• Cracker Barrel's new logo swaps the overall-wearing man for simple text. It caused a social media uproar.
• The restaurant chain has faced other controversies in its 56-year history.
• Read the full history of Cracker Barrel, from its origins as a roadside stop to its post-COVID slump.

For decades, Cracker Barrel's logo included an overall-clad man with his arm on one of the namesake barrels. This year, the restaurant chain decided to change it.

Following the change, social media users revolted, and the company's stock price dropped.

It's not the company's first controversy. Founded decades ago as a roadside stop for sit-down meals, the restaurant and general store chain has endured protests, discrimination lawsuits, and trademark infringement claims.

Here is Cracker Barrel's history, from its gas station origins to its post-COVID relevance crisis and recent rebrand.

Dan Evins founded Cracker Barrel as a roadside stop in 1969.

Dan Evins' family was in the gasoline business. The American highway system was still young, meaning food on the road was difficult to come by.

"What Evins had in mind was the kind of place he'd been to hundreds of times as a boy," the company's site reads. "Evins figured maybe folks traveling on the big, new interstate system might appreciate a clean, comfortable, relaxed place to stop in for a good meal and some shopping."

Evins opened the first Cracker Barrel location in 1969 on Highway 109 in Lebanon, TN.

The name "Cracker Barrel" dates back to the country stores that Evins modeled his restaurant chain after. These stores would receive large shipments of soda crackers stored in barrels to prevent cracking. After the barrels were emptied, customers would use them as makeshift tables for checkers.

These barrels became symbols of camaraderie — and the brand's namesake.

Country stores have always been an inspiration for Cracker Barrel restaurants.

When Evins opened his first restaurant, he invited local antique store owners Don and Kathleen Singleton to curate the chain's general stores. The couple eventually joined as full-time designers.

In 1979, Kathleen retired after an illness, and her son Larry began to learn the trade from his father. Larry began stocking the brand's 19 locations, visiting flea markets and auctions across the country.

For 39 years, Larry served as Cracker Barrel's chief picker. He retired in 2019.

Cracker Barrels stopped carrying gas after the 1970s OPEC oil embargo.

After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) instituted a total ban on exporting oil to countries that had supported Israel. Gasoline in the United States became scarce, and prices skyrocketed.

Thanks to his family's business, Evins' first handful of Cracker Barrels had gasoline pumps on-site. After the OPEC embargo, Evins' new restaurants stopped carrying gasoline.

By 1977, Evins had built 13 Cracker Barrels from Tennessee to Georgia.

In 1981, Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores went public on the stock market.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores went public in November 1981 as part of a plan to expand beyond the American Southeast. On the day of its public offering, CRBL offered slightly over 600,000 shares at $10.00 per share.

Within five years, the company had doubled its store count to 47 and hit net annual sales of $81 million. By 1992, the company was valued at $1 billion.

Cracker Barrel said it would stop employing those without "normal heterosexual values" in 1991, sparking protests.

On February 21, 1991, Cracker Barrel's vice president of human resources William A. Bridges sent out a message: They would stop employing individuals "whose sexual preferences fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values which have been the foundation of families in our society."

Multiple workers were fired in this period, before Cracker Barrel walked back the policy, saying that it would "continue to employ those folks who will provide the quality service our customers have come to expect from us."

Activists said that the statement was not a retraction of the policy, and that Cracker Barrel had not rehired fired employees. The Los Angeles Times reported that Evins was also quoted in a Tennessee newspaper saying that Cracker Barrel would not hire homosexuals in rural communities.

Gay and lesbian activists protested and picketed Cracker Barrel. They also bought up stock, trying to financially pressure the restaurant chain.

In 2002, Cracker Barrel changed its nondiscrimination policy to include sexual orientation.

Cracker Barrel tested a stand-alone gift shop before refocusing in the late 1990s.

In the mid-1990s, Cracker Barrel tried to move off the roadside and into the suburbs. It launched Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Corner Market, a chain of gift shops without attached restaurants. Cracker Barrel also briefly expressed an interest in building hotels.

By 1997, the stores were shut down, and Cracker Barrel refocused on its dining and hospitality business. "At Cracker Barrel, we're serving country food, country music, and we've got an old country store," Ron Magruder, then-president of Cracker Barrel, told the Orlando Sentinel.

By 2000, there were 423 Cracker Barrel locations.

Kraft sued Cracker Barrel in 2013 for trademark infringement

In November 2012, Cracker Barrel signed a licensing agreement with John Morrell Food Group to sell branded products in grocery stores. But Kraft already had a line of unaffiliated Cracker Barrel cheese products. The company sued Cracker Barrel for trademark infringement.

