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Dear Tesla Shareholder [pdf]
- timzaman 1y agoRidiculous and biased article. Elon gets ZERO compensation if Tesla doesn't do stellar performance. Any tesla shareholder knows how Tesla is structured (Elon-focused) so just don't buy the stocks if you don't like Elon. It also fails to completely mention Tesla stock's currently at an all time high.
- preisschild 1y ago> Any tesla shareholder knows how Tesla is structured (Elon-focused) so just don't buy the stocks if you don't like Elon. So Tesla is not a car manufacturer, but a cult of personality?
- neogodless 1y agoTesla is a car manufacturer, but Tesla stock valuations are not based on that fact.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- JumpinJack_Cash 1y agoThis makes me think that executives in the manufacturing sector should be paid in kind AKA in product, if that is the hot stuff that they claim they'd have zero problems selling the product on the secondary market and collect dollars
- xmprt 1y agoThe US has some broken incentives where if a small company fails then it hurts the shareholders but if a large company fails, it's "too big to fail" and ends up getting bailed out by the government. That's why it's worrying how Tesla is growing unsustainably. If the risk pays off then shareholders reap the benefits but if it crashes and burns then everyone takes a hit.
- ralph84 1y agoThe automakers that got bailed out had large unionized workforces and franchised dealer networks, both of which are very politically active and neither of which Tesla has.
- Veserv 1y agoElon Musk currently owns 12% of Tesla. Claiming he gets “ZERO compensation” outside of stellar performance is nonsense. If Tesla actually reached a 8T dollar valuation his net worth would increase to 1T dollars without any additional grants or investor dilution. He currently directly shares 12% of the growth of Tesla, far more than most executive teams which are viewed to be adequately aligned with far less ownership. Claiming there is no incentive to perform is nonsensical and incoherent.
- orionsbelt 1y agoHe may be incentivized, but it is not “compensation” if he already owns it IMO.
- Veserv 1y agoSo if I get 12% of the profit from music sales that is not “compensation”? Share ownership is, at its foundation, a profit (and asset) sharing agreement. You are getting confused by the fact that this class of profit sharing agreement can be easily sold for its expected net present value of all future cash flows and that they frequently retain earnings in tax advantaged forms instead of directly distributing their generated income in highly taxed forms.
- orionsbelt 1y ago1. Elon could quit and do zero work and he would still own the 12%. So what is his compensation for the extra work? 2. If you owned $10M worth of shares of TSLA from your personal investments, and applied to work at TSLA, would it be reasonable to deny you any compensation since you are already incentivized and share in the success? This is not to comment on what the right pay package is; perhaps the proposed one is far far too rich, but that's a separate question to whether his existing assets are compensation or not.
- Veserv 1y ago1. 12% of the increased profits. If we used your logic then we would conclude that 100% owners of businesses are not being compensated for their work. They are literally being compensated all of the profit and asset growth. 2. Yes, it is fairly common to “compensate” executives primarily in the form of their own stock appreciation [1]. Mark Zuckerberg receives 1$ in salary, options, stock awards, with only a tiny 20 M$ as reimbursements to avoid running afoul of tax law [2]. Larry Ellison [3] got only 8 M$. Michael Dell only got 3 M$ [4]. Andrew Jassy only 1 M$ [5]. Should I keep going? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-dollar_salary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-dollar_salary [2] https://www.salary.com/research/executive-compensation/mark-zuckerberg-executive-member-of-facebook-inc https://www.salary.com/research/executive-compensation/mark-... [3] https://www.salary.com/research/executive-compensation/lawrence-j-ellison-executive-member-of-oracle-corp https://www.salary.com/research/executive-compensation/lawre... [4] https://www.salary.com/research/executive-compensation/michael-s-dell-executive-member-of-dell-technologies-inc https://www.salary.com/research/executive-compensation/micha... [5] https://www.salary.com/research/executive-compensation/andrew-r-jassy-executive-member-of-amazon-com-inc https://www.salary.com/research/executive-compensation/andre...
- scrollop 1y agoWell, he should be getting a negative amount considering how his actions have effected the stock price. He's a liability.
- tzm 1y agoThis letter sounds like it's written by an activist, not an investor.
- worik 1y agoAn activist investor, hopefully for Tesla's sake
- tzm 1y agoThey're being illogical. Elon doesn't get paid unless the company executes, which he's already succeeded in his prior pay package. Pure irrational thinking. And much of the comments on this post reflect similar idiocy.
- perrohunter 1y agoI was thinking the same thing, a lot of people have an interest in Tesla failing, no surprise here
- Xenoamorphous 1y agoGenuine question as someone not from the US, who’s the average new Tesla owner these days? Electric cars were seen as a leftist thing a few years back. If (again, as a non American) you asked me what the average car of a right wing American was, I’d say a ginormous pick up truck with a V8 ICE engine or something like that. Did that kind of person really start buying Teslas due to Musk’s close ties with the current US administration? I can’t see that. I also can’t see leftist American people buying Teslas due to environmental reasons alone despite of Musk either. So who’s buying those cars? Purely anecdotical but I know at least one person who was going to buy a Tesla and he didn’t do it purely because of Musk. Also, the only time I got inside a Tesla was in a Cabify that took me to the airport (model 3), smooth ride but the interior was that of a cheap car from 10 years ago.
- cyberax 1y ago> Genuine question as someone not from the US, who’s the average new Tesla owner these days? Just regular average people. EVs are just better than ICE cars, as long as you have charging infrastructure. And Tesla has it.
- natch 1y agoIt’s the overlap on the Venn diagram of people who have driven one and people who think for themselves.
