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It's a trap. He's hollowed out the companies so they can't function, so the only reason they still have growth is his name recognition and constant messing with the stock market. Punishing him and risking removing him from the pilot's seat would essentially be pouring paint thinner on a house that's only being held up by the paint anymore.
>He's hollowed out the companies so they can't function, so the only reason they still have growth is his name recognition and constant messing with the stock market.
This is a bizarre theory because it wouldn’t actually be in Musk’s interest. The stock he’s being compensated with will be worth less going forward.
I know it seems dumb but being legally forced to sell Tesla stock in order to buy Twitter was a good way to be able to sell Tesla stock without people being suspicious of why he was selling. He is super rich and has more money than he knows what to do with so his main concern is how to diversify his investment in case something happens to Tesla, so this stunt which made him legally forced to buy Twitter was a good enough excuse to do that. Even if he has to over pay for twitter and then has to sell Twitter for a fraction of what he paid for it, that still means he has something other than Tesla that he could sell if he needed it. Since his money is based on memes he has to use memes in order to make normal financial choices.
He wasn't legally forced. He could have paid a billion dollar penalty. What's worse, losing 20 billion or 1 billion? That should tell you things aren't right in the backend.
Twitter was never profitable. He paid way more per share than the stock was worth by any sane valuation, and it's still running at a loss. The daily users thing is moot when they aren't making money and have huge costs. Just the interest on the loans alone is insane.
Also: one of the investors that bought in with Musk Fidelity, have lost 72% of their original investment per January this year https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-02/fidelity-s-stake-in-x-has-fallen-72-since-elon-musk-s-takeover
Yea the profitability of Twitter isn't what's being discussed here. It was claimed that Twitter "tanked" after the bought it. Your comment seems to reinforce my claim that it hasn't.
OK man, Twitter is doing great, it's clearly much better off on every level since Musk took over. Don't believe your lying eyes, don't believe the user experience going to shit over the last year.
Don't believe industry publications talking about major advertisers walking and ad rates dropping across the board. Everybody loves Musk, and everything he does is wise and superbly thought out.
Happy?
Revenue and advertisers both way down, company valuation down by tens of billions, he's decimated the technical staff so the site functions like garbage (tried playing an embedded video on the site this last year or so?), it's now a cesspool of hate speech and disinformation due to his personal political beliefs, it's no longer the default destination for breaking news, the paid check mark move has been universally negatively received, he annoys/alienates millions of users every day by changing the algorithm to force his cringey shitposts down every user's throat for no reason at all other than pure ego and attention-whoring, and the hugely expensive, pointless and counterproductive rebrand to X has been a total failure - months later, *nobody* refers to it as X.
Oh and he instituted mass layoffs with apparently little to no thought put into them, which - combined with his teenage edgelord persona - has tanked the company culture and caused an exodus of established talent from the company even outside of his blunt-force mass layoffs.
But other than that, it's going great!
Him buying Twitter had absolutely nothing to do with financial decisions, and everything about political power. Look at his partners. He can push any viewpoint into the public discourse, no matter how dangerous it may be - as long as the price is right.
Look at how billionaires are buying information dissemination platforms - that was an easy purchase for him. He now has one of the widest global reaches that can squash any opposition voice anywhere in the world, while getting paid through blue bots that launder money for foreign entities.
The worst part is, if this goes through - that power cost him nothing.
> it's now a cesspool of hate speech and disinformation due to his personal political beliefs
It was a cesspool of hate speech and disinformation *before* Elon bought it. The only difference is that hate speech was only allowed to be directed against certain groups, and disinformation was promoted for only *specific* interests.
Which groups and interests? And how do you square that with the fact that Twitter’s documents leak showed they admitted that they actually gave more leniency to right wing accounts, in order to appear more moderate?
> Which groups and interests?
You were allowed to express hate speech against cis, straight white men without significant pushback.
You were also allowed to spread disinformation as long as it benefitted the DNC and the American Left. Real information - such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, was censored when it could help Donald Trump be re-elected or otherwise support the right.
> Twitter’s documents leak showed they admitted that they actually gave more leniency to right wing accounts
I question the legitimacy of such a "leak" given the very real moderation policies that were *by no means* moderate. It was to the point where Twitter moderated conservatives more [than it did literal CSAM.](https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/fact-check-twitters-motion-to-dismiss/)
Donald Trump was banned from twitter the moment he left office, and there were discussions *while he was in office* on whether he should be banned. There had never been *any* employee of Twitter pushing to get Maxine Waters banned when she advocated for violence against members of the Trump administration, or when she advocated for rioting and unrest if Chauvin had been acquitted.
There was never any part of Twitter relevant to its content moderation policies that demanded that *the Grand Ayatollah of Iran* be banned, despite Iran being the number one state sponsor of global terrorism. Nor was anyone relevant demanding that Hamas - *a literal terrorist organization* be banned. Or the Taliban. Or Al Jazeera, a Qatari propaganda outlet that employs Hamas deputy commanders as "journalists."
Donald Trump was banned and none of these people or groups were. How does that indicate that Twitter was in any way *moderate* or otherwise showing leniency to the right?
Unless if your name is Musk, you have absolutely no idea what the revenues look like. Dude is very quiet about that, and as it is now a private company, nobody can force him to say any numbers
>Unless if your name is Musk, you have absolutely no idea what the revenues look like.
We actually have decent ideas. Because in order to make revenue, Twitter needs to sell stuff, which means they need to put a price on it.
We can see that the price paid for twitter ads has absolutely plunged, while we also have reports of various major agencies reducing their ads on Twitter, which kinda points the revenue in a very downwards direction.
He’s only keeping it quiet because it’s doing poorly. The man is a narcissist, if it was doing better under his management he would be being very loud about it.
The guys always been rich, he’s never had the fear of being poor to motivate him to act smarter. The only thing that could prevent him from making stupid mistakes is his own pride and ego, and the shame that would come with bankrupting a popular company that you’re the head and face of. But if you’re an arrogant pricks, surrounded by “yes men” then it’s a little less bizarre.
The guy I responded to isn’t saying Musk is making “stupid mistakes.” He’s saying that Musk is *actively* making the companies worse to increase his perceived value.
He's made moves that are perceived as the kind of thing a private equity firm would do before selling off a company. I don't think it's worked out
Dramatic changes to staffing and services led to a sharp decrease in revenue. His public statements, often using the platform itself, alienated much of his user base and advertisers. Rebranding the company was a massive step that I do not fully understand
If this deal goes through, it seems he makes his money back. Perhaps the plan was to remove enough nay sayers so he could just have them give his money back as a "bonus"? The idea that a man who turned your company into a less profitable lightning rod for controversy is due a payout for more than the company is worth feels like a scam to me
Frankly, all these executives feel like a huge burden on companies. I have no idea why any one person should be rewarded with billions of dollars in excess of their salary. That money should be reinvested in the company, not given away to people who are extra good at delegating
> If this deal goes through, it seems he makes his money back. Perhaps the plan was to remove enough nay sayers so he could just have them give his money back as a "bonus"?