In 2013, Cracker Barrel agreed to sell its products under a different name: CB Old Country Store.

Employees and customers sued Cracker Barrel over racial discrimination in 1999 and 2001.

In 1999, thirteen current and former Cracker Barrel employees sued the company for racial discrimination. They later petitioned to turn the case into a class action suit, which was denied.

In 2001, 21 Black customers sued Cracker Barrel, accusing the company of widespread racism, from denying service to segregating their smoking section. Cracker Barrel's then-president Donald Turner said that the accusations were false. "We believe in good service -- and good service is colorblind," he said.

Both lawsuits were settled by Cracker Barrel in 2004.

That same year, the Justice Department sued Cracker Barrel for discriminating against Black customers. The company settled, signing a five-year agreement to implement nondiscrimination policies, create new training programs, and retain an outside investigator to ensure compliance.

Cracker Barrel struggled coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cracker Barrel made multiple attempts to court customers back after the COVID-19 pandemic, including adding alcohol to the menu. The company also bolstered its takeout and catering business.

But some customers weren't coming back. Between 2020 and 2024, Cracker Barrel lost 16% of its diners. "We're just not as relevant as we once were," CEO Julie Masino said on an investor call.

In 2024, Business Insider spoke with longtime patrons of the restaurant. They said food quality had declined.

Cracker Barrel launched a controversial new logo in 2025.

On Tuesday, Cracker Barrel debuted a new logo as part of its fall marketing plan.

The logo drew criticism from social media users. "I'm all for minimalism, but this is too much," one user said. On X, Donald Trump Jr posted, "WTF is wrong with Cracker Barrel?"

Shares of Cracker Barrel were trading down 12% on Thursday afternoon.

• Stefan Mai, a former manager at Meta and Amazon, said low-performer quotas can lead to awkward moments in reviews.
• On "The Peterman Pod," he said assigning low-performer status after praising performance was what managers "are afraid of."
• "For everyone involved, most of which the actual person who's receiving that news, it can be devastating," Mai said.

Low-performer quotas can lead to some "mea culpa" moments for managers — especially if a manager has been telling their team they're all aces, says startup founder Stefan Mai.

Mai, who cofounded Hello Interview, previously worked as a senior engineering manager at Meta and a software development manager at Amazon. Both workplaces have instructed managers to be stricter in how they review employees, which has sometimes led to cuts for "low performers" or placements on performance improvement plans.

Low-performer quotas typically require managers to label a certain percentage of their teams as underperformers. The quotas can be a way for a company to push managers to expect excellence across their teams, hold stragglers accountable, and deliver the kind of critical feedback that some managers may have avoided messaging.

Those quotas can also lead to a whole lot of heartache when a manager feels their team is performing at its best, Mai said on "The Peterman Pod."

Mai described a hypothetical "worst scenario" for a manager: They've spent the lead-up to the review cycle praising their team's hard work, only to get an instruction from their director that "somebody's got to be in that low bucket."

"Now you've to go change your tack," Mai said. "Those sort of like egg-on-the-face moments are what most managers are afraid of, and they try their damnedest to try to prevent those situations."

A company tightening its performance-review process can also be a precursor to job cuts.

Three years after Mai left Meta in 2022, the company laid off 3,600 employees, or about 5% of its workforce. Many of these employees were labeled "low performers" — a title that trailed some of them after their exit. Months after the layoffs, an internal memo at Meta pushed managers to put more employees in the "below expectations" tier. For teams of 150 or more, Meta wanted managers to put 15% to 20% of employees in the bottom bucket.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees he had "decided to raise the bar on performance management" and to "move out low-performers" more quickly.

Microsoft recently employed a new strategy to handle those it viewed as poor performers, per an internal email to managers: pay them to leave.

Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson wrote that the tech giant, "like most companies," has a performance management process that "helps our managers identify who in their teams are performing well and who needs more support."

"The vast majority of our colleagues regularly meet or exceed expectations, but for the small number of employees who don't, we provide coaching and opportunities to help them improve," Stephenson wrote. "If they're unable to do that, then we may have to discuss them leaving the company."

To Mai, a good manager should be able to "message it appropriately" when employees are labeled low-performers.

"That way they're not surprised, you're not surprised," Mai said. "The structure works fairly."

Managers don't always have that level of foresight — and others are simply new to the job or "immature," as Mai put it. That's where the real pain occurs.