- IT4MD 1y agoThat's the question, isn't it? Tesla made sure the Left hated them due to Nazi garbage from the CEO, the Right is full of coal-rolling clowns, so I have no idea who's buying them.
- myvoiceismypass 1y agoThe mistake is assuming that half the country is "the left" and half the country is "the right"
- IT4MD 1y ago
- rsolva 1y agoFrom what I can gather, the institutional shareholders that has signed this letter controls about 1-2% of the Tesla shares (roughly). Add the Norwegian Oil Fund to the mix, which will likely vote similarly and has roughly the same voting power, and we are up to 2-4%. That seems quite small. I guess they publish this in advance in an effort to persuade other shareholders to vote similarly?
- throw-qqqqq 1y ago> I guess they publish this in advance in an effort to persuade other shareholders to vote similarly? Yes. Plainly apparent IMO. The conclusion-paragraph ends with “As such, we urge Tesla shareholder to vote against all directors as well as Proposals 3 and 4 at the November 6th annual meeting.”
- natch 1y agoI wonder how much they own in legacy auto and oil & gas.
- 827a 1y agoWhile I may only own a small part of Tesla, as a customer of their's, I want nothing more than the company to get rid of Elon and just become a normal, better car company. While they yell about driverless cabs and robots that can serve popcorn to you, none of the music apps have gapless playback. There's multiple stretches of 100+ miles of highway around me that have no supercharging capability, and dozens upon dozens of major population centers that need to travel 150+ miles to get to a service center. You can get the Model Y in any color you want, as long as the color you want is one of the five colors it's always been available in. These and more are all real problems that they could improve to be a better car company; but they're obsessed with constantly leapfrogging themselves and throwing away every customer they've ever won, because now they're an energy company, wait no, they're a robotics company... I've stopped recommending Tesla to people, despite driving one. The company is way too unpredictable and unstable.
- ajross 1y ago> There's multiple stretches of 100+ miles of highway around me that have no supercharging capability Genuinely curious where this is? It's not anywhere on the US Interstate Highway network for sure (OK, fine maybe there are a handful of 120 mile stretches here and there). There are holes in the middle of the interior west, but you have to work really hard to get 100 miles from a supercharger. I mean, there are always legitimate criticisms to be made, but the breadth of the charging network is... quite frankly the best in the world?
- ianburrell 1y agoThere are more divided highways than interstates. There are US highways like US-101 or states ones like CA-99. Also, all of the US and state highways are called highways, at least when not in towns, not just divided ones. There are areas of the west that have enough coverage for driving through but not for trips. You would be pushing it visiting the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon cause La Grande or Joseph only have slow chargers. Another is the "Loneliest Road in America", US-50 in Nevada, has 285 mile gap.
- 1y ago
- cyberax 1y agoI used to have a lot invested in Tesla, but I sold all my shares 2 years ago. I just don't think that their valuation is justified at the current price. So it can crash and burn at any moment. Tesla has been underperforming for a long time. If we look back to 2021, at that time Tesla had the best battery tech in the world (maybe not on the cell level, but definitely when looking at the system as a whole), the best-performing drivetrain, and generally OK cars. Fast-forward 5 years, and Tesla's bread-and-butter Model 3 and Model Y are still using essentially the same battery tech. The range has not increased, and the cars themselves are barely any different with only some cosmetic updates. The infotaiment system is rapidly aging, and the cars lack advanced features like vehicle-to-grid. The FSD has not materialized, and Tesla is likely on hook for billions in upgrades/refunds to pre-2019 car owners for the promised upgrades. Other Tesla products are less than stellar. Tesla Semi has essentially disappeared, Cybertruck is barely selling (just around 4000 units in Q2!), Model 2 was canceled, and solar is essentially dead. The battery storage is the only area that is growing robustly with a good profit margin. But Tesla doesn't have any moat there, and competitors (like BYD) are quickly catching up.
- vvpan 1y ago21st century, where a CEO of a major company doing Nazi salutes is not enough to fire him. How did we get here?
- natch 1y ago>the Board remains fixated on pleasing Mr. Musk They state this as if it’s a problem, but it’s a fantastic thing for the company and the stock. In the counterfactual world where the board did not do this and Musk left, Tesla would be way worse off. There’s also the theory that a new board could treat Musk badly or cut him loose and the company would do better, but I don’t buy that for a second. Put plainly, delusion runs rampant among Musk haters and that must be the reason this letter even exists. Or, some of them may be shorting and trying to avoid the day of reckoning. And sure, his outspoken personality turns off a lot of people, but that is in the noise compared to the positive execution impacts he has.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoCoverage: Elon Musk's $1T pay plan faces pushback from investors, state officials https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/elon-musks-1-trillion-pay-plan-faces-pushback-investors-state-officials-2025-10-02/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/elon-m...
- IT4MD 1y ago$1 Trillion to wreck a company. ROFL. Tesla shareholders are the absolute worst bag holders. So vigorously defending a company that could not care less if they lived or died literally, as long as they keep buying unsafe garbage with less range than touted, months-long delays for some repairs, hiding crash data because it made Tesla look bad, beta testing driver-less mode in a way that endangers everyone else, switching to driver mode a split-second before a crash to insulate them from lawsuits, did I mention the fucking Nazi running it? Oh and how's FSD going? lol
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- daft_pink 1y agoJust want to re-iterate that car companies tend to be terrible investments with their cyclical nature, high fixed costs and high capital intensity. The only reason you would invest in a company like Tesla at this price is because they have a CEO capable of 10x that is aggressively moving into other markets and not because you think they should become a docile car company and fix a few small things here and there. I’m an investor because I want to see them go into semi’s and automation etc.
- JSR_FDED 1y agoIt’s nice to see karma at work