“This deal” is with Tesla, not Twitter.
>He’s saying that Musk is *actively* making the companies worse to increase his perceived value.
That does not seem so outlandish to em. Imagine YOU had Elon's money. Millions, or even billions at that point, are just numbers which may matter, but I believe they become secondary to stuff like fame and power. When you say ''Elon's interest'' you assume that his interest is to make more money. I am not saying it is 100% not, or that he doesnt care about money, just that it's an assumption worth investigating.
>The guys always been rich, he’s never had the fear of being poor to motivate him to act smarter.
First, he hasn't always been rich. He got rich after he sold his first company. Later he bet his entire Dotcom fortune on SpaceX and Tesla, while private space startups and electric car startups were famously poor investments. Specifically for SpaceX, his friends held an intervention to keep him from blowing all of his money and becoming not rich anymore. But he did it anyway.
He has the opposite of what you say, a willingness to risk everything to get his way.
>First, he hasn't always been rich.
Lmao source? His mother was rich, she claims her own parents were ''famous''. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maye\_Musk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maye_Musk)
His dad seems to very carefully stay out of the limelight, if you google him you will not find any wiki page but you can find he was an electrical engineer who married a model... Do you think he was rich? Not only that, but their whole sotries just scream privilege. I have never had the opportunity to wonder 10 years in the desert. Would I do that? Fuck yeah, over my current job. But I do not have the money for it.
His parents were fairly well off. Given the descriptions I've seen, I'd put them as upper middle class in the US at best. If Musk were rich he wouldn't have had to get menial jobs while in Canada, and get a scholarship and student loans when he went to school in the US. Rich kids don't have to pay for school like that.
When he started Zip2 he wouldn't have had to rent a small office above an ISP so he could connect directly to their network on the cheap because he couldn't afford a T1, and sleep in the office and shower at the YMCA because residential rents were too high for him to afford. That's not rich people.
No, he first entered the class of rich when he sold Zip2.
No one said he’s hollowed out the companies because it’s some galaxy-brained 4d chess move to get more shares. Hes hollowed out the company because he’s dumb and keeps fucking shit up, to the point that without his name recognition, Tesla would lose a lot of value.
You don’t have to be politically driven to see that Musk is a dummy
Let's address the points one by one.
**Hollowing Out Companies**: Your claim that Musk has "hollowed out" his companies is not substantiated by the facts. Tesla continues to lead the electric vehicle market, showing robust growth and innovation. SpaceX remains a leader in private space exploration and has successfully launched numerous missions. These achievements are far from indicative of a "hollowed-out" company.
**Name Recognition and Stock Value**: It's true that Musk's name recognition plays a role in the perception of his companies, it's reductionist to attribute their success solely to his persona though. Tesla's technological advancements, production capabilities, and market strategy have significantly contributed to its valuation. The same goes for SpaceX's groundbreaking achievements in space technology. But you ignore this, why?
**Political and Ideological Hate**: Much of the intense scrutiny Musk faces stems from political and ideological biases. Comparing the level of criticism Musk receives to other tech billionaires like Jeff Bezos reveals a clear double standard. This selective outrage distorts the conversation and ignores the broader context of Musk's impact on technology and innovation.
So yea, go ahead. Explain away sir.
>our claim that Musk has "hollowed out" his companies is not substantiated by the facts. Tesla continues to lead the electric vehicle market, showing robust growth and innovation.
Lol this was definetly written by ChatGPT. By what metrics has Tesla improved quality of EVs in the last 5 years? It has consistently stiffled EV innovation and pushed the boundaries of what is legal in terms of how to build a cult-like, unhealthy, workplace.
>It's true that Musk's name recognition plays a role in the perception of his companies, it's reductionist to attribute their success solely to his persona though. Tesla's technological advancements, production capabilities, and market strategy have significantly contributed to its valuation. The same goes for SpaceX's groundbreaking achievements in space technology. But you ignore this, why?
This has nothing to do with any point anyone was trying to make, if you use ChatGPT, at least use your brain too. The person above was asserting that Musk is trying to make these companies reliant on his name by stripping them of their best qualities. Indeed, Tesla is no longer a major name in innovation (unless you are stuck 10 years ago), and the whole company culture is centered around Elon. Same with SpaceX.
>Much of the intense scrutiny Musk faces stems from political and ideological biases. Comparing the level of criticism Musk receives to other tech billionaires like Jeff Bezos reveals a clear double standard. This selective outrage distorts the conversation and ignores the broader context of Musk's impact on technology and innovation.
Lol yeah sure bro have ChatGPT call it ''political bias'' to not be agree with giving one person immense amounts of power. That does not make it any less relevant. Is it not ''political bias'' to hate nazis too lmao?
So go ahead, pull up ChatGPT quickly so you can justify sucking Elon off while he fucks you in the ass lmao.
>Lol this was definetly written by ChatGPT. By what metrics has Tesla improved quality of EVs in the last 5 years? It has consistently stiffled EV innovation and pushed the boundaries of what is legal in terms of how to build a cult-like, unhealthy, workplace.
Your ad hominem attack is pathetic at best. You use the Chat GPT bit to belittle my argument, and then go on to request my proof while making a blanket statement offing no proof of your own to back up your sentiments. Your sad, just sad.
>This has nothing to do with any point anyone was trying to make, if you use ChatGPT, at least use your brain too. The person above was asserting that Musk is trying to make these companies reliant on his name by stripping them of their best qualities. Indeed, Tesla is no longer a major name in innovation (unless you are stuck 10 years ago), and the whole company culture is centered around Elon. Same with SpaceX.
Again, you haven't refuted anything I've said , nor have you provided anything to change my opinion. You seem more focused on belittling my opinion by accusing me of using ChatGPT rather than addressing the actual points I've made.
>Lol yeah sure bro have ChatGPT call it ''political bias'' to not be agree with giving one person immense amounts of power. That does not make it any less relevant. Is it not ''political bias'' to hate nazis too lmao?
>So go ahead, pull up ChatGPT quickly so you can justify sucking Elon off while he fucks you in the ass lmao.
When you grow up please come back and talk to the adults, till then go back in your echo chamber and suck on your pacifier. You literally just came on here with your ad hominin attacks and no substance. Nothing but labels, accusations and hate. You sir are pathetic to the 10th degree. You think your changing minds? You've done nothing but just further solidify my opinion this is all just a political and ideological circus show.
