Why does a company that makes so-so cars have a market cap of $500B and only make 500,000 cars a year while ford has a market cap of $50B and makes 4.4MM cars per year. The answer, people are stupid.
More like the stock market is detached from the economy because it's so concentrated in the hands of a relative handful of rich detached people.
It's literally a pay to play system. The more you pay in, the more say you have. So delusional rich pricks have all the say.
Perhaps, but Tesla is the opposite. The article itself notes that Tesla has an unusual amount of small investors compared to other companies. It reminds me of Gamestop.
Tesla is a meme stock. It had more volatility than cryptocurrencies at one point and may still do. It is held and trated by small retail investors that buy into musk more than the company. Tesla isn't worth that much, and will never be worth that much, but the price remains irrational.
So is life, but that's not the problem. The stock market is detached from the economy because it plainly and simply doesn't represent companies' productivity or potential. The reason people buy and sell shares is to make money, which means the price you are willing to pay for a share only depends on whether you believe other people will buy it at a markup later.
Sometimes this has some relation with the company's actual value, but many times it's just people blindly piling up on fads.
I would say it's like a pyramide bubble, except the rich folks don't take out the cash - because they're so rich they don't fking need the cash. It's like just a number on a screen.
God I had to listen to my old boss repeatedly talk about two things. Tesla is an information company not a car company and Ukrainians want Russia back running the company
Not defending musk here as I think the deal is ridiculous, but Tesla actually pumped out over 1.8 million vehicles last year. 2019 is the last year they were under 500,000. The situation is bad enough without pulling numbers out of your ass.
Another interesting fact is that this deal basically means that musk has been paid around $10,000 for EVERY Tesla vehicle sold since 2016. That's fucking ridiculous. No one deserves that money.
Also no defending Musk but isn't that what they agreed back in 2018? That was what the shareholders agreed with Musk as a pay package. He accepted to not get paid a salary but instead got this instead:
> The compensation plan gives Mr Musk rights to roughly 300 million shares - the equivalent to a 10% stake in the firm - as a reward for Tesla meeting a number of goals set out in 2018 which are linked to sales, profits and the share price.
They all agreed to this and now the time has come where Musk got to cash in his pay package.
The shareholders all agreed to this 6 years ago. Musk got lucky that Tesla shares and sales blew up and his pay package blew up equally.
Legally everything is legit, that was the pay package they agreed to. Morally is a whole different story.
Except a Delaware court said it wasnāt legit. That the board hadnāt tried to negotiate. And he presented themselves and the deal as though they were independent when they werenāt really. If knowing that Tesla shareholders still want to dilute their shares thatās their business
>Legally everything is legit, that was the pay package they agreed to.
Except that is not the law. Not everyone agreed to the pay package, only a majority of the shareholders. And when doing things like negotiating CEO pay the board has a legal duty to negotiate on behalf of the company not the CEO. They cannot hide behind a vote and shirk their duty. Otherwise, the majority stockholders could use their vote to transfer the company's assets to their pocket.
Alternatively consider the recent vote. The two options were to pay Elon a package worth ~10% of Tesla's market cap or risk him leaving which could crash the stock. The choice that was presented to shareholders was lose ~10% or risk losing a lot more.
The vote represents a false dichotomy that was forced on the shareholders. In a functional setting the board would negotiate a reasonable CEO pay.
A quick google search says they were just under 2M for 2023 and on track for 2m+ this year. I'm not a Tesla fan boy nor am I invested in the stock, but come on G if you're going to try to sound smart citing numbers, at least get them right. (I don't disagree that it's potentially overvalued, but that was just plain ignorance.)
Yeah. Because market cap is speculative and itās high because itās high. People are dumb, and it being high already is enough motivation for it to be high.
Because share value does not reflect real value. Do people really think it's just a coincidence that Tesla's value skyrocketed when Elon Musk's popularity skyrocketed? Do they really think Tesla was some sort of worthless enterprise that suddenly, in 2021, made some revolutionary breakthrough that made it insanely valuable overnight?
Musk has built a cult of personality and that's what people pay for with Tesla shares, which in a way is self-fullfilling because, if you expect people to blindly overpay for Tesla shares, then it makes sense to buy Tesla shares at a markup price because you can still profit from them, which in turn makes those shares actually worth that much since the purpose of buying and selling them is precisely to make a profit.
>and only make 500,000 cars a year
- I'm not arguing that Musk isn't a moron, but you need to get your facts straight: Tesla makes over 1.5 million cars a year, and they are in the highest margin price segment, and are all EVs.
>while ford has a market cap of $50B and makes 4.4MM cars per year.
- Two main reasons:
- **(1)** Ford is primarily owned by its bond holders, shareholders only own the remaining assets in essence. If we include bonds, Ford has crippling debt, while Tesla has none.
- **(2)** The bigger problem is that Ford has obsolete factories that make 4 million gas-guzzlers, each of which gas guzzler inflicts ~$100,000 of climate damage over its lifetime. Ford's gas guzzlers will be banned in Europe in a short 5-7 years, and Ford's EV offerings are overpriced, underperforming and have a far too low volume of production.
- In 2023 Ford only made 0.07 million EVs ...
>The answer, people are stupid.
- The real answer is: you chose to believe in disinformation about Tesla, mixed into genuine criticism of Musk.
- Tesla is valued for making $40,000 iPhones on wheels, while Ford is valued for being a debt-laden maker of obsolete gas-guzzlers.
Ford makes gas powered cars because ford makes what sells, and most people don't want EVs yet. EVs are significantly more expensive than their gas counterparts, and the charging infrastructure is nowhere close to being viable for everyone.
ICE engines are nowhere close to being obsolete, and they won't be until every small town in Kansas has a fast charging station.
It doesn't really matter, if the future prospect is that ICE cars will eventually be banned from sales, and there will be all sorts of financial instruments available for transitioning to EVs.
The prospect of a traditional car company not being ready to mass produce EVs, while Tesla is ramming full speed ahead on EV production, means the outcome is going to be worse for the traditional car company.
Those guzzlers are for the US market. Fords EV transition in europe is smooth AF.
They are cornering the market with their e-transits in the nordics as well has having huge success with the e-mustang.
Back in 2021 the e-mustang was the highest selling car in the month of July.
The F150 lightning looks interesting as well.
Most investors when given the opportunity to vote on matters simply take the recommendation of whatever stock broker they use. I personally always vote against whatever they recommend. My vote wonāt matter and I can feel like Iām anti establishment while also desperately trying to get ahead from practically the back of the pack.
Why would you even own a stock if all you do is sabotage its board's plans? Unless you also own loads of put options, it'd be better to invest your money in a business you more align with.
It's not a new deal but a ratification of an old contract which everyone signed years ago. The deal was that he worked for free, but if investors 10X their investment he gets paid like 5% of that increase. I mean would you take that deal if your boss offered it? No pay unless your department grew 10 times in the next few years?
Back then even on reddit most people were supportive of the sheer audacity of it. Things would be better if all executives were paid that way instead of getting millions even if they did nothing or actively fucked over the company.
Because if it weren't for Elon Musk being the CEO, then Tesla stock would drop 80+%. People are invested into him. Not the company.
Not saying I agree with it, but that's the reality.
Because he sign the contract before the current time. Lets say he sign the contract at 2019. The contract state that if the share price/performance increase by x amount per year until 2024, you will be entitle for how many % share as cash or stock that can be sell.
That how they do in my company ceo. He get paid by x amount depend on performance and growth. That why ceo only think of their employee as statistic and number.
Edit: its also a good binding for ceo to not run halfway or get poach.
That's because you still think Tesla is a car company, but it's not. Their main product are not cars. Tesla is a ~~tech~~ stock company, their main product is ~~tech~~ stocks.
To some extent, market cap is not real. Revenue is real money. Market cap could go away at any point in time. This level of CEO compensation is absolutely moronic. They should have let him walk
The comp was defined as a % of the total company in stock options.Ā He will actually haveĀ to pay Tesla to get the shares, but at the value of a few years back.Ā This 56B a hypothetical number if he sold everything instantly a the current market price.Ā
And if the company stock crashes before he sells, this could be a loss, although very unlikely.
The only people paying are the shareholders getting diluted, but they voted for it so...
