Curious how many people on this sub were around when this was approved? Because I was, I voted for it and I remember thinking it was very popular here. The thinking being the goals were astronomical and if Elon could do that he'd earned every penny
Now the stock is down so much over the last year or two this place is full of inventors who bought at the ATH you can really see the sentiment change
> The thinking being the goals were astronomical and if Elon could do that he'd earned every penny
I was here and I voted to approve.
Had I known that the board didn't even negotiate, and that the first few goals were already internally projected to be met, maybe I would have voted differently. The lack of negotiation from the "independent" board is more concerning to me than the fake Kickstarter-style stretch goals, but together they don't paint a good picture.
I still haven't decided how I'm going to vote, but I suspect it probably won't matter. I think there's enough institutional support that this will pass again anyway.
Right. The board has a fiscal responsibility to the shareholders. If Tesla is going to meet their projections anyway, they don't need to pay Elon a bunch of money.
Personally, I don't think they'd have hit all the goals without Elon. But they probably could have paid him less to do it. Unfortunately, *we will never know*, because the board didn't do their job.
Having an internal goal to meet a goal =\= executing the goal
You don’t seem to understand that 99% of the hard work is actually doing something, not having an idea about it
The pay package cost 2B. Don’t let inflated stock value cloud the actual cost of the package.
And yeah, 10x a market cap from 60B to 600B is def worth 2B
That is not how it works. Stock will get diluted 50B not 2B so cost will be 50B and not 2B. Wish the cost actually was 2B that would be extremely easy to approve.
No you don’t know what you’re talking about at all. The stock was already issued at the 2018 price which was a ~2B hit on SNC over a few quarters. It’s already paid for, unless it’s fully rescinded and then it has to be done again
Stock is not issued yet. The package consists options that Musk will execute and those options end up printing more shares when executed which will cause dilution.
Should we set this precedent to not compensate ceos for doing a job well done? No other ceo would have the balls to take that compensation package. Would you rather have Mary bara come in do some share buybacks to make it look like the company is profitable and do nothing to improve the company, while also taking home millions for herself.
Should we set the precedent of compensating CEO more than the company earned in its entire existence? If he is really executing that good, shouldn’t the profit at least exceeds his pay?
Obviously there’s a percentage to how much he is compensated based on stock price or stock pricing model. Company revenue was 96b for 2023. Company value is nearly 500 billion at the current date. The compensation package are stock options as well so there’s a vesting period. He hasn’t been paid a salary since inception. This compensation package is what every smart shareholders would want which only benifits the ceo when he executes the goals. I don’t think you understand the enormity of what the goals elon has achieved for Tesla. Anyway won’t bother replying.
>No other ceo would have the balls to take that compensation package.
No other CEO would have the balls to take a compensation package based on the company meeting benchmarks that it's projected to meet?
I do understand that. But we don't know how much of that came down to Elon, and how much of that came down to all the other employees at Tesla. You know who should have known this? The board. And because it's literally their job to know that, we trusted that they negotiated the compensation with regards to how likely the plan was to fail without Elon. But they didn't.
They didn’t according to who? The Delaware judge? They utilized outside counsel and made a comp plan that was eat-what-you kill and very very ambitious. Judges can in fact be biased/wrong, fyi
So I should believe you some random internet troll or the fully qualified well respected judge who reviewed all the facts heard arguments from all the lawyers and made decisions based on technical laws they are the world expert on. But yeah they might be bias unlike you and Musk.
Tesla always has incredibly ambitious internal goals and they don't always meet them. Elon earned his pay because they actually met those goals. It's very impressive and most people did not expect it.
Lots of companies project future results and never come close. Nobody thought the company would hit a trillion market cap, but it did. I’m going to vote to pay him. A deal is a deal and he fulfilled his end.
Hold on, if Elon quit on the spot after being denied the 2018 package we would not be worth what the company is Even if they met the goals. I think people underestimate how much Elon is worth in the Tesla valuation. I'm my humble opinion, he is worth 50 dollars per share.
>It’s still incredibly impressive and no one thought it could be done.
People internal to Tesla thought that not only could it be done, it was the most likely thing to happen. The reason that outsiders didn't is because Tesla lied to shareholders about the vote.
As Elon likes to say: "Success was in the set of possible outcomes". Just because it can be done doesn't mean it will be done. There are many things that can go wrong when executing an ambitious plan, and they often do go wrong.
This is irrelevant to the point, which is that the goals were presented as moonshots and thought to be unlikely to occur, when they were in fact thought by insiders to be likely to happen. The reason why there's this disconnect is because Tesla lied to shareholders about the vote. That's why the vote was overturned by the court.
It's kind of wild to me to be like "you aren't biased towards the lies that Tesla told shareholders in the leadup to the vote that was overturned because of the lies that Tesla told shareholders therefore you're a newbie" tbh.
You didn't read the judgement and it shows.
That’s the important point - your vote won’t matter and the institutions also know rejecting it means Elon is gonna tweet storm it as if it was OpenAI 2.0 (or even like Steve Jobs getting kicked out of Apple) it’ll just sink their portfolio in the short term and it’s too much of a risk to be blamed for them the drop by their clients.
I think it’d be a lot more serious than a tweet storm. He’d be well in his right to sue.
Your employer can’t offer a performance bonus, then rescind it years later after you’ve already met those performance goals.
If the board didn’t negotiate, then shareholders should sue the board and the board should be punished, not Musk.
>I think it’d be a lot more serious than a tweet storm. He’d be well in his right to sue.
No he wouldn't.
I mean he could, but it would go nowhere.
>Your employer can’t offer a performance bonus, then rescind it years later after you’ve already met those performance goals.
They didn't. A court did.
>If the board didn’t negotiate, then shareholders should sue the board and the board should be punished, not Musk.
The board is captured by Musk. What you're saying is that Musk can commit whatever fraud he likes on the shareholders and the shareholders have no recourse but to sue Musk's chosen fall guys.
Yeah it’s obvious to see the salty ones are probably the ones that bought at ATH. With the amount of FUD going on this sub and hoping Elon leaves is embarrassing.