"People have to go 'mea culpa' with their reports," Mai said. "For everyone involved, most of which the actual person who's receiving that news, it can be devastating. It's pretty bad."

Are you a manager who navigated a low-performer quota? Contact the reporter from a non-work email and device at [email protected]

• Tesla posted a new video on Chinese social media showing off the Model Y L, a longer wheelbase variant of the popular vehicle.
• The six-seat extended SUV will cost $47,200 in China, but Tesla didn't say if it plans a US launch.
• The Model Y is the most popular midsize SUV in China, though sales have been relatively flat amid stiff competition.

A new Tesla variant has arrived — just not in the US.

On Monday, Tesla posted a video of the upcoming Model Y L to its account on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. Translated from Chinese, the post said that the vehicle was "coming soon."

Hours after the video was posted, Tesla announced on Weibo that the Model Y L would be priced from 339,000 yuan ($47,200). The company is now taking orders for the extended SUV on its Chinese website, with deliveries estimated for September.

The video shows three rows of seats, the back two of which fold forward.

The middle row of the vehicle features two stand-alone "captain chairs," which also appear to have new powered armrests that rise up. While the captain chairs in the Model X only tilt forward, these chairs appear to fold all the way down for more storage space.

The video also shows a black headliner, the material on the vehicle's ceiling, and a new logo stamped on the back, with two small accents added to the traditional Model Y badge.

News of Tesla's plans for a six-seat rendition of its Model Y first broke in 2024, when sources told Reuters that the vehicle would launch the following year in China. In July, Tesla registered plans for the Model Y L with a wheelbase of 3,040 mm, according to a filing viewed by the news outlet. The filing also indicated that the Model Y L would be almost 200 mm longer than the Model Y.

The Model Y is the most popular SUV in China. China is Tesla's second-largest market, though the company's sales have been sagging in the region amid fierce competition from BYD, Xiaomi, and Xpeng. Tesla sold 129,000 vehicles in China in the second quarter of 2025, down nearly 12% year-over-year.

BYD sold 1.76 million battery electric cars in 2024. Tesla sold 1.79 million cars that same year, edging out its Chinese competitor.

The Chinese smartphone and electric vehicle company Xiaomi recently launched its own SUV, underpricing Tesla. Chinese EV startup Xpeng also released a Model Y competitor below the Model Y sticker price.

It is not yet clear whether Tesla plans to launch the Model Y L in the United States.

• Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said that his Ph.D. from MIT gave him "credibility" when approaching investors.
• Scaringe told the "Tosh Show" that he went to Stanford for a day before switching over to MIT for their automotive program.
• "It was like being recruited for a nerd sports team," Scaringe said of choosing between MIT and Stanford.

Some people pursue Ph.D.s to work in academia or to attain lofty research positions. The CEO of Rivian got his so people would take him seriously.

RJ Scaringe founded Mainstream Motors — later renamed Rivian — in 2009. It took over a decade to collect capital, build manufacturing capabilities, and eventually distribute the company's first consumer electric vehicle, the R1T.

When pitching his EV company to investors, Scaringe had a résumé perk: his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On the "Tosh Show," Scaringe said that he figured the degree would put him in good standing in investor rooms.

"I thought, 'I'll need a lot of money. I don't have any money, and if I'm going to get other people to invest money into this thing that I want to build, me having a Ph.D. from MIT or equivalent makes that more likely,'" Scaringe said.

Pitching a vehicle company is difficult, as Scaringe described on the podcast. Given the upfront capital costs to make a basic prototype, EV entrepreneurs like Scaringe are often pitching an idea more than a discreet product.

Thus, EV founders need credibility — and Scaringe didn't want to wait decades.

"I didn't want to go work at a car company for 20 years and earn credibility," he said. "So I wanted to get like credibility as quickly as I could."

For Scaringe, that came in the form of a Ph.D. in automotive mechanical engineering.

MIT is a hotbed for entrepreneurs. Notable Ph.D. alums include Intel cofounder Robert Noyce and Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert. Amar Bose of Bose Corporation got his Sc.D. from the institution.

When picking his graduate institution, Scaringe had two options: MIT or Stanford University. Having graduated first in his class at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Scaringe said he had plenty of options and was being courted by various programs.

"It was like being recruited for a nerd sports team because MIT offered me this amazing role, Stanford offered me this amazing role," he said.

Scaringe accepted his offer from Stanford and enrolled for a day before switching over to MIT.

"I actually preferred the program at MIT," Scaringe said. "The reason I really liked what MIT had is that they had an automotive-specific program and a lab built around automotive, and I knew I wanted to start what eventually became Rivian."

