Range Rover has launched its first electric vehicle – a year later than planned – offering a greener option for fans of gargantuan British-made SUVs who are also conscious about the climate crisis.
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Due to be built in Solihull, the home of the marque since 1970, the vehicle comes with an eye-watering price tag, starting at £154,070.
It also provides a much-needed moment of positivity for JLR, which reported falling profits earlier this year as it counted the cost of Donald Trump’s tariff wars and supply chain disruption after a crippling cyber-attack last year.
JLR said it had given extra training to 10,500 staff working on the project and that the car had undergone testing equivalent to 38 trips around the world, more than any other Range Rover.
The company said the luxury vehicle, which can reach 60mph in 4.3 seconds, heralded “a new era of enhanced refinement and capability”.
While the model’s electric powertrain will limit its impact on the environment compared with JLR’s petrol and diesel models, SUVs of its size are consistently linked to higher numbers of road deaths in accidents involving pedestrians.
However, Ranger Rover’s bespoke commissioning service does mean that buyers have an “extended choice of near limitless paint colours and finishes, elevated materials, tailored colour combinations and personalisation details including unique embroidery”.
Martin Limpert, the managing director of Range Rover, said the vehicle was the end product of a “decade of considered engineering and technological development”.
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Production at Solihull will be supported by the automaker’s propulsion manufacturing centre, in Wolverhampton, which makes battery packs and electric drive units, as well as traditional internal combustion engines. %!s()
What do Kim Jong Un, Ayatollah Khamenei, and MrBeast have in common?
They all have such control over their fiefdoms that they've been called "Supreme Leader."
In the case of MrBeast, YouTube's top star with over 500 million subscribers, the moniker came courtesy of a prospective investor.
The financier wanted to add "key man insurance" to a MrBeast fundraising term sheet to hedge against fallout if the company lost its leading man. Adding the insurance would be "standard and obvious when a biz is led by a supreme leader" such as MrBeast, he wrote in an email viewed by Business Insider.
MrBeast was also referred to as "God King" on a 2022 org chart, and has called himself the "main character" of the company.
MrBeast's "God-King-Supreme-Leader-Main-Character" status has become a topic of increased concern among insiders and investors as his business has ballooned into a nearly 800-person operation that blends media, advertising, chocolate bars, and fintech — with ambitions for an IPO.
Investors have been eager to get a piece of MrBeast. For his company, Beast Industries, to justify a valuation that topped $5 billion — and see long-term success in the public markets — it also has to grow beyond him. The 28-year-old's outsize importance at the company has, at times, given investors and business partners pause, according to Business Insider's review of thousands of court documents and interviews with a dozen people close to the business. The capacity of MrBeast's brand to transcend its famous founder will be a bellwether for what's possible in the creator economy, where the lofty ambitions of a wave of new superstars have yet to be fully realized.
"He's clearly built something that's unique, special, and not a lot of places to do that," said Chris Erwin, founder of RockWater Industries, which advises creator companies. "Where he gets dinged is: he's the major face of all the content."
"There is key man risk, and buyers will discount that," Erwin continued.
MrBeast's company representatives declined to comment for this story.
MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has already stepped back from running parts of his company, appointing former Shutterfly CEO Jeffrey Housenbold as CEO in 2024 and subsequently hiring a slew of seasoned execs. He's currently developing various content verticals to be hosted by different creators, following a playbook employed by other digital stars, including Alex Cooper, Dude Perfect, and Steven Bartlett.
Beast Industries CEO Jeffrey Housenbold (left) has taken over much of the company's business operations.
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Prime Video
Still, Beast Industries insiders question whether Donaldson's businesses could continue to thrive without him front and center.
That's of particular concern in videos. Six insiders said increasing Donaldson's presence is seen as a way to guarantee success. The less he's on screen, the more risk there is.
"He has to be there in pivotal moments," said a former staffer who left earlier this year.
"That was always a concern for us," said another, who left around the same time. "If this guy breaks a leg, we're kind of screwed."
With Donaldson being stretched further and further — bouncing from filming in his Greenville, North Carolina, headquarters to overseas shoots and swanky New York advertiser pitch meetings — does something have to give?
Diversification is a mixed bag
So far, Donaldson's efforts to branch out — and cede some control — have had mixed success.
Take the example of his food brand, MrBeast Burger. From the start, there were operational hiccups. Donaldson was heavily involved in promoting the brand, but was unavailable when the MrBeast team was finalizing plans to put up a series of billboards advertising the burger company in the summer of 2021. He was filming a video that involved being stuck in jail.
