Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[Thekiwi]

Tesla's mission statement is not to be the leader of AI and robotics. So it's a stretch to say Elon is no longer willing to work on BASIC DUTIES if he just....advance the advent of sustainable energy through transport/energy storage/charging stations.

So your fine with the Tesla CEO threatening to cancel and/or start (more) competing companies to Tesla for 2 product lines that he said were potentially worth trillions of dollars to Tesla in the future, unless the board & shareholders agree to his gigantic compensation demands?

 

[MP3Mike]

Note that Elon was asking for 25% voting control, not 25% of outstanding shares. Here's an interesting thought from X:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1747003591070482815

Adding another class of shares would cause TSLA to be removed from the S&P500...

 

[Jim Holder]

Followup tweet:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1747018589834526847

 

[Singuy]

So your fine with the Tesla CEO threatening to cancel and/or start (more) competing companies to Tesla for 2 product lines that he said were potentially worth trillions of dollars to Tesla in the future, unless the board & shareholders agree to his gigantic compensation demands?

Tesla solving FSD, DOJO as a service, and Optimus doing factory work is good enough for me(already good enough for me to retire today).

I don't need Tesla to solve AGI(which is where the real key risk is). If Elon wants to solve AGI somewhere else, be my guest. Optimus can always buy AGI software from Elon's other companies. But when it comes to folding laundry and screwing bolts, no AGI is required. AGI is only required if you are doing some kind of WestWorld kind of thing.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

He is publicly stating that he will not perform some of his basic duties of being CEO unless he is to be paid tens/hundreds of billions, and further that he will instead start other companies.

This is different to neural link, boring company etc where Tesla had no overlap. Tesla already has advanced AI & robotics divisions and management has stated the massive potential future worth of these efforts to Tesla.

Now we have the CEO saying he will instead work on these outside of Tesla because he wants more ownership.

Any other CEO of a publicly listed company would be fired instantly.

The board doesn’t have two testicles among the whole bunch. They will do whatever he says.

In a perfect world they would get a strategy together to oust this goof but that will never happen.

Love our tesla and will buy another but this guy is now a stain on the brand. Ugh.

 

[wipster]

Tesla solving FSD, DOJO as a service, and Optimus doing factory work is good enough for me(already good enough for me to retire today).

I don't need Tesla to solve AGI(which is where the real key risk is). If Elon wants to solve AGI somewhere else, be my guest.

Well January 24 sure became more interesting... will the top question be about Elon's compensation or when Gen 3 coming out?

 

[Southpasfan]

He is publicly stating that he will not perform some of his basic duties of being CEO unless he is to be paid tens/hundreds of billions, and further that he will instead start other companies.

This is different to neural link, boring company etc where Tesla had no overlap. Tesla already has advanced AI & robotics divisions and management has stated the massive potential future worth of these efforts to Tesla.

Now we have the CEO saying he will instead work on these outside of Tesla because he wants more ownership.

Any other CEO of a publicly listed company would be fired instantly.

Well, I am sure some of the well researched posters could easily cite earnings calls where the Tesla bot has not only been mentioned, but has been mentioned in the context of a future product of Tesla.

To now say that well, the CEO is going to somehow cause that same product (is that what "robotics" means? Who the hell knows), or, more accurately, kill the program at Tesla and start it up elsewhere, that's fairly astonishing.

Its not quite surprising as to the "AI" part of the statement, since I don't think that Tesla is developing AI for any consumer release, since Full Self Driving is nowhere near "AI," and will never be.

Since we all have our own definition. My definition of a Tesla Model 3 with "AI" is that I wake up one morning, don't look at my phone, and then, over coffee, note my Model 3 is not in the driveway. Then, I check my phone, to find a message from my "Model 3" informing me that during the night, there was a brush fire about 100 miles away and my Model 3 determined that there was a need to help evacuate the population so it drove over there, and that I could do without my car for a day or so. That is AI!! And as far as I know Tesla is nowhere near it and is not even working on such a thing.

Having a car go where I tell it to go is simply a more advanced form of driving. Yes, its so advanced its ground breaking, but not "AI" for me.

 

[MC3OZ]

Elon routinely tweets seemingly outrageous things, but months later, you find he had been working behind the scenes to make it real. I suspect he is just laying the groundwork for justification of a new pay package to be announced during next update call next week.