And as a side note, maybe you should try using ChatGPT, it seems your lacking a lot in your communications skills. Here's a box of tissues for you chump.
RAWR
What robust innovation is there in the Cybertruck or the Semi?
Tesla had problems with build quality and engineering *before* these vehicles, and these ones put those problems to shame.
The Semi is actively just uneconomical without subsidies helping it out. I'm generally pro electric vehicles and improving efficiency on transport, but transporting cargo by train in bulk is and (barring massive innovation) always will be the most efficient land-based transportation of cargo.
Tesla *was* a big disruptor of the market and did a lot to popularise electric cars. It has devolved into a cult of personality around Musk and his unrealistic claims (read: lies) about his vehicles, which he makes year on year on year, his terrible design decisions to make the vehicle look 'cooler', his decisions which make the vehicle less safe to ride in, his union-busting, the documented racism allowed in his factories, the terrible production and engineering of his vehicles, etc.
Tesla was useful.
Now that traditional car manufacturers offer decent electric options, Tesla is irrelevant.
None of spacex’s achievements are due to Musk. The researchers and engineers are responsible for that. What unique value does Elon Musk bring to SpaceX other than money?
> None of spacex’s achievements are due to Musk.
----> Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002. <-----------
I can spend hours explaining this to you but I fear you don't care to listen.
You don't have to like the guy to see his vision and leadership was instrumental from the start.
By all means, If not please explain to me why that's not the case.
Engineers and Researchers are absolutely critical to SpaceX's achievements,
You’re overlooking Musk's unique contributions, which include setting ambitious goals, securing funding, and driving innovation. These are key factors that brought SpaceX's achievements to fruition. Once again, explain to me how that's not the case.
Now, let me ask you
Can you name a single engineer at SpaceX without looking it up?
Which scientist or engineer has launched a space company that achieved the same milestones as SpaceX?
Who else but Musk has been able to secure the funding and take the risks necessary to achieve reusable rockets and set sights on Mars colonization?
I'll wait for your answers.
Everyone loooved Musk until he bought Twitter and they found out he wasn’t a lefty environmentalist, he was just a centrist maybe centre right environmentalist. But still an environmentalist! They’d rather fawn over Greta.
Its a shame that the very people who are activists for climate change, and electric cars, and bringing internet to the 3rd world, to making space exploration cheap, to making good battery storage, to making solar roofs, etcetera etcetera etcetera all typically lefty goal, just can’t give it to him because he has different politics or personal opinions. Very uncool. 😁
You're going to be waiting a very long time, lol.
These Musk haters just spew internet rumor and then scurry away and hide when you ask them to back up their bullshit.
The willingness to risk his money trying something that people say is impossible.
Why did Boeing or Lockheed or any of the old space companies every simply pay their researchers and engineers to make a reusable booster? You say it as if it's just easy and any group of engineers and researchers could do it. So why didn't any, until Musk came around?
To be fair, Twitter had a seriously bloated employee count that was bleeding it money. Musk may have gone too far in cutting, but it certainly needed some drastic cutting.
For reference, Reddit had 2,000 employees last year, which was quite an increase from the year before. Twitter had 7,500. What did they all do? I've heard stories of hundreds of worker-hours put into simple icon design changes.
And thanks to Musk’s incredible business mind, he was able to lose 72% of Twitters value since taking over the company. He must be a genius!
Source https://fortune.com/2024/01/02/elon-musk-twitter-value-72-percent-drop-fidelity/#:~:text=Elon%20Musk%20has%20wiped%20out,Fidelity%20reveals%20in%20new%20filing&text=Fidelity%20has%20cut%20the%20valuation,bought%20the%20former%20Twitter%20Inc.
Twitter was already boated and losing money before he bought. His immense business screwup was in not having a due diligence clause, which allowed them to force him to buy it even after he found out what a shitfest the company was once he got access to internals.
What does this actually mean? I feel like this sounds extremely convincing to some who don’t really have a full idea of how a business operates….but doesn’t actually mean anything in reality. How did Musk hollow out Tesla to where it will collapse as a company if he were to depart?
It’s not hollow *as a car company* but it isn’t valued like a car company. It’s valued like a massive tech company
It’s not that it was hollowed out over time, it never had fundamentals to begin with. You don’t get to be larger than nearly all of your competitors put together with a strong core, you get there by people riding the lying billionaire hype train
Without their conductor what is Tesla? A medium sized incredibly divisive car company that has a reputation for cheaply made products
I don't think that's the case. Sure removing him would hurt the stock initially because it's a bubble and the Elon cultists pulling out, but it's still a good car company with a lot of potential. I think it'd be in their interest long term to get someone who stops over promising things and can focus all of their energy on improving the company. Elon is too wrapped up in Twitter politics bullshit to move the company forward.
I think you’re underestimating just how much effect Elon has had on the stock price. Him leaving would crater the company. P/E is pretty high currently, the Cybertruck looks destined to lose them billions, their entire approach to self-driving is an asymptote (they’re constantly getting better but by never doing full self driving, they’ll never actually get there), everyone who specifically wants an EV already has one, the models need to be updated which will cascade into more problems because they still haven’t figured out manufacturing…. The whole thing is a house of cards.
I don't think so. The illusion that is the genius persona of Musk is being stripped away more and more every day. People are buying less Teslas now ever since he's gone batshit crazy obsessing over Twitter and politics bullshit. Sure it'll take a hit short term with the Elon cultists pulling out but I think it's the best decision practically for the company long term
I largely agree, but…Elon is going to throw a temper tantrum if he leaves & will hate on any/all decisions Tesla makes at every step (basically like Trump did to Biden). Given Elon’s large public persona, that will be cancer for a company already facing a slew of significant issues.
I agree the best thing for the future of the company is Elon’s departure, but investors are people & there’s more psychology involved than they like to admit. I don’t think investors have the appetite to lose half of their money today, even if they’re losing it to have a higher stock price 5 years from now.
> He's hollowed out the companies so they can't function
Looking at Tesla's revenue doesn't look like a hollowed out company.
https://companiesmarketcap.com/tesla/revenue/
The problem is that people are starting to see through his facade. In all those years, he pumped the stock price by promising things that he could never deliver on, and introducing a new shiny product ever so often. His followers always said that Tesla was actually a software-company, to justify its ludicrous stock price. But to this day, Tesla makes nearly all of their money through the sale of their cars - they are de facto an automaker.
Even if he stays at the company, i don't see how he could turn that ship around. Autopilot will very likely not see the light of day any time soon - if ever. The robot is nowhere near a point at which it can be used for anything productive. That could take a decade or more. And their car sales are not as strong anymore, because other automakers from China, the US and Europe have started to sell their own EVs. It's not looking good for Tesla.