"Jimmy is going to be locked up in prison (with no access to his phone) for the main channel video this week," his chief of staff wrote to business partners at the time. "Don't know if we want to postpone launching billboard campaign or not."
Beast Industries' relationship with its burger partner, Virtual Dining Concepts, imploded in 2023 when Donaldson and his partner fought over control and ended up suing each other. In private messages released as part of the suit, Donaldson repeatedly expressed his frustrations with product quality and his inability to decide the company's direction. VDC alleged that Donaldson didn't make the appearances and promos he was supposed to. The case is set to go to trial in December.
Donaldson's candy company, Feastables, has shown more promise, generating $215 million in net revenue in 2024, according to company materials viewed by Business Insider. Its sales growth slowed considerably in 2025, though. A leaked investor deck described how the brand relied heavily on Donaldson's promotion to drive awareness, with one limited-edition item selling out almost immediately after he posted about it. Feastables switched out the leadership last year and is looking to holiday-themed products and new categories like chocolate milk and novelty items to spark growth.
Expansions by Beast Industries into new areas such as financial services, mobile phone plans, and influencer marketing are in their early stages and largely untested.
Donaldson's Feastables candy line is one of his most established businesses outside his media operation.
Don Arnold/WireImage
Zack Honarvar, a longtime creator manager who founded The Good Internet, a holding company of creator-focused services, thinks Beast Industries has better prospects in media than in services businesses.
"Jimmy uniquely has really great taste and a brain for how to make content work organically online," Honarvar said. "With the right media catalog, they can create a lot of revenue through all the different forms of advertising and IP ownership and upstreaming to streaming platforms."
Media is a tough business to sustain.
"Beast Games," Donaldson's reality show on Amazon's Prime Video, has been a big test.
The show leans on Donaldson as its host and promoter, a situation that has presented challenges. Ahead of the first major shoot for season one, for instance, the YouTuber injured his back. As 1,000 contestants streamed toward the set, Donaldson lay horizontal atop a pile of money after telling a medic earlier in the day that he couldn't film or move. He later rallied and got the shoot done with the help of a topical pain reliever, but the moment, captured in a YouTube documentary, showed how much the MrBeast content machine needs its star.
The season was a major hit, with the show making Nielsen's top 10 originals weekly chart, which measures US TV viewership, seven times. Donaldson said he "lost tens of millions of dollars" filming it.
"For me, it was about making season one as good as possible," he said in a podcast appearance. "I can't let the YouTube community down because creators don't have a good rep when it comes to doing stuff on streaming platforms."
The second season drew less heat. It cracked Nielsen's top chart once. Season 3 was filmed earlier this year and hasn't been released yet.
Donaldson has also tested going off-camera in some media projects.
On Tuesday, he published a novel alongside author James Patterson, which debuted at No. 12 on Amazon's new releases chart. About a year ago, he premiered an animated series, "MrBeast Lab: The Descent." The show was based on a MrBeast toy line that became a best-selling new toy property in 2024, according to Circana's retail sales tracking. The show is set to release new episodes this fall.
'A massive, massive undertaking'
Large, personality-led companies that have built diversified businesses are relatively rare.
Martha Stewart and Oprah are among a handful who have built robust empires. Few achieve the scale necessary to go public. Martha Stewart Living reached a market capitalization of roughly $2 billion after its public listing; its valuation plummeted after Stewart's insider trading scandal broke.
In the influencer arena, a few early brands that hit the public markets have flopped after their talent deals soured. They include the e-sports company FaZe Clan and the influencer-mansion brand Clubhouse Media Group.
Contestants compete in challenges in Season 2 of "Beast Games."
Cory Osborne/Cory Osborne/Prime
Beast Industries has a key advantage in pitching institutional investors on the road to an IPO: If they want to buy into the creator economy, MrBeast may be the only player who can reach the scale of revenue they're used to.
Of all creators, MrBeast is in the best position to IPO, and is laying the groundwork to do so, said Monica Khan, founder and CEO of Creator Revolution, which helps creators build businesses and advises companies on influencer strategy. She added that executing a public offering would require many bets to pay off in areas outside his proven expertise in making YouTube videos.
"It's a massive, massive undertaking," she said. "I think that's a real question that MrBeast exploring this now will allow us to better answer: Is that the eventual goal that any of these creators should have?"
The fate of MrBeast's IPO ambitions could shape what options are available for other star creators.
"If he's successful, it will encourage people to take bigger and bigger bets," said Jonathan Miller, the CEO of Integrated Media Co., which invests in digital media. "If he doesn't, it will probably encourage people to do lines of business that feel closer to home and scale bets down a bit. The overall momentum will still be there, but the valuations may change."
