Shareholders, would you vote to reinstate Elon's pay package

[HaulingAss]

N

Elon is hurting sales for both Twitter and Tesla. There is an abundance of evidence that his judgement has harmed his business performance. OP probably thought you'd seen some of this:

1/ https://qz.com/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-ev-sales-1851378759#:~:text=Elon Musk is turning off,potential Tesla buyers is shrinking.

2/ https://variety.com/2023/digital/ne...ion-one-year-user-revenue-decline-1235770297/

I love Tesla, and I love SpaceX. I want to see these companies flurish and grown. The data suggests Elon is holding them back. He did the same for Paypal and Zip2.

Nope, the decline in auto sales is across the board, all manufacturers are seeing big declines, many of them steeper than Tesla. Only if Elon was the CEO of all those other auto companies could a logical person attribute falling sales to Elon.

 

[Crissa]

Jobs died in 2011. Stock did far better after that.

You do understand that if you zoom into exponential curve, each part looks similar?

Also, most of that curve you're showing is the pandemic boost.

-Crissa

 

[HaulingAss]

If you read the actual ruling in the court case,

Not only were shareholders not clued in on the details of the compensation, the board had musk's brother and another verified close friend voting on this.

I was a shareholder when the Board of Directors asked the shareholders to vote on Elon's compensation package. They didn't need to do that, they had the legal authority to approve it without a shareholder vote. As a shareholder, I knew exactly what the compensation package entailed. I knew that if the goals were met, I would make millions for sitting on my ass. I also knew if Elon failed, i would lose a lot of money.

I also knew that Elon's brother was on the board and other board members were friends of Elon. This is actually common in private companies. The court ruling was ridiculous and even the talking heads on CNBC agreed, the very people who are regularly anti-Musk.

Additionally, the target goals set forth in the agreement were ALL projected to be met and the board had full knowledge of this. This was not a lottery or gamble to see if musk could meet goals. The company's own internal projections laid out all goals would be met.

Companies' internal projections are forward looking projections. They are goals they want to reach if everything goes well. This should have no bearing on whether the compensation package was above the board. The fact is, not many people thought Tesla could do it, including the CEO's of other automakers (who said as much on national television).

Is it fair to pay musk more than the top 200 CEO's COMBINED salary when the stock has lost 1/3 of its value in 4 months?

Elon's compensation package did not allow him to cash in the stock options for 5 years after the target prices were reached. If the stock falls in value, so does his compensation. It's completely fair because if the shares don't retain their gains, the compensation is worthless. People tend to forget that the split adjusted price of TSLA is not $150, it's $2,250! Even at the current "low" prices, the shares I have, that I didn't sell at much higher prices, have appreciated more than 10-fold. And that's with investors accounting for the probable dilution of whatever options Elon is granted to remedy this travesty of a legal ruling. Elon is worth every penny of the dilution.

To people saying this is not a cash payout, its worse. When Musk excersises his stock option, thats 304 million shares bought at under $23 that will dilute every other tsla shareholder's cut.

As a shareholder, I support diluting the stock rather than paying Elon in cash because I want Tesla to fund more growth with the cash. Shareholders approved the dilution; the judge was talking out of her ass when she said the shareholders didn't understand. Everything was laid out in black and white before shareholders approved it. This is the worst legal ruling of its type in this century, it's a disgrace to our legal system.

Im an active trader. Got out at @ $183 in the green. I will get back in at the right entry point. Alot can happen tuesday and especially august 8 and beyond.

I'm more of a buy and hold investor, but that didn't stop me from taking more profits than my entire initial investments. Trying to guess short-term stock movements is simply gambling, you win some and you lose some. I'm in for the long-haul, I'm super excited for AI, humanoid robots, utility scale battery energy storage and autonomous driving, not to mention the inevitable resumption of the growth in EV sales with profit margins above that of Tesla's competitors. No other automaker can produce vehicles as efficiently or offer consumers so much value.

All this fake negativity is just noise in the bigger picture. The Tesla shorts will get really quiet when Tesla's profits take off again. The auto industry's sales have always been cyclic with the economy, so the recent downturn in auto sales doesn't bother me, it's temporary. People who claim it's due to Elon speaking too freely have no clue what they are talking about (or are simply trying to mislead others into thinking such a stupid thing). I wasn't born yesterday.

 

[HaulingAss]

You seem unable to grasp the idea that A. Sales could have been even better last year and B. Sales this year could be better.
Simple fact is we've seen far more people saying they won't buy Tesla products and/or TSLA stock because of Elon than the opposite, it's not even close. Long term Tesla fans are being turned off to the brand and the stock. Normally I would be buying this dip but now I'm not because I don't trust Elon's judgment.

