Earlier this year tech giants Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe were hit with a class action lawsuit by 64,000 programmers and engineers employed by the companies, over secret agreements not to poach each other's employees, spanning 2005 to 2009. The plaintiffs claim that this cost them mobility and higher paying jobs, estimated to be worth $3 billion in lost compensation.

Now the companies have agreed to a settlement, to the tune of $415 million, to be paid jointly by all four, while still denying any wrongdoing. A few hundreds of millions is a fairly small amount, and it may be worth paying this cost to settle quickly. All four companies have tried to cultivate an image as progressive and worker friendly. A long drawn out court case, where they are shown to conspire against the best interest of their employees would damage this reputation.

On Thursday, Elon Musk revealed his company "Will be building a Hyperloop test track for companies and student teams to test out their pods. Most likely in Texas." This coincides with his meeting with Texas lawmakers to ease restrictions on sales of his electric luxury cars as he floated the prospect of locating a new car factory or a test facility for his "hyperloop" high-speed mass transit system concept in the state. A Tesla spokesman said Musk's comments about the factory and the hyperloop test track were part of a "wide-ranging discussion in Austin, Texas about Texas matters," and not an attempt to link those potential investments to a resolution of the dealership matter. Musk's SpaceX space transport company already has a rocket development facility in the state.

Musk's concept of a hyperloop would be an alternative to air travel or high speed trains for travel between cities several hundreds of miles apart. It would work similarly to an air hockey table, but instead of floating on a cushion of air, electromagnetic pulses would propel pressurized cabins inside elevated tubes. Theoretically, the resulting system could reach speeds approaching 800 mph, faster than the speed of sound, through tubes held up by pylons. The system still needs years of testing, and as much as $10 billion to create even just one 400-mile (San Francisco to Los Angeles) stretch.