In today’s Bulldog wrapup of technology news:

  • Tesla’s losses mount but shares rally
  • Citrix expansion coming in Raleigh
  • The remnants of MySpace are acquired by Time
  • A Google exec takes heat at a hearing over taxes in the U.K.

The details:

  • Tesla’s 4Q net loss doubles but shares up on outlook

Tesla Motors posted its 11th straight quarterly loss Wednesday, and its results badly missed Wall Street’s forecasts. But the electric car maker’s shares soared anyway on news that its lower-priced Model 3 sedan is on schedule to be released next year.

Tesla said it will unveil the much-anticipated $35,000 car on March 31 and expects to start production at the end of 2017.

CEO Elon Musk said he’s not worried about competition from the all-electric Chevrolet Bolt, which will have a similar price tag and range and will go on sale at one year before the Model 3. He noted that Model S sedan sales rose in 2015 even as luxury competitors like the Audi A7 and Lexus LS fell.

“Tesla is approximately doubling its cumulative sales every year. I think that’s pretty exciting and unusual,” Musk said on a conference call with analysts and media.

Tesla’s shares had fallen in recent days as investors worried that the Model 3 would be delayed. Investors also weren’t happy with the slow ramp-up of Tesla’s new Model X SUV. The company delivered only 206 SUVs in the fourth quarter and it curtailed production last month to work out some quality issues.

But Tesla said Wednesday it’s accelerating Model X production and expects to make 1,000 SUVs per week by the second quarter.

  • Citrix expansion in Raleigh

Citrix is adding more space for its operations in Raleigh, and Jesse Lipson, who heads the Triangle operations as part of the ShareFile operation for Citrix, said a forthcoming company spinout is part of the move.

Citrix plans to spin off its GoToMeeting team.

A Citrix (Nasdaq: CTXS) expansion in Raleigh likely impacts the GoToMeeting team, currently in the process of being spun out of the Florida-based technology firm.

“Citrix has already announced plans to spin the group into a separate public company, ‘so it probably makes sense for them to overflow there,’” Lipson told The Triangle Business Journal.

The company announced the spin out plans in November and said it should be completed in the second half of 2016.

Read more at:

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/techflash/2016/02/lipson-heres-what-were-going-to-do-with-the-citrix.html

  • Magazine publisher Time Inc. buys what’s left of MySpace

MySpace still exists?

It does, and the company that owns the once-ubiquitous social network is being bought by Time Inc. to help the magazine publisher target ads.

Parent company, Viant, says it can give marketers access to more than 1.2 billion users.

MySpace peaked in 2008 with some 76 million U.S. visitors before losing ground to Facebook. News Corp. sold the company to Justin Timberlake and other investors in 2011 for $35 million. Today, it is an entertainment-focused site that plays music videos and songs.

Time Inc. will not say what it paid. The publisher of People, Sports Illustrated and Timewas spun off from entertainment company Time Warner in 2014. The company is facing a decline in print ad dollars and it posted an $881 million loss last year.

  • Head of Google in Europe grilled by UK lawmakers

A British parliamentary committee has grilled Google’s president of European operations, questioning in blunt terms whether the Internet giant had paid its fair share of taxes.

The hearing Thursday comes amid public anger over a tax settlement the company made with U.K. authorities. Meg Hillier, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, captured the mood when she accused Google’s Matt Brittin of having “tin ears” to the complaints about the 130 million pound ($186 million) deal for back taxes in Britain.

Brittin insisted he did understand public anger, and said Google had paid taxes at 20 percent like other companies.

But he invoked Hillier’s fury when he said he didn’t know his own pay package.

“You don’t know what you get paid? … Out there, taxpayers, our constituents, are very angry, they live in a different world clearly to the world you live in, if you can’t even tell us what you are paid,” Hillier countered.

She said it was a “PR disaster” for Google to announce its tax deal just as British people were doing their tax returns and “sweating over a little bit of bank interest and getting it in on time.”

The session tapped into a public zeitgeist of fury over multinational corporations that operate in Britain but have tax bases elsewhere. Britain is revising its international tax rules.

It’s also a reflection of the explosion of tech companies. Brittin said Google’s workforce in Britain had grown from 160 to more than 4,000 over the 10-year period covered by the settlement. Some 5,000-plus are employed in Ireland.

He insisted the figure came at the end of a tax audit that took six years to complete and that no “deal” had been struck with Treasury chief George Osborne, who had described the settlement as a “victory” for the government.

The announcement, Brittin said, had occurred because the settlement would soon be made public in the company’s accounts. He defended the company in an op-ed piece for the Telegraph newspaper and insisted there was no “sweetheart deal” with the government.

“We agree that the international tax system needs reform. We have long been in favor of simpler, clearer rules, because it is important not only to pay the right amount of tax, but to be seen to be paying the right amount,” he said, writing in the Daily Telegraph on Wednesday. “But changes to the tax system are not Google’s call. Reform must come from governments, not from the companies who are subject to their rules.”