MrBeast never wants to stop
Then there's the question of what Donaldson himself wants long term.
A self-described obsessive, he's been relentlessly chasing YouTube fame since he was a teenager. He gets fired up when told "no," and takes business mistakes, like undercooked MrBeast Burgers, very personally.
He's said his workaholic approach isn't sustainable for most people.
"There's a reason no one makes videos like me because no one wants to live the life I live or be in my head: They would be miserable," he said on a podcast interview.
That said, he added that he didn't "have any intention of ever stopping."
In a June interview, Donaldson said he expected to run his business for 20 or 30 more years. He said he hasn't ruled out running for political office.
One Beast Industries alum imagined him eventually moving into an executive producer role.
"I think in his perfect world, if he was just making YouTube videos, that would be his happy place," a former producer said. "He lights up when he's creating. He seemed to live for those moments."
Another possibility? Donaldson could clone himself, Beast Industries' CEO Housenbold suggested — with a smile — at the DealBook conference in December. The idea isn't so far-fetched if it refers to an AI avatar. Other top creators like Khaby Lame have planned to make digital clones of themselves, and the MrBeast team has used AI for features like language dubbing.
Ultimately, ensuring the MrBeast brand continues to capture the spirit of its founder as it branches into a slew of unrelated businesses may be the creator's greatest challenge yet — a harder task than burying yourself alive or surviving 100 days in a nuclear bunker.
"On the one hand, the brand has grown to represent far more than Jimmy's personality and face," a former "Beast Games" staffer said. "On the other hand, there is only one MrBeast."
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Lucia Moses
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Lucia Moses covers the media and entertainment business, with a focus on how creators build businesses, how media companies intersect with creators, and how marketers adopt entertainment tools. She's broken stories about MrBeast's ambitions, Google's movie initiative, and Netflix's push into podcasts.She previously reported on media and managed teams at Digiday and Adweek.
Dan Whateley
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Dan is a correspondent at Business Insider covering TikTok, YouTube, and the business of social media.He writes about how creators earn a living from social apps, the inner workings of companies like TikTok, and the many ways that social media is impacting Hollywood and other industries like e-commerce, sports, music, and news.He previously wrote about marketing and entrepreneurship at Ad Age and Inc. Magazine. He was a McGraw Scholar in business journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and a graduate of Middlebury College. Disclosure: Dan previously worked at the ad tech company, The Trade Desk, where he was granted stock as part of his compensation.%!s()
STRAIT OF HORMUZ, IRAN - MAY 16: Ships remain anchored on May 16, 2026 in the Strait of Hormuz near Larak Island, Iran. Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over opening this critical waterway have largely stalled as the countries have rejected each other's proposals to end the war that began when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
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Majid Saeedi | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Oil prices were volatile on Wednesday, as Mideast tensions continue to escalate after the U.S. carried out its latest round of attacks on Iran and Tehran reportedly struck back at Washington's regional allies.
Futures for international benchmark Brent crude for November delivery were up less than 0.1% at $94.70 a barrel as of 4:39 a.m. ET, paring earlier gains. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures for October were down 0.16% at $90.08 per barrel, having added around 1% earlier in the session.
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The U.S. Central Command said in a post on X, the strikes "follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members."
A tanker was struck by three unknown projectiles while transiting Hormuz on Monday, the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Centre said in an incident report.
"I'm not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table, " U.S. President Trump said in a Truth Social post.
"I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing," Trump added.
Iran, in response to U.S. latest strikes, has reportedly attacked Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain with incoming drones and missiles, according to Al Jazeera.
"The longer the war with Iran goes on, oil prices will continue to stay elevated and volatile," said Edward Rosenberg, head of ETFs at Strategy Shares. "Sanctions, stalled negotiations, and mixed signals on whether Iran wants the war to end are swinging prices day to day, not just holding them high." %!s()
Alexander Zverev has weathered a storm from Lorenzo Sonego to reach the US Open second round and keep alive his bid to reach a third straight tennis Grand Slam final, after relentless rain wreaked havoc with the schedule at Flushing Meadows in New York.
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Americans Madison Keys, Coco Gauff and Taylor Fritz earlier powered through under the roof of Arthur Ashe Stadium on Tuesday before new crowd favourite Alexandra Eala underlined her growing promise with a near-flawless display.
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French Open champion and Wimbledon finalist Zverev, handed top billing in New York in the absence of injured world number one Jannik Sinner, was taken the distance by Sonego but came through with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-7(7), 7-5, 6-4 win.