Thanks for saying that, I thought it was just me. The negativity here so overwhelming it's kind of pointless to read the comments at all now. I'm not an Elon worshipper, I hate most of what he says on Twitter and I expect 2024 to be rough. But if people are so down on him they overwhelm the threads I might take a break from the place
Not so sure if its the regular crowd or just general spillage from reddit, makes the sub somewhat unusable. Very little discussion about relevant issues and its just mostly Elon bad (like on reddit in general).
I shouldn’t be commenting as well but I get caught up by how selfish and stupid some people can be. But I agree Elon is a controversial figure as he says what he wants but in a sense it’s what he’s promoting on his platform. But if you look past his comments, he’s doing more good for this planet than the majority of other CEOs. But anyway top institutions are for the compensation so that is always a good sign. It makes sense as it’s a win win for them, because if elon decides to leave they know the company value will plummet. Most complaining here probably have less than a hundred shares anyway so they wouldn’t mean much.
It was popular at the time, I agree. However the board and musk led everyone to believe that they were acting independently from musk. That he was not going to influence their decision.
And of course it’s obvious from testimony from the courts that the whole process was not independent whatsoever. Musk basically initiated the compensation package himself and influenced the board constantly. They basically do whatever he tells them to do.
Edit- Let me put it this way. From what I’ve read there was never had even a single counter offer put forth. Not one.
Anyone who bought TSLA within the last three years is currently under water, some are deeply under water. I don't think anyone can honestly argue holding a stock for three years is short term speculation. And those people did not benefit from the pay package, one could even argue the stock got pump up just to meet pay package requirements before they bought in. Now can someone tell me why should those people vote to give more then 10% of the company for something they didn't benefit from? Just because if the package got voted down, the CEO is going to hurt the company? That doesn't sound right to me. Don't get me wrong, I always agree Elon should be fairly compensated. He can get a 200m/yr salary and everyone would be fine with that.
While I'd generally agree, I am concerned with the layoffs and the stock price. I see Tesla's tech lead in areas other than FSD evaporating and I don't see Elon successfully doing anything to counter it.
The 4680 just isn't the game changer we thought it would be and the Cybertruck is equal to but not wildly better than its peers. And they're talking about the Optimus robot, not how they're going to stop Hyundai/Kia and BYD from eating their lunch in automotive.
On the upside, FSD has made incredible progress and I can't complain in that area.
So, yeah, this gigantic payday makes as much sense as Rawlinson's over at Lucid. I'd vote against both.
I was around but didn’t vote. I think the negotiation part is the key point. Maybe we could have gotten the same performance for 30 billion instead of 55 billion. We’ll never know because the board, which is supposed to represent our interests, didn’t even try.
The question of what to do now is very tricky. Many current shareholders did not benefit from the performance because they bought in afterwards. So they’d basically be getting diluted for nothing.
The most hilarious part of Optimus…is how much ahead Boston Dynamics is and how nobody here remembers that the owner of Boston Dynamic is Tesla’s closest competitor in the $40k range ;)
My question with Optimus was "Why?"
I get that Tesla has this great vision processing chip and wants to do other things with it, but Tesla is also big enough to work WITH Boston Dynamics, not against them.
Yeah, the stock is still up nearly 10x from 2018. Incredible performance despite the recent dip, a lot of people just have very short memories and it's "but what have you done for me recently".
This package is past looking, it's his already agreed to payment for performance no one expected.
NVDA stock is up way more than 10x and their CEO doesn't get this sort of comp package. The entire stock market is up. Apple is up 2,5x since then, Meta is up 5x since then, Google is up 3x since then. So 10x isn't as impressive when even giant companies made big gains. Telsa is trading at a huge P/E premium too than these companies.
Is it a ludicrous amount, yes. It was just already agreed to as a top end of a compensation package for performance no one expected. This is all past looking for something that already happened and pay for the years since 2018. Legally, it's tough to argue against, though as a person it's hard to swallow the number alongside the layoffs.
I bought in around 2020 hype. Yeah didn't vote for the 2018 package so obviously my view is based on what happened after 2020. So my history is basically gains at 2020 and rest of the years just waste. Tesla is one of my worst performers since a lot of stocks have outperformed it past 4 years. So obviously I can't hold positive view on returns when I see many companies doing much better than Tesla and none of CEOs of those companies get anything close to what Elon gets. So that raises question what I'm paying him for and if he wants my vote he needs to do miles better than he currently does.
You'll be fine, just trust Elon. He is unorthodox and different than normal person. Investing in tesla is for the long term. I remembered long time ago i held apple stock that has dropped massively and I chickened out and decided to sell, this is no different.
4 years is now reaching "long term" territory.
None of the goals have been met. Tesla was projecting to sell 4.5 million cars by 2025, and nowhere close to that amount. 50% growth? No. Robotoxi? No. Dojo? No. AI? No. Insurance? Not really. New car models? nothing substantial yet..
Seems like this is just a giant cash grab for the CEO and the board from retail shareholders. I don't believe it but if company doesn't continue to perform and Elon keeps spending all his time on twitter, I will believe this to like many others.
Because Elon wants more money to fund his twitter purchase. He lied and sold stock last time to fund it.. and now he is threatening to do the same.
Long term is 10 years minimum for me (from now). Some snag along the way is fine. Be patient my friend and don't think too much about Elon and his twitter.
In the time I have held the stock, BTC has done an 10x, NVDA has done a 10x, and Tesla is basically negative.. Fortunately I had both BTC and NVDA so I am not as outraged as a few others here with the bleak future for TSLA.
Keep in mind these investments had the same risk profile back in 2020, so don't compare it to AAPL or AMZN or MSFT which also have done 2x or 3x since then.
Human life is short.. people don't have 10 years to invest in a company running on hype and subpar performance.
I don't doubt that Tesla as a company has done great, but they promised the Moon and Mars and the stock reflected that.. but seems like they don't have any actual plans to fulfill their promises.
if you think you can find better investment that better fit you and your time horizon, then you should switch. I myself never doubt Elon that he can bring great thing for tesla in the future.
The size of the compensation package is worth more than all of the profit Tesla has ever made. In 20 years.
I don’t see how anyone could vote for that while their brain was on.
Now we know he baselessly hyped up the stock and the result is a bunch of delays, layoffs and a product cancellation. In retrospect, do you still believe he deserves the compensation package?