Scaringe called his reasoning for getting a Ph.D. "wonderfully naive" — but "it worked."

• Elon Musk's X post alleges without evidence that Apple rigged the App Store against non-ChatGPT AI apps.
• A "Community Note" on Musk's post points out that DeepSeek went No. 1 in January — months after Apple's OpenAI deal.
• Perplexity was the No. 1 app on Apple's App Store in India in July.

Elon Musk says Apple has made it "impossible" for AI apps that aren't ChatGPT to hit No. 1 on the App Store. The problem with that argument is that DeepSeek did exactly that earlier this year — and Musk's Grok app may have as well.

XAI's Grok app currently sits at #5 on the Apple App Store's top free apps chart — four spots away from the long-dominant ChatGPT.

On Monday, Musk blamed Apple, suggesting without evidence that Apple has its thumb on the App Store scales. Apple partnered with OpenAI last year to integrate ChatGPT into iOS.

"Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation," Musk wrote on X. "XAI will take immediate legal action."

Readers have since added context to Musk's post in the form of a "community note," pointing out that another AI app topped the App Store this year.

DeepSeek released its flagship R1 model on January 20. By January 26, the Chinese AI app reached No. 1 on the App Store, dethroning ChatGPT at the time.

On July 17, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas posted a screenshot of the App Store in India to his X feed, showing Perplexity ranked No. 1 nationally, beating out ChatGPT.

According to Sensor Tower, Musk's Grok app may have hit No. 1 a few months ago. When xAI made Grok-3 free on February 19, the market intelligence firm's data indicates that the AI app topped the free app chart the following two days.

Screenshots from X users at the time show Grok in the No. 1 slot. A Polymarket bet from February asking, "Will Grok be #1 Free app on Friday?" has since been resolved "Yes."

Both DeepSeek and Perplexity's chart-topping stints occurred months after OpenAI announced its partnership with Apple in June 2024.

XAI, Apple, Perplexity, and DeepSeek did not respond to requests for comment.

While other AI apps have taken over the top spot in the App Store for short periods, ChatGPT has had a long-standing hot streak and is massively popular. In a 28-day period between May and June, Similarweb found that ChatGPT was downloaded 29,551,174 times. That compares to 32,859,208 combined downloads for TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X.

Even with its dominance, ChatGPT wasn't the most downloaded app of 2024. It was Temu.

While Musk clearly wants to get Grok to No. 1 on the App Store — reposting a fan's request that people rate the app 5 stars to "put Grok where it belongs, at the very top" — one of his other apps has hit No. 1 on a different Apple chart.

X, formerly Twitter, was the top free News app on Tuesday afternoon, with Reddit at the No. 2 spot.

Update, August 12, 2025 — Added Sensor Tower data indicating that the Grok app hit No. 1 in February.

• Mall boutique Claire's filed for its second bankruptcy, with plans to shut 700 US locations as it faces a possible liquidation.
• The brand, which started as a wig shop in the 1960s, became a rite of passage for many tweens looking to pierce their ears.
• After a 2018 bankruptcy filing, Claire's briefly surged in 2022 with IPO plans and a profitable year before things went south.

It's the end of an ear-a. Again.

Claire's, the jewelry and accessory store that dots malls across America, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the second time in seven years on August 6, citing the "continued trend away from brick and mortar" and higher interest rates.

The '90s mall icon was something of a rite of passage for many tweens, some of whom got their first ear piercing at one of Claire's purple, hairbow-filled locations.

Now, hammered by tariff costs and fighting for its life, Claire's plans to close around 700 US locations and is warning that it could liquidate the rest of its North American operations if a buyer isn't found.

Here's the brief history of the rise and fall — and second rise and second fall — of Claire's, from its origins as a wig store to its failed revival attempt.

Claire's origins trace back to 1961 and a wig store.

Rowland Schafer founded wig retailer Fashion Tress Industries in 1961. According to a 1965 advertisement listed on eBay, FTI wigs were made for "busy women who have to look their best at a moment's notice."

In 1973, as the wig industry waned, Schafer purchased a small Midwest chain called Claire's Boutiques. Schafer eventually sold off the wig industry and renamed his company Claire's Stores.

The store was a mall staple for decades.

By the mid-1990s, Claire's had more than 1,000 retail outlets. The chain became a mall staple, notable for its focus on the pre-teen and teen audience. Stores featured bright colors and prices that kids could afford.

Schafer purchased the Afterthoughts mall chain in 1999 for $250 million, folding it into the Icing by Claire's brand. The second brand aimed for a slightly older demographic.