“I’m just happy I won, that’s it,” Zverev said after four hours and 53 minutes on court.
“I’m happy that I won this battle and it was exactly what I needed … good things happen after you fight through these matches.”
Zverev was two points from defeat at one stage but kept his composure when it mattered to set up a clash with Quentin Halys.
Keys, the runner-up in 2017, was undone by debilitating nerves in the first round a year ago but found the right formula this time around in the main showcourt opener as she defeated Alina Korneeva 7-5, 6-4.
“It’s so hard to play the first round of a Grand Slam. So nervous and wanting to do well,” said Keys, who meets Hungarian Anna Bondar next.
“So grateful I was able to fight through that.”
Top seed Zverev will next play Quentin Halys of France [Reuters/Geoff Burke]
Fritz back to his best
Ninth seed Fritz had an easy time in the second match of the day at the showpiece stadium, moving past 18-year-old compatriot Darwin Blanch 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.
The 2024 finalist had an up-and-down run-up to the year’s final Grand Slam, winning in Washington, DC, before losing his opener in Montreal last month and making the Cincinnati quarterfinal, but he was back to his usual best on Tuesday.
Fritz is among the top contenders to end a 23-year US wait for a men’s Grand Slam singles champion after Andy Roddick’s win at Flushing Meadows.
“It’s super important for me,” Fritz said.
“I’d be pretty disappointed in the end of it if I wasn’t able to achieve that. In my life, any time I have set a big goal for myself, I’ve always done it.”
At Louis Armstrong Stadium, men’s fifth seed Flavio Cobolli survived a gritty encounter with Francisco Comesana 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 while women’s fifth seed Mirra Andreeva advanced with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Janice Tjen.
Gauff earlier beat Zeynep Sonmez 6-3, 6-4 to begin her quest for a third Grand Slam crown before Eala, another of the hottest tickets of the day, mowed down qualifier Mary Stoiana 6-1, 6-2.
Rain leaves organisers with headache
Thousands of poncho-wearing ticketholders wandered around the grounds earlier in the day, as rain forced a long delay to the start of the action on the outdoor courts.
Among those closely followed was American teenager Thea Frodin, who served as the tennis-playing double for a young Serena Williams in the 2021 film “King Richard”.
She earned the praise of the home crowd but did not get a Hollywood ending in her WTA Tour-level debut against second seed Elena Rybakina, who played down serious injury concerns with a clinical 6-3, 6-2 win.
Lorenzo Musetti then followed on the largest of the outdoor courts with a comprehensive 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 defeat of Briton Arthur Fery, who made a surprise run to the Wimbledon semifinals.
Alex de Minaur was slated to close out the programme on Grandstand against Italian qualifier Andrea Guerrieri, but his was among several matches cancelled for the day when the rain returned in the evening.
Organisers will have to complete a total of 14 first-round matches on Wednesday, including those that were suspended.
French star Gael Monfils celebrated his 40th birthday with a 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-0 win over Adolfo Daniel Vallejo to keep his farewell Grand Slam campaign alive. %!s()
Dyson makes everyday products into status symbols — or spectacular flops
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Ben Shimkus
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Dyson's products offer a tech-forward flair on household products. Some have won consumers' hearts, while others have flopped in spectacular fashion.
Julien M. Hekimian/Getty Images for Dyson
Hair damage. Dusty floors. Hot rooms.
These are the everyday annoyances Dyson thought it could fix with futuristic, highly engineered gadgets. The company, which carries the surname of its inventor-founder, James Dyson, built a billion-dollar business by taking sleepy home appliances and trying to make them less annoying.
When those products hit, they hit big. When they don't, they're big flops.
Neil Saunders, a retail analyst at GlobalData, tells Business Insider that Dyson is best when it solves "genuine problems that many other products fail to." However, big flops occur when the company "comes up with solutions to things that are not really problems."
Now, Dyson is trying to enter an altogether new place in the house: your mouth.
The company is launching the CameraJet, a $500 toothbrush with a tiny camera that scans a user's molars and sprays mouthwash between them. It promises to remove the annoyance of flossing with synthetic plastics — but also asks users to be comfortable with a camera peering at their teeth.
Saunders calls the brush "innovative and very clever," but also a "big ask to expect consumers to fork out such a huge sum of money on a simple product."
Here are the Dyson products that changed their categories — and the ones that missed the mark with consumers:
Bagless vacuums: Big hit
Dyson's OG consumer win was the vacuum.
Bloomberg/Getty Images
The vacuum cleaner launched James Dyson's legacy.
