Let me put it this way: Options are not shares.
They even repeat that obvious statement in other words in the "options level" education agreements that you have to sign when you sign up for brokerage option trading.
Edit:
For example, all the many $TSLA (& $SCTY) stockholder elections I voted in with my shares never contained any of my options as shares to vote.
I had to convert a sizable number of my options into shares to vote for the $SCTY&$TSLA merger (with settlement date before the voting record date -- look it up (note that we had to guess about that because the record dates are often declared retroactively!)), and then after the voting record date of the election I wanted to voted in, I converted much of it back into options once I knew exactly how the options would behave. I excersized some options during the merger and kept some options across the merger. We had to learn exactly how that would work. In that case, holding options through the merger was relatively benign, but not completely indifferent to the merger. But it still made it very clear to us that options are only specified contracts that have to be properly analyzed.
I feel pain for those who got options for $TSLA that lost their time value, but that's why a lot of options traders get deep in the money options (note that the buyout offer covered the time value of DITM options so while your gamble didn't pay off handsomly, at least you didn't lose money, and hopefully you also had shares as well), consider out of the money options cheap lottery tickets, and even better yet, sell (write) options, especially as a way to get into and out of the stock in beneficial ways. Even there, there's a risk with options. The closing date of the option could be on the wrong day from the stock movement that you were right about, and you could be off by only 10 minutes, and it won't matter; in a way, it's the same as a buyout plan: you bargained that the rise would be in 2 years instead of 1 month. Your bargain failed to properly consider the effect that proving profitability would have (i.e., big big big big players with long long long long views and deep deep deep analysis could trigger that last litmus test way before many other slightly less interested very large funds that still traded a lot during the days, and it's off to the board with a proposal, many quarters before showing green in all columns, cashing in on being the early bird by billions of dollars; obviously, later in the game than the early early birds, but still there nonetheless, and often from slow conservative houses that are more careful and have more real money). I think most long term options traders also have diversity into shares as well, since options can do all sorts of things in exagerated ways. Options are a great way to exagerate market events, so they're more powerful, and that power can do all sorts of things, including not what you want at all.
