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> Tesla is crashing and somehow people thought giving him a huge pay package made sense.

There’s only upside for shareholders.

Musk’s package is entirely performance-contingent and structured as 12 stock grants.

And the targets are very ambitious: valuation ($8.5 trillion) and operational goals (20M cars, 10M FSD, 1M robotaxis, $400B profit) over 10 years.

https://poole.ncsu.edu/thought-leadership/article/inside-the...

> There’s only upside for shareholders

On the other side of the coin, they really don't have a choice; either they attempt to provide leverage (and using non-realistic goals is excellent to avoid actually having to pay it), or any major misshap with any of the other businesses that may have as collateral tesla stock (either directly or indirectly) would basically bankrupt the company. And the scenario where Elon would attempt to do a sort of firesale on purpose just to take revenge isnt far-fetched either;

IMO The only way forward for them is to keep him happy for now, while attempting to either do damage control or graceful exits.

I think this is a misread. They want extraordinary returns and think Musk can deliver it. Push him, make more money.

I think you think about it in the wrong way. The obvious con is what hypes the fan base. They think they are in on it and that they will fool the "NPCs" or what ever they call normal people.

Only simpletons can't see the end game of beautiful profits!

https://americanliterature.com/author/hans-christian-anderse...

I always thought the story ended with the emperor and his entourage being embarassed after the child said he's naked... but no, it ends even more close to real human behavior. (Sorry for writing a clickbait sentence).

> Tesla is crashing

But the stock keeps hitting new all time highs.

To the moon <rocket emoji> <diamond emoji> <hand emoji>

Not when accounting for inflation. Then that high was years back.

"The market can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent" applies here.

Luckily I don't bet, I would have taken a huge short position and lost a bunch of money on Tesla years ago because they were already over valued by any plausible revenue projection, and yet the stock went up and up.

But worth remembering, the South Sea Company was worth the equivalent of a few trillion dollars too.

The problem with the stock market is, even if you know with 100% certainty that EM is lying and Tesla is overvalued, you only can cash in that knowledge if the stock price makes contact with reality.

In fact even if every single shareholder in Tesla knows that the price is unsustainable they can still hold out for a greater fool for years. To a large extent you are betting on what the crowd will do, not what the company will do.

For this to work every single shareholder has to be in on the game. I wonder if the only reason it has gone on this long is because TSLA has so many required institutional investors stabilizing the market.

Any serious shareholder with a significant investment in it is surely aware that it's an overvalued meme stock that will continue to print money as long as the reality distortion field is maintained.

They'd be utter idiots if they weren't. (And if they are utter idiots, you shouldn't expect them to behave rationally.)

This is exactly it: they're making a perfectly rational decision keeping Musk on the way he is, because the alternative once he's out is the stock crashes due to the uncertainty and the fanboys bailing.

Why have less money when you actually don't care what happens if you have more money? So long as the stock retains its value, you can do things like borrow against your holdings, leverage that into other investments etc.

Well, he cashed in 2 billion of govt money for the moon mission and that doesn't look like it will fly.

Well, it is flying, it's the "refuel in space" and "re-entry in a manner such that it's reusable" parts which are questionable.

Beyond a certain point it becomes self-reinforcing. You will distort everything else about your world view to support that lie. You will surround yourself with other people who believe it and live in a completely internally consistent reality, surrounded by a vast conspiracy trying to bring you down.

The really killer part is, I can't even be 100% certain that it's not me. I'm quite sure, and justify it solidly, but then, I would.

I feel the same re: killer part...

Maybe the smart people are the ones who can intuitively feel the stupidity of the masses and take advantage of that, whereas the dumb are the ones who are too cautious about houses of cards and unstable Ponzi schemes...

> there is something wrong with a group of people completely unable to see when someone is lying to them.

They mistakenly believe, like temporarily embarrassed millionaires/capitalists [1], that they are actually in the winning group.

[1] _ https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck#Disputed

If something is literally incredible, then it's prudent to stop and consider whether it should be believed or that you have made an incorrect assumption. In this case, you wrongly assume that Musk is somehow being rewarded for something that happened in the past, or for something that might not even happen. The reality is that the pay package will only have value if Elon manages to dig Tesla out of the hole.

Despite how much conning you believe Musk has done (I won't refute it), Tesla is a company that actually builds cars, and while the Cybertruck flopped and anyone could see that coming from a mile away, that doesn't really affect the Tesla bottom line. That Musk grifted the government into buying them doesn't really do anything besides saving Tesla some money.

I wouldn't buy Tesla shares, I still don't really see their crazy valuation, but I would buy a Tesla car, as they are ostensibly awesome. If you disregard all the lying Musk has done it's still an epic car with unrivaled self driving capabilities.

That he starts talking about something historically has been a sign that some part of it is going to be a reality. You can stand apart from the crazy people who worship the ground he walks on, and still appreciate that he accomplishes great things. Whether it's through conning and grifting, or hard work and keen insight, there are still an electric car company and a rocket company where there weren't before.

Just stop reacting to people believing or shouting things or grotesque behaviors, and just look at the actual reality. It'll do you a lot better than just believing everything Musk says is BS.