Nafnlaus 🇮🇸 🇺🇦"Fun" fact: #ElonMusk's compensation plan, expected to be approved by the combination of retail shareholder enablers and the fact that many major market funds don't vote their shares, would be enough to pay 6-figure salaries to all ~14000 recently laid-off employees for 40 years.
Louis Botelho@nafnlaus Elon buying 304 million shares at a preset price of $23.34. Tesla actually makes $7 billion. And the USA government and the state of California will lose out on over $20 billion in taxes that would be owed by Elon if Tesla does not win its appeal.
USA is infected by activist Court judges, Democrats and Republicans.
It was bad in 2018, It is far worse in 2024.
Unrelated to this case, I'm not sure about America (USA) being a democracy anymore, irretrievably broken in my opinion.
@Louisbotelho17 "Gaining" 7 billion while losing ~$55B in stock isn't exactly a gain. Ignoring that Tesla lost $7B in legal fees on the case already. And the whole thing was 100% Elon's fault, not some "activist judge" as his fans try to portray it.
Tesla could take that exact same bit of stock and sell it on the market as secondary offerings. It does not have to go *to Elon*, the guy who created this mess, and who is currently creating brand new legal liability for the company.
@Louisbotelho17 Have you read the ruling? I have. And again, it's 100% Elon's damned fault, and he's risking the company's assets once again to enrich himself. TL/DR: when responding to an argument of fairness, a company has a simple defense: fully-informed shareholders approving it. The problem is that Musk had the company lie its arse off about the approval process. This invalidated this defense to Tesla. He surely could have gotten it approved without lying, but did so anyway.
@Louisbotelho17 They still haven't fixed some of the fundamental problems, and now atop that are *paying corporate money to advertise to shareholders to vote to give Elon this stock*. To advertize on X in particular - paying Elon to tell voters to pay Elon! How do you think that plays with the "independent board" argument?
This is not only liability with respect to the pay package. S&P companies are required to have independent boards. This could cost Tesla their S&P status.
And more.
@Louisbotelho17 The SEC and DOJ could *also* have a major problem with using corporate money in this manner. It's like the glass house case (still open) times a thousand.
Elon made this mess, and how he's making it so much worse.
(And yes, not have I only personally read the ruling, but I've also seen uninvolved-in-Tesla-issues attorneys comment on it, and all of them agreed that the ruling was correctly argued from a legal perspective)
@Louisbotelho17 In fact, you know where this very well might head? The plaintiff in the case is now asking the court to seize the stock to prevent Musk from jurisdiction-dodging. The company could end up losing the stock TWICE - once to the court and once to Musk's second pay package - all because of Musk's greedy arse. AS IF he needed some sort of extra incentive for Tesla to succeed when he had so much of his net worth tied up in the company?
And you know he's just going to sell it anyway.
@Louisbotelho17 People who vote for giving #Musk stock are the investment equivalent of turkeys voting for Thanksgiving. It's *entirely* against your own interests as a #Tesla shareholder.
Anyway, here's the court ruling, so that you understand the legal basis on why Musk's previous stock plan was invalidated, and how it's not "activist judges" fault. And to reiterate the TL/DR: It's entirely Musk's fault.
https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=359340
All he had to have done was not lie, and he would have won.
@nafnlaus We have a difference in opinion on this, either way, Elon is not leaving Tesla. The current version of FSD is amazing. I barely have to drive anymore which is actually quite boring, but it drives better than me so i let it do its job. It also drives better in parking lots like a Costco than I ever could. Hopefully they merge highway and city streets software this summer.
@Louisbotelho17 Remember that the company issuing stock doesn't appear from nowhere. The cost to the company is the same as 14 thousand people paid a six-figure salary via a secondary for 40 years. That's a *massive* cost.
Re, FSD: my ideal situation would be that Tesla splits into "Tesla" and "Tesla AI", Musk shifts his stock out of Tesla into Tesla AI gaining the majority stake, and JB takes the reigns at Tesla. The market and all major parties would be *much* happier in that environment.
@Louisbotelho17 Tesla AI = FSD, Dojo, Optimus, etc.
Tesla = Everything else
Musk could merge it with X.AI if he so chose, so long as minority stakeholders were properly compensated.
@nafnlaus If Tesla isn't reincorporated into Texas they won't go for AGI, only narrow AI. The Texas vote is important because the new business court will allow post IPO companies to issue a different class of shares, therefore, elon's next compensation package would have shares with a special class that have probably 10 times the voting power of regular shares.
I don't believe he's winning the Texas vote. xAI will go for AGI, and Tesla will just have narrow AI robots.
I don't believe he's winning the Texas vote. xAI will go for AGI, and Tesla will just have narrow AI robots.
@Louisbotelho17 This is simply not true. Multiple share classes can be issued in any jurisdiction. Meta for example (post-IPO) is registered in Delaware. Zuck maintains control by owning 82% of the Class B voting stock, despite only owning 14% of the company.
Who are you listening to that's giving you this sort of misinformation?
The main difference between Delaware and Texas is that Texas is less shareholder friendly.
@Louisbotelho17 Legal cases also tend to move faster in Delaware due to its special court system (Court of Chancery), and it generally establishes precedent for issues, so rulings are less likely to be overturned.
And again, Musk doesn't need a "compensation package", let alone one orders of magnitude larger than any other CEO in history, when all his assets are tied up in the company. He already has every incentive on Earth for it to succeed.
@nafnlaus he is super worried about AGI and only trusts himself believes most others are only in it to be the first and screw the consequences.
@Louisbotelho17 That doesn't mean "I get free stuff at the expense of all other shareholders and get to gut Tesla at the same time I reward myself handsomely"
If that's how he really feels, then the above "split Tesla into an AI and non-AI side" arrangement would work nicely. He transfers his stake out of the vehicle/energy side to the AI side. Problem solved, without a tens-of-billions-of-dollars giveaway.
@nafnlaus we have different view points on this that's for sure. FSD and Optimus stays with Tesla both will only serve humans, not be superior to them if Elon doesn't have 25% control of the voting shares.