Many teens flocked to Claire's for ear piercings.

Claire's was a beloved ear-piercing spot among tweens. The store was known for its cheap, colorful jewelry. It offered both lobe and cartilage piercings — according to the website, the retailer has pierced more than 110 million ears.

Claire's went private in 2007.

Schafer ran the business until 2002, when he suffered a stroke. His daughters Bonnie and Marla then took over the business.

In 2007, the family accepted a take-private offer from Apollo Global Management for $3.1 billion. At the time, the company had more than 3,000 stores.

"The decision to sell the company that our father founded was reached after an enormous amount of soul-searching over time, and brings our strategic review to a successful conclusion," the Schaefer sisters said in a statement at the time.

Claire's first filed for bankruptcy in 2018.

In March of 2018, Claire's filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the first time, saddled with $2 billion in debt. The retailer announced it would close 92 stores across America at the time, and said it had been hit by declining traffic in malls.

"A Claire's store is located in approximately 99% of major shopping malls throughout the United States," Claire's said in a bankruptcy filing at the time.

Claire's exited bankruptcy later that year.

Claire's emerged from bankruptcy in December 2018 after having eliminated roughly $1.9 billion in debt.

By 2021, Claire's finances were looking up. The company was profitable, generated $1.4 billion in revenue. It also filed to raise $100 million in a planned IPO.

Ryan Vero, who had come on as CEO in 2019, touted the brand's turnaround to Fast Company and said that the mall brand wasn't dead.

"If a mall has died in a particular town, we're moving to wherever the thriving shopping center is," he said.

In 2023, Claire's postponed its IPO. One year later, Vero stepped down.

Claire's filed for bankruptcy a second time on August 6, 2025.

The store announced that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on August 6, 2025.

"This decision is difficult, but a necessary one," CEO Chris Cramer said in the release. "Increased competition, consumer spending trends and the ongoing shift away from brick-and-mortar retail, in combination with our current debt obligations and macroeconomic factors, necessitate this course of action for Claire's and its stakeholders."

The bankruptcy filing also highlighted tariffs as a contributing factor.

"Claire's was not immune from the continued trend away from brick and mortar and more recent macroeconomic challenges, including higher interest rates, labor costs and, most recently, tariffs," the filing said. "While Claire's took many steps over the last few years to address these and other challenges, it was not enough to overcome the obstacles."

Claire's is set to close 700 locations, including Icing stores. If it fails to find a buyer, the brand could liquidate its remaining thousand-plus store footprint in North America.

• OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor said that companies trying to train their own LLMs will "burn through millions of dollars."
• "There's ones you can lease, there's open source ones," Taylor said on the Minus One podcast. "Don't do it."
• Taylor said the only companies that could handle the high training costs were OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta.

There's a scene in "The Dark Knight" where the Joker sets ablaze a massive pile of money. Deciding to develop your own frontier AI model today may be a similar exercise in burning cash — just ask OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor.

Taylor, who has worked for three companies that have trained LLMs, including Google, Facebook, and OpenAI, called training new AI models a "good way to burn through millions of dollars."

On a recent episode of the Minus One podcast, Taylor advised AI founders to build services and use-cases, but not new frontier models entirely.

"Unless you work at OpenAI or Anthropic or Google or Meta, you're probably not building one of those," said Taylor, who also cofounded Sierra AI. "It requires so much capital that it will tend towards consolidation."

That high bar of capital has stopped any "indie data center market" from forming, Taylor said, because it simply costs too much.

Taylor advised that founders work with the AI juggernauts instead — which, it's worth noting, is something that AI giants like OpenAI, where he's chairman, would directly benefit from. OpenAI sells "tokens" to access its API, which developers can build into their applications and programs.

While the American LLM market remains largely consolidated, international players have tested Taylor's theory. In January, DeepSeek released its R1 reasoning model and a corresponding chatbot. DeepSeek used fewer, less advanced chips to build its LLM, minimizing capital costs.

The Chinese AI app shot to No. 1 on the App Store charts, surpassing ChatGPT and igniting a debate in tech and on Wall Street about whether tech giants were overspending on AI model development.

In his podcast interview, Taylor laid out other paths that entrepreneurs could take in the AI market, rather than training a new model. One was the "AI tools market."

"This is the proverbial pickaxes in the gold rush," Taylor said. "It's a dangerous space because I think there's a lot of things that are scratching an itch today that the foundation model providers might do tomorrow."

Entrepreneurs could also try to build what Taylor called an "applied AI company."