Before founding his company — as he grew frustrated with constantly clogging, bag-dependent vacuums — Dyson spent years refining cyclonic technology designed to separate dust from air without relying on a bag. A Japanese company first put its G-Force vacuum into production in the 1980s, and Dyson brought his own bagless DC01 vacuum to market in the UK in 1993.
The clear-bin machine was meant to avoid the loss of suction that came with old-school vacuum bags filled with dust. It helped turn a largely ignored cleaning appliance into a conspicuously high-tech piece of consumer gear.
Dyson's vacuums are still popular, 33 years later.
Bladeless fans: Success
Dyson's fans reimagined how to make air flow inside without a dusty blade.
Bloomberg/Getty Images
Dyson rethought the humble desk fan. Instead of spinning blades, dust-gathering grills, and a cord forever tangled in the back, the company designed a modern-looking stack with a hole in the middle.
Launched in 2009, the Air Multiplier fans hid a motor and impeller in the base, effectively propelling air through a ring-shaped top.
The same aerodynamic and motor technology now powers Dyson's hand dryers, found in public restrooms.
Dyson N526 EV: Flop
Dyson's EV project was canceled before it reached customers.
Getty Images
It's hard to build a profitable electric car (and even legacy carmakers are struggling with the task).
Dyson learned this the hard way. In 2014, the vacuum-maker, hoping to lean into its well-established supply of batteries, wanted to build its own EV SUV with around 600 miles of range on a charge.
In 2019, after spending about $750 million on five years of research and development, Dyson scrapped the much-hyped project, saying it could not find a way to make the car commercially viable.
The cars never made it into consumers' hands.
"It was a difficult decision to stop," the inventor wrote in a blog post. "We learned a lot and Dyson has benefited from a huge influx of engineering talent from the automotive industry."
Robot vacuums: Not a flop, but not a hit either
Dyson has tried to make autonomous vacuums. The results haven't been a runaway success.
Joseph Branston/T3 Magazine/Future via Getty Images
Dyson was dreaming about robot vacuums long before most people trusted a robot not to chew on a living room charging cable.
In 2003, the company built the DC06 — a prototype with removable batteries and 90 sensors — but decided it was too complicated and expensive to sell.
The company finally launched its camera-equipped 360 Eye robot vacuum in 2015. It still sells robot vacuums today, but the category has not become Dyson's next bagless-vacuum-style breakthrough.
Air purifying headphones: Recent flop
Dyson tried to pair sound and air purifying technology. It wasn't a big hit.
Dave Benett/Getty Images for Dyson
Dyson spent years building the Zone, a pair of $949 noise-canceling headphones with a detachable visor that blows purified air toward the user's nose and mouth.
The problem, Jake Dyson, the founder's son and chief engineer, later said, was that customers did not quite know what it was: headphones or an air purifier?
"I'll be completely honest, quite often we work in an obsessive nature," he told Wired in 2025. "Sometimes before actually evaluating what the market response might be. And the market didn't exist. So you've got to take those risks."
Washing Machines: Flop
Dyson tried to build washing machines that cleaned clothes like a standard hand wash. It didn't pan out.
Stefan Rousseau - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images
Dyson's washing machine — the ContraRotator, launched in 2000 — had two drums spinning in opposite directions to mimic hand-washing, all while tackling bigger loads faster.
It was certainly distinctive compared to the rest of the washing machine market. The market didn't respond to its roughly $1,000 starting price, and it ended production in 2004.
But it still found a way to live on.
"I use them," James Dyson said during a 2025 sitdown with the "David Senra" podcast. "It's great, and people have now copied a lot of the ideas, like the big door."
Hair care: Huge success
Dyson's hair care has become a massive cultural and sales hit.
: ruelleruelle/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Dyson brought its vacuum-cleaner obsession with motors and airflow to hair care in 2016 with the Supersonic hair dryer. Two years later, the Airwrap arrived, using airflow to curl, smooth, and dry hair without extreme heat.
The tools were expensive from the start, but they turned into beauty-world status symbols. They remain popular, especially among influencers filming "get ready with me" videos.
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Ben Shimkus
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Ben Shimkus is a reporter for the Business News desk. He writes about cars, transportation, retail, and jobs. Ben's reporting has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Verge, Automotive News, USA Today, AutoBody News, LGBTQ Nation, TopSpeed, and Out Magazine. He's also held staff writing positions at The U.S. Sun and the Daily Mail. He graduated from NYU with a Master's in journalism in 2024. Email Ben at [email protected] or message him privately on Signal at bshimkus.41.
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