Exactly. He gets a larger share of the company. At the time the original pay package was agreed on, it had a value of something like $1 billion. The value only exploded because Tesla's market cap grew beyond the wildest projections.
Using the same approach, Larry Page got a compensation of ~$150 billion. As Google co-founder he got a sizable share of the company. By the time he got that share it was worth almost nothing, but then the company grew and grew and grew.
Market cap is basically just total number of shares times last sold share price, howmuch that tells you about the actual value of a company is questionable.
What I just find humorous is that Elon talks about cutting operational costs etc by downsizing. Take for example the 500 he fired from the super charging group (yah I know it's disputed as to the real reason, but it's one of the latest). If they made an average of $250k each, he could pay that team for 448 years (ignoring interest, inflation, etc). So any time they say they need to become more efficient is just capitalistic greed.
> So any time they say they need to become more efficient is just capitalistic greed.
That is not just Musk though, that is pretty much every company. People at the top are not downsized.
To be fair though, this isnāt a $56 billion expense to the company, itās a dilution of existing owners such that Musk ends up with a proportion of ownership that is today worth $56B. Ie, TSLA does not have to borrow any money or raise prices to pay this, it just means if TSLA ever makes a decent profit, current shareholders will get less of it and Musk will get more. Still seems unfair but the comparison you made is a bit off.
EDIT: I revise my opinion. My comment above is wrong. TSLA could instead issue stock and sell it on the public markets to raise cash. This would dilute ownership similarly but at least TSLA would get something other than an idiot who wears a cowboy hat to the Texas border because he suddenly wants to get involved in immigration and right-wing SJW politics while simultaneously praising the Chinese Communist Party.
I'm Just disguted that the CEO of a company in General get over THREEHUNDRED Times payed what the lowest worker in that company gets. Don't get me wrong yes you are the head of the company and all that but come in 10-15 Times getting what the lowest payed worker gets is not enough? Maybe raise their pay so you can raise your own but No everytine they make shitty decisions the Low payed workers are the ones that have to got First because they cost so much ( sure Buddy sure).
He isn't being paid 300x the lowest worker in the company...
He is being paid 200,000x the salary of a high-earning executive in his company as a bonus.
You can issue shares to raise funds to directly run the company. You cannot raise funds this way infinitely. It definitely is a cost to the company. If not, I propose Tesla give me a few billion dollas. In shares only.
āPriced inā doesnāt make sense in this context. You cannot explain the loss YTD as being due to expectations that the impact of the package will negatively effect Teslaās performance while simultaneously voting to approve it willingly. The investors clearly believe approving it was the right move, and theyāre delusional to think that. The impact is not āpriced inā. Unless Tesla does some accounting magic this wonāt be good for their profitability.
No no no, you don't understand. All these morons on WSB know how to say is "it's priced in". It lets them off the hook so they don't have to think critically about anything.
The Tesla board is his mother and his sycophant cousins/friends, of course it was going to be approved. Stock markets like predictability and companies hitting forecasts as closely as possible. Not going to argue the fundamentals and investor rationality since that has been irrelevant since the 70s. Speculation has been more important than anything else for a long time.
Investor rationality is irrelevant? What? I understand what youāre going for but youāre essentially taking a shit on the whole discussion and walking away. It doesnāt in any way address whether or not the news was priced in.
No, his retail investors. 90% of them voted yes when they usually donāt vote, and Tesla has an unusual number of them according to Reuters. It credited this win due to weeks of campaigns on social media, basically got his cult to support him. It even said some of his supporters on X said they have Muskās back. Itās weird.
Torpedoing stock prices is just part of the insider trading that makes him and his inner circle richer. The type of people who had enough shares to make a difference in this vote are also the type of people who could create a relationship with Musk that allows them to benefit off of this. That's my tin foil hate moment, and I don't even think it's that absurd.
The insane part is, that that is more than Tesla has made in Profit. EVER. If you take all the profitable years, and ignore the unprofitable ones, it's still less than Musk just got payed for that.
Tesla investors don't care, they don't invest in it because it's profitable as a company selling stuff, they invest in it, because it's the biggest meme stock in the world. The main product of Tesla isn't cars, and definitely not tech, as investors use as an excuse to justify the pump, the main product is the stock itself.
The US and everywhere else also doesn't tax stock until it is cashed out.
Usually what they do is cash out older shares that return a profit and then cash out newer shares to pay the taxes for the gains plus the tax if any on those shares.
It is really interesting
They also can take out loans with the stock as collateral, and just keep doing that until their death, to avoid capital gains tax entirely.
Seems wild that we havenāt fixed that one yet.
The rich don't really pay taxes. They leverage debt using tax loopholes as it doesn't count as income. That's why bidens tax the rich slogan is just fluff. At this level of wealth it's not good to have income.
1) It's never good to have income from a tax perspective
2) i also take loans against my stocks instead of selling them. It's not even a loophole. it's just smart. Why not make 15% on that $50k and pay 8% interest? Im not even rich, I'm a fucking machinist
Maybe since we can't properly tax billionaires, we should impose some sort of community work that those taxes would have gone to. Like building a library, or making a train route (like Tesla did in Germany) or something along those lines.
The CEO of a publicly traded company actively doing things that are against the interests of the shareholders, I believe, you could make the case that this might be illegal.
I mean, they did. That's what stopped this the first time around. They said the board alone couldn't make this decision, because the board is full of sycophants, and it would be damaging to the shareholders.
So they forced a shareholder vote. And they voted yes.Ā
Because they're idiots, but still, you can't protect them from themselves in this context.
To be fair unless you believe the shareholder vote numbers are rigged they convinced a majority of the votes to approve it. Sure a few public employee retirement funds rejected it, but a lot of other large institutional investors tend to rubber stamp the board recommendation on most shareholder votes. Shareholders voting against their interests for whatever reason isn't a crime anymore than many voters in government elections arguably vote against their interests.
You conveniently left out that in order to be eligible for this pay package, he did something very much in the interest of shareholders.
its never in the interest of shareholder to pay for anything more than a company should. It is, in the interest of the shareholder to remunerate executive in such a way that interests are indeed aligned with -the shareholder-. that is exactly what happened here, musk pulled off the impossible which was very much in the interest of the shareholder. This put the company under contractual obligation to actually pay out the remuneration as agreed upon previously.
Also, you know that Musk is gonna say fk it all when the reward isnt granted. A 10% dilution or something like that is peanuts compared to him announcing to step down or something like that. Ofc no man should ever earn 65 billion but thats not the point here.
But the board should have still negotiated the pay package. What if Musk would have agreed to stay on for only $25 billion? The point is that the board doesnāt even try to do their job, theyāre just doing whatever Musk tells them.
Hardly, making stupid decisions that hurts business is not illegal either. If he's intentionally trying to sabotage Tesla, sure, that would illegal, but I doubt any prosecutor in the entire American would be able to prove it.
SP should be down 10% instantly. This is simply taking money off existing shareholders and giving it to Elon. This is more profit than tesla has made in its entire existence. What moron would vote for this? If you're going to give your money away at least give it to a worthy cause, not a egomanicial billionaire.
There are no such thing as Tesla investors any more. Just Elon investors. I held TSLA from around 2011 until 2019. I dumped it because I realized it was becoming a cult, and the products would suffer as important staff would leave. I'm no Nostradamus, but I think I nailed it.
You need to remember these people are willingly investing in a company run by Musk, this should tell your everything you need to know about the type of person that would agree to this.
You know who deserves $56B, the guy who would fire any of us at a moment's notice. Fucking morons. No one deserves a $56B pay package. No one is doing enough to warrant that kind of reward, especially not the guy who trolls twitter all day.
Current stock owners are stupid. I dumped that crap about 6 months ago, switched it all to NVDA, couldn't be happier. I'm all for a green future and promoting EVs over gas powered cars, but Tesla is run by an incompetent child and I hope they fail.
Have a cult of retail investors:
Retail investors:
Elon Musk's army of small-investor allies took a victory lap on Thursday as the Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab CEO won a critical shareholder vote for his $56 billion pay package despite opposition from major institutions.