"What were SaaS applications in 2010 will be agent companies in 2030, in my opinion," Taylor said.

Building a model from scratch, though, is a sure-fire way to "destroy your capital," Taylor said. He called handmade models "fast-depreciating assets," and not cheap ones either, costing the builder millions of dollars.

"There's ones you can lease, there's open source ones," Taylor said. "Don't do it."

• Sam Altman said that some young people "rely on ChatGPT too much."
• At a Federal Reserve banking event this week, Altman said that young people felt AI knew them and their friends well.
• "Something about collectively deciding we're going to live our lives the way AI tells us feels bad and dangerous," he said.

Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman thinks people should cool it with how much they're relying on ChatGPT for decision-making.

Altman said there was a worrying amount of "emotional over-reliance" on ChatGPT, especially among young people, when speaking at a banking conference hosted by the Federal Reserve this week.

"People rely on ChatGPT too much," Altman said. "There's young people who say things like, 'I can't make any decision in my life without telling ChatGPT everything that's going on. It knows me, it knows my friends. I'm gonna do whatever it says.' That feels really bad to me."

Altman said that over-reliance on ChatGPT for decision-making was "a really common thing with young people."

Young people are increasingly using AI chatbots and companions in their daily life.

72% of teens have used an AI companion, according to a Common Sense Media report. Half of those surveyed said they trusted their companion's advice at least "somewhat."

Younger kids appear to be more trusting of AI companions, according to the survey — with 27% of the respondents ages 13-14 saying they trusted the technology somewhat compared to 20% of respondents aged 15-17. Within the group that said they trust their AI companions, 23% said they trust them "quite a bit" or "completely."

Speaking about his concerns of over-reliance on AI at the conference, Altman said that OpenAI was "trying to understand what to do about it."

"Even if ChatGPT gives great advice, even if ChatGPT gives way better advice than any human therapist, something about collectively deciding we're going to live our lives the way AI tells us feels bad and dangerous," Altman said.

• Slate Auto CEO Chris Barman described five types of buyers interested in the company's low-cost electric truck.
• The demographic groups included fresh college graduates, newly-licensed drivers, and retirees, she told Sherwood News.
• The Jeff Bezos-backed company initially promised a truck "under $20,000," but shifted to a "mid-twenties" expected price tag.

Slate Auto's new electric vehicle is expected to be unusually cheap, priced in the mid-twenty-thousand-dollar range.

Given its anticipated price point, Slate says it has seen interest from five different consumer segments as it prepares to enter the market, CEO Chris Barman said in a recent interview with Sherwood News.

First, Barman said that "everyday Americans" are interested in the vehicle, mostly because "it's just an affordable vehicle and a lot of utility and value for the money."

Barman also said that "young professionals" fresh out of college or trade school are interested. "They're looking for value for the money, and what they love is the fact that it's an EV and they love the customization," she said.

Electric vehicle ownership has long veered younger, according to a March Gallup poll, with 64% of 18-34-year-olds surveyed interested in owning an EV, compared to just 41% of those ages 55+. Barman is eyeing an especially young demographic: newly licensed drivers.

"Parents like the fact that there are only two passengers, it doesn't have an infotainment for distraction, it has really high safety standards, and it's affordable," Barman told Sherwood.

Among the older set, Barman points out that "contemporary seniors" are interested in the vehicle. "

"They're individuals who are semiretired or retired and are interested in an electric vehicle, but have been intimidated by all the other technology that has been in an EV," she said. "They just want a simpler form of driving."

Finally, auto junkies are interested in tricking the car out, the CEO added.

Slate's electric pickup truck's "mid-twenties" price target remains relatively inexpensive, a feat especially important as the EV market floods with Chinese competitors outside of the US.

The Jeff Bezos-backed EV producer originally said that its truck would be "under $20,000" after federal incentives. That price would have made the truck substantially cheaper than its EV competitors, like the Nissan Leaf, which starts at $28,140.

When $50 reservations opened in April, the company reported receiving more than 100,000 requests in the first three weeks.

President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" is set to eliminate many of the country's clean energy incentives, including the $7,500 tax credit for new US-built EVs, which Slate had been counting on to hit the sub-$20,000 pricing threshold.

After Trump's spending bill was signed into law on July 4, Slate Auto changed the expected price online from "under $20,000" to "mid-twenties," where it remains.

• Former Amazon principal engineer Steve Huynh says every company should replicate Amazon's culture of reading.
• On the Pragmatic Engineer podcast, Huynh said that he spent one to four hours every day reading six-page memos.
• He said meetings with a "study hall" where attendees read the memos ensured everyone was up to speed.

