Another fine article. Personally, I was reduced to stammering awe with the 5 billion X.AI grab, which I presume is a certainty. The governance problems at Tesla only grow, and I think investors now should run not walk away.
Maybe a $5 billion investment by Tesla into xAI would be poetic justice for the decisions by Vanguard and BlackRock to support the reincorporation and ratification votes?
Regarding the artwork...do you think Mr. Musk appears in a freshly pressed suit and tie when or IF he makes presentations to the board of directors? I'll take the 'under' on that.
To cap off a run as the very worst board of directors in the history of corporate governance, the Tesla board now needs to agree to both (1) investing $5 B in a competing enterprise owned largely by its controlling shareholder and (2) restoring to Elon Musk the "economic equivalent" of his 2018 Grant by saddling Tesla with a massive compensation expense and re-doing the enormous dilution of minority shareholders that the Chancellor has undone.
“Stockholders understood the central importance of Musk’s motivation to continue his work at Tesla and the risk of his potential departure. The Court’s opinion drew analogies to corporate founders Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Gates, two of whom stepped back mid-career to pursue other passions. Tesla’s investors would have known the risk that Musk would follow that path, and the importance of keeping him motivated.” That argument by Elon is a nice try. But applying the analogy of Bezos and Gates actually backfires on Elon. The Court will hopefully check out the stock price and market cap of Amazon and Microsoft after Bezos and Gates left, respectively. Far from a downside risk, Elon’s departure would have been a tremendous boon to Tesla’s investors, according to his own analogy.
Unless Elon is implying something more truthful but far more destructive to his future wealth. That Tesla is a “cult leader” stock, unlike Amazon and Microsoft, which are stocks with real value.
For better or worse, the movements in share price at Amazon or Microsoft would not be a consideration for the Court. Too many variables, anyway. I think the Chancellor has several ways to end this litigation that are more clean, simple, and defensible.
It's a bit insane the type of shit Musk (and Tesla) are able to get away with in 2024. Really everything post-2020 has been like a fever dream. He was on SNL in 2021 and pumped DogeCoin.
But, you are another intelligent person reaching the same conclusion I have, that, surely, the regulators are closing in on Musk. For me the smoking gun is the Trump donation.
I know we are supposed to believe bureaucratic orgs like the DOJ, SEC, and NHTSA are supposed to be apolitical. But I'd like to think his Trump donation is taken as an "escape route" (i.e. pardon), and that there should be a serious level of urgency for the bureaucrats to take action here soon. You can also take the other side of that, that he donated to Trump because he might already be under pressure that something big could happen soon...he had to know donating would mean alienating his bread and butter customers, something that only makes sense to do if youre more worried about your physical skin (i.e. prison) than your company.
On the NHTSA's inaction: I'm hoping it's to accumulate as much evidence as possible so as to have an easy takedown.
The DOJ is also closing in, they narrowed the scope of the security fraud investigation to the claims that vision is suffisant for fsd, however, I don't see an indictment happening before the election to not make it look like a witch hunt.
Another fine article. Personally, I was reduced to stammering awe with the 5 billion X.AI grab, which I presume is a certainty. The governance problems at Tesla only grow, and I think investors now should run not walk away.
Maybe a $5 billion investment by Tesla into xAI would be poetic justice for the decisions by Vanguard and BlackRock to support the reincorporation and ratification votes?
I admit I hadn't considered that aspect of it, but yes, it WOULD BE!
This is why they tell you never to start paying a blackmailer - there's no end to it.
Regarding the artwork...do you think Mr. Musk appears in a freshly pressed suit and tie when or IF he makes presentations to the board of directors? I'll take the 'under' on that.
Heh, hard to disagree.
To cap off a run as the very worst board of directors in the history of corporate governance, the Tesla board now needs to agree to both (1) investing $5 B in a competing enterprise owned largely by its controlling shareholder and (2) restoring to Elon Musk the "economic equivalent" of his 2018 Grant by saddling Tesla with a massive compensation expense and re-doing the enormous dilution of minority shareholders that the Chancellor has undone.
“Stockholders understood the central importance of Musk’s motivation to continue his work at Tesla and the risk of his potential departure. The Court’s opinion drew analogies to corporate founders Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Gates, two of whom stepped back mid-career to pursue other passions. Tesla’s investors would have known the risk that Musk would follow that path, and the importance of keeping him motivated.” That argument by Elon is a nice try. But applying the analogy of Bezos and Gates actually backfires on Elon. The Court will hopefully check out the stock price and market cap of Amazon and Microsoft after Bezos and Gates left, respectively. Far from a downside risk, Elon’s departure would have been a tremendous boon to Tesla’s investors, according to his own analogy.
Unless Elon is implying something more truthful but far more destructive to his future wealth. That Tesla is a “cult leader” stock, unlike Amazon and Microsoft, which are stocks with real value.
For better or worse, the movements in share price at Amazon or Microsoft would not be a consideration for the Court. Too many variables, anyway. I think the Chancellor has several ways to end this litigation that are more clean, simple, and defensible.
It's a bit insane the type of shit Musk (and Tesla) are able to get away with in 2024. Really everything post-2020 has been like a fever dream. He was on SNL in 2021 and pumped DogeCoin.
But, you are another intelligent person reaching the same conclusion I have, that, surely, the regulators are closing in on Musk. For me the smoking gun is the Trump donation.
I know we are supposed to believe bureaucratic orgs like the DOJ, SEC, and NHTSA are supposed to be apolitical. But I'd like to think his Trump donation is taken as an "escape route" (i.e. pardon), and that there should be a serious level of urgency for the bureaucrats to take action here soon. You can also take the other side of that, that he donated to Trump because he might already be under pressure that something big could happen soon...he had to know donating would mean alienating his bread and butter customers, something that only makes sense to do if youre more worried about your physical skin (i.e. prison) than your company.
On the NHTSA's inaction: I'm hoping it's to accumulate as much evidence as possible so as to have an easy takedown.
The DOJ is also closing in, they narrowed the scope of the security fraud investigation to the claims that vision is suffisant for fsd, however, I don't see an indictment happening before the election to not make it look like a witch hunt.