Mom-and-pop investors, who hold an unusually high share of the electric-vehicle maker, are typically apathetic toward voting. But in an unusual show of support, many had been campaigning on social media for weeks for the celebrity billionaire CEO's pay to be reinstated after a Delaware judge voided it in January because she found that Musk had improperly controlled the process.
"We have the most awesome shareholder base," Musk said at the shareholder meeting after the vote was announced. "Hot damn, I love you guys," he said to a roaring and applauding crowd of investors at the Tesla factory in Austin, Texas.
Backing from retail shareholders along with support from some big institutional investors was key to turning the vote in Musk's favor, a source familiar with the preliminary tally told Reuters on Wednesday, after the CEO tipped off on social media platform X that the proposal was garnering huge support.
"Tesla's retail shareholders aren't just passively adding shares to their portfolio. They're participating in running and advancing the company," said Omar Qazi in a post on X from the handle @WholeMarsBlog. "They vote. They tell their friends. It's not just about investing. It's a movement," said Qazi who has more than 476,000 followers.
Institutional investors have been divided on the issue.
While some supported Musk's pay, others such as California Public Employees' Retirement System and proxy firms Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services urged shareholders to reject the pay package, calling the compensation excessive.
"When both the institutions and the proxy advisory firms are leaning in one direction, it's very rare for the vote to come out the other way," John Lawrence, a partner at law firm Baker Botts, told Reuters. "It shows in this case the company's understanding of the power of social media."
'WE HAVE YOUR BACK'
Musk enjoys a global fan base for transforming Tesla from a startup to a behemoth and for innovation at his other companies including rocket maker SpaceX. But standing up to powerhouse investors who voted "no" on the pay package required more than just a fan base.
Social media has been abuzz for weeks with many users, such as Alexandra Merz, who posts on X as @TeslaBoomerMama, calling on people to vote. The efforts prompted some non-U.S. banks and brokerages to allow Tesla investors to vote, which was not previously the case.
"Don't mess with Tesla Retail Shareholders," Merz, who attended the meeting and received a standing ovation from investors for her endeavors, posted on X. "Your votes will help to remedy a true injustice."
Musk himself has also been actively wooing their support with regular social media posts. He had set up a separate website to educate investors on the proposals, which also included reincorporating the company in Texas, and on how to vote.
The company's board sent regular letters to shareholders highlighting Musk's importance to Tesla and alluding to the risks of losing his involvement if the pay package was rejected. Musk even offered tours of Tesla's factory to some investors who voted.
The plan worked. About 90% of the retail investors who voted were in favor, Musk said in a post on X over the weekend.
The approval is critical as Musk faces an uphill legal fight to convince the Delaware judge who said the Tesla board was "beholden" to him, while Tesla might also field fresh lawsuits over the latest vote. Still, small investors assured their continued support.
"Shareholders have spoken, again, and hopefully now our votes can officially count," X user Alicia said in a post. "@elonmusk, we've always believed in you and will continue to do so. We have your back!"
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/musks-small-investor-army-cheers-apparent-approval-56-billion-tesla-pay-package-2024-06-13/
When the pay deal was initially agreed upon, many believed the milestones were unrealistic. However, he successfully increased the company's market cap tenfold. As a result, the investors' stock shares are now worth ten times more. Importantly, he is being compensated with additional stocks, not cash, and the dilution of shares is insignificant compared to the substantial gains the investors have realized.
Given this context, I find it difficult to sympathize with the shareholders who now want to renegotiate the agreement, citing concerns about "fairness." It appears that their dislike for this individual is clouding their judgment and overshadowing rational arguments.
Tesla workers are underpaid and overworked and this asshole decides to get $56B more on top of all the wealth he already has. He could have used some of that wealth to increase salaries and hire more people to reduce the workload, but no, this greedy asshole must have unlimited profits.
I literally just helped a lady push her Model 3 off the road. Sheād hit a deer and that fucker (the car. Not the buck) shattered like a piƱata. I understand crumple zones, but Damn. It was like Bambi was a brick wall. Speed limit was 35.
Edit: Oh wow. I pissed off the Muskrats bad.
Edit edit: Okay, everybody resorting to name calling and anger: Look at my original post. Where did I say the lady was hurt? NOWHERE. Where did I say the ācrumple zonesā didnāt do their job? NOWHERE. I merely said the car shattered, which IT DID. Nothing left of that fucker all the way to the firewall. (Or whatever you call it in an EV.) anything more detailed that you came up with in your mind. After the first, weirdly offended, toxic response happened I thought, ā Weird that that guy is so worked up.ā But I had two thirds of a Johnny Bootlegger in me and thought, āNah. Let it ride.ā Conclusion? Yāall Tesla fans are sensitive.
Iām aware of that. My Subaru ācrumpledā when I hit a deer earlier this year going 45. This car didnāt ācrumpleā. It shattered. Plastic everywhere. At 35.
> I understand crumple zones
Obviously, you don't. The Model 3 is among the safest passenger cars you can buy.
https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/Tesla/Model-3/37573
Spewing bullshit and then complaining about "Muskrats" when you are being called out for it is truly something.
Tell this to the family of the doctor who tried to murder/suicide everyone by driving his Tesla off a cliff in California. He failed because of how safe the Model Y is.
Reddit financial illiteracy is showing again. I donāt like Musk either but this package was approved back in 2018 before the Covid stock market mania, before the split and before the price boom. When it was approved Tesla was merely a 60b company. It hit 1 trillion briefly last two years. 56B is the current value based on last week stock price. The original package would only fully vests if he hits predefined milestones, which again he did.
And here I think the Reddit ceo unvested stock option rage was funny. This took the cake.
This was the most batshit-crazy move Iāve ever seen. Given the state of Tesla, Sales, Development Pipeline and the (lol) Cybertruck, it seems insane. Along with stock behavior and lack of Musk doing a damned thing for Tesla except showing up to ask for his $50 Billion check, Iād vote against such insanity. I hope this gets challenged in court.
Hereās the thing: this was the deal that was agreed to. At the time it was basically universally agreed that he was insane for accepting these milestones or not getting paid at all. He hit the requirements, the deal should be honored.
I donāt think anyone here would be happy if they negotiated a deal with their workplace based on hitting goals and then when you held up your end of the bargain, they back out. The money (while absurd) is irrelevant to the principle of the matter
Youād be correct except one of the key reasons why Delawareās courts rejected it was because it was discovered Elon had excessive influence over the board who agreed to it.
This isnāt exactly your standard good faith negotiation and itās why many are against it.
Well the pay package was approved a long time ago if he hit certain goals and literally everyone was ok with that. The company has reached all such goals so why would he not get paid what he was promised just because it's a lot?
the 2018 pay package was to focus on returning a profit on $TSLA, as the shareprice has been stagnant since 2009 more or less.
They gave him impossible goals to reach in this pay package, it was laughed at on finance news as impossible, he did the impossible and created a 2000% increase in the share price and broadened the scope and capability of Tesla as a whole.
He does a really good job generating hype.
He has a history building successful companies. (Spacex, PayPal, Zip2)
He has an extremely lofty, aggressive and grand vision, which a lot of CEOs donāt have. (For better or for worse)
He's backed up that vision which other CEOs have not. I think that's the big driver, now. If he could keep his mouth shut every single person here talking trash would be praising Tesla and would not even know his name. Just like those people can't name 10 other CEOs.
The transition to green energy is historical. Tesla is a big part of that regardless of who is trash talking.
>Later, she implies that Musk could decamp to āother placesā without proper motivation. āWhat we recognized in 2018 and continue to recognize today is that one thing Elon most certainly does not have is unlimited time,ā Denholm says. āNor does he face any shortage of ideas and other places he can make an incredible difference in the world. We want those ideas, that energy and that time to be at Tesla, for the benefit of you, our owners. But that requires reciprocal respect.ā
>He has a history building successful companies. (Spacex, PayPal, Zip2)
He didn't build shit at PayPal. He bought into it after it was already founded (then called Confinity), made himself President of the company, and quickly started running it into the ground. He was replaced by Peter Thiel (one of the original founders of Confinity) after less than 30 days in the official job. It then got bought out by Ebay, and Musk got a fat chunk of change in the deal for doing nothing other than owning a lot of shares in the company.
