Tesla is laying off the workers in its Supercharger division, throwing a huge question mark around its charging strategy at a time when EV advocates say further expansion is needed.

Why it matters: CEO Elon Musk has long described Tesla's Superchargers — the world's largest EV charging network with more than 50,000 plugs — as a competitive advantage and key to EV sales growth.

Driving the news: The company laid off EV charging boss Rebecca Tinucci and substantially all of her 500-person team, a person familiar with the cuts confirmed to Axios.

• "Everyone is in complete shock," the source tells Axios.

The intrigue: A slew of automakers recently struck deals with Tesla to allow their EVs to charge on the company's network, including General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Rivian and Volvo.

• They were left in the dark on these cuts: "It was news to us when we read it online," Toyota spokesperson Scott Vazin tells Axios in an email. "We're trying to gain more insight."
• GM is concerned that the cuts could hurt the customer experience, a person with knowledge of the company's deliberations said.
• "Ford's plans for our customers do not change," Ford spokesperson Marty Günsberg said in an email to Axios.

The latest: Musk in a late afternoon tweet today said, "Tesla still plans to grow the Supercharger network, just at a slower pace for new locations and more focus on 100% uptime and expansion of existing locations."

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Amazon reported $143.3 billion in revenue for the first quarter, a 13% increase from a year ago, and above analyst expectations.

Driving the beat was revenue from two key areas:

• Amazon Web Services, the company's cloud platform fueled by its AI data center business, grew 17% year over year.
• Advertising services grew 24% over last year due in part to new ads on Prime Video.

Net income increased to $10.4 billion in the quarter, or $0.98 per diluted share, compared with $3.2 billion, or $0.31 per diluted share, a year ago.

The company forecast revenue growth for the second quarter between 7% and 11% compared to 2023.

The impact: Shares are up around 2.5% in after-hours trading.

🏡 Home prices hit another all-time high in February. (MarketWatch)

🚂 A Norfolk Southern shake-up got an endorsement from Institutional Shareholder Services. (Axios)

📺 The FTC wants more information from Walmart and Vizio on their combination. (Axios)

🪙 Binance founder Changpeng Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison. (Axios)

Here are my key takeaways from several major earnings reports today:

🍟 McDonald's: Conflict in the Middle East continues to drag down the fast-food giant. Comparable sales were up 2.5% in the U.S. in Q1 but only up 1.9% worldwide.

🍔 Restaurant Brands International: The owner of Burger King, Tim Hortons and Popeyes posted comparable sales growth of 4.6% and said it plans to invest $300 million on BK's further modernization as its turnaround plan accelerates.

💊 Eli Lilly: Anti-obesity drugs buoyed the pharmaceutical giant, whose Q1 revenue jumped 26%, leading its stock higher.

🥤 Coca-Cola: The beverage giant raised its revenue outlook but recorded a $760 million charge connected to the disappointing showing of its BodyArmor brand following the 2021 acquisition.

All those years playing Pac-Man might finally pay off.

State of play: Dave & Buster's will soon allow customers to bet with each other on their performance at the chain's arcade games.

• Gaming tech company Lucra announced today that it will integrate the capability into the Dave & Buster's app, "allowing loyalty members to digitally compete with each other, earn rewards, and unlock exclusive perks."

💭 Nathan's thought bubble: Maybe I can get rich playing Whac-a-Mole.

"Volkswagen and union workers around the world have a long history of successfully building vehicles together, and we are jointly committed to a strong and successful future at Volkswagen Chattanooga with the UAW."