Depending upon what Elon says, he will lose some people while gaining others. In the last two years Elon has made Tesla more appealing to people in the center and center right of the political spectrum. So what if he loses one long-term Tesla fan for every two customers he gains. Do you have any idea how small of a demographic "long-term Tesla fans" really are? They are insignificant. And I know a number of long-term Tesla fans who are not turned off by Musk's statements, people who are glad he is standing up for our freedom of speech. In the end, all that matters is that he has been able to grow sales at phenomenal rates.

The current downtrend in auto sales is not due to Elon, its due to economic conditions, including high auto loan rates that increase the cost of new cars to the average new car buyer. Over 80% of new cars are purchased with an auto loan.

 

[Crissa]

Elon is human, and like humans, makes mistakes.

He's been making alot of them in public recently.

-Crissa

 

[jerhenderson]

No and requesting this the day after letting go 10% of the staff is really frustrating.

So you don't understand business?

 

[jerhenderson]

Yes and yes. He met the requirements of that contract.

 

[Crissa]

Yes and yes. He met the requirements of that contract.

Contracts made under false pretenses are void.

The court said it was not honestly presented to the shareholders.

I knew the board was weighted towards him in the first place; the court found they failed to include this in the materials to the shareholders. That I knew doesn't change that evidence.

I also didn't know the bank agreed that the goals were more likely than not. And that definitely wasn't in the materials given to the shareholders.

Would I approve of his old package again? Eh, probably. Would I agree to his new package? Definitely not.

-Crissa

 

[rizvend]

Who’s the alternative? ?

 

[Crissa]

Who’s the alternative? ?

Ehh, if he's going to make himself too expensive, I'm sure Tesla will figure something out.

-Crissa

 

[Thor]

So you don't understand business?

What a crappy response. It's a yes or no question. Our opinion was asked on how we'd vote, I gave it. It's unsettling how many people are "attacking" others because they don't like the opposite of their opinion. This is why voting is anonymous. I get it, you'd vote yes. That's great, welcome to the land of the free.

 

[BannedByTMC]

You do understand that if you zoom into exponential curve, each part looks similar?

Also, most of that curve you're showing is the pandemic boost.

-Crissa

Even before 2020 the company did much better after Jobs was gone. Simple facts do not support the claim that it did worse without him.

 

[BannedByTMC]

Depending upon what Elon says, he will lose some people while gaining others. In the last two years Elon has made Tesla more appealing to people in the center and center right of the political spectrum. So what if he loses one long-term Tesla fan for every two customers he gains.

Because it's provably false. The coal rolling anti EV crowd isn't going to suddenly change their stance because of Elon, not in significant numbers, and there are stats to prove this as well as tons of anecdotal evidence. Even if we traded one customer for another that's not growth. It's an incredibly dumb "strategy". Read this article and the comments in the thread. The article is copied further down in the comments if you can't read the original:

 

[Beyond]

Even before 2020 the company did much better after Jobs was gone. Simple facts do not support the claim that it did worse without him.

This is in no way true. I watched the whole thing unfold in real time (Yep I'm old and had a small side business of modifying the Apple II into faster CPM machines and also upgrading the early IBM PCs with faster NEC v20/v30 and later AMD chips)). Under Jobs Apple became the fastest growing corporation in history. He was much like Elon, he pushed hard and made some enemies. The board became diluted and ousted Jobs in favor of a Pepsi salesman (Sculley). Apple began it's decline as the products Jobs had in the pipeline faded into maturity. Then followed a succession of CEOs, each worse than the last. Then came Gil Amelio, a corporate hatchet man. Apple was all but dead but Microsoft bailed them out with a cash infusion for basically worthless stock. MS wanted a weak competitor but not a dead one, in order to avoid monopoly status. That kept Apple going for a while, and in desperation they brought back Jobs as a last ditch effort. Everything changed. Jobs dumped the Apple OS and integrated his Next OS based on Berkeley Unix into the Mac. Then came grame changing new products such as the iPhone. Apple became a cash machine. Unfortunately Jobs died too young but a lot of products were in the pipeline. Cook took over and he's a competent manager but in no way a visionary. Apple is still a cash machine due to SAS and minor upgrades of old products. Not a lot of innovation. Cook didn't even have the foresight (thankfully) to buy Tesla when it was offered. If Tesla loses Elon the company will lose it's drive to innovate. That's what the powers that be want to happen.

 

[HaulingAss]

Because it's provably false. The coal rolling anti EV crowd isn't going to suddenly change their stance because of Elon, not in significant numbers, and there are stats to prove this as well as tons of anecdotal evidence. Even if we traded one customer for another that's not growth. It's an incredibly dumb "strategy". Read this article and the comments in the thread. The article is copied further down in the comments if you can't read the original:

I don't believe what you believe and, without new evidence to the contrary, I never will.

I don't have a long history of hating on Elon incessantly, that's what got you banned from TMC, something that's pretty hard to achieve because they have a surprising tolerance for people who are incessantly negative on one of the world's greatest industrialists of all time. Sure, be critical of specific things, just don't paint a good man with a broad stroke of negativity, just to spread your hate.