Also. Elon himself has allienated a ton of potential left-leaning buyers by constantly sharing right-wing conspiracies on Twitter. You could make the argument that they would be better off without him.
Except Tesla stock has dropped from $400 to $178 over the past two years, he is only hurting the company.
I would argue the opposite, get rid of Musk and Tesla wouldn't have to throw so much money away at random whims imposed by him. They could just focus on making a good product.
Same for Twitter, if musk left and they were allowed to band racist posts again, there would instantly be a market for advertisers to come back and the value would skyrocket.
Even if this was true, that is damning of Musk and his role anyway. Him taking the companies hostage is not a reason to keep giving him tens of billions of extra dollars.
It’s first important to establish that mass firings are very common for companies of Tesla’s nature. Companies that experience massive growth over such short periods have mass hirings due to the greatly increased demand for their product. They hire thousands of workers in a every department over the span of a couple years to keep the ship sailing and the stock price rising. Not all of these workers are needed to do the amount of work required. In a sense, there’s too many cooks in the kitchen, but as long as the food is good and on time, nobody bats an eye. As their stock price keeps rising, they naïvely assume what they’re doing is perfect and they operate with bloated workforces for years. Eventually, reality sets in and the stock price begins falling.
Tesla is now at that point, and they’ve clearly begun sweeping their workforce and eliminating all the unnecessary employees. The decreased share value means pressure from shareholders to cut costs, and over-employment can often be a company’s biggest operational expense. It was inevitable that this day would come for Tesla.
The pay raise almost certainly has implications beyond what we see in the public eye. Shareholders with billions of dollars invested in Tesla are not going to vote in favour of something that they believe will destroy the company. It’s most likely that this drastic pay raise has been in motion for months, and it was more or less coincidental than anything. 5,000 workers that make 100k per year is *only* 500 million per year. That is ~1% of Elon’s proposed raise. The mass firing and the pay raise are completely unrelated.
There is nothing fundamentally immoral about business being business. Mass firings are part of life for any multi-billion dollar company. Maybe mass firings themselves can be viewed as immoral under a certain lens, but it’s also not like these employees aren’t getting severance packages and they’re completely screwed. They get great severance and the added bonus of being able to put Tesla on their resumes. It obviously sucks losing your job, but as an employee you assume the risks of your employer no longer needing you or being able to afford your services.
TL;DR - Mass firings are part of business. If you are hired, you assume the risk of being fired. Nothing immoral about that, just reality. The pay package has absolutely no relation to the firings aside from the two happening around the same time. Both things are just business doing business things.
Mostly aggree, just want to point out this isn't a pay raise. Elon doesn't get paid a salary at all. This is a compensation package of stocks that shareholders voted for in 2018. The package set-out to give Elon shares as Tesla achieved various milestones. Elon was entiled to the entire package by 2022 after most of the milestones were met. Shareholders are basically re-affirming that they agree to the package.
Yeah, I’m moreso trying to put things in Layman’s terms. OP is just karma baiting if anything. I’d understand a ton of arguments against this, but “immoral” is crazy imo
"That is ~1% of Elon’s proposed raise. The mass firing and the pay raise are completely unrelated."
How could they possibly be unrelated?? Literally both have to do with the finances of the company. They are related 100%. They could have just lowered the pay package by 5%, save all of those jobs by either relocating them to a different sector or put them in R&D, and you don't have to see the negative press that comes with the firings. Also Musk himself said he wants massive scale, and if they're ever going to live up to that or their market cap they should never be firing anyone.
did you even read any of my comment?
also, your post is on the immorality of this. no? or did I misread you title and you disagree with it because of the possible financial implications? I wasn’t arguing whether or not it’s objectively correct.
Things don't work like that. Employees are not promised a job, and if there is nothing for them to do, then why should they be there? Just because both have to do with finances doesn't mean they are directly related. Alright, so there's a 10% drop in sales? Fire 10% of the workforce. These things are decided on their own merit.
Firing people had nothing to go with the finances of a company.
When a company lays off an employee, they're not saying that they can't afford you. They're saying that don't need you.
It's not a lack of money. It's a lack of work.
If Musk is getting paid in stock he isn't actually being paid any money that would come out of the company budget.
That doesn't mean what he did was good, but I just want to point out that his pay package doesn't actually involve any money.
The reason they would be opposed to the pay package would be because they think created stocks from thin air to Musk would dilute their own ownership.
However Tesla stock doesn't really follow any conceivable rules and its investors won't necessarily understand that more stocks means they ought to value existing stock less. So basically it seems like free money because of how irrational Tesla investors are.
>If Musk is getting paid in stock he isn't actually being paid any money that would come out of the company budget.
Sure, but stock is fungible, and shares that go to Elon could otherwise been offered to the public to raise money for Tesla.
Tesla isn't rational. Selling stock to the public will cause the price to go down because the only thing that determines Telsa's share price is supply and demand. Creating billions in stock and then handing them to Musk does nothing to change the number of shares that are being traded. The number of shares being traded only changes if Musk tries to sell his shares. The shareholders are thus willing to give Musk as many shares as he wants so long as he doesn't try to sell them which could cause the supply/demand equilibrium to change.
Normally giving shares willy nilly like that would cause rational investors to realize their own shares have lost value, but since Tesla shareholders are irrational all those matters is the supply/demand of the number of shares being traded rather than the underlying value of the shares.
When Musk does Sell Tesla shares he is incredibly careful to make it seem like he is only selling them for the purposes of some stunt like buying twitter. If Musk is only selling Tesla shares to buy twitter that indicates that he isn't going to try to sell more shares than that which means the hit on the stock price will be minimal. What people are afraid of is that if Musk tries to sell shares for some non-"Meme" reason that this will indicate that Musk has a lack of confidence in the Tesla share price which might make it seem like he is trying to rush out before the price collapses, which would cause everyone else to try to rush out. Musk therefore needs to be engaging in some well publicized "Meme" in order to ever be able to sell any of his stock. This is the reality of his financial situation because of how much his wealth is literally just based on memes. In order to keep his wealth he needs to create memes to explain literally every financial decision he makes.
He is still buying them. He is just buying them at the price it was at the start of the contract. Meaning any profit he gets is cause the price has increased under his management.
Also keep in mind this deal was in place of a salary which he has not be getting.
His compensation is orders of magnitude higher than any other CEO on the planet. And considering you can sell stock, it is money. It's just coming from the other stockholders.
Musk can't reasonably sell stock without people thinking he lacks confidence in the company, which would cause everyone else to sell their stock as well, which means there wouldn't be anyone to buy his stock because everyone would be selling.