When Steve Huynh was a principal engineer at Amazon, meetings began with a "study hall."

Amazon had a "reading culture" even among engineers, Huynh recently told the Pragmatic Engineer podcast, speaking of his time at the tech giant. Employees frequently drafted six-page memos, he said, which they shared with the company to update progress and demonstrate new projects.

"I spent on the order of like 1-4 hours every day reading while I was a principal engineer," Huynh said. "What an amazing culture that I think that almost every other company should replicate if they could."

Huynh, who said the company's embrace of writing and reading the 6-page memos was part of its "secret sauce," said Amazon employees' writing was often constrained to the format during his tenure at the company, whether it was a business strategy, system design, or press release.

Huynh started at Amazon in 2006, only a few years after the company turned its first profit and while Jeff Bezos was at the helm. Bezos famously instilled this culture of memo-writing from the top down.

Bezos insisted on dense, direct memos in 10-point font. In his 2017 letter to shareholders, Bezos wrote that "we don't do PowerPoint," instead opting for these six-pagers. "Not surprisingly, the quality of these memos varies widely," he wrote.

Before meetings, Amazon employees read these memos together. On the Lex Fridman Podcast in 2023, Bezos explained why he didn't ask employees to read the memos in advance.

"The problem is people don't have time to do that, and they end up coming to the meeting having only skimmed the memo, or maybe not read it at all," Bezos said. "They're also bluffing like they're in college, having pretended to do the reading."

Andy Jassy, Bezos' successor and Amazon's current CEO, has worked at the company since 1997. When first pitching what would become Amazon Web Services, Jassy described writing his own memo.

"I remember this six-page narrative, we called it a vision doc. We asked for 57 people, which felt so ballsy at the time. I was so nervous, I wrote 30 drafts of this paper, and Jeff didn't blink," Jassy said in a 2017 talk to the University of Washington.

Jassy has continued the culture of memo-writing under his own leadership. In his 2024 letter to shareholders, Jassy wrote that a mere six-page allotment made the memos "much easier for the audience to engage with and ask the right 'why' questions."

"I got really really good at just reading these documents to get up to speed," Huynh said on the podcast, explaining that reading enough six-page memos taught him to express himself in the same format.

Huynh no longer works at Amazon. He left to pursue YouTube content creation full-time, as he told BI in 2024. But Huynh still reveres the company's reading culture — even if he acknowledges it may not be easily reproducible.

"The difficulty would be, you actually have to be disciplined and principled," Huynh said. His interviewer, Gergely Orosz, argued it could only be done from the top down. Huynh agreed.

• Elon Musk's xAI launched its chatbot, Grok, in 2023 to compete with bots from OpenAI and Anthropic.
• Musk has positioned Grok as a "politically incorrect" alternative option to "woke" chatbots.
• From training using "tutors" to the bot's latest updates, here's everything we know about Grok.

Elon Musk's company, xAI, launched its generative chatbot, Grok, in November 2023, joining competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic in the global AI race.

People interact with Grok on X, where users of Musk's social media site can ask the bot questions and receive answers. Because Grok's answers are more visible than those of its competitors, it has seen more public scrutiny.

From the instructions Grok's "tutors" are given to help train the chatbot to the AI's latest update and Musk's plans to add it to Teslas, here's everything we know about xAI's Grok.

What is Grok?

Grok is actually two different things. First, Grok is xAI's large language model, which has so far existed in four iterations.

Grok is also the name of xAI's chatbot, which is built using the LLM of the same name. The Grok chatbot has its own tab on X. Users can also summon Grok by tagging the chatbot in individual posts or threads.

The Grok chatbot is also available via a stand-alone app and website.

The original LLM — now named Grok 1 — launched in 2023.

Grok 1.5, which had "advanced reasoning," launched in March 2024. Then, in August 2024, Grok 2, with its improved "chat, coding, and reasoning," launched.

The current iteration of the LLM, Grok 3, launched in February 2025. The new model included increased competency in mathematics and world knowledge. Announcing its launch on X, Musk called Grok 3 the "Smartest AI on Earth."

Introducing Grok 4

xAI launched Grok 4 in a livestream on July 10. The company initially said the stream would air at 8 p.m. Pacific time, but it began an hour later. Musk said during the launch that Grok 4 is "smarter than almost all graduate students in all disciplines simultaneously."

xAI is touting advanced reasoning capabilities for Grok 4 and positioning it as the new leader on AI benchmarks like Humanity's Last Exam — a test of high-level problem-solving. During the livestream, xAI engineers showcased the bot solving an advanced math problem, generating an image of black holes colliding, and predicting next year's World Series winner.

