Tesla Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's $1T Pay Package
wsj.com
wsj.com
yes. has been for a while.
Elon Musk.
> None of it makes logical sense to me, genuinely is there something I'm missing here?
Fundamentals don't work on meme stocks unfortunately, they work on cult leaders and will react when their CEO does or says something erratic.
Just the robotaxi business alone could be worth hundreds of billions a year in avoided insurance costs and save the average Western family about $5k in transportation costs annually. If it works. Most people don't think it will, but most people thought Amazon wouldn't work either.
For me, it's not that FSD will never work, it's that they're obviously at least 6 years behind Waymo.
For humanoid robots, again, it's not that it will never work, it's that not only is there plenty of competition that's already beating Tesla to the market for the "mostly remote controlled with a bit of automation" model (which is useful, I don't want to undersell that), but also that there will be at least a 5-10 year gap between the AI hardware necessary for a level-5 self driving car fitting in the power envelope of a car, and the hardware fitting in the power envelope of a humanoid robot that can get into a car and drive it (and that a fully autonomous humanoid robot is harder than level-5 self driving).
Energy? Again with the competition: they're one of the worst current brands in the world market — it's not the idea's wrong, it's just that they're the Blockbuster to a dozen would-be Netflixes.
Even with cars, competition from cheaper better models from China and Europe would already be biting Tesla's global sales even if Musk was not angering a significant fraction of what used to be Tesla's core market (upper-middle-class environmentalists).
Waymo cars are ~$200k each the new robocab will be closer to ~$20k to produce. These business advantages are why the market has some degree of faith that Tesla will out compete companies like waymo in the quest for .30cents per mile costs. Currently Waymo is well above $2per mile and has no clear path to 30cents. Getting to 30 cents is the only way to unlock the trillion dollar opportunity, otherwise you're just recreating Uber.
These are the types of considerations that make Tesla attractive to risk tolerant investors.
Two of the three leading Chinese companies are affiliated with large internet platform companies. Those internet platform companies have detailed geospatial data for reasons apart from their robotaxis.
Tesla isn't just behind Waymo. They are in fifth place and an outlier technologically.
Can we stop delusion that it's more sensors that's needed. Self driving is 95% about AI models that drive the car. CommaAI pulls it off with 5W computer and a single camera.
As far as I can tell, they’re second to Waymo in trying to expand into additional territory.
No idea as far as ridership or safety though.
But obviously, Musk's diminishing credibility isn't seen as a problem by investors because if it was he'd be kicked out.
That aside:
> For instance no car company outside of China except Tesla makes a profit on EV sales
BMW Group says otherwise: https://www.bmwgroup.com/content/dam/grpw/websites/bmwgroup_...
(And yes, BMW do have an autopilot, who knows if they'll hit their schedule, but all they have to do to beat Musk with delivering this is not slip as much as him, and he slips a lot in a way that only looks good when the comparison is US government space contractors: https://daxstreet.com/news/228484/bmw-sets-sights-on-level-4...)
Lots of the EU companies don't say much about separate profitability of ICE vs. EV, or if they do I couldn't find it.
But even then, so what if Tesla was the only non-Chinese EV company making a profit? Those Chinese EVs are still causing trouble for the old manufacturing bases in the US and Europe even though the Chinese cars have huge tariffs.
Tesla's prices only work against traditional manufacturers, and American ones at that (here in Europe, we're not big on Ford or General Motors either, lots of European EVs are getting nice and cheap way ahead of Musk actually delivering anything for $20k) — Tesla don't get to keep a big margin when Wuling or BYD comes along and gives Americans (or indeed anyone else) an EV that's $18k (/€18k/£18k) despite tariffs.
> Currently Waymo is well above $2per mile and has no clear path to 30cents.
Neither does Tesla. Like I said, Tesla are at least 6 years behind. Tesla's still got humans behind the wheel, and what statistics can be found in public information they have a high rate of manual intervention compared to Waymo.
Unless something has changed recently, Tesla's (so-called, and much criticised for the name) "Full Self-Driving" is SAE Level 2, whereas Waymo was already testing Level 4 autonomy back in 2017. (That's 8 years, not 6, I'm being generous even just by allowing Tesla to claim the current Tesla Robotaxi to count as an equivalent of the first commercial Waymo Robotaxi service, given the Waymo commercial service started several years after a few very impressive public demonstrations which, unlike Musk's demonstrations, have yet to be tainted by lawsuits revealing the involvement of metaphorical smoke and mirrors).
I own a hw3 Tesla with FSD. It regularly drives me for over an hour without intervention. It is good enough that a single person cannot drive long enough to know if it's improving or not. I can imagine if you're in Europe you might not understand the difference between different ADAS offerings because FSD is not allowed to operate in the EU.