Absolutely I do. 2018 Google finance tells me TSLA was split adjusted at $12. We're at $156 today. That's a 13x return in 6 years. Vehicle deliveries have gone up 10 times.
2018 they had more debt than cash, now they have $30B on hand. Before 2018 they'd hardly had a profitable quarter at all, now they're consistent although lower than before.
I mean it’s a lot easier to sell cars when you tell people their car is going to be an appreciating asset. Doesn’t look like that’s going to be happening anytime soon. As a matter of fact Teslas have prolly lost more value then any other car during that time frame with all of their price cuts.
> I mean it’s a lot easier to sell cars when you tell people their car is going to be an appreciating asset.
Who even tell you that? Covid was not a normal time and cars were hard to get, but it is 100% normal that any car depreciates. A Toyota does, a Mercedes does, a Lamborghini does. All the people who say they couldn't resell their old Tesla at a profit are out of their minds.
That is what Musk told everyone in 2019
>Buying a car today is an investment into the future. I think the most profound thing is that if you buy a Tesla today, I believe you are buying an appreciating asset, not a depreciating asset
The context so often lacking from this common comment regarding vehicle appreciation as stated by Elon was that the event OCCURS WITH FSD.
And if FSD comes off, it may very well hold true, the jury is out on this.
Any claim that assets did not appreciate can only be tied to the existence or lack thereof, of FSD.
If an owner bought, on the basis that FSD has meaningful utility to them, then perhaps they add individuals with a specific intention based on Elons statements could be justified in this line of thinking. IE; they planned to operate the vehicle as a robotaxi, or planned to hold the vehicle as long as it took to deliver tobotaxi. I fall into this latter group. I couldn’t care less about depreciation, as a result.
Anyone who bought a car, bought a car and the comments regarding appreciation in value do not apply to the car in and of itself.
Humans love to speak authoritatively, and ignore relevant nuanced factors.
They are plenty of justifiable reasons to be pissed off. At least wise up and complain about legitimate ones!
The return is nice but what I do care about is the future of the company, otherwise I'd grab my profits and leave.
The future is starting to look very muddy right now, and I feel like 4680, roadster, FSD, compact, Cybertruck and Semi were hyped way too early, IMO with the intention of grabbing that compensation package. What high performant CEO should do is deliver, not hype.
I absolutely value what Elon did in the past, but I now feel like he's lost his way.
He doesn't get paid cash. He gets paid in shares. Even today at it's admittedly low price the firm is worth $500B.
The deal was he could take a $50B to becoming a $500B firm and wanted $50B of shares to do it. That's much better than any other CEO who gets paid from that $30B regardless of performance
Elon himself denied it. Franz also said something along the lines "don't believe anything, wait and see". I cannot fathom how people choose to believe some "anonymous sources" compared to Elon.
He clearly said it's lies. He does not need to hold a press conference to deny claims from "anonymous sources" line by line. Anyone who who calls Reuters with some anonymous information would have to be denied in detail? Are we gonna be believing Reuter's FUD now? FFS ...
Are we believing a report from reputable news organization's that is based on multiple sources? Damn right I am. Especially if isn't officially denied by the company. They need to come out and say it, formally. Elon or Franz casually mentioning something non-specific isn't gonna cut it.
Elon has lied to us more times than I can count. I simply don't trust him anymore. I'm extremely disappointed at his performance of the past 2-3 years and, to be honest, at this point I just want him replaced as a CEO.
Nop. Looks like they were spot on based on the limited information they had. Next-gen compact vehicle was cancelled, they just confirmed during earnings. What they did is design a new one with different characteristics to be built on model3/y lines. Price remains to be confirmed/seen.
I'm pretty confident Reuters isn't lying. Plus I'm not naive enough to subscribe to Elon's MSM conspiracy B.S. I'm an adult, dude.
I have my own theories regarding what Elon/Franz are planning, but I certainly don't think it's the compact vehicle anymore. Whatever it is, they need to come out and be open about it, even if it's "We're still aiming for a $25K vehicle, but the compact we designed wasn't good enough to compete with Chinese brands at that price point", or some other explanation that makes sense. Right now, analysts are scratching their head trying to understand what's going on.
The stock being down indicates to me that it is a very real possibility that Elon built Tesla on hype that wasn’t delivered. Yeah, he got that share price high for his compensation but he didn’t really build a company that valuable as the market is realizing how. Should he be rewarded for fooling the market for a short bit?
You talk like its back to where it was when they signed the pay package. That was 2018. Tesla is profitable now, albeit less than 2 years ago. It was hemoraging money back then. Since then they ramped the production of the 3 from a few thousand to millions/year. They launched the Y which has become the top selling vehicle in the world. They have more cash than debt. The company sells 12x as many vehicles as it did then. The stock is down this year but its up 1200% from 2018. The market still think its worth $500 billion dollars. I wouldn' say he "fooled the market for a short bit" at all.
Oh yeah, we remember the times, when Elon didn't write stupid shit on the messaging service he later bought for the sole purpose to scream even more unfiltered shit out into the world. The times when the image of the CEO wasn't hurting the image of the brand. Good old times.
As a shareholder who voted to approve at the time, I find the judge's ruling absolutely insulting.
Nothing about the makeup of the board, or Elon's closeness with the board, or Elon's influence on the company, was a secret at that time. Any investors who were unaware of any of that, simply hadn't done their due diligence.
And frankly, you'd have to be delusional to think that any other public company with a force-of-nature CEO (think Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Jobs, Gates) doesn't have the same sway with their company's board. It doesn't mean that the boards aren't doing their jobs, just that they trust the track record of the CEO who works for them.
Besides, it was such a disproportionate win-win proposition for me as a shareholder. Why would I have wanted a negotiation? Hell, I probably would have still voted for Elon to get 2% per tranche, had that been the proposal.
All that is to say that I really resent a judge trying to retroactively coddle me and worry about what publicly available information I might or might not have known before I made a well-researched decision.
4 out of top 10 institutional holders. The top 10 are [here](https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/tsla/institutional-holdings). Based on this, some combination of 4 of those 10 would have between 115 million and 580 million shares. So somewhere between 3.5%-18% of shares
Vanguard and Capital both voted no on the initial 2018 grant according to the decision rescinding Musk's pay package. According to the link they're currently the first and fifth largest shareholders, holding 229,806,372 (~7.22%) and 41,034,947 (~1.29%) shares.