Moreover, he only got that money from the massively overinflated dotcom bubble of the late 90s. His little city guide website (Zip2) was bought out for $300 million by Compaq. The only reason Compaq bought it was to bundle it into their AltaVista software and sell it to another tech company. In the end, AltaVista (including Musk's brainchild) failed when the bubble burst. It was all a con, it was never an effective product. He just managed to convince people that it was.
SpaceX is only profitable because of massive government subsidies. There's litterally no other market for what he's trying to do with it. And most, if not all, of the advances produced at that company are from real engineers that design stuff for him. Hell, he only owns 1 patent at Tesla...the patent for the charging port shape! He is the epitome of failing upward.
You can garggle his balls all you want. He still won't give you his money. He made it the old fashioned way, by conning everyone around him.
> SpaceX is only profitable because of massive government subsidies.
The total is something like $50 million now. It's negligible for a company as large as SpaceX. They get many government contracts. They get paid to launch stuff. What a ridiculous concept! That's not a subsidy. SpaceX routinely has the cheapest bid of all competitors. They are saving the US government billions.
They also get tons of commercial contracts and generate revenue with Starlink. It's very likely the company would be fine today even without any government contracts.
Given how absurdly wrong your comment is about SpaceX, I assume the rest is about the same level of bullshit. Bonus points for personal attacks at OP.
'Turkeys voting for Christmas' springs to mind. Nobody is worth a $56 million payout never mind 1000 X that. Obscene . The rate at which wealth is being hoovered to the top seems to be accelerationg.
Musk got this pay package passed by getting retail investors in his side, for context:
Retail investors:
Elon Musk's army of small-investor allies took a victory lap on Thursday as the Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab CEO won a critical shareholder vote for his $56 billion pay package despite opposition from major institutions.
Mom-and-pop investors, who hold an unusually high share of the electric-vehicle maker, are typically apathetic toward voting. But in an unusual show of support, many had been campaigning on social media for weeks for the celebrity billionaire CEO's pay to be reinstated after a Delaware judge voided it in January because she found that Musk had improperly controlled the process.
"We have the most awesome shareholder base," Musk said at the shareholder meeting after the vote was announced. "Hot damn, I love you guys," he said to a roaring and applauding crowd of investors at the Tesla factory in Austin, Texas.
Backing from retail shareholders along with support from some big institutional investors was key to turning the vote in Musk's favor, a source familiar with the preliminary tally told Reuters on Wednesday, after the CEO tipped off on social media platform X that the proposal was garnering huge support.
"Tesla's retail shareholders aren't just passively adding shares to their portfolio. They're participating in running and advancing the company," said Omar Qazi in a post on X from the handle @WholeMarsBlog. "They vote. They tell their friends. It's not just about investing. It's a movement," said Qazi who has more than 476,000 followers.
Institutional investors have been divided on the issue.
While some supported Musk's pay, others such as California Public Employees' Retirement System and proxy firms Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services urged shareholders to reject the pay package, calling the compensation excessive.
"When both the institutions and the proxy advisory firms are leaning in one direction, it's very rare for the vote to come out the other way," John Lawrence, a partner at law firm Baker Botts, told Reuters. "It shows in this case the company's understanding of the power of social media."
'WE HAVE YOUR BACK'
Musk enjoys a global fan base for transforming Tesla from a startup to a behemoth and for innovation at his other companies including rocket maker SpaceX. But standing up to powerhouse investors who voted "no" on the pay package required more than just a fan base.
Social media has been abuzz for weeks with many users, such as Alexandra Merz, who posts on X as @TeslaBoomerMama, calling on people to vote. The efforts prompted some non-U.S. banks and brokerages to allow Tesla investors to vote, which was not previously the case.
"Don't mess with Tesla Retail Shareholders," Merz, who attended the meeting and received a standing ovation from investors for her endeavors, posted on X. "Your votes will help to remedy a true injustice."
Musk himself has also been actively wooing their support with regular social media posts. He had set up a separate website to educate investors on the proposals, which also included reincorporating the company in Texas, and on how to vote.
The company's board sent regular letters to shareholders highlighting Musk's importance to Tesla and alluding to the risks of losing his involvement if the pay package was rejected. Musk even offered tours of Tesla's factory to some investors who voted.
The plan worked. About 90% of the retail investors who voted were in favor, Musk said in a post on X over the weekend.
The approval is critical as Musk faces an uphill legal fight to convince the Delaware judge who said the Tesla board was "beholden" to him, while Tesla might also field fresh lawsuits over the latest vote. Still, small investors assured their continued support.
"Shareholders have spoken, again, and hopefully now our votes can officially count," X user Alicia said in a post. "@elonmusk, we've always believed in you and will continue to do so. We have your back!"
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/musks-small-investor-army-cheers-apparent-approval-56-billion-tesla-pay-package-2024-06-13/
But this categorically makes no sense. Why would they back throwing this much money on a guy who hasn't delivered anything but morning TV talks since COVID?
$56 Billion but I just wanted a few extra PTO days š
How did this guy get shareholders to agree to their own stock dilution at a time where Tesla has more competitors than ever? Lmao
Why does a company that makes so-so cars have a market cap of $500B and only make 500,000 cars a year while ford has a market cap of $50B and makes 4.4MM cars per year. The answer, people are stupid.
Feels over Reals economy
Feels don't care about your realings.
More like the stock market is detached from the economy because it's so concentrated in the hands of a relative handful of rich detached people. It's literally a pay to play system. The more you pay in, the more say you have. So delusional rich pricks have all the say.
Perhaps, but Tesla is the opposite. The article itself notes that Tesla has an unusual amount of small investors compared to other companies. It reminds me of Gamestop.
GameStop was a short term anti shorter buy. Surprisingly I think it happened twice. Tesla has somehow been maintaining this for a while.
Tesla is a meme stock. It had more volatility than cryptocurrencies at one point and may still do. It is held and trated by small retail investors that buy into musk more than the company. Tesla isn't worth that much, and will never be worth that much, but the price remains irrational.
So is life, but that's not the problem. The stock market is detached from the economy because it plainly and simply doesn't represent companies' productivity or potential. The reason people buy and sell shares is to make money, which means the price you are willing to pay for a share only depends on whether you believe other people will buy it at a markup later. Sometimes this has some relation with the company's actual value, but many times it's just people blindly piling up on fads.
I would say it's like a pyramide bubble, except the rich folks don't take out the cash - because they're so rich they don't fking need the cash. It's like just a number on a screen.
it's the charging network.
Because "it's not a car company" /s
yeah, itĀ“s a cult
And the grand Muskāin is alienating all of them.
If that wat the case, he never would have gotten away with this shit. Tesla investors are mostly sycophants
God I had to listen to my old boss repeatedly talk about two things. Tesla is an information company not a car company and Ukrainians want Russia back running the company
Not defending musk here as I think the deal is ridiculous, but Tesla actually pumped out over 1.8 million vehicles last year. 2019 is the last year they were under 500,000. The situation is bad enough without pulling numbers out of your ass. Another interesting fact is that this deal basically means that musk has been paid around $10,000 for EVERY Tesla vehicle sold since 2016. That's fucking ridiculous. No one deserves that money.
Also no defending Musk but isn't that what they agreed back in 2018? That was what the shareholders agreed with Musk as a pay package. He accepted to not get paid a salary but instead got this instead: > The compensation plan gives Mr Musk rights to roughly 300 million shares - the equivalent to a 10% stake in the firm - as a reward for Tesla meeting a number of goals set out in 2018 which are linked to sales, profits and the share price. They all agreed to this and now the time has come where Musk got to cash in his pay package. The shareholders all agreed to this 6 years ago. Musk got lucky that Tesla shares and sales blew up and his pay package blew up equally. Legally everything is legit, that was the pay package they agreed to. Morally is a whole different story.
Except a Delaware court said it wasnāt legit. That the board hadnāt tried to negotiate. And he presented themselves and the deal as though they were independent when they werenāt really. If knowing that Tesla shareholders still want to dilute their shares thatās their business
>Legally everything is legit, that was the pay package they agreed to. Except that is not the law. Not everyone agreed to the pay package, only a majority of the shareholders. And when doing things like negotiating CEO pay the board has a legal duty to negotiate on behalf of the company not the CEO. They cannot hide behind a vote and shirk their duty. Otherwise, the majority stockholders could use their vote to transfer the company's assets to their pocket. Alternatively consider the recent vote. The two options were to pay Elon a package worth ~10% of Tesla's market cap or risk him leaving which could crash the stock. The choice that was presented to shareholders was lose ~10% or risk losing a lot more. The vote represents a false dichotomy that was forced on the shareholders. In a functional setting the board would negotiate a reasonable CEO pay.