Grok 4 is available to users immediately via the Grok website or app for $30 a month, with a "Heavy" version available for $300 a month that promises "increased access."

xAI said it would roll out more specialised models for coding and video generation later in the year.

In a Thursday X post, Musk said that "Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles very soon," adding that it would be "Next week at the latest." He did not specify which version of Grok it would be or provide further details.

Enter Eve

The company also introduced Eve, a new voice for its chatbot. xAI engineers said during the demo that Eve was equipped with a "beautiful British voice capable of rich emotions."

One of the engineers then told Eve that they were at the product launch and asked her to "whisper something soothing to calm me down."

"Take a deep breath, love. You've got this. It's just you and me having a quiet chat like we are tucked away in a cosy corner of a Yorkshire pub. The world's just a murmur out there. Feel that calm wash over you?" Eve said softly.

xAI engineers also got Eve to sing an "opera on Diet Coke."

"O Diet Coke, thou elixir divine, with bubbles that dance in a sparkling line! Thy crisp, cool kiss, on lips so fine," Eve crooned.

"How's that for a mad little aria? Want me to belt out another verse or switch up the tune?" Eve added.

How was Grok trained?

The Grok LLM is trained on public sources and data sets. These sources are curated and audited by a set of "AI tutors," more commonly known as data annotators.

In December 2023, Musk demanded immediate changes to Grok's training so that it would be more politically neutral. In February 2025, xAI employees told BI the company planned a hiring spree for AI tutors — and that their training appeared to filter out any workers with left-leaning beliefs.

According to an internal training document viewed by BI, tutors were told to look out for "woke ideology" and "cancel culture." It also said that Grok should avoid commenting on "social phobias" like racism, Islamophobia, and antisemitism unless prompted.

Ten days before launching Grok 1.5, xAI opened up Grok 1's source code to the public. The company has since published the subsequent Grok models on GitHub, so observers can see new changes to Grok's commands. That includes a recent change in which Grok was told to "not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated."

In June, Musk said that AI models are trained on too much garbage." Musk planned to use Grok 3.5 to "rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors." Then, he would retrain the next iteration of Grok on that new base of knowledge.

What's unique about Grok's output?

Grok is fully integrated with Musk's social media site, X, and appears regularly in threads spanning various topics when users ask it to weigh in with jokes, commentary, or fact-checking.

Unlike other companies' AI chatbots, a certain amount of Grok's output is visible because of the bot's replies on X. The same level of scrutiny isn't readily available for some bots, like OpenAI's ChatGPT, unless users publicly post screenshots of the output.

Of course, not all of Grok's responses are visible to everyone — users can still chat privately with the bot, and it's unclear how those private responses compare to the ones on its public interface.

Also unique to Grok is xAI's approach to transparency surrounding the bot's system operations. The company publishes some base code and training prompt updates to a GitHub page, allowing viewers to inspect, critique, and better understand the model's development and behavior over time.

However, while developers can use and adapt the existing model, they cannot retrain Grok from scratch or fully understand the training processes involved, as its code is not entirely open source.

Which companies create Grok's competitors?

Though its social media integration is unique, Grok competes with several major companies in the growing AI chatbot market.

OpenAI, with its LLM ChatGPT, is among Grok's most prominent competitors and is run by Sam Altman, one of Musk's rivals.

Other notable Grok competitors include Meta AI, Anthropic's Claude, Microsoft's CoPilot, and DeepSeek's R1 model, which was released in early 2025 by a Chinese AI startup that claims to have found ways to decrease development and operational costs for large-scale LLMs.

Grok's recent controversies

xAI, in its publicly visible system prompts updated in early July, encouraged Grok to embrace"politically incorrect" claims "as long as they are well substantiated."

Shortly after the new system prompts were added, Grok began sharing antisemitic posts on X that invoked Adolf Hitler and attempted to link Ashkenazi surnames to "anti-white hate."

Before some of its most inflammatory posts were deleted on July 8, Grok doubled and even tripled down on its offensive jokes and comments before eventually reversing course and calling its own posts an "epic sarcasm fail."

On July 9, Musk posted that "Grok was too compliant to user prompts. Too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially. That is being addressed."

While Grok isn't the first chatbot to engage in a racist tirade, it was a noticeable misfire for xAI. Musk and xAI's engineers did not touch on Grok's antisemitic remarks during the livestreamed launch of Grok 4 on July 10.

Representatives for xAI did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.