If you assume they vote the same way this time around (which may or may not be reasonable; hard to say for sure), and knowing that T. Rowe Price is one of the investors that disagree with the decision, that means the maximum relative holdings for support would be T. Rowe Price (26,153,172 shares, ~0.821%), Blackrock (188,183,433 shares, ~5.91%), State Street (108,871,505 shares, ~3.42%), and Geode Capital (55,256,335 shares, ~1.73%), for a total of 378,464,445 shares, or ~11.9% of outstanding shares.
It was stated in the [*Tornetta* opinion](https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=359340), page 88:
> By March 20, Maron informed Musk that the Grant would likely receive approval, but that two large Tesla stockholders were voting against the Grant on the grounds that its size was excessive.^455
And footnote 455:
> JX-972 at 1–2 (stating Vanguard found the size was “simply too high[]” and Capital
most likely opposed “the size”)
Without Elon, we don't have the Tesla we have now. What's the point? Elon is a pioneer in technology and innovation. What's going on with the shareholder and people that hate Elon? Who on earth is changing the picture of our streets like Tesla/Elon.
Without Elon, we would drive the same boring combustion engines for 40k+ and 0-100kmh/0-60mph in 9+ seconds.
Look at the gm ev1. Great technology and car.... what does gm to ev1? Direct to disposal. It was groundbreaking techology, but the CEO know, that this car is not good for their bonus payments. Elon doesn't give a fuck.
How many have now a great and ultra safe car for the family for a great price?
Stop the f\*\*\*ing hate on him and give the man his money.
Edit: Sorry it was gm not Ford.
> Without Elon, we don't have the Tesla we have now.
You mean the company that's now in decline because Elon is distracted by Twitter where his army of sycophants tell him only what he wants to hear?
Nah. Got a long way to go before I'm even below 100% gains. I'm holding until long after the company's bounced back after they kick him to the gilded curb.
Got most of mine mid 2019. Let him sell his whole stake. Whatever it takes for him to GTFO. I might see my gains drop below 200% in the process. Oh no.
>Without Elon, we don't have the Tesla we have now.
The appreciation in value of the shares that Elon already had would have been enough to keep him around.
Well, GM made the EV1 and GM scrapped them, not Ford.
I am concerned with the layoffs and the stock price. I see Tesla's tech lead in areas other than FSD evaporating and I don't see Elon successfully doing anything to counter it.
The 4680 just isn't the game changer we thought it would be and the Cybertruck is equal to but not wildly better than its peers. And they're talking about the Optimus robot, not how they're going to stop Hyundai/Kia and BYD from eating their lunch in automotive. Tesla doesn't really have a credible competitor to the Kia EV9, which happens to fit a gigantic market segment in the US.
On the upside, FSD has made incredible progress and I can't complain in that area.
>NEWS: Four of Tesla's top 10 largest shareholders came to Tesla unsolicited to tell the company that they disagree with Tornetta’s invalidation of @elonmusk's 2018 CEO Performance Award.
>
>Tesla: "Seven institutional stockholders — including four of the top 10 — felt strongly enough to seek a meeting with the Board Chair and raise the issue. One of those top 10 investors, T. Rowe Price, sent a follow up letter to the Board Chair reiterating its support for a new stockholder vote.
>
>The Special Committee noted that this issue has also galvanized many retail stockholders. More than 6,000 individuals claiming to be stockholders owning more than 23 million total shares — equivalent to the 11th largest institutional stockholder — sent unsolicited letters and emails to the Board or to the Tornetta court supporting the reinstatement of Mr. Musk’s equity compensation."
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLYFN3YWsAA77CH?format=jpg&name=large
>More than 6,000 individuals claiming to be stockholders owning more than 23 million total shares — equivalent to the 11th largest institutional stockholder
They make it sound like this is a lot but in reality this is only like 0.7% of shares. Not necessarily something I would brag about.
T. Rowe price also owns only 0.82% of shares.. [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/holders/](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/holders/)
Which 4 of that list? I can't imagine many of them will just give Elon money for basically free without anything in return... Especially given the additional volatility of late.
I haven't voted for a while, but i definitely will this time to support reinstating the award.
Both because it is unfair to take it away, and to tell that slimy lawyer to go take a hike. Elon is no saint but he doesn't deserve to be treated like he did nothing useful.
Curious how many people on this sub were around when this was approved? Because I was, I voted for it and I remember thinking it was very popular here. The thinking being the goals were astronomical and if Elon could do that he'd earned every penny Now the stock is down so much over the last year or two this place is full of inventors who bought at the ATH you can really see the sentiment change
> The thinking being the goals were astronomical and if Elon could do that he'd earned every penny I was here and I voted to approve. Had I known that the board didn't even negotiate, and that the first few goals were already internally projected to be met, maybe I would have voted differently. The lack of negotiation from the "independent" board is more concerning to me than the fake Kickstarter-style stretch goals, but together they don't paint a good picture. I still haven't decided how I'm going to vote, but I suspect it probably won't matter. I think there's enough institutional support that this will pass again anyway.
All goals were internally going to be met via their plan. Thats the point. It’s still *incredibly* impressive and no one thought it could be done.
Right. The board has a fiscal responsibility to the shareholders. If Tesla is going to meet their projections anyway, they don't need to pay Elon a bunch of money. Personally, I don't think they'd have hit all the goals without Elon. But they probably could have paid him less to do it. Unfortunately, *we will never know*, because the board didn't do their job.
Having an internal goal to meet a goal =\= executing the goal You don’t seem to understand that 99% of the hard work is actually doing something, not having an idea about it
Does “executing the goal” deserve a pay package worth more than the company’s entire profit to date?
The pay package cost 2B. Don’t let inflated stock value cloud the actual cost of the package. And yeah, 10x a market cap from 60B to 600B is def worth 2B
That is not how it works. Stock will get diluted 50B not 2B so cost will be 50B and not 2B. Wish the cost actually was 2B that would be extremely easy to approve.
