Friday newspaper round-up: Elon Musk, Thames Water, Avant Homes

(Sharecast News) - Young people out of work or at risk of unemployment in the UK are to join "AI boot camps" where they harness the technology to get a foothold in the workplace. The government's latest attempt to address the crisis in Neets - young people not in work or education - involves turning to a technology that many view as a potential threat to employment. - Guardian

Elon Musk received over 2.5m times as much compensation at Tesla as the company's average worker, according to a new report on the growing gap between top corporate executives and their workers. Musk's $158.3bn pay deal was an outlier but came as the gap between CEO and worker pay continued to grow. Excluding Musk, last year the average ratio of CEO to worker pay for the top S&P 500 companies was 312 to 1, up from a 285:1 ratio in 2024. With Musk, the average pay ratio was 5,387:1, according to the executive pay watch report released this week by the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labour unions in the US. - Guardian

Britain's only water desalination plant could be switched on to help London fight drought for the first time. Thames Water, which operates the plant in Beckton, east London, is on alert to activate the facility as the capital battles sweltering temperatures and unprecedented dry spells. The plant is thought to have the capacity to supply 5pc of London's water needs or around 200,000 homes. - Telegraph

Workers prefer a zero-hours contract to fixed hours for the same role, according to analysis for Labour ministers. A study commissioned by the Government as part of its workers' rights overhaul found that job adverts were "significantly" more likely to attract applicants when they offered flexible hours. "For the same job and establishment, adverts offering a zero-hours contract (ZHC) received around 20pc more applicants than those offering fixed hours," according to the study published by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. - Telegraph

A housebuilder owned by one of the world's largest hedge funds received credit from the government to help it pay for its liabilities arising from the post-Grenfell cladding scandal. Avant Homes, which is owned by Elliott Management and chaired by Jeff Fairburn, said it had entered into a "payment plan" with the housing department to help it meet its £113 million bill for fixing potentially dangerous cladding on buildings. - The Times