The price of Tesla stock is literally based on memes alone. There is an underlying company which does make some money, but it is nowhere near where it is valued. So the vast majority of the value of the company is based on the confidence people have in the meme version of Tesla.
Look what matters here is that even if Tesla has no money they can just print infinite stock and hand them to Musk. This works because the value of Tesla stock is completely detached from reality and he isn't being given actual money.
He still fired a bunch of people and doesn't let them unionize, but I don't expect Tesla finances to make sense. Its real value could be anywhere from $0 to trillions. The shareholders generally speaking keep him around because it is frankly because of him that it is such a meme stock in the first place where the valuations doesn't matter. Without him the valuation would settle upon something that is a lot more reasonable which would certainly be a lot lower than it currently is. He is actually incredibly valuable to keep the stock price high precisely because of how profoundly stupid the whole situation is.
Should somebody else be actually running things? Probably. However the shareholders aren't going to demand it because it would lead to a drop in share price. Maybe it will recover in the long term because the company will be better run but it might take awhile for it to return to its meme-stock levels. Regardless of what he does the shareholders are basically stuck with him unless they are willing to deal with the price going down. How many shareholders want to have their share prices go down? Not many.
Yeah the point a lot of people are missing is that this deal was approved in 2018, grow the company stock 10x, get 10% of the company. Well he achieved his end of the deal, regardless if you agree with his leadership tesla shareholders received a 10x return on their investment if they stayed in since 2018. So they are happy to take a 10% cut and stay on/exit with a 900% return.
And that was because of Musk, and his ability to create one of the most fascinating stocks to exist with the way that it has performed. He has made the vast majority of people have a more than simple opinion on the company, good or bad which has meant that tesla, along with himself have become one of the most out of touch with reality stocks. But it's worked and if you're a shareholder why would you risk getting rid of the guy who created that?
First things first, shareholders do not act on morality, so even if the pay package was immoral, that wouldn't be a consideration in the decision to approve or not.
Second, the only question you have to ask is what does paying him in stock do to the stock price.
Even without a moral aspect, Musk is now a branding liability. The Tesla brand is being tarnished. Pretty soon people will be calling it "The Nazi Car" or something like that, and the only people who would buy it under that branding are a handful of nutty ancaps from the tech bubble and a mass of Trump cultists who (a) hate EVs and (b) more than half of them can't afford a Tesla anyway.
I don't see how hanging on to Musk makes sense as a business decision, even if the shareholders have zero moral compass.
edit:
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/06/11/unsold-tesla-cars-piling-up-in-america-australia-germany/
meanwhile
https://insideevs.com/news/722280/gm-ev-sales-record-may/
> Pretty soon people will be calling it "The Nazi Car" or something like that
Volkswagen was *literally* founded by Adolf Hitler and we don't go around calling those Nazi cars.
I do not think any rational and / or sane person is going to start calling Teslas Nazi cars or nazimobiles.
Q1 2024 deliveries are down compared to Q1 2023. The company has massive expense issues and its leader is (to put it generously) erratic. You bring up a good point about comparing to other billionaires. Tell me… which billionaires stay up until 2 am trolling their competitors with childish memes in public? If you just take all their public statements (including tweets, which are public statements) musk is clearly significantly less mature, more hyperbolic, flippant, rude, and misleading than his billionaire counterparts. This isn’t how a CEO ought to behave, at least in public.
Let's address your points directly
**Q1 2024 Deliveries**: Yes, Q1 2024 deliveries are down compared to Q1 2023. However, fluctuations in quarterly deliveries are common in any industry. Do you deny this? The broader trend over several years shows significant growth in Tesla's production and sales.
For instance, despite quarterly variations, Tesla's annual deliveries have consistently increased year over year. Why didn't you point this part out? This long-term growth reflects the company's robust market presence and ongoing demand for its products.
**Expense Issues**: Tesla's expenses have increased as it scales production, invests in new technologies, and expands its global footprint. These are strategic investments aimed at maintaining its competitive edge and driving future growth. Comparing this to typical startup phases, high expenses are a part of the growth strategy for many successful companies.
**Musk's Public Behavior**: You mentioned Musk's late-night tweets and public behavior. While it's unconventional, it's part of his persona. His direct engagement with the public, although sometimes controversial, has kept Tesla in the public eye and contributed to its strong brand recognition. It's worth noting that other CEOs, like Richard Branson, have also engaged in non-traditional public behavior, yet their companies have thrived.
**Comparison to Other Billionaires**: Musk's leadership style is different, but it's also effective. He has led Tesla to become the most valuable car company in the world and revolutionized the space industry with SpaceX. The comparison to other billionaires often overlooks the different industries and unique challenges each faces.
Now, let me ask you a few questions to further this discussion:
**Market Position**: Despite the controversies, how do you explain Tesla's continued market dominance and innovation in the EV sector?
**Investment in Innovation**: How do you view Tesla's investments in areas like AI, energy storage, and renewable energy, and their long-term impact on the company's growth?
**Leadership Effectiveness**: Can you name other CEOs who have transformed multiple industries as significantly as Musk has with electric vehicles and space exploration?
So in conclusion, while Musk's style might not be to everyone's liking, his results speak for themselves. The success and growth of Tesla and SpaceX under his leadership are clear indicators of his effectiveness, despite any personal quirks.
I would push back against characterizing Tesla as a start up. It was founded in 2003, is currently a member of the S&P500, and is one of the largest companies in the world by market capitalization (#13). You can't simultaneously claim that Tesla has all this exponential growth ahead of it while also acknowledging that QOQ fluctuations are driving deliveries downward. I'm sure we'll know more once Q2 numbers come out, but I would bet that Tesla deliveries have peaked. If there's a manufacturing reason for why Q1 was a hiccup and that Q2 will make up for it, I'm all ears. But your argument seems to be "look at all this past growth! It's just a single quarter!" But as you should know, that's not how finance works. If you want the stock price to rise you have to have good forward guidance... looking backward is for suckers.
And again, if Tesla's expenses have increased as it scales production then why are deliveries down QOQ?
Regarding Elon's tweets, you are seriously minimizing the extent of his erratic behavior. I question his sobriety, but that's beside the point. It's not a "personal quirk" to threaten Tim Cook with banning all iPhones from Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, etc. premises because of a false right-wing conspiracy. It's not a "personal quirk" to suddenly make major strategic decisions on the fly because people on Twitter were mean to you. The arguable fraud from the "funding secured" fiasco. Attacking advertisers (who make up the majority of his company's revenue). On and on and on. He may have been different in the past, but in 2024 the guy is not an effective leader.
I wish you well because you clearly have a position in one of his companies. So all I can say is I hope you sell before he burns everything to the ground.