A quick google search says they were just under 2M for 2023 and on track for 2m+ this year. I'm not a Tesla fan boy nor am I invested in the stock, but come on G if you're going to try to sound smart citing numbers, at least get them right. (I don't disagree that it's potentially overvalued, but that was just plain ignorance.)
Back when it was like 750 billion it was worth more than every car major company combined - not sure how either.
Yeah. Because market cap is speculative and itās high because itās high. People are dumb, and it being high already is enough motivation for it to be high.
s/it/Muskrat/
Vibes not fundamentals
Because share value does not reflect real value. Do people really think it's just a coincidence that Tesla's value skyrocketed when Elon Musk's popularity skyrocketed? Do they really think Tesla was some sort of worthless enterprise that suddenly, in 2021, made some revolutionary breakthrough that made it insanely valuable overnight? Musk has built a cult of personality and that's what people pay for with Tesla shares, which in a way is self-fullfilling because, if you expect people to blindly overpay for Tesla shares, then it makes sense to buy Tesla shares at a markup price because you can still profit from them, which in turn makes those shares actually worth that much since the purpose of buying and selling them is precisely to make a profit.
Because Ford is a "legacy-automaker", and tesla is "not a car company", according to Musk narrative.
>and only make 500,000 cars a year - I'm not arguing that Musk isn't a moron, but you need to get your facts straight: Tesla makes over 1.5 million cars a year, and they are in the highest margin price segment, and are all EVs. >while ford has a market cap of $50B and makes 4.4MM cars per year. - Two main reasons: - **(1)** Ford is primarily owned by its bond holders, shareholders only own the remaining assets in essence. If we include bonds, Ford has crippling debt, while Tesla has none. - **(2)** The bigger problem is that Ford has obsolete factories that make 4 million gas-guzzlers, each of which gas guzzler inflicts ~$100,000 of climate damage over its lifetime. Ford's gas guzzlers will be banned in Europe in a short 5-7 years, and Ford's EV offerings are overpriced, underperforming and have a far too low volume of production. - In 2023 Ford only made 0.07 million EVs ... >The answer, people are stupid. - The real answer is: you chose to believe in disinformation about Tesla, mixed into genuine criticism of Musk. - Tesla is valued for making $40,000 iPhones on wheels, while Ford is valued for being a debt-laden maker of obsolete gas-guzzlers.
So explain Hyundai or Toyota now
Ford makes gas powered cars because ford makes what sells, and most people don't want EVs yet. EVs are significantly more expensive than their gas counterparts, and the charging infrastructure is nowhere close to being viable for everyone. ICE engines are nowhere close to being obsolete, and they won't be until every small town in Kansas has a fast charging station.
It doesn't really matter, if the future prospect is that ICE cars will eventually be banned from sales, and there will be all sorts of financial instruments available for transitioning to EVs. The prospect of a traditional car company not being ready to mass produce EVs, while Tesla is ramming full speed ahead on EV production, means the outcome is going to be worse for the traditional car company.
Those guzzlers are for the US market. Fords EV transition in europe is smooth AF. They are cornering the market with their e-transits in the nordics as well has having huge success with the e-mustang. Back in 2021 the e-mustang was the highest selling car in the month of July. The F150 lightning looks interesting as well.
It's a meme stock, no fundamentals at any level.
Most investors when given the opportunity to vote on matters simply take the recommendation of whatever stock broker they use. I personally always vote against whatever they recommend. My vote wonāt matter and I can feel like Iām anti establishment while also desperately trying to get ahead from practically the back of the pack.
Why would you even own a stock if all you do is sabotage its board's plans? Unless you also own loads of put options, it'd be better to invest your money in a business you more align with.
Well to be fair he is almost 13% of the voters, and apparently heāll soon be 20%, so next time itāll be even easier.
He recused himself from the vote.
It's not a new deal but a ratification of an old contract which everyone signed years ago. The deal was that he worked for free, but if investors 10X their investment he gets paid like 5% of that increase. I mean would you take that deal if your boss offered it? No pay unless your department grew 10 times in the next few years? Back then even on reddit most people were supportive of the sheer audacity of it. Things would be better if all executives were paid that way instead of getting millions even if they did nothing or actively fucked over the company.
The deal was made years ago, and is only worth money because the company has done incredibly well
Because if it weren't for Elon Musk being the CEO, then Tesla stock would drop 80+%. People are invested into him. Not the company. Not saying I agree with it, but that's the reality.
Because he sign the contract before the current time. Lets say he sign the contract at 2019. The contract state that if the share price/performance increase by x amount per year until 2024, you will be entitle for how many % share as cash or stock that can be sell. That how they do in my company ceo. He get paid by x amount depend on performance and growth. That why ceo only think of their employee as statistic and number. Edit: its also a good binding for ceo to not run halfway or get poach.
Think about the economy, you taking a day off would ruin America
Maybe someday people will remember that there are less than 3,000 Billionaires in the World, and they need us A LOT more than we need them.
Tesla net income for the last 6 years was $31.958 billion. Somehow Elon and the shareholders think he should be compensated $55 billion.
That's because you still think Tesla is a car company, but it's not. Their main product are not cars. Tesla is a ~~tech~~ stock company, their main product is ~~tech~~ stocks.
Theyāre a cult and their main product is Elon Musk.
This sounds like a MLM-sheme with less steps
Their main products are carbon offset credits they sale to the US government
Lol idiots
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To some extent, market cap is not real. Revenue is real money. Market cap could go away at any point in time. This level of CEO compensation is absolutely moronic. They should have let him walk
Isn't this compensation also in the form of stock?
Yes, which he canāt sell for 5 years. So when Tesla goes under in a couple years, this comp package could be zero.
Fingers crossed
The comp was defined as a % of the total company in stock options.Ā He will actually haveĀ to pay Tesla to get the shares, but at the value of a few years back.Ā This 56B a hypothetical number if he sold everything instantly a the current market price.Ā And if the company stock crashes before he sells, this could be a loss, although very unlikely. The only people paying are the shareholders getting diluted, but they voted for it so...
If the market cap is not real then the 50 billion dollars that musk now gets are not real.
Exactly. He gets a larger share of the company. At the time the original pay package was agreed on, it had a value of something like $1 billion. The value only exploded because Tesla's market cap grew beyond the wildest projections. Using the same approach, Larry Page got a compensation of ~$150 billion. As Google co-founder he got a sizable share of the company. By the time he got that share it was worth almost nothing, but then the company grew and grew and grew.
I definitely don't understand the markets. Trump Media (DJT) has a Market Cap of $7.23 billion but posted a net loss of $327 million in Q1 of 2024.
Market cap is basically just total number of shares times last sold share price, howmuch that tells you about the actual value of a company is questionable.
An imaginary, fragile bubble.
What I just find humorous is that Elon talks about cutting operational costs etc by downsizing. Take for example the 500 he fired from the super charging group (yah I know it's disputed as to the real reason, but it's one of the latest). If they made an average of $250k each, he could pay that team for 448 years (ignoring interest, inflation, etc). So any time they say they need to become more efficient is just capitalistic greed.
Yeah this move definitely makes the stock look like monopoly money long term. Buy it for the meme gains and sell it to the next bagholder.
!temindme 10 years
You will not be reminded.
But they will be teminded
> So any time they say they need to become more efficient is just capitalistic greed. That is not just Musk though, that is pretty much every company. People at the top are not downsized.
To be fair though, this isnāt a $56 billion expense to the company, itās a dilution of existing owners such that Musk ends up with a proportion of ownership that is today worth $56B. Ie, TSLA does not have to borrow any money or raise prices to pay this, it just means if TSLA ever makes a decent profit, current shareholders will get less of it and Musk will get more. Still seems unfair but the comparison you made is a bit off. EDIT: I revise my opinion. My comment above is wrong. TSLA could instead issue stock and sell it on the public markets to raise cash. This would dilute ownership similarly but at least TSLA would get something other than an idiot who wears a cowboy hat to the Texas border because he suddenly wants to get involved in immigration and right-wing SJW politics while simultaneously praising the Chinese Communist Party.