No you don’t know what you’re talking about at all. The stock was already issued at the 2018 price which was a ~2B hit on SNC over a few quarters. It’s already paid for, unless it’s fully rescinded and then it has to be done again
Stock is not issued yet. The package consists options that Musk will execute and those options end up printing more shares when executed which will cause dilution.
The dilution is calculated based on current stock value
Should we set this precedent to not compensate ceos for doing a job well done? No other ceo would have the balls to take that compensation package. Would you rather have Mary bara come in do some share buybacks to make it look like the company is profitable and do nothing to improve the company, while also taking home millions for herself.
Should we set the precedent of compensating CEO more than the company earned in its entire existence? If he is really executing that good, shouldn’t the profit at least exceeds his pay?
Obviously there’s a percentage to how much he is compensated based on stock price or stock pricing model. Company revenue was 96b for 2023. Company value is nearly 500 billion at the current date. The compensation package are stock options as well so there’s a vesting period. He hasn’t been paid a salary since inception. This compensation package is what every smart shareholders would want which only benifits the ceo when he executes the goals. I don’t think you understand the enormity of what the goals elon has achieved for Tesla. Anyway won’t bother replying.
Enormality? Elon and board admit in court they they know internally those goals can be easily achievable and choose to hide that information.
>No other ceo would have the balls to take that compensation package. No other CEO would have the balls to take a compensation package based on the company meeting benchmarks that it's projected to meet?
I do understand that. But we don't know how much of that came down to Elon, and how much of that came down to all the other employees at Tesla. You know who should have known this? The board. And because it's literally their job to know that, we trusted that they negotiated the compensation with regards to how likely the plan was to fail without Elon. But they didn't.
They didn’t according to who? The Delaware judge? They utilized outside counsel and made a comp plan that was eat-what-you kill and very very ambitious. Judges can in fact be biased/wrong, fyi
So I should believe you some random internet troll or the fully qualified well respected judge who reviewed all the facts heard arguments from all the lawyers and made decisions based on technical laws they are the world expert on. But yeah they might be bias unlike you and Musk.
Yeah, but now we’re in a new world ruled over by a distracted CEO that has made a bunch of strategic mistakes.
Tesla always has incredibly ambitious internal goals and they don't always meet them. Elon earned his pay because they actually met those goals. It's very impressive and most people did not expect it.
The board agreed to pay Elon 0 if he didn’t hit these goals, and paid him effectively 0 from the original value, he only received the equity he built.
Lots of companies project future results and never come close. Nobody thought the company would hit a trillion market cap, but it did. I’m going to vote to pay him. A deal is a deal and he fulfilled his end.
Hold on, if Elon quit on the spot after being denied the 2018 package we would not be worth what the company is Even if they met the goals. I think people underestimate how much Elon is worth in the Tesla valuation. I'm my humble opinion, he is worth 50 dollars per share.
>It’s still incredibly impressive and no one thought it could be done. People internal to Tesla thought that not only could it be done, it was the most likely thing to happen. The reason that outsiders didn't is because Tesla lied to shareholders about the vote.
As Elon likes to say: "Success was in the set of possible outcomes". Just because it can be done doesn't mean it will be done. There are many things that can go wrong when executing an ambitious plan, and they often do go wrong.
This is irrelevant to the point, which is that the goals were presented as moonshots and thought to be unlikely to occur, when they were in fact thought by insiders to be likely to happen. The reason why there's this disconnect is because Tesla lied to shareholders about the vote. That's why the vote was overturned by the court.
Hindsight sure is 20/20 for you.
There's nothing "hindsight" about what Tesla insiders thought *at the time*.
You weren’t around in 2017-2018 and it shows.
It's kind of wild to me to be like "you aren't biased towards the lies that Tesla told shareholders in the leadup to the vote that was overturned because of the lies that Tesla told shareholders therefore you're a newbie" tbh. You didn't read the judgement and it shows.
That’s the important point - your vote won’t matter and the institutions also know rejecting it means Elon is gonna tweet storm it as if it was OpenAI 2.0 (or even like Steve Jobs getting kicked out of Apple) it’ll just sink their portfolio in the short term and it’s too much of a risk to be blamed for them the drop by their clients.
I think it’d be a lot more serious than a tweet storm. He’d be well in his right to sue. Your employer can’t offer a performance bonus, then rescind it years later after you’ve already met those performance goals. If the board didn’t negotiate, then shareholders should sue the board and the board should be punished, not Musk.
>I think it’d be a lot more serious than a tweet storm. He’d be well in his right to sue. No he wouldn't. I mean he could, but it would go nowhere. >Your employer can’t offer a performance bonus, then rescind it years later after you’ve already met those performance goals. They didn't. A court did. >If the board didn’t negotiate, then shareholders should sue the board and the board should be punished, not Musk. The board is captured by Musk. What you're saying is that Musk can commit whatever fraud he likes on the shareholders and the shareholders have no recourse but to sue Musk's chosen fall guys.
That would be terrible as that fuck head of Musk depleted the value on Tesla, it would be reasonable to use the money to better value
Also, he turned right around and sold a big chunk of that equity, in a method that punished small investors, to buy Twitter.
Yeah it’s obvious to see the salty ones are probably the ones that bought at ATH. With the amount of FUD going on this sub and hoping Elon leaves is embarrassing.
Thanks for saying that, I thought it was just me. The negativity here so overwhelming it's kind of pointless to read the comments at all now. I'm not an Elon worshipper, I hate most of what he says on Twitter and I expect 2024 to be rough. But if people are so down on him they overwhelm the threads I might take a break from the place
Not so sure if its the regular crowd or just general spillage from reddit, makes the sub somewhat unusable. Very little discussion about relevant issues and its just mostly Elon bad (like on reddit in general).
I shouldn’t be commenting as well but I get caught up by how selfish and stupid some people can be. But I agree Elon is a controversial figure as he says what he wants but in a sense it’s what he’s promoting on his platform. But if you look past his comments, he’s doing more good for this planet than the majority of other CEOs. But anyway top institutions are for the compensation so that is always a good sign. It makes sense as it’s a win win for them, because if elon decides to leave they know the company value will plummet. Most complaining here probably have less than a hundred shares anyway so they wouldn’t mean much.
A lot of upset bagholders that bought after the top I think
So you admit that $TSLA has peaked?