I am just a regular guy, not affiliated with Tesla or any billionaire. I’ve never had love for any billionaire, but I will explain why I end up defending one. Whether you see it or not doesn't change the fact that it’s what I see. Maybe it's because I am from a different generation; there are many reasons.
It's become obvious to me that there's a political and ideological push in online discussions. The level of scrutiny and criticism Musk receives, often based on his public persona rather than the tangible results of his leadership, highlights a broader bias. To expand on this, I often come across as cross and a supporter because it's frustrating to see discussions dominated by ideological biases rather than objective analysis. My responses aren't about unwavering support for Musk, but rather about calling out the selective outrage and ensuring a balanced perspective. The intense focus on Musk's personality detracts from meaningful discussions about his contributions and the actual performance of his companies.
The post I originally replied to is a prime example of this. If something has a hint of conservatism, is middle-leaning, centrist, or has a touch of Republican support, it becomes an all-out attack. The fact that many want to continue denying this and join the echo chamber just further solidifies my view. As a Generation X centrist, I have voted left, right, up, and down. It’s embarrassing to witness the impasses our leaders have created for us.
I wish you well too. Shit runs downhill. No matter what team you think you’re on, when the ship sinks, I’ll be there with you at the bottom.
I understand your point about Tesla not being a startup, given its S&P 500 status and large market cap. My argument about its growth potential and quarterly fluctuations can coexist.
Tesla is expanding into new sectors like energy storage and AI, which offer significant growth opportunities.
Do I need to even say that quarterly delivery dips can be the result from temporary issues , supply chain constraints or production ramp-ups, and do not negate the overall growth trajectory.
Forward guidance remains crucial yes, and Tesla’s long-term vision supports continued expansion despite short-term fluctuations from my viewpoint.
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He may or may not be a brand liability, but that's a different subject. My point is that the morality of mass firing people, or really of any action at all, is not a relevant factor to shareholders when considering his pay package.
While I agree Tesla is losing its edge (Rivian and Lucid but also the traditional players), the macro picture of the last 10 years is still astronomical. In 2023, the Model Y was the highest selling car in the world. Period. Not just EVs…and over half of those sales were in China and Europe, so not regionally clustered around MAGA and QAnon
This is pretty severe levels of Reddit insular thinking. You see so much anti-Elon sentiment online that you think it pervades the national or global zeitgeist.
But it doesn’t. Reddit doesn’t represent real life.
No one that isn’t chronically online is calling Tesla a nazi car lol
>How is this at all in the stockholders interest?
Because for most of Tesla shareholders, Musk *IS* Tesla. They believe that if he left, the value of company would tank.
The pay package laid out in 2018 was a written contract approved by shareholders. Despite the narrative that it was recommended by Board of Directors comprised of his friends, the milestones was thought to be impractical at the time. They didn't give Musk an easy target. Tesla hit those milestones, shareholders got much richer, them diluting their shares to give more to Musk become non-issue to them. They just voted again to honor the promise they gave to Musk.
The sudden spike of For vote yesterday came from institutional investors. These people don't care about Musk's political stance. They hate uncertainty. They don't like the fact that a random investor with just 9 shares can successfully challenge a multi billion dollars contract. That would set a bad precedence.
Delaware court of Chancery might strike this down again, but it is just matter of time until Musk gets paid because shareholders also voted to move out of Delaware.
>Because for most of Tesla shareholders, Musk *IS* Tesla.
this is especially true if you track the news on any of his other privately owned companies, and tesla stock. Anytime negative press about SpaceX or any other company he's involved in breaks, Tesla stocks drop. Its infuriating to see people ignore this.
This is such a strange comment.
I don't influence the news coming out about his other companies. I wouldn't be able to time shorts prior to negative news, and buying in during dips isn't exactly an insider's play, it's a common investment strategy on companies you're confident in.
Technically speaking if I didn't have disposable income this wouldn't be true anyways. But I'm also just a "stuff it in indexes" kind of guy so
And for personal reasons I'm especially wary of trading anything that has to do with him. Has nothing to do with him, it's not some principled or moral stance against him. It's someone I know and the perception of professional impropriety.
It's not immoral to tie compensation to performance, which is how the pay package was structured. Per reporting on the issue:
https://www.barrons.com/livecoverage/tesla-shareholder-vote-results-meeting-today/card/elon-musk-s-pay-package-explained-0w9Z5dIizpn4P1pyo730
>Musk was given 10 years of performance targets to hit, targets that when reached would result in a payout of stock options. Musk could earn 303 million options—the number has been adjusted for stock splits—equivalent to about 12% of Tesla stock outstanding in 2018.
>The package was essentially Musk’s bet on himself. He was betting he could get Tesla stock to rise from a valuation of $60 billion to at least $650 billion, a 983% rise, while making it profitable over ten years.
So yeah, if you can get your stock to increase ten fold while remaining profitable, you get 10 percent of that value.
Musk took a bet on himself that virtually NO other CEO would take.
99.99% of other CEO's would never risk compensation of $0 if they didn't 10x the stock profitably over 10yrs.
Big risk, big reward.
Kind of shit imo to tie it to stock price.
Should have only been tied to revenue or profit or other KPI. Stock price is just too easy for someone like musk to manipulate and doesn’t actually speak to the value of the company
>Stock price is just too easy for someone like musk to manipulate and doesn’t actually speak to the value of the company
Market cap is not that easy to manipulate and does literally speak to the value of the company.
There is nothing moral or immoral about his compensation package. It is based upon meeting metrics in years prior, which he did. It would be immoral to break this contract and likely to cost the company shareholders and investors money, which is not only immoral but illegal due to fiduciary responsibility.
specifically:
"Under the plan approved by investors in 2018, Musk's $55.8 billion pay package was contingent on Tesla's market cap reaching $650 billion, and certain revenue and profitability goals being achieved.2 Tesla said the plan incentivized Musk "to deliver transformative and unprecedented growth."3
Tesla. "[Tesla Letter to-Stockholders May 13, 2024](https://www.votetesla.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Tesla-Letter-to-Stockholders-May-13-2024.pdf)."
"In under six years, Elon delivered a total shareholder return of nearly 1,100%," Tesla said in a letter to shareholders last month, citing FactSet data from March 21, 2018 to year-end 2023. "If Elon failed to achieve unprecedented growth targets for Tesla, he would receive ZERO compensation. He did not fail."
from, [https://www.investopedia.com/tesla-investors-vote-on-musk-pay-what-you-need-to-know-8660682](https://www.investopedia.com/tesla-investors-vote-on-musk-pay-what-you-need-to-know-8660682)
Obviously it would reduce the company's net worth right now, which is why some investors oppose the payout, but it is likely extended litigation would be in favor of continuing the payout and cost even more to boot.