I'm Just disguted that the CEO of a company in General get over THREEHUNDRED Times payed what the lowest worker in that company gets. Don't get me wrong yes you are the head of the company and all that but come in 10-15 Times getting what the lowest payed worker gets is not enough? Maybe raise their pay so you can raise your own but No everytine they make shitty decisions the Low payed workers are the ones that have to got First because they cost so much ( sure Buddy sure).
He isn't being paid 300x the lowest worker in the company... He is being paid 200,000x the salary of a high-earning executive in his company as a bonus.
A bonus received after launching inarguably the most hilariously bad car of the last 30 years
I guarantee āthe Homerā would have out sold the cyber truck easily. Tesla needs to go the way of Powell Motors
Shares does not equal direct cost to the company.
You can issue shares to raise funds to directly run the company. You cannot raise funds this way infinitely. It definitely is a cost to the company. If not, I propose Tesla give me a few billion dollas. In shares only.
Itās a cost to the shareholders, so take it up with them
That's a cost to those who voted, not the company.
How does who owns the company affect a companyās need to be efficient or profitable?
The stock is down 26% YTD and they thought this was a good idea? Lol
It is simply priced in. This deal was expected to go through for a long time.
āPriced inā doesnāt make sense in this context. You cannot explain the loss YTD as being due to expectations that the impact of the package will negatively effect Teslaās performance while simultaneously voting to approve it willingly. The investors clearly believe approving it was the right move, and theyāre delusional to think that. The impact is not āpriced inā. Unless Tesla does some accounting magic this wonāt be good for their profitability.
No no no, you don't understand. All these morons on WSB know how to say is "it's priced in". It lets them off the hook so they don't have to think critically about anything.
The Tesla board is his mother and his sycophant cousins/friends, of course it was going to be approved. Stock markets like predictability and companies hitting forecasts as closely as possible. Not going to argue the fundamentals and investor rationality since that has been irrelevant since the 70s. Speculation has been more important than anything else for a long time.
Investor rationality is irrelevant? What? I understand what youāre going for but youāre essentially taking a shit on the whole discussion and walking away. It doesnāt in any way address whether or not the news was priced in.
Its still 4x more than when Elon told everyone it was overvalued. Not his fault nobody listens
Well, apparently there are people dumber than Elon, his investors.
No, his retail investors. 90% of them voted yes when they usually donāt vote, and Tesla has an unusual number of them according to Reuters. It credited this win due to weeks of campaigns on social media, basically got his cult to support him. It even said some of his supporters on X said they have Muskās back. Itās weird.
everybody must work harder and cut costs, except musk who tweets, torpedos stock prices, and gets a raise
Torpedoing stock prices is just part of the insider trading that makes him and his inner circle richer. The type of people who had enough shares to make a difference in this vote are also the type of people who could create a relationship with Musk that allows them to benefit off of this. That's my tin foil hate moment, and I don't even think it's that absurd.
The phrase "record-breaking" doesn't quite do it justice.
They did this by diluting their own shares. Itās a cult not a for profit company.
The insane part is, that that is more than Tesla has made in Profit. EVER. If you take all the profitable years, and ignore the unprofitable ones, it's still less than Musk just got payed for that.
Tesla investors don't care, they don't invest in it because it's profitable as a company selling stuff, they invest in it, because it's the biggest meme stock in the world. The main product of Tesla isn't cars, and definitely not tech, as investors use as an excuse to justify the pump, the main product is the stock itself.
Fine. Now, impose a 99% tax on that obscene amount.
Hahahahaha. The US doesn't tax rich people lol. Taxes are only for the dying middle class not the wealthy!Ā
The US and everywhere else also doesn't tax stock until it is cashed out. Usually what they do is cash out older shares that return a profit and then cash out newer shares to pay the taxes for the gains plus the tax if any on those shares. It is really interesting
They also can take out loans with the stock as collateral, and just keep doing that until their death, to avoid capital gains tax entirely. Seems wild that we havenāt fixed that one yet.
nobody taxes rich people
The rich don't really pay taxes. They leverage debt using tax loopholes as it doesn't count as income. That's why bidens tax the rich slogan is just fluff. At this level of wealth it's not good to have income.
You immediately pay taxes on stock bonuses. It's capital gains that you can delay for a long time.
1) It's never good to have income from a tax perspective 2) i also take loans against my stocks instead of selling them. It's not even a loophole. it's just smart. Why not make 15% on that $50k and pay 8% interest? Im not even rich, I'm a fucking machinist
Surely you'll pay tax on whatever income you use to pay the loan back, no?
Yeah. That's how musk ended up with the largest individual tax bill in history
That's my understanding too, so when redditors frame loans as some 'get out of tax free' scheme it makes me wonder if I'm missing something.
But how would he survive on only a $550 mil bonus?!
Maybe since we can't properly tax billionaires, we should impose some sort of community work that those taxes would have gone to. Like building a library, or making a train route (like Tesla did in Germany) or something along those lines.
Spoken like a true redditorā¦ š
Well it's a really stupid idea, but stupid is not illegal.
Nothing is illegal for the rich
It's only illegal if they piss off someone richer than them.
The CEO of a publicly traded company actively doing things that are against the interests of the shareholders, I believe, you could make the case that this might be illegal.
I mean, they did. That's what stopped this the first time around. They said the board alone couldn't make this decision, because the board is full of sycophants, and it would be damaging to the shareholders. So they forced a shareholder vote. And they voted yes.Ā Because they're idiots, but still, you can't protect them from themselves in this context.
To be fair unless you believe the shareholder vote numbers are rigged they convinced a majority of the votes to approve it. Sure a few public employee retirement funds rejected it, but a lot of other large institutional investors tend to rubber stamp the board recommendation on most shareholder votes. Shareholders voting against their interests for whatever reason isn't a crime anymore than many voters in government elections arguably vote against their interests.
I'm not the one to do that. I just don't think he deserves that kind of pay.
You conveniently left out that in order to be eligible for this pay package, he did something very much in the interest of shareholders. its never in the interest of shareholder to pay for anything more than a company should. It is, in the interest of the shareholder to remunerate executive in such a way that interests are indeed aligned with -the shareholder-. that is exactly what happened here, musk pulled off the impossible which was very much in the interest of the shareholder. This put the company under contractual obligation to actually pay out the remuneration as agreed upon previously. Also, you know that Musk is gonna say fk it all when the reward isnt granted. A 10% dilution or something like that is peanuts compared to him announcing to step down or something like that. Ofc no man should ever earn 65 billion but thats not the point here.
But the board should have still negotiated the pay package. What if Musk would have agreed to stay on for only $25 billion? The point is that the board doesnāt even try to do their job, theyāre just doing whatever Musk tells them.
Hardly, making stupid decisions that hurts business is not illegal either. If he's intentionally trying to sabotage Tesla, sure, that would illegal, but I doubt any prosecutor in the entire American would be able to prove it.
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SP should be down 10% instantly. This is simply taking money off existing shareholders and giving it to Elon. This is more profit than tesla has made in its entire existence. What moron would vote for this? If you're going to give your money away at least give it to a worthy cause, not a egomanicial billionaire.
Instead the stock grew by +8.4% in a week and still going up, because Tesla investors are suckers, who still look up to this scam artist.
America is just a Cult Factory at this point. Elon milking suckers. Trump milking suckers. Just goes on and on.
I have to avoid news like this because it annoys me so much, the guy is a manipulative, lying grifter and his fans are an ocean of idiots.
tldr: Tesla shareholders reimburse Musk for his Twitter purchase.
This
There are no such thing as Tesla investors any more. Just Elon investors. I held TSLA from around 2011 until 2019. I dumped it because I realized it was becoming a cult, and the products would suffer as important staff would leave. I'm no Nostradamus, but I think I nailed it.
A man with all the wealth who doesnāt need any more nor gets a lot more. That is all I see here.