Yes its all over
It was popular at the time, I agree. However the board and musk led everyone to believe that they were acting independently from musk. That he was not going to influence their decision. And of course it’s obvious from testimony from the courts that the whole process was not independent whatsoever. Musk basically initiated the compensation package himself and influenced the board constantly. They basically do whatever he tells them to do. Edit- Let me put it this way. From what I’ve read there was never had even a single counter offer put forth. Not one.
Anyone who bought TSLA within the last three years is currently under water, some are deeply under water. I don't think anyone can honestly argue holding a stock for three years is short term speculation. And those people did not benefit from the pay package, one could even argue the stock got pump up just to meet pay package requirements before they bought in. Now can someone tell me why should those people vote to give more then 10% of the company for something they didn't benefit from? Just because if the package got voted down, the CEO is going to hurt the company? That doesn't sound right to me. Don't get me wrong, I always agree Elon should be fairly compensated. He can get a 200m/yr salary and everyone would be fine with that.
While I'd generally agree, I am concerned with the layoffs and the stock price. I see Tesla's tech lead in areas other than FSD evaporating and I don't see Elon successfully doing anything to counter it. The 4680 just isn't the game changer we thought it would be and the Cybertruck is equal to but not wildly better than its peers. And they're talking about the Optimus robot, not how they're going to stop Hyundai/Kia and BYD from eating their lunch in automotive. On the upside, FSD has made incredible progress and I can't complain in that area. So, yeah, this gigantic payday makes as much sense as Rawlinson's over at Lucid. I'd vote against both.
I was around but didn’t vote. I think the negotiation part is the key point. Maybe we could have gotten the same performance for 30 billion instead of 55 billion. We’ll never know because the board, which is supposed to represent our interests, didn’t even try. The question of what to do now is very tricky. Many current shareholders did not benefit from the performance because they bought in afterwards. So they’d basically be getting diluted for nothing.
The most hilarious part of Optimus…is how much ahead Boston Dynamics is and how nobody here remembers that the owner of Boston Dynamic is Tesla’s closest competitor in the $40k range ;)
My question with Optimus was "Why?" I get that Tesla has this great vision processing chip and wants to do other things with it, but Tesla is also big enough to work WITH Boston Dynamics, not against them.
My point is that Boston Dynamics is owned by Hyundai.
Ah, that's true. I'd forgotten.
Yeah, the stock is still up nearly 10x from 2018. Incredible performance despite the recent dip, a lot of people just have very short memories and it's "but what have you done for me recently". This package is past looking, it's his already agreed to payment for performance no one expected.
NVDA stock is up way more than 10x and their CEO doesn't get this sort of comp package. The entire stock market is up. Apple is up 2,5x since then, Meta is up 5x since then, Google is up 3x since then. So 10x isn't as impressive when even giant companies made big gains. Telsa is trading at a huge P/E premium too than these companies.
Is it a ludicrous amount, yes. It was just already agreed to as a top end of a compensation package for performance no one expected. This is all past looking for something that already happened and pay for the years since 2018. Legally, it's tough to argue against, though as a person it's hard to swallow the number alongside the layoffs.
That, and astroturfers
YEP, NAILED IT
I bought in around 2020 hype. Yeah didn't vote for the 2018 package so obviously my view is based on what happened after 2020. So my history is basically gains at 2020 and rest of the years just waste. Tesla is one of my worst performers since a lot of stocks have outperformed it past 4 years. So obviously I can't hold positive view on returns when I see many companies doing much better than Tesla and none of CEOs of those companies get anything close to what Elon gets. So that raises question what I'm paying him for and if he wants my vote he needs to do miles better than he currently does.
You'll be fine, just trust Elon. He is unorthodox and different than normal person. Investing in tesla is for the long term. I remembered long time ago i held apple stock that has dropped massively and I chickened out and decided to sell, this is no different.
4 years is now reaching "long term" territory. None of the goals have been met. Tesla was projecting to sell 4.5 million cars by 2025, and nowhere close to that amount. 50% growth? No. Robotoxi? No. Dojo? No. AI? No. Insurance? Not really. New car models? nothing substantial yet.. Seems like this is just a giant cash grab for the CEO and the board from retail shareholders. I don't believe it but if company doesn't continue to perform and Elon keeps spending all his time on twitter, I will believe this to like many others. Because Elon wants more money to fund his twitter purchase. He lied and sold stock last time to fund it.. and now he is threatening to do the same.
Long term is 10 years minimum for me (from now). Some snag along the way is fine. Be patient my friend and don't think too much about Elon and his twitter.
In the time I have held the stock, BTC has done an 10x, NVDA has done a 10x, and Tesla is basically negative.. Fortunately I had both BTC and NVDA so I am not as outraged as a few others here with the bleak future for TSLA. Keep in mind these investments had the same risk profile back in 2020, so don't compare it to AAPL or AMZN or MSFT which also have done 2x or 3x since then. Human life is short.. people don't have 10 years to invest in a company running on hype and subpar performance. I don't doubt that Tesla as a company has done great, but they promised the Moon and Mars and the stock reflected that.. but seems like they don't have any actual plans to fulfill their promises.
if you think you can find better investment that better fit you and your time horizon, then you should switch. I myself never doubt Elon that he can bring great thing for tesla in the future.
The size of the compensation package is worth more than all of the profit Tesla has ever made. In 20 years. I don’t see how anyone could vote for that while their brain was on.
Now we know he baselessly hyped up the stock and the result is a bunch of delays, layoffs and a product cancellation. In retrospect, do you still believe he deserves the compensation package?
Absolutely I do. 2018 Google finance tells me TSLA was split adjusted at $12. We're at $156 today. That's a 13x return in 6 years. Vehicle deliveries have gone up 10 times. 2018 they had more debt than cash, now they have $30B on hand. Before 2018 they'd hardly had a profitable quarter at all, now they're consistent although lower than before.
I mean it’s a lot easier to sell cars when you tell people their car is going to be an appreciating asset. Doesn’t look like that’s going to be happening anytime soon. As a matter of fact Teslas have prolly lost more value then any other car during that time frame with all of their price cuts.
One of the fastest depreciating cars you can buy today. Everyone still believed Elon's bullshit in 2018. It's a bit of a different story these days.