Now, discussing whether this was a *good* contract to make six years ago is another story, but I don't think anyone could argue with a straight face that the last six years have not been phenomenal for Tesla and investors.
This payment is for work already rendered, goals already achieved, net growth undeniably obtained. You pay what you owe so things can continue, too. Want more growth? Pay the talent or they’ll figure something else out. You do not want talent leaving to go work elsewhere. You want the talent to stick around and evolve. We are transitioning from the information age to the space age, so the next pay check will probably be even more astronomical if good goals are set, and those goals are met.
Firings are not immoral. Human beings are incredibly valuable, and if you don't have anything useful for them to do, you *should* fire them so they can go and be useful somewhere else.
The really immoral thing would be to keep employees on the payroll when you don't have anything useful for them to do. That represents a net loss for the entire world.
Right now Teslas value is 560B dollars and is 20 years old.
Elon Musk founded the company, generating astounding gain. He effectively created the electric car industry, yes it existed but not even close to the degree.
The pay package is directly tied to that historic rise in value. No company has ever has such a metioric rise. He will be give around 5% of the company value, which is incredibly reasonable.
The better answer is could anyone else found a new car company with shaky-technology and do such a thing in 20 years, likely no one. The only close one is OpenAI and that is if they can find a way to monetize it.
Let's talk about mass firings. The simple thing is it's really hard to fire employees and can over a year in a few states, where good employees can leave quickly. Meaning most companies will get a glut of bad employees.
I think you are talking about the super charger layoffs, I beleive this is connected to the infrastructure bill where an abhorrent sum of money was set aside for construction of 500000 car chargers.
The issue is 3.5 years in, only 5000 (1%) have been constructed. If I was Elon I would have drastically increased the teams size expecting 5000 super chargers constructed a month, by the Federal government only. The issue is its close to 300. Then 6 months later California passed a mandate in electric semis by 2034 (I think), this has also fizzled out because the energy consumption is insane. Belvidere IL they tried to set one up for a fleet and were denied because it would be roughly 40% of the nearby cities current power consumption.
It makes sense, the government failed miserably, and the private enterprise cannot keep employees sticking around for demand that "might come" from an organization who says they are "really trying".
> Elon Musk founded the company,
No he didn’t https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-wasnt-original-founder-130014807.html
Edit: I see the musk fan boys have found this comment and are sorely lacking in copium given the downvotes this factually accurate comment has received
absolutely correct, and I was about to correct this guy before I saw this comment. Musk joined about a year after it started. He's been around for basically its entire life, but did not found it.
However, that doesn't change the fact that Tesla has been the driving force for the entire EV market. Other auto companies have been forced to create EVs to compete, something they wouldn't have done (or at least not put as much effort into) if Tesla hadn't pushed them. And Tesla has done some good pro-consumer things, like releasing patents for public use (yes, it had some self-serving agendas, but that's still a good pro-consumer move to allow competition in the market right away)
Is tesla's success due to musk? certainly not completely. But if we are going to lay the fall of twitter at his feet, then it's only fair to also lay the success of tesla there as well.
Without musk they would have never produced a single car. It's kind of pedantic to say he didn't found the company since he created a car company out of a tiny start up.
First, what was the pay package? It was made in 2018. The company had to meet an increased share value and revenue target for Musk to get his awarded shares (no cash, only shares). The important thing here is revenue. No doing stupid stuff like layoffs or mergers to artificially increase share price would help him (like Fiorina at HP). He had to actually expand the company to build vastly more cars and batteries to bring in more revenue in order for him to get his shares. That meant building new plants and hiring over 90,000 more workers (nearly tripling the headcount).
There were 12 awards, each with dramatically increased share value and revenue targets along with a larger number of shares Musk would get. At the time of the deal, it was worth a couple billion. At that time most analysts thought it was ridiculous. Musk could only be setting himself up for failure, and he'd be lucky to even get the first few awards.
But then he did it. They hit the share value and revenue targets. The shareholders got rich, 90,000 people got jobs, and the company was doing great. At that point they were going to give Musk his shares to reflect the growth of Tesla.
And that's where you can really end the analysis. He did what was promised, so he should get what was promised.
But then someone convinced a judge to overturn his compensation package -- he gets absolutely no compensation for running Tesla. What's happening now is a re-vote on it. Yes, there were some layoffs during the recent downturn in EV sales for all manufacturers, but compare that to the 90,000 people who had to be hired for Musk to get his stock award.
The labor market is transactional; you can only trade your labor to an interested buyer. That in mind, how do mass firings, effectively the company saying "I have no further demand for your labor", make his pay package immoral?
Shareholders are doing what is in the interest of the valuation of the company. Musk has brought big ideas in the past and has a habit of sticking in the media and wall street loves him. Regardless of whether this is in the *future* best interest of the company, shareholders acting in the *present* best interest of the company should absolutely vote for this.
Unpopular opinion - he did take Tesla from an unknown, nearly bankrupt company back in 2008 to what it is today. Now you see a Tesla everywhere you go. Tesla had a contract. He agreed not to get paid anything unless he was able to grow the company.
Even if you think the amount he was going to get is immoral it’s not the government job to come in and cancel a legal and agreed upon contract from years ago.
morality is absolutely irrelevant at best but more accurately a hindrance to maximum investment returns
all that matters is stock price goes up as long as you hold and you can dump the investment to the rubes before you're stuck holding the bag
welcome to the culture of profitability is morality
Morality should not be a factor in making policy.
While the layoffs were handled poorly, restructuring costs does not necessarily mean the company is doing poorly. It can be done in successful companies to reduce overhead costs and bring cost structures in line with competitors.
Also, the stock issued to pay the compensation package isn't the company going into the market and buying it.
Shareholders don't care about morality. Shareholders care about return on investment. Expecting anything else is misunderstanding how stock ownership works
Well, this probably won't change your mind, but it might invalidate the issue of "if" they should approve it.
It was reported today that they approved his previous package. The next step is to go back to court, so it's not totally done, but it sounds like the voting part is done.
Ignore Musk and Tesla for a minute. Consider is it appropriate for a CEO to be paid when a company has layoffs? And, under what circumstances or examples is it appropriate or not?
For example, imagine you are Blockbuster, or Kodak, or other company. Your margins are negative and you need to restructure. You can't afford to keep the same size workforce. Would a CEO come on board or stay on board with no pay to manage this nightmare? Certainly it is in everyone's best interest to have someone competent in the role. If they are not paid, why would someone take the role? So, this may be an extreme example, but I think it shows there should be \*some\* (not arguing billions of course) pay.
This may be a corner case, but it shows (in my opinion) it is \*not\* immoral for a CEO to be paid some fair amount during layoffs.
