Tesla surprises Wall Street with a fat profit; AT&T'S secret spy business, and more news

Tesla blew away Wall Street expectations, reporting its only second-ever quarterly profit on revenues of $2.3 billion. The company was firing on all cylinders in Q3: Model S and X orders were up 68% and production hit a record of 25,185 vehicles — up 37% over Q2 and 92% year over year. Tesla went public in 2010 and its only other positive quarter was more than three years ago: Q1 2013.

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AT&T secretly sells data to law enforcement: "Project Hemisphere" was known to be helping the feds in narcotics investigations by legally providing user information, like geolocation. But The Daily Beast is reporting that it's really a profit center generating fees up to $1 million per agency, and assists in all kinds of investigations. None of this should help with the proposed Time Warner merger, but it remains to be seen if it hurts.

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Google is scaling back its ambitious fiber optic initiative, which brought super-high-speed internet to a handful of cities. The head of the project has left the company, people are being let go and Alphabet says this is all about "new technologies and methods of deploying high-speed internet." Cynics assume Google only got into the game to force entrenched players to "catch up."

Snapchat may seek to raise a whopping $4 billion when it goes public, Bloomberg reports. The IPO could project a valuation as high as $40 billion, sources said, though this number tends to fluctuate between now and the moment of truth. Truth is we may never know how Snap chooses to position itself to Wall Street; since the company rakes in less than $1 billion (do the math) it can exploit an SEC rule which allows "small" companies to prepare to go public in stealth mode.

Apple will need "a little more time" to start selling Airpods, the bluetooth accessory that gave the iPhone company the courage needed to eliminate the earphone jack. No clue as to whether the hiccup is due to software or hardware, or when the launch might be. Apple had only said the $159 item would be available in October, and there are only five days left. (Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)

Cover Art: Tesla CEO Elon Musk at a press conference during the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico on September 27, 2016. (Photo: Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images)