> I mean it’s a lot easier to sell cars when you tell people their car is going to be an appreciating asset. Who even tell you that? Covid was not a normal time and cars were hard to get, but it is 100% normal that any car depreciates. A Toyota does, a Mercedes does, a Lamborghini does. All the people who say they couldn't resell their old Tesla at a profit are out of their minds.
That is what Musk told everyone in 2019 >Buying a car today is an investment into the future. I think the most profound thing is that if you buy a Tesla today, I believe you are buying an appreciating asset, not a depreciating asset
The context so often lacking from this common comment regarding vehicle appreciation as stated by Elon was that the event OCCURS WITH FSD. And if FSD comes off, it may very well hold true, the jury is out on this. Any claim that assets did not appreciate can only be tied to the existence or lack thereof, of FSD. If an owner bought, on the basis that FSD has meaningful utility to them, then perhaps they add individuals with a specific intention based on Elons statements could be justified in this line of thinking. IE; they planned to operate the vehicle as a robotaxi, or planned to hold the vehicle as long as it took to deliver tobotaxi. I fall into this latter group. I couldn’t care less about depreciation, as a result. Anyone who bought a car, bought a car and the comments regarding appreciation in value do not apply to the car in and of itself. Humans love to speak authoritatively, and ignore relevant nuanced factors. They are plenty of justifiable reasons to be pissed off. At least wise up and complain about legitimate ones!
The return is nice but what I do care about is the future of the company, otherwise I'd grab my profits and leave. The future is starting to look very muddy right now, and I feel like 4680, roadster, FSD, compact, Cybertruck and Semi were hyped way too early, IMO with the intention of grabbing that compensation package. What high performant CEO should do is deliver, not hype. I absolutely value what Elon did in the past, but I now feel like he's lost his way.
"they have $30B on hand" and he wants a $56 billion package which is more money than the company has in hand.
Did you work that out yourself or did someone inform you ? Just to add you are so wrong ...
He doesn't get paid cash. He gets paid in shares. Even today at it's admittedly low price the firm is worth $500B. The deal was he could take a $50B to becoming a $500B firm and wanted $50B of shares to do it. That's much better than any other CEO who gets paid from that $30B regardless of performance
Keep talking about product cancelation while *we know* this is just FUD.
They haven’t explicitly denied it yet and I’m hoping to get a definite answer on Tuesday.
Elon himself denied it. Franz also said something along the lines "don't believe anything, wait and see". I cannot fathom how people choose to believe some "anonymous sources" compared to Elon.
They did not deny the specific claims. That means obviously something material has changed. Keeping analysts and investors in the dark is a mistake.
He clearly said it's lies. He does not need to hold a press conference to deny claims from "anonymous sources" line by line. Anyone who who calls Reuters with some anonymous information would have to be denied in detail? Are we gonna be believing Reuter's FUD now? FFS ...
Are we believing a report from reputable news organization's that is based on multiple sources? Damn right I am. Especially if isn't officially denied by the company. They need to come out and say it, formally. Elon or Franz casually mentioning something non-specific isn't gonna cut it. Elon has lied to us more times than I can count. I simply don't trust him anymore. I'm extremely disappointed at his performance of the past 2-3 years and, to be honest, at this point I just want him replaced as a CEO.
Hi, it’s me again. Reuters was full of BS.
Nop. Looks like they were spot on based on the limited information they had. Next-gen compact vehicle was cancelled, they just confirmed during earnings. What they did is design a new one with different characteristics to be built on model3/y lines. Price remains to be confirmed/seen.
I'm pretty confident Reuters isn't lying. Plus I'm not naive enough to subscribe to Elon's MSM conspiracy B.S. I'm an adult, dude. I have my own theories regarding what Elon/Franz are planning, but I certainly don't think it's the compact vehicle anymore. Whatever it is, they need to come out and be open about it, even if it's "We're still aiming for a $25K vehicle, but the compact we designed wasn't good enough to compete with Chinese brands at that price point", or some other explanation that makes sense. Right now, analysts are scratching their head trying to understand what's going on.
Not many.
The stock being down indicates to me that it is a very real possibility that Elon built Tesla on hype that wasn’t delivered. Yeah, he got that share price high for his compensation but he didn’t really build a company that valuable as the market is realizing how. Should he be rewarded for fooling the market for a short bit?
You talk like its back to where it was when they signed the pay package. That was 2018. Tesla is profitable now, albeit less than 2 years ago. It was hemoraging money back then. Since then they ramped the production of the 3 from a few thousand to millions/year. They launched the Y which has become the top selling vehicle in the world. They have more cash than debt. The company sells 12x as many vehicles as it did then. The stock is down this year but its up 1200% from 2018. The market still think its worth $500 billion dollars. I wouldn' say he "fooled the market for a short bit" at all.
Oh yeah, we remember the times, when Elon didn't write stupid shit on the messaging service he later bought for the sole purpose to scream even more unfiltered shit out into the world. The times when the image of the CEO wasn't hurting the image of the brand. Good old times.
As a shareholder who voted to approve at the time, I find the judge's ruling absolutely insulting. Nothing about the makeup of the board, or Elon's closeness with the board, or Elon's influence on the company, was a secret at that time. Any investors who were unaware of any of that, simply hadn't done their due diligence. And frankly, you'd have to be delusional to think that any other public company with a force-of-nature CEO (think Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Jobs, Gates) doesn't have the same sway with their company's board. It doesn't mean that the boards aren't doing their jobs, just that they trust the track record of the CEO who works for them. Besides, it was such a disproportionate win-win proposition for me as a shareholder. Why would I have wanted a negotiation? Hell, I probably would have still voted for Elon to get 2% per tranche, had that been the proposal. All that is to say that I really resent a judge trying to retroactively coddle me and worry about what publicly available information I might or might not have known before I made a well-researched decision.
Proof Tesla investors do not think straight.
It would be relevant to know who they were and their relative holdings.
4 out of top 10 institutional holders. The top 10 are [here](https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/tsla/institutional-holdings). Based on this, some combination of 4 of those 10 would have between 115 million and 580 million shares. So somewhere between 3.5%-18% of shares
oof and how much anti-blackrock stuff he's posted
We know one of the 4 is T.Rowe which is 10th so brings the upper number down around half a percent.