OR he is publicly negotiating in which case he has decided he doesn’t care if he remains Tesla CEO.

There are 2 halves to any negotiation.

To unlock the higher rewards from any package, there may be a few requirements:-

• Tesla bigger than Apple and ARAMCO combined.
• 1 Million profitable working Optimus Robots.
• 1 Million profitable working FSD Robotaxis
• 20 Million vehicles produced annually,
• Inhouse battery cell production of 1 TWh per year
• Dojo as a service.

If both sides get everything that they want I am happy, but in order to be rewarded, Elon needs to deliver.

Elon has some idea of what is coming, I think that is why he is negotiating now.,

 

[Singuy]

I'm having a BIT of trouble seeing how there's that massive a difference between 20.6% of voting shares (what he has right now- and as a reminder that was higher before the twitter $ raising) and 25% in terms of how much control that gives you exactly to where one would leave him unmotivated to develop anything new for the company and the other has him totally engaged in doing so.

Is there some corporate rule I'm unaware of where 25% is a really significant threshold?

Maybe look around to see what others has. Perhaps 25% is the threshold in which not one institution or person can override him but requires multiple.

 

[2daMoon]

So your fine with the Tesla CEO threatening to cancel and/or start (more) competing companies to Tesla for 2 product lines that he said were potentially worth trillions of dollars to Tesla in the future, unless the board & shareholders agree to his gigantic compensation demands?

So, you still think Elon cannot manage more than one business?

You think that just because he wants to have voting influence over X.ai that Tesla will cease doing parallel AI development?

You think that there won't be cooperative arrangements, possibly with Tesla funding X.ai and taking the spoils, like they do with Jeff Dahn's work on batteries?

Open your mind a little and consider the possibilities once in a while, rather than looking for mediocre reasons to experience the endorphin rush from your apparent addiction to outrage.

How can you have knowledge about what Elon has already accomplished, across so many disciplines, and manage to suddenly think he doesn't know what he is doing?

I'm outraged that you can think that way. WOW, that was a pretty good rush I got there /s

 

[Knightshade]

Maybe look around to see what others has. Perhaps 25% is the threshold in which not one institution or person can override him but requires multiple.

No individual has even REMOTELY a similar amount of shares, let alone over 20% of em.

I don't think there's more than like 2 guys at even ONE percent (KoGuan Leo and Larry Ellison)

According to this no institutions own even 5% of the stock other than Vanguard at a 6.74%

TSLA - Tesla Inc Shareholders - CNNMoney.com

 

[mongo]

Elon's 2021/2022 sales reduced his projected ownership stake 3.2% (of the company)

Ownership as reported to SEC is share plus option count irrespective of ability to turns those into shares at 1:1. With 50% tax, only half are realizable

Ownership ending 2018: 21.7%, post exercise 21.0%
507,370,200 shares 71,221,650 options (adjusted)
These options are from the 2012 plan, not the 2018

Ownership 2019: 20.8% post exercise: 20.1%
511,283,400 shares 68,596,650 (non-2018)

Ownership 2020: 22.4% post exercise: 20.7%
511,478,955 shares 169,916,850 options (some 2018)

Ownership 2021: 21.2% post exercise: 19.6%
517,824,753 shares 177,320,865 options (only 2018s)

Ownership end 2022: 20.6% post exercise 18.8%
411,051,576 shares 303,971,130 options

Backing out all sales, post exercise he would be at 22.0% (26.9% SEC version)
545,581,725 shares and 303,971,130 options

 

[Thekiwi]

So, you still think Elon cannot manage more than one business?

You think that just because he wants to have voting influence over X.ai that Tesla will cease doing parallel AI development?

You think that there won't be cooperative arrangements, possibly with Tesla funding X.ai and taking the spoils, like they do with Jeff Dahn's work on batteries?

Open your mind a little and consider the possibilities once in a while, rather than looking for mediocre reasons to experience the endorphin rush from your apparent addiction to outrage.

How can you have knowledge about what Elon has already accomplished, across so many disciplines, and manage to suddenly think he doesn't know what he is doing?