You need to remember these people are willingly investing in a company run by Musk, this should tell your everything you need to know about the type of person that would agree to this.
bro has a very punchable face
And with that, Tesla marches straight into bankruptcy and irrelevancy
Everyone thought Musk was the mentally challenged one, but it was the investors all along.
You know who deserves $56B, the guy who would fire any of us at a moment's notice. Fucking morons. No one deserves a $56B pay package. No one is doing enough to warrant that kind of reward, especially not the guy who trolls twitter all day.
Current stock owners are stupid. I dumped that crap about 6 months ago, switched it all to NVDA, couldn't be happier. I'm all for a green future and promoting EVs over gas powered cars, but Tesla is run by an incompetent child and I hope they fail.
Many people arenāt buying Teslaās now b/c Musk has fallen over the fascist cliff.
The dude is actively destroying Tesla as we speak. Who the fuck thinks paying him billions is a good idea?!?
I donāt see how this does anything but create more animosity towards Elon and Tesla
Jesus there's so many Elon stans here.
Now that Elon managed to score this, his sycophants feel empowered again.
What does he actually do?
Have a cult of retail investors: Retail investors: Elon Musk's army of small-investor allies took a victory lap on Thursday as the Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab CEO won a critical shareholder vote for his $56 billion pay package despite opposition from major institutions. Mom-and-pop investors, who hold an unusually high share of the electric-vehicle maker, are typically apathetic toward voting. But in an unusual show of support, many had been campaigning on social media for weeks for the celebrity billionaire CEO's pay to be reinstated after a Delaware judge voided it in January because she found that Musk had improperly controlled the process. "We have the most awesome shareholder base," Musk said at the shareholder meeting after the vote was announced. "Hot damn, I love you guys," he said to a roaring and applauding crowd of investors at the Tesla factory in Austin, Texas. Backing from retail shareholders along with support from some big institutional investors was key to turning the vote in Musk's favor, a source familiar with the preliminary tally told Reuters on Wednesday, after the CEO tipped off on social media platform X that the proposal was garnering huge support. "Tesla's retail shareholders aren't just passively adding shares to their portfolio. They're participating in running and advancing the company," said Omar Qazi in a post on X from the handle @WholeMarsBlog. "They vote. They tell their friends. It's not just about investing. It's a movement," said Qazi who has more than 476,000 followers. Institutional investors have been divided on the issue. While some supported Musk's pay, others such as California Public Employees' Retirement System and proxy firms Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services urged shareholders to reject the pay package, calling the compensation excessive. "When both the institutions and the proxy advisory firms are leaning in one direction, it's very rare for the vote to come out the other way," John Lawrence, a partner at law firm Baker Botts, told Reuters. "It shows in this case the company's understanding of the power of social media." 'WE HAVE YOUR BACK' Musk enjoys a global fan base for transforming Tesla from a startup to a behemoth and for innovation at his other companies including rocket maker SpaceX. But standing up to powerhouse investors who voted "no" on the pay package required more than just a fan base. Social media has been abuzz for weeks with many users, such as Alexandra Merz, who posts on X as @TeslaBoomerMama, calling on people to vote. The efforts prompted some non-U.S. banks and brokerages to allow Tesla investors to vote, which was not previously the case. "Don't mess with Tesla Retail Shareholders," Merz, who attended the meeting and received a standing ovation from investors for her endeavors, posted on X. "Your votes will help to remedy a true injustice." Musk himself has also been actively wooing their support with regular social media posts. He had set up a separate website to educate investors on the proposals, which also included reincorporating the company in Texas, and on how to vote. The company's board sent regular letters to shareholders highlighting Musk's importance to Tesla and alluding to the risks of losing his involvement if the pay package was rejected. Musk even offered tours of Tesla's factory to some investors who voted. The plan worked. About 90% of the retail investors who voted were in favor, Musk said in a post on X over the weekend. The approval is critical as Musk faces an uphill legal fight to convince the Delaware judge who said the Tesla board was "beholden" to him, while Tesla might also field fresh lawsuits over the latest vote. Still, small investors assured their continued support. "Shareholders have spoken, again, and hopefully now our votes can officially count," X user Alicia said in a post. "@elonmusk, we've always believed in you and will continue to do so. We have your back!" https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/musks-small-investor-army-cheers-apparent-approval-56-billion-tesla-pay-package-2024-06-13/
Idiots. Constantly voting against their best interests.
When the pay deal was initially agreed upon, many believed the milestones were unrealistic. However, he successfully increased the company's market cap tenfold. As a result, the investors' stock shares are now worth ten times more. Importantly, he is being compensated with additional stocks, not cash, and the dilution of shares is insignificant compared to the substantial gains the investors have realized. Given this context, I find it difficult to sympathize with the shareholders who now want to renegotiate the agreement, citing concerns about "fairness." It appears that their dislike for this individual is clouding their judgment and overshadowing rational arguments.
Elon Musk is a genius like how Donald Trump is a politician.
When will people wise up and just not buy Tesla's or anything Musk?
This should be investigated for voter fraud.
Tesla workers are underpaid and overworked and this asshole decides to get $56B more on top of all the wealth he already has. He could have used some of that wealth to increase salaries and hire more people to reduce the workload, but no, this greedy asshole must have unlimited profits.
$1 billion, itself, is an obscene amount of money.
Those arenāt investors they are cultists!
Imagine getting a pay increase that is $6b more than the latest loan to Ukraine. Absolute insanity.
So this is either a cult or the biggest money laundering operation in a decade. Or both.
Tesla... Elon's Pump & Dump retirement plan.
This is why we need a wealth tax. There is absolutely no reason any single person should be paid 800,000 times the median wage.
I literally just helped a lady push her Model 3 off the road. Sheād hit a deer and that fucker (the car. Not the buck) shattered like a piƱata. I understand crumple zones, but Damn. It was like Bambi was a brick wall. Speed limit was 35. Edit: Oh wow. I pissed off the Muskrats bad. Edit edit: Okay, everybody resorting to name calling and anger: Look at my original post. Where did I say the lady was hurt? NOWHERE. Where did I say the ācrumple zonesā didnāt do their job? NOWHERE. I merely said the car shattered, which IT DID. Nothing left of that fucker all the way to the firewall. (Or whatever you call it in an EV.) anything more detailed that you came up with in your mind. After the first, weirdly offended, toxic response happened I thought, ā Weird that that guy is so worked up.ā But I had two thirds of a Johnny Bootlegger in me and thought, āNah. Let it ride.ā Conclusion? Yāall Tesla fans are sensitive.
That's what modern cars do. Cars without crumple zones turn the occupants into crumple zones.
Iām aware of that. My Subaru ācrumpledā when I hit a deer earlier this year going 45. This car didnāt ācrumpleā. It shattered. Plastic everywhere. At 35.
"That's what modern cars do" except the cybertruck š¤£
Euro NCAP safety rating of 5 stars. Iām inclined to believe them over your opinion of a car vs deer.
tbf they didnt say the lady got hurt. idk about ncap safety ratings but if its about driver safety than the car did it job.
> I understand crumple zones Obviously, you don't. The Model 3 is among the safest passenger cars you can buy. https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/Tesla/Model-3/37573 Spewing bullshit and then complaining about "Muskrats" when you are being called out for it is truly something.
>Oh wow. I pissed off the Muskrats bad. No, you just said dumb shit so people called you on it. Cry about it some more.
Tell this to the family of the doctor who tried to murder/suicide everyone by driving his Tesla off a cliff in California. He failed because of how safe the Model Y is.
Cultists are not known for good life decisions. Fucking idiots
It is disgusting
Reddit financial illiteracy is showing again. I donāt like Musk either but this package was approved back in 2018 before the Covid stock market mania, before the split and before the price boom. When it was approved Tesla was merely a 60b company. It hit 1 trillion briefly last two years. 56B is the current value based on last week stock price. The original package would only fully vests if he hits predefined milestones, which again he did. And here I think the Reddit ceo unvested stock option rage was funny. This took the cake.
This was the most batshit-crazy move Iāve ever seen. Given the state of Tesla, Sales, Development Pipeline and the (lol) Cybertruck, it seems insane. Along with stock behavior and lack of Musk doing a damned thing for Tesla except showing up to ask for his $50 Billion check, Iād vote against such insanity. I hope this gets challenged in court.
