Tom Carter
Tom Carter covers the power structures around Tesla, SpaceX, and frontier tech, with a focus on how big technology decisions ripple through investors, workers, and the wider industry. He is a tech reporter at Business Insider, where his work ranges from deeply reported features and explainers to breaking news and scoops on major technology companies. His coverage is distinguished by close, ongoing attention to Elon Musk’s corporate ecosystem and the fast-moving artificial intelligence and chip landscape that underpins it.
Tesla, SpaceX, and Musk’s corporate ecosystem
Carter’s core reporting strand is the cluster of companies around Elon Musk, especially Tesla and SpaceX.
He has examined whether a merger between Tesla and SpaceX would make strategic and financial sense, unpacking investor enthusiasm, potential synergies, and the structural challenges of combining an automaker with a space launch business. In related coverage, he follows Tesla investors’ concerns in real time, including their push for clearer answers on a possible SpaceX tie-up during earnings and shareholder forums.
His work does not stop at high-level strategy; he also documents the culture and texture of Musk’s investor community, capturing details from events where retail shareholders ask about everything from antimatter engines to meme tokens. Carter co-authors broader pieces on Musk himself, mapping the arc of his career and the web of companies he has started, which situates Tesla and SpaceX within a longer story of entrepreneurial risk and technological ambition.
He brings the consumer perspective into this ecosystem through features that contrast Tesla ownership with emerging rivals such as BYD, using first-person “as-told-to” formats to show how real drivers weigh cost, reliability, and day-to-day experience between brands.
Frontier AI, chips, and big tech models
Alongside electric vehicles and rockets, Carter covers the companies building and deploying large AI models and the hardware required to run them. He has reported on Meta’s launch of Muse Glimmer, an open-weight model designed to run on consumer hardware such as laptops, highlighting both technical capabilities and the strategic choice to release systems that can be inspected and adapted by others.
His Anthropic coverage tracks the company’s decision to build an in-house silicon team to support Claude, showing how AI labs seek more control over their compute pipeline and future model performance.
Carter follows money flows inside these labs, including OpenAI’s disclosure of how much its researchers spend on tokens for AI coding and experiments, which illuminates the real cost of working at the frontier of model development. He also documents governance and openness debates, such as criticism directed at Anthropic for being the only major AI lab not backing open models, situating the company’s stance within wider industry tensions over safety, competition, and access. His earlier work includes coverage of figures like Google cofounder Sergey Brin returning from retirement to help build the company’s next-generation AI systems, linking executive decisions to the direction of flagship products.
Space industry and commercial astronauts
Carter’s reporting on space extends beyond Musk’s launch company to the broader commercial and human side of orbital missions. He has covered key milestones in SpaceX’s Starship program, including launches that achieve new objectives for reaching orbit and deploying payloads such as Starlink satellites, explaining both the technical progress and the risks involved. His work also profiles people who play central roles in this shift, such as billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, whose trajectory from payments CEO to NASA-linked mission commander illustrates how private capital and individual ambition shape modern spaceflight.
Across these pieces, Carter connects specific launches and missions to larger themes: how reusable rockets could reshape access to orbit, how commercial astronauts fit into national programs, and how companies frame these efforts to regulators, investors, and the public. The result is coverage that treats space not only as engineering, but as an evolving industry with its own personalities and power dynamics.
Corporate decisions, workers, and severance
Carter also reports on how major technology and enterprise companies handle employees during periods of restructuring and cost-cutting. His coverage of Oracle’s severance package for laid-off US staff details the terms offered, situating them within broader questions about how large firms manage downsizing and support - or fail to support - workers as they exit. This strand complements his focus on investor questions and executive strategy, giving a fuller picture of who wins and loses when high-level corporate decisions are made.
Across beats, Carter’s reporting is unified by attention to consequential decisions at powerful technology companies and their effects on stakeholders ranging from shareholders and executives to researchers, astronauts, and everyday car owners. His work is useful when a story touches the intersection of electric vehicles, spaceflight, AI models, and corporate governance, especially where Tesla, SpaceX, or leading AI labs are involved.
4 more automobile journalists.
Adrian Leung
Adrian Leung is a writer at Car News China who applies an electrical and computer engineering background to technically dense coverage of China’s fast-moving electric vehicle market. He focuses on new-energy models, from mainstream family EVs to concept cars, explaining battery systems, drivetrains, and on-board technology with clear numbers and straightforward descriptions. His Sunday China Drive columns look at how specific models fit real-world motoring and household budgets, balancing space, comfort, and affordability. Across launch and revision stories, he tracks BEV and EREV variants, exact dates, horsepower, range, and pricing to show where each EV sits in the broader market. He brings the same detailed focus to concept vehicles, using battery and range data plus component-level and chassis detail to treat them as complete engineering objects.
Alan Dowds
Alan Dowds is a motorcycle journalist focused on practical riding, workshop know-how and real-world bike testing. He runs Visordown while writing guides, advanced riding features and first ride reviews for road and track riders. He has more than two decades of experience, including staff roles at dedicated bike magazines, before moving into freelance work across multiple outlets. His beat covers recovery after crashes, knee-down technique, filtering, city traffic, green-laning, learner training and track riding. He also reports on production, pricing and new adventure bikes such as the Norton Atlas made in India. His workshop coverage includes puncture repairs, winter storage, chain care, engine bearings, case covers and caliper seals. He writes in direct, methodical language, using step-by-step guidance, practical testing and photos to help riders become safer, faster and more mechanically confident.
Alan Feldberg
Alan Feldberg is a fact-led automotive trade reporter who tracks how manufacturers, fleets, mobility providers and repair networks are reshaping the modern motor industry, with a particular focus on the UK car market and its supply chain. He writes concise, data-driven news for Bodyshop Magazine, having been part of its editorial team for years, including a period as Middle East editor. He covers the rise of Chinese vehicle makers, named models and market share, dealer and fleet technology, online retail platforms, leasing, remarketing and mobility networks. He also reports on repair groups, parts distributors, OEM approvals, fuel prices, employment and wider industry pressures. His pieces turn corporate announcements and market reports into clear signals for garages, bodyshops, fleets, dealers and mobility providers.
Alastair Crooks
Alastair Crooks is a senior news reporter at Auto Express who covers both new cars and the infrastructure that will support them, tying factory-scale developments to driveway-level reviews. He focuses on electric cars, mainstream launches and UK pricing, reporting on new and electrified models entering the market, their spec, positioning and what they change for buyers. His road tests of SUVs and saloons assess ride, range, interior space, value and running costs, with clear, sometimes blunt verdicts backed by specifics rather than general impressions. He writes news, reviews, features and occasional opinion columns on driving behaviour and in-car tech, drawing on his background as a car salesman, his degree in journalism and his enthusiast experience at car shows and track days. Some of his work also appears in magazine-style formats.