I'm outraged that you can think that way. WOW, that was a pretty good rush I got there /s

So your fine if he said he’s going to stop working on new EV models at Tesla and start rival EV companies because he isn’t getting paid enough? How about a rival solar & power storage company as well? Maybe a rival robotaxi company for good measure. But he wants to stay CEO of Tesla of course as well.

 

[Stretch2727]

The board doesn’t have two testicles among the whole bunch. They will do whatever he says.

In a perfect world they would get a strategy together to oust this goof but that will never happen.

Love our tesla and will buy another but this guy is now a stain on the brand. Ugh.

Don't like the optics of this as well but when it is all said and done what shareholder is going to argue against 5-10% dilution for another 7-8x stock price increase. Set the bar super high and let him do it. We all know he will achieve it. Little risk to the shareholders if we agree as he won't get the shares unless he achieves. Bigger risk if we don't give it to him as now it's obvious he will do it outside Tesla.

 

[CorneliusXX]

There are 2 halves to any negotiation.

To unlock the higher rewards from any package, there may be a few requirements:-

• Tesla bigger than Apple and ARAMCO combined.
• 1 Million profitable working Optimus Robots.
• 1 Million profitable working FSD Robotaxis
• 20 Million vehicles produced annually,
• Inhouse battery cell production of 1 TWh per year
• Dojo as a service.

If both sides get everything that they want I am happy, but in order to be rewarded, Elon needs to deliver.

Elon has some idea of what is coming, I think that is why he is negotiating now.,

If Elon wants to dilute me 5% when Tesla reaches $10T I won't be crying about it. Maybe fewer tranches in the next round with bigger intervals. 1% every $2T increase in market cap.

 

[cdub]

Any other CEO of a publicly listed company would be fired instantly.

This could be said of a thousand things he's done recently. It's insane. He really does need to go and it seems like he's laying the ground work "excuse" for him leaving. So maybe he'll finally leave and let the adults run Tesla.

The truck is a huge fail. Not doing a commercial van like Kia or Rivian is a huge miss. We need better people in charge.

 

[Tony73]

I'm having a BIT of trouble seeing how there's that massive a difference between 20.6% of voting shares (what he has right now- and as a reminder that was higher before the twitter $ raising) and 25% in terms of how much control that gives you exactly to where one would leave him unmotivated to develop anything new for the company and the other has him totally engaged in doing so.

Is there some corporate rule I'm unaware of where 25% is a really significant threshold?

There isn’t. That’s why he’s trying to negotiate for.

 

[Thekiwi]

Don't like the optics of this as well but when it is all said and done what shareholder is going to argue against 5-10% dilution for another 7-8x stock price increase. Set the bar super high and let him do it. We all know he will achieve it. Little risk to the shareholders if we agree as he won't get the shares unless he achieves. Bigger risk if we don't give it to him as now it's obvious he will do it outside Tesla.

 

[2daMoon]

So your fine if he said he’s going to stop working on new EV models at Tesla and start rival EV companies because he isn’t getting paid enough? How about a rival solar & power storage company as well? Maybe a rival robotaxi company for good measure. But he wants to stay CEO of Tesla of course as well.

I'll wait until he actually says something like that to decide.

You are getting your feathers ruffled because you don't understand what he said, not because of what he actually said.

You are unable to question your own interpretation, even when it is politely pointed out how there could be another way to process the statement than the one you came up with.

That isn't anyone's problem except yours. You have a habit of repeatedly taking Elon's words out of context and being unable to weigh your initial thought on the matter against another's interpretation that differs from yours.

 

[Tony73]

There are 2 halves to any negotiation.

To unlock the higher rewards from any package, there may be a few requirements:-

• Tesla bigger than Apple and ARAMCO combined.
• 1 Million profitable working Optimus Robots.
• 1 Million profitable working FSD Robotaxis
• 20 Million vehicles produced annually,
• Inhouse battery cell production of 1 TWh per year
• Dojo as a service.

If both sides get everything that they want I am happy, but in order to be rewarded, Elon needs to deliver.

Elon has some idea of what is coming, I think that is why he is negotiating now.,

I would add 10 million FSD subscribers across Tesla and licensed platforms.

If he does all that, giving him another 5% of the company is a steal.

He wants to be the world’s first trillionaire because that’s what he believes it will cost to colonize Mars.