Reasonable people can disagree on Tesla's ability to execute on their plans. I consider the current 10-20% chance reflected in the stock price today to be accurate. I continually re-evaluate this probability. Major events to look out for in the near future are the removal of safety drivers in Austin, the expansion of the robotaxi service to 8 cities, the commissioning of the "unboxed" cyber cab production line, the demo of Optimus V3, FSD V14.3, and the start of the Semi truck manufacturing line. All these milestones are slated to occur in the next 12 months. They will change the risk weighting on the stock one way or the other.
Unaudited? I mean, sure, BMW could have been lying in a corporate press release about their financial position, its not unheard of for corporations in general, but come on, Musk has fairly famously settled out of court with $20m (and same again for Tesla) fines and forced to step down for three years as Tesla chairman because he made false statements that influence share prices — "throwing stones in glass houses" comes to mind.
Have any of the things you're writing about Tesla doing, been audited?
> It is good enough that a single person cannot drive long enough to know if it's improving or not.
That's why we use statistics, not anecdotes.
The statistics that are available say the Tesla AI is worse, in general over roads and conditions, as compared to Waymo's AI.
On the topic of auditing, it's a shame the Tesla statistics are crowdsourced and not an audited first-party account, but unless something's changed recently, Tesla doesn't seem to release any more than the legal minimum of information here.
> Major events to look out for in the near future are the removal of safety drivers in Austin, the expansion of the robotaxi service to 8 cities,
Even if those happen on schedule, they'll still be behind.
> the commissioning of the "unboxed" cyber cab production line, […] and the start of the Semi truck manufacturing line.
While these would be relevant if the share price was sane, the relevance is that their absence or delay would suggest something catastrophically wrong rather than that their successful opening is noteworthy — new model production lines are table stakes for a traditional car company with P/E in the 5-10 range, not something "coming soon" that justifies a P/E close to 300.
That the Semi is already massively delayed ought to suggest a lower P/E ratio than a normal company, not a higher one.
> the demo of Optimus V3,
Disagree: Everything I've seen says that next year's V3 will still be a prototype. Meanwhile, competitors are already shipping.
And again, power envelope means a 5-10 year gap in capability between what AI can run on-device in a car vs. an android.
> FSD V14.3,
People have been saying this about different FSD version numbers for years now.
You yourself are stating that the current version "is good enough that a single person cannot drive long enough to know if it's improving or not", and seem to have missed that you were replying to "what statistics can be found in public information". So: why do you think this point release is important? Do you accept that there's statistics that show room for improvement, or is this just a number-go-up applause light?
> All these milestones are slated to occur in the next 12 months. They will change the risk weighting on the stock one way or the other.
Will they, though? The only thing that seems to have had any effect at all in the last few years were widespread protests against Musk personally and by extension Tesla.
I used to believe Tesla's timelines. I moved country and figured I could do OK without transferring my driving license because if I found I needed a car they'd be self-driving "real soon now" — that was 2018, and at some point you have to learn to stop trusting the guy when he spends a decade repeatedly saying his vision is only 6-12 months away from the point at which he speaks.
The argument that Tesla sucks because they haven't delivered on their promises is kinda illogical. Tesla is closer to a viable robotaxi, and grid scale energy arbitrage business than they ever have been and the share price reflects it.
With a P/E ~250+ Tesla should be an automatic short if your analysis is correct. I have $2 million long in the company. In 2035 it will be >$8 million. In 2035 Waymo will be a footnote.
I also bought shares. Sold them all for a profit this year.
My beliefs (all of them) are based on analysing what information I have access to, which in the case of "I won't need to drive" includes things said by Tesla which turned out to be falsehoods, and also other things not relevant to this topic.
The reasons I sold those shares include not only the CEO's failures to deliver, but also that other shareholders like yourself keep making excuses for the CEO's failures thus suggesting nothing will be fixed, and also that the CEO angers his customer bases to the point that showrooms get smashed up and products arsoned.
Normal people do not consider such things to be signs of "winning".
> The argument that Tesla sucks because they haven't delivered on their promises is kinda illogical.
I didn't say "suck", I said didn't deserve their current price.
What is illogical is that you're defending them despite them making false statements about what they could deliver that got them sued.
They're only "a bit weird", not "suck" by product range/market segments served (Cybertruck excluded); by sales and so on, Tesla is a perfectly adequate *$50 billion doller market cap* car company — like Hyundai, who make more profit and more cars, and has a robotics company in the same group.
The key there is "50 billion" not "trillion or so". Tesla is not magic.
> Tesla is closer to a viable robotaxi, and grid scale energy arbitrage business than they ever have been and the share price reflects it.
"closer […] than they ever have been" is still behind the competition.
The world has been moving on with each of these things while Tesla dithers and their CEO is distracted by SpaceX, his other AI company that owns his social media company, and offending much of his target market with ham-fisted political involvement.