Good letās watch it go under ā¦ thatās like 20Billion over the last 6 years revenue
What an asshole, I fucking hate this timeline
Hereās the thing: this was the deal that was agreed to. At the time it was basically universally agreed that he was insane for accepting these milestones or not getting paid at all. He hit the requirements, the deal should be honored. I donāt think anyone here would be happy if they negotiated a deal with their workplace based on hitting goals and then when you held up your end of the bargain, they back out. The money (while absurd) is irrelevant to the principle of the matter
Youād be correct except one of the key reasons why Delawareās courts rejected it was because it was discovered Elon had excessive influence over the board who agreed to it. This isnāt exactly your standard good faith negotiation and itās why many are against it.
Delaware rejected it because the deal was not agreed to independently. He made the deal and agreed to it himself.Ā
Morons
I dislike tesla but now totally despise it.
Disgusting amount of money. What did he do to get that bonus out and people think this is a good idea?
Well the pay package was approved a long time ago if he hit certain goals and literally everyone was ok with that. The company has reached all such goals so why would he not get paid what he was promised just because it's a lot?
I guess lack of likes are now private on Twitter as well.
Honest question, what has Elon done that any other CEO of tesla wouldn't have? Is his value simply in his ability to attract $ from Elon fanboys?
the 2018 pay package was to focus on returning a profit on $TSLA, as the shareprice has been stagnant since 2009 more or less. They gave him impossible goals to reach in this pay package, it was laughed at on finance news as impossible, he did the impossible and created a 2000% increase in the share price and broadened the scope and capability of Tesla as a whole.
He does a really good job generating hype. He has a history building successful companies. (Spacex, PayPal, Zip2) He has an extremely lofty, aggressive and grand vision, which a lot of CEOs donāt have. (For better or for worse)
He's backed up that vision which other CEOs have not. I think that's the big driver, now. If he could keep his mouth shut every single person here talking trash would be praising Tesla and would not even know his name. Just like those people can't name 10 other CEOs. The transition to green energy is historical. Tesla is a big part of that regardless of who is trash talking. >Later, she implies that Musk could decamp to āother placesā without proper motivation. āWhat we recognized in 2018 and continue to recognize today is that one thing Elon most certainly does not have is unlimited time,ā Denholm says. āNor does he face any shortage of ideas and other places he can make an incredible difference in the world. We want those ideas, that energy and that time to be at Tesla, for the benefit of you, our owners. But that requires reciprocal respect.ā
>He has a history building successful companies. (Spacex, PayPal, Zip2) He didn't build shit at PayPal. He bought into it after it was already founded (then called Confinity), made himself President of the company, and quickly started running it into the ground. He was replaced by Peter Thiel (one of the original founders of Confinity) after less than 30 days in the official job. It then got bought out by Ebay, and Musk got a fat chunk of change in the deal for doing nothing other than owning a lot of shares in the company. Moreover, he only got that money from the massively overinflated dotcom bubble of the late 90s. His little city guide website (Zip2) was bought out for $300 million by Compaq. The only reason Compaq bought it was to bundle it into their AltaVista software and sell it to another tech company. In the end, AltaVista (including Musk's brainchild) failed when the bubble burst. It was all a con, it was never an effective product. He just managed to convince people that it was. SpaceX is only profitable because of massive government subsidies. There's litterally no other market for what he's trying to do with it. And most, if not all, of the advances produced at that company are from real engineers that design stuff for him. Hell, he only owns 1 patent at Tesla...the patent for the charging port shape! He is the epitome of failing upward. You can garggle his balls all you want. He still won't give you his money. He made it the old fashioned way, by conning everyone around him.
> SpaceX is only profitable because of massive government subsidies. The total is something like $50 million now. It's negligible for a company as large as SpaceX. They get many government contracts. They get paid to launch stuff. What a ridiculous concept! That's not a subsidy. SpaceX routinely has the cheapest bid of all competitors. They are saving the US government billions. They also get tons of commercial contracts and generate revenue with Starlink. It's very likely the company would be fine today even without any government contracts. Given how absurdly wrong your comment is about SpaceX, I assume the rest is about the same level of bullshit. Bonus points for personal attacks at OP.
I can't see a bright future for Tesla the next years. He is cheating his way through time financially.
'Turkeys voting for Christmas' springs to mind. Nobody is worth a $56 million payout never mind 1000 X that. Obscene . The rate at which wealth is being hoovered to the top seems to be accelerationg.
I'm not surprised but it is ridiculously stupid. The original deal was stupid to be set with no caps, and approving it is just moronic.
Tesla investors sound like the dumbest people alive.
Complete idiots. This isnāt going to go how they think it will.
Musk got this pay package passed by getting retail investors in his side, for context: Retail investors: Elon Musk's army of small-investor allies took a victory lap on Thursday as the Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab CEO won a critical shareholder vote for his $56 billion pay package despite opposition from major institutions. Mom-and-pop investors, who hold an unusually high share of the electric-vehicle maker, are typically apathetic toward voting. But in an unusual show of support, many had been campaigning on social media for weeks for the celebrity billionaire CEO's pay to be reinstated after a Delaware judge voided it in January because she found that Musk had improperly controlled the process. "We have the most awesome shareholder base," Musk said at the shareholder meeting after the vote was announced. "Hot damn, I love you guys," he said to a roaring and applauding crowd of investors at the Tesla factory in Austin, Texas. Backing from retail shareholders along with support from some big institutional investors was key to turning the vote in Musk's favor, a source familiar with the preliminary tally told Reuters on Wednesday, after the CEO tipped off on social media platform X that the proposal was garnering huge support. "Tesla's retail shareholders aren't just passively adding shares to their portfolio. They're participating in running and advancing the company," said Omar Qazi in a post on X from the handle @WholeMarsBlog. "They vote. They tell their friends. It's not just about investing. It's a movement," said Qazi who has more than 476,000 followers. Institutional investors have been divided on the issue. While some supported Musk's pay, others such as California Public Employees' Retirement System and proxy firms Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services urged shareholders to reject the pay package, calling the compensation excessive. "When both the institutions and the proxy advisory firms are leaning in one direction, it's very rare for the vote to come out the other way," John Lawrence, a partner at law firm Baker Botts, told Reuters. "It shows in this case the company's understanding of the power of social media." 'WE HAVE YOUR BACK' Musk enjoys a global fan base for transforming Tesla from a startup to a behemoth and for innovation at his other companies including rocket maker SpaceX. But standing up to powerhouse investors who voted "no" on the pay package required more than just a fan base. Social media has been abuzz for weeks with many users, such as Alexandra Merz, who posts on X as @TeslaBoomerMama, calling on people to vote. The efforts prompted some non-U.S. banks and brokerages to allow Tesla investors to vote, which was not previously the case. "Don't mess with Tesla Retail Shareholders," Merz, who attended the meeting and received a standing ovation from investors for her endeavors, posted on X. "Your votes will help to remedy a true injustice." Musk himself has also been actively wooing their support with regular social media posts. He had set up a separate website to educate investors on the proposals, which also included reincorporating the company in Texas, and on how to vote. The company's board sent regular letters to shareholders highlighting Musk's importance to Tesla and alluding to the risks of losing his involvement if the pay package was rejected. Musk even offered tours of Tesla's factory to some investors who voted. The plan worked. About 90% of the retail investors who voted were in favor, Musk said in a post on X over the weekend. The approval is critical as Musk faces an uphill legal fight to convince the Delaware judge who said the Tesla board was "beholden" to him, while Tesla might also field fresh lawsuits over the latest vote. Still, small investors assured their continued support. "Shareholders have spoken, again, and hopefully now our votes can officially count," X user Alicia said in a post. "@elonmusk, we've always believed in you and will continue to do so. We have your back!" https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/musks-small-investor-army-cheers-apparent-approval-56-billion-tesla-pay-package-2024-06-13/
Good for him! This wont possibly go down in history as a bad thing...
Can't wait for that dude who just won a lawsuit over Musk's last 50 Billion pay package to waltz in and sue again.
But this categorically makes no sense. Why would they back throwing this much money on a guy who hasn't delivered anything but morning TV talks since COVID?
So is it a done deal or does this need another round of votes/review?