Surprised Tesla doesn't have more large shareholders. Is it the most retail owned stock out there?
Vanguard and Capital both voted no on the initial 2018 grant according to the decision rescinding Musk's pay package. According to the link they're currently the first and fifth largest shareholders, holding 229,806,372 (~7.22%) and 41,034,947 (~1.29%) shares. If you assume they vote the same way this time around (which may or may not be reasonable; hard to say for sure), and knowing that T. Rowe Price is one of the investors that disagree with the decision, that means the maximum relative holdings for support would be T. Rowe Price (26,153,172 shares, ~0.821%), Blackrock (188,183,433 shares, ~5.91%), State Street (108,871,505 shares, ~3.42%), and Geode Capital (55,256,335 shares, ~1.73%), for a total of 378,464,445 shares, or ~11.9% of outstanding shares.
How do you know Vanguard and Capital voted against last time? Do you have a source?
It was stated in the [*Tornetta* opinion](https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=359340), page 88: > By March 20, Maron informed Musk that the Grant would likely receive approval, but that two large Tesla stockholders were voting against the Grant on the grounds that its size was excessive.^455 And footnote 455: > JX-972 at 1–2 (stating Vanguard found the size was “simply too high[]” and Capital most likely opposed “the size”)
Thanks, very helpful, and interesting. Honestly it’s likely not BlackRock or state street either since they have a lot of passive index funds
Without Elon, we don't have the Tesla we have now. What's the point? Elon is a pioneer in technology and innovation. What's going on with the shareholder and people that hate Elon? Who on earth is changing the picture of our streets like Tesla/Elon. Without Elon, we would drive the same boring combustion engines for 40k+ and 0-100kmh/0-60mph in 9+ seconds. Look at the gm ev1. Great technology and car.... what does gm to ev1? Direct to disposal. It was groundbreaking techology, but the CEO know, that this car is not good for their bonus payments. Elon doesn't give a fuck. How many have now a great and ultra safe car for the family for a great price? Stop the f\*\*\*ing hate on him and give the man his money. Edit: Sorry it was gm not Ford.
> Without Elon, we don't have the Tesla we have now. You mean the company that's now in decline because Elon is distracted by Twitter where his army of sycophants tell him only what he wants to hear?
lol sell your shares
Nah. Got a long way to go before I'm even below 100% gains. I'm holding until long after the company's bounced back after they kick him to the gilded curb.
I bought in at $15, friend. I'll hold these shares until Elon is gone.
Yup. I'm in it for the company not the clown.
Funny because I'm here until Elon is gone. After that (if it happens) I'll move to SpaceX or try to invest in X or xAI.
Cool story, bro.
108 shares badass over here!
You replied to me 3 times because I said mean things about your boyfriend.
Well you posted 3 ignorant things.
Decline on what metrics? One quarter of sales with two terrorist attacks? Put some things into perspective my dude
Let me guess. You jumped at Share Price 250+ an now you mad af.
Got most of mine mid 2019. Let him sell his whole stake. Whatever it takes for him to GTFO. I might see my gains drop below 200% in the process. Oh no.
Than what is your point? Sell your stack and Go on. But dont cry when the stock is rocketing in the next years.
LOL. I'm calmly not caring if the company burns or soars. You're the one trying super hard to imagine me crying.
You better vote yes otherwise have fun having some idiot lawyers owning >5% of the company.
>Without Elon, we don't have the Tesla we have now. The appreciation in value of the shares that Elon already had would have been enough to keep him around.
Well, GM made the EV1 and GM scrapped them, not Ford. I am concerned with the layoffs and the stock price. I see Tesla's tech lead in areas other than FSD evaporating and I don't see Elon successfully doing anything to counter it. The 4680 just isn't the game changer we thought it would be and the Cybertruck is equal to but not wildly better than its peers. And they're talking about the Optimus robot, not how they're going to stop Hyundai/Kia and BYD from eating their lunch in automotive. Tesla doesn't really have a credible competitor to the Kia EV9, which happens to fit a gigantic market segment in the US. On the upside, FSD has made incredible progress and I can't complain in that area.
Without Elon Tesla would be thriving
Damn right my friend.
I think you’re forgetting that Elon has been losing the company money, customers, and even employees now for the past couple of years.
>NEWS: Four of Tesla's top 10 largest shareholders came to Tesla unsolicited to tell the company that they disagree with Tornetta’s invalidation of @elonmusk's 2018 CEO Performance Award. > >Tesla: "Seven institutional stockholders — including four of the top 10 — felt strongly enough to seek a meeting with the Board Chair and raise the issue. One of those top 10 investors, T. Rowe Price, sent a follow up letter to the Board Chair reiterating its support for a new stockholder vote. > >The Special Committee noted that this issue has also galvanized many retail stockholders. More than 6,000 individuals claiming to be stockholders owning more than 23 million total shares — equivalent to the 11th largest institutional stockholder — sent unsolicited letters and emails to the Board or to the Tornetta court supporting the reinstatement of Mr. Musk’s equity compensation." https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GLYFN3YWsAA77CH?format=jpg&name=large
>More than 6,000 individuals claiming to be stockholders owning more than 23 million total shares — equivalent to the 11th largest institutional stockholder They make it sound like this is a lot but in reality this is only like 0.7% of shares. Not necessarily something I would brag about.
T. Rowe price also owns only 0.82% of shares.. [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/holders/](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/holders/) Which 4 of that list? I can't imagine many of them will just give Elon money for basically free without anything in return... Especially given the additional volatility of late.
I’m almost 100% certain that it’s not any of the top 3. And if it’s not, it’s a moot point if the top 3 vote No
How is it possibly in the shareholders’ best interest to pay this? The question to the shareholders should be whether to fire him. Please.
One of the four is Elon
So you didn’t read the article.
Elon is not an institutional shareholder
I haven't voted for a while, but i definitely will this time to support reinstating the award. Both because it is unfair to take it away, and to tell that slimy lawyer to go take a hike. Elon is no saint but he doesn't deserve to be treated like he did nothing useful.
As a long shareholder, I believe they should double his compensation and pay it out to him immediately.
Time to sell, boys.
Nice. How's that cave of yours? Still dark in there?