes and humanoid robots. It could be the largest corporate payout in history. And while critics have said it's an obsceness,

third figure, eclipsing entire country's 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 artificial intelligence. Our US business correspondent Michelle Flurry 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. He won a shareholder. a 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 hit certain performance targets over the next decade.

And this vote, even though there had been some objections, 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 a 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 even

looks like. If you imagine a hundred dollar bills 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 robotaxy 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 sort of under $2 trillion.

So, you know, that's a huge jump. That being said, analysts have looked at kind of, you know, these pay compensations. 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 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 fest 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 Flurry Typhoon at Kalmagi has weakened as it moves west to Cambodia and Laos after tearing through central Vietnam on Thursday, with winds reaching up to almost 150 kilometres 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 developments from Bangkok. Although a 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 kilometres 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 doesn't appear to have been anything like as damaging as it was when Kalemakey 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 2,500 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 mountain sides 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 when 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 way, 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 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 chat GPT after moving to Poland with her mother when she was 17 following the invasion of Ukraine.

in 2022. She soon grew reliant on the chat bot, which told her that no one cares about suicide, and in July it gave her advice on how to take her own life. ChatGBT's owner, OpenAI, has said that it's now improved safeguards and is partnering with experts. Victoria and Cynthia Peralta, the mother of a girl who took her own life after 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 afloat those thoughts.

Victoria says chat GPT 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 suddenly 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 chartboard 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 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.A.I. The nature of the conversation started out that, in a sense,

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 chat GPT 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 18s from using its chatbots. That Victoria and her mum want companies to be held accountable for their advice and to stop other young people coming to harm. No, Titharaj. 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 organisers allegedly left the tournament without paying the players, support staff and even hotel bills the newsrooms Ira Khan reports

The Indian Heaven Premier League launched its cricket tournament on October 25th. 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 with Chris Gale, the 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 organised. 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' hotels' bookings had been made by the Yuba 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 alleged that they received no formal contracts or payments, with one mentioning that Sri Lankan Cricket Star to Sarah'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 of the still has is a single message flashing on the screen. Get ready. Something cool is coming. Ira 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 web. It's a gigantic webs hanged on the walls on the side of the cave. That story. And much more coming up. later. 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. Several world leaders gathered in Brazil for the UN COP 30 Climate Summit have criticised 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 Belém. Different countries haven't agreed on everything at this COP climate summit, but one thing that does seem to be uniting people here in Berlin is their criticism of the US President Donald Trump. President Lula de 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, Boric, 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, Pierre Stama, 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 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, Geoffrey 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 Geoffrey, 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 Geoffrey 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 Dufre allegations he's 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 COP 30 Environmental Conference, where the Prime Minister was asked if Andrews 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 it. Epstein's crimes. 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 so-called Epstein files. Sarah Smith. Let's stay in the U.S. 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 27. 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 for 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, 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. It is 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 6th 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 retired. 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 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'Donohue. And finally, Halloween has been and gone, but trust me, there are still some pretty scary sites 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 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. Blarina Vrenozzi, who's a professor at the University of Tirana, has studied the web, and she's been telling my colleague Sean Lay all about it. It 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 webs, but it's a gigantic webs hanged on the walls on the side of the cave. A hundred square metres 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 heady 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 fallen down, which means that this is a cycle since the cave, since the age of the cave. That is a cycle, time of the 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, a gigantic spider web. It is the tegenaria domestica, which is the main spider in this web, which builds the funeral webs. This is superficial.

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 made this possible. The concentration of sulfur inside the cave, sulfur cave, is so high than when the oxidation of the 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 makes that this bacteria creates a dense layer, which we call a biofilm

and with this biofilm there are the chironomids they are the deepers mosquitoes which do not bite which feed on this on this bacteria but is this behaviour 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 a may boring 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 Vrenozzi 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 global podcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. use the hashtag Global NewsPod. This edition was mixed by Rebecca Miller and produced by Mazafa 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 a 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 will bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.