23 votes

Elon Musk wins Tesla shareholder vote for $56 billion pay package

7 comments

  1. [3]
    stu2b50
    Link
    Musk gets his payday. As much as he probably doesn't deserve it, at the same time, it's a bit have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too from the board to grant him a $2.6b compensation plan at the time with...

    Musk gets his payday. As much as he probably doesn't deserve it, at the same time, it's a bit have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too from the board to grant him a $2.6b compensation plan at the time with outlandish market cap incentive cutoffs (with the maximum reward being a market cap >$650b for a company that was $57b at the time), and then complain that it's too much when the company actually does 10x over 4 years.

    Shoulda thought of that before you gave it to him.

    12 votes
    1. [2]
      BitsMcBytes
      Link Parent
      Thing is, experts thought it was impossible to 10x: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/business/dealbook/tesla-elon-musk-pay.html My feeling is that if a bet is made in which experts (whoever they...

      Thing is, experts thought it was impossible to 10x:

      If Mr. Musk were somehow to increase the value of Tesla to $650 billion--a figure many experts would contend is laughably impossible and would make Tesla one of the five largest companies in the United States, based on current valuations--his stock award could be worth as much as $55 billion.

      My feeling is that if a bet is made in which experts (whoever they are) think its impossible, it should have an asymmetric upside in the case that the impossible is done... otherwise whats the point of making that deal.

      12 votes
      1. stu2b50
        Link Parent
        Sure, and that’s why ultimately the shareholders did approve the 56b package, and that includes institutional investors, not just retail. The company did 10x under him, they did promise these...

        Sure, and that’s why ultimately the shareholders did approve the 56b package, and that includes institutional investors, not just retail. The company did 10x under him, they did promise these shares. As much as he’s been controversial recently, you’re really rocking the boat to deny him an agreed upon reward because he grew the company too much.

        8 votes
  2. [4]
    RobotOverlord525
    Link
    I don't really follow stocks/finance, but as a car person, I don't really get it. I don't understand why Tesla has a market cap of US$557.38B on a 2023 revenue of $96.77B/net income of $15.00B...

    I don't really follow stocks/finance, but as a car person, I don't really get it. I don't understand why Tesla has a market cap of US$557.38B on a 2023 revenue of $96.77B/net income of $15.00B compared to GM's Market cap of $53.12B on a revenue of $171.84B/net income of $10.13B or Ford's market cap of $46.49B on a revenue of $176.19B/net income of $4.35B. I mean, yeah, clearly Tesla is doing better than Ford or GM, but not 10 times better, right? And this isn't even a new phenomenon — Tesla has been a beloved stock for years now. If it's all just expectations of future potential, haven't we reached that future yet? The EV market is mature enough at this point that it doesn't look like Tesla has a huge font of untapped potential waiting to be unleashed.

    More to the point, it seems clear that Elon Musk is a liability for Tesla, not an asset. Until right wing trolls become a huge part of the EV market, all Elon Musk seems to be doing is pissing off Tesla's most likely buyers. But maybe my perspective is just skewed by being a car enthusiast and someone who is politically aware. Perhaps your average Tesla buyer doesn't give a shit that Elon Musk is a raging narcissist and right-libertarian.

    It just feels like his compensation founded upon some weird reasoning — he's paid well because the stock does well, and stock does well because people keep expecting it to do well so everyone is speculating on it. None of it seems tied directly to Musk's actions. (Unless investors just love all of his overpromising and under delivering.) And Tesla's fundamentals don't seem like they are enough to justify how valued the company is. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's a more advanced form of a meme stock, but it doesn't feel like the stock price is completely linked to the company's fundamentals.

    But, as I said, I don't really follow the stock market and investing, so maybe I'm just missing something. Maybe Tesla pays really good dividends?

    7 votes
    1. jredd23
      Link Parent
      The stock price is not directly tied to the rational thinking you or I can make. It's an upside down world (blame the Australians) we are living in, and in the long term, things are normalized,...

      The stock price is not directly tied to the rational thinking you or I can make. It's an upside down world (blame the Australians) we are living in, and in the long term, things are normalized, however long that may be. On the right side of things, Bill Gates has bet against EM, and he has made a lot of money on that bet so that's something to consider in a short term of investment ideas.

      3 votes
    2. [2]
      koopa
      Link Parent
      I think the only reasonable case to make for Tesla’s value is if they actually achieve full self-driving and can expand into an Uber-like automated taxi service. Given that Waymo seems to be far...

      I think the only reasonable case to make for Tesla’s value is if they actually achieve full self-driving and can expand into an Uber-like automated taxi service.

      Given that Waymo seems to be far ahead of them using sensors not included with Teslas I’m not sure I buy it, but I think that’s the case beyond the meme Elon brand.

      2 votes
      1. RobotOverlord525
        Link Parent
        On the self driving front, Tesla seems to have shot themselves in the foot several years ago when Elon Musk decided that their cars shouldn't need more than cameras to do self driving. He...

        On the self driving front, Tesla seems to have shot themselves in the foot several years ago when Elon Musk decided that their cars shouldn't need more than cameras to do self driving. He justified that by saying it was "going back to first principles," since humans manage to drive with just our eyes. (Though given the rate of traffic fatalities, I don't think that we have evidence that we're very good at it.) But it also smacked of cost-cutting. By forcing the engineers to rely entirely on cameras, he got to cut radar and ultrasonic sensors.

        After all of the years they've spent working on "Full Self Driving," I don't think they really have anything to show for it beyond what they put together for their Autopilot system. Yeah, they've been able to convince people to spend thousands of dollars to buy "Full Self Driving" even though it doesn't work yet, but I don't know that what they have really works a lot better than what, say, Mercedes-Benz or General Motors has.

        8 votes