> With a P/E ~250+ Tesla should be an automatic short if your analysis is correct.
Shorts are strongly associated with the phrase "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" for good reason.
> I have $2 million long in the company. In 2035 it will be >$8 million. In 2035 Waymo will be a footnote.
You yourself have said their market price relfects a "10-20%" chance. Your own 80-90% bet is necessarily that Tesla does not.
That said, given everything I'm seeing in the US, I'd put P(sufficient hyperinflation by 2035 to get that proportional change in market cap, conditional on Tesla actually still exists) ~= 0.1-0.25
Also on the subject of 10%, Musk has claimed variously 5%, 10%, and 20% chances of AI causing an apocalypse/wiping out humanity. Anyone who actually believes him on 10% (I don't, not that I have power to make such a call even if I did), should be willing to let 800 million people die to stop anyone (including Musk) developing it.
This alone should have crashed their stock price.
Tesla is a trillion dollar market cap company that struggles, STRUGGLES to put a sixth or seventh product line into production! A sixth one! They have five models, including the Cybertruck, which is not selling well. They stopped selling the Model S in Australia!
Speaking of trucks and Australia, utility vehicles ("utes") are very popular over here. I've never seen a Tesla Cybertruck here and likely never will. Meanwhile, just this weekend I saw a dozen BYD electric utes, and... they look good. They're fast, they look practical, and they're clearly available in volume. People are buying them! Many people!
There's an enormous market for electric vehicles of all shapes and sizes, and Tesla has been completely unable to tap into many of these markets.
Car-sized trucks.
Urban deliver vehicles.
Mini buses.
Full sized buses / coaches.
Light trucks.
Heavy trucks.
Etc...
Where are they? They promised a heavy truck, they made a few dozen, and then... crickets.
Elon flies by the seat of his pants. There's no knob at Tesla. There's no robotaxi product or service yet. Viability is way more than a question of pricing.
These facts imply some probable second order effects:
- Big money trapped in short positions after Tesla was added to S&P 500 desperately needed people to sell Tesla shares so they could cover.
- The costs of sponsored content to turn public sentiment against Tesla and Elon are insignificant compared to the liability of those short positions.
- covering those short positions (even gradually over a long time) pushes up the share price above what it would otherwise be.
I suspect this is why it's so confusing. Simultaneously Tesla prospects appear worse than they are if your impressions are formed by articles written by media institutions that shorts are paying for you to read, and the share price is above what even a balanced perspective would consider reasonable because shorts are still covering.
Also "meme stock" really just means stocks that had extreme short positions taken against them are discovered by many small money investors that coordinate over social media.
In some cases the short positions are so large they really should be illegal but hedge funds used loopholes. The lack of loopholes in Canada has lead to lawsuits.
So stocks over-shorted by hedge funds and discovered by retail investors = meme stock (at least in many cases.
There are twelve separate performance milestones, including Tesla's market capitalization growing to $8.5 trillion and delivering 20 million vehicles. He must also meet product-specific goals, such as 10 million active "Full Self-Driving" (FSD) subscriptions, 1 million "Optimus" robots delivered, and 1 million robotaxis in operation. These goals are separated into "tranches" that must be achieved over the next decade.
* market manipulation to get that valuation.
* using that money to manipulate the government/rules to preference yourself
* anti-competitive behavior.
* valuations based on hype and vaporware. Etc.
Musk? Looks to me like buying government influence, using it to halt investigations against his own companies: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/doge-could-help-...
That, plus how all of the Musk group gets smooshed together in weird ways, and how TSLA is treated as a public investment vehicle for all the other stuff: https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-shareholders-vote-elon...
Common forms of anti-competitive behavior: price fixing, predatory pricing, cartels, abuse of dominant position to exclude rivals, etc.
Tesla's competition are carmakers and this is the list of top car makers by revenue: VW, Toyota, Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Tesla, BYD, and Nissan - https://www.investopedia.com/articles/company-insights/09151...
I agree that "became head of what was simultaneously de-facto and also not-de-jure government department, abused it for personal gain" is fairly un-common.
> Tesla's competition are carmakers
My claim (Note: I'm not techblueberry) is about Musk, not about Tesla.
That said:
Tesla's competition should be carmakers. The CEO (and his board, and his shareholders) seem to be all on the same different page to you and I, that they're all about AI and robotics now.
A company can choose to expand their market via new lines of business, surely!
They say this very loudly when you point at the P/E ratio being 30-60 times that of traditional car companies.
I mean, their competition clearly are carmakers, because while Tesla talks about the robots they don't actually sell them — but the if the shareholders are happy and the board are happy then the CEO can make a bunch of remote control androids and fail to sell them for a few years while other people start eating their lunches.
wouldn't that be nice.