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Internal forecasts predicted that Tesla, with a market cap of ~40B in March 2018, would have a market cap of 750B before the end of 2020? What's your source on

• gamblor956 2y ago
  Documents released at trial. Also, the market cap milestone was $100 billion. $750 billion was the stretch goal. Internal forecasts had Tesla on track to meet at least the first milestone the end of 2019 (they actually missed that forecast by about 3 weeks) just based on organic growth. Based on Musk's forward-looking statements back then that Tesla would double in size every year, basic math and common sense indicates Tesla forecast hitting all of the remaining milestones by 2025. Or in other words, at the time the pay package was negotiated, Tesla had already forecast reaching all of the market cap targets. (The judge refers to the failures to disclose this information as "material misstatements" in her ruling.) Most of the remaining targets were revenue/earnings targets that Tesla goosed by pulling forward revenue from future quarters. This is the reason Tesla had all those quarter-end and year-end all-hands-on-deck crunches when the pay package was in effect but none since it was thrown out. Note that none of the above is illegal. If an independent board had negotiated the pay package, it would have been fine. But no independent board would have ever negotiated a pay package giving away that much additional equity in a publicly-traded company, because there is no way an independent board could demonstrate that they were acting in the best interests of the other shareholders in heavily diluting those other shareholders' interests in the company.