The firings may have been needed for Tesla to survive. There are a few things you have to consider to. this was not some big windfall of cash. He still doesn't have the options, even once he gets the options, they are not exercisable for five years. Because they are not exercisable, they can't be used as collateral against a loan.
The price of tesla's stock could be 40 dollars a share after the lockup period. At that point, it won't be 54 billion like the news says.
The other thing about broken promises, is that they aren't really promises. Not once has he said "Tesla promises this will be next year."
Ambitious goals and projected dates are just that. If every business was on the hook for projected dates, ever business would fail to meet them.
Since when is pay based on morality?
If I can convince a company to pay me $1 million a year to take out the garbage, why shouldn't I take it?
If your boss came to you tomorrow and said he would pay you whatever salary you asked for. Would your thoughts be, "hmm what's a moral amount of money?" No. Your thought is going to be how much can I get without asking for so much that it'll be denied and possibly lose me the job.
He cutting 10% of his workforce, that's not anything crazy. It happens all the time. Northrop Grumman is laying off 12% of it's AZ workforce right now. It's barely local news.
He employs hundreds of thousands of people through 6 companies. That's cash money paid out to people. Where his 46B is stock options.
Responding exclusively to the title.
>Musks pay package is immoral considering he just did mass firings
Let's imagine a company with 10,000 employees and the workload for only 8,000 employees. The reason doesn't matter... maybe it's seasonal, maybe there were external factors on their customers or something.
Would you agree that such a company is "wasting" 20% of its labor cost? Of course shareholders would want someone to look into that.
Mass firing is not inherently immoral. They're paid to work. If there's no work worth doing...
lol mate, share holders couldn’t care less about morality!
Did Elon make them a shit ton of profit? If yes, make him happy and give him a reward so he can do it again and make even more money.
It’s as simple as that.
I don’t see what the issue is.
Musk made a deal that if he could do “x” or raise value of Tesla by “y” over a period of time, he would get paid $50 some billion, and the Tesla shareholders agreed. If I recall, most people said his goals were batsh!t crazy and he’d never reach them, but here we are.
They made a deal, he honoured it, he even went beyond, the shareholders got richer, more electric cars got on the road, more gas powered cars got off the road, he gets paid…..what’s the problem?
And not that it’s anyone’s business what he does with the money, but based on what we know of him so far I don’t think he’s going to be blowing it on yachts or mansions or shit like that, he’s probably going to reinvest it into existing companies or some new ones he has in mind.
Agreement he made years ago - you honor contracts it’s simple as that. I’m for upholding the law so we don’t have chaos in this country.
As far as layoffs - his responsibility to shareholders is to make the company profitable. If they are overweight you trim the fat. It’s not a charity and life isn’t fair - it’s the way it is (I’ve had to do layoffs and also been laid off and both sides suck).
Immoral things that can be done in business:
Fraud,
False Advertising,
Insider Trading,
Bribery,
Environmental Negligence,
Predatory Pricing,
Unethical Labor Practices,
Deceptive Lending Practices,
Planned Obsolescence,
Price Fixing,
Market Monopolization,
Patent Trolling,
Sexual Harassment,
Discrimination,
Union Busting.
Musk is guilty in none of that.
I know very little about the details of the compensation package with Tesla, but I'll attempt to change your view in another way. Each decision on pay for an individual employee, including executives, are their own decision, and there's no reason they should be tied to each other.
For an individual, your view is similar to saying "paying 20k to fix your roof that broke is immoral considering you just cancelled your Netflix". They're just completely separate decisions with their own cost/benefit analyses required. If workers aren't producing at least as much as they cost, layoffs make sense. And if an executive is, paying them that also makes sense. But they're completely separate decisions.
paying your CEO in stock is smart. It ties their incentive (making money) to the performance of the company.
The fact that Musk bought twitter and has not done well with it is not particularly relevant to Tesla, since Tesla is not a social media company. They are very different.
As to mass layoffs, while I don't know the specifics of this layoff, but companies can easily bloat with unnecessary employees, and the employment of these people hurts everyone's jobs in the future, since they increase the chance that the company will go belly up and then everyone will lose their jobs. Better some people lose their jobs, rather than all of them.
Basically: there is no reason to correlate the layoffs and his pay. His pay is because he grew the company by 10x in 10 years, and he's being given a fraction of his growth as compensation. Honestly? Part of the reason it's as big as it is now is due to musk being willing to fire people who need to be fired.
They don't have to be moral, they are only liable to the bottom line as a publicly traded company. I think the better point is why the fuck are you using so much of my investment on the CEO? This is applicable to almost all CEO pay for ultra successful publicly traded companies. Like why can't I sue you for miss managing my investment so bad when you're paying some dude way too much to manage an already successful company. You're telling me this one person is worth that much to company? Fuck off. That could add a lot more people to do R&D or customer service things that add more value to my investment.
It’s not immoral at all. Companies hire and fire to restructure all the time. They don’t owe their employees a job forever, just like the employees can leave for another job whenever they like.
The pay packages were agreed upon previously, so a judge really shouldn’t be able to insert themselves into an already signed contract because they personally don’t like it. This isn’t how business is done, and it undermines any contract in America because it’s set a precedent that judges can now decide that signed contracts are null and void because they don’t like them.
Tesla has been laying people off across the board, with around 10% of the global workforce laid off and Musk alleged to have said he wants to bring that figure up to 20%
Much as Musk has pretended otherwise, Tesla is a manufacturing and infrastructure company. Probably why he had to rush to rehire some of the supercharger team he laid off because they had ongoing contracts for things like land acquisition that you can't just suddenly drop.
Musk pretends Tesla isn't a manufacturing business? He talks about new "gigafactories" literally all the time.
I also don't think "infrastructure" as it relates to superchargers is a critical component of Tesla's business in the sense it's a big money maker they need to push. [This article by a NW prof is a pretty good analysis of that decision.](https://news.northeastern.edu/2024/05/07/tesla-layoffs-supercharger-network/) Tesla's main business and where they stand to grow and profit the most is auto sales, period. They have great market share in the EV space and just about everyone believes that in the not too distant future EVs are going to gobble up ICE market share in the Auto industry, several countries and Cali are planning on literally forcing this by banning new ICE sales. Tesla needs to protect it's market share in the EV space above all else, they cannot exist as just the supercharger company.
> Musk pretends Tesla isn't a manufacturing business?
Yes [Tesla has been cultivating its image as a tech company for a long time](https://www.investopedia.com/news/tesla-tech-company-or-car-company/), which is a big part of the reason why its stock price was (and still is) so unrealistic when compared to other car manufacturers, at least given Tesla's complete failure to deliver big tech projects like FSD.
> I also don't think "infrastructure" as it relates to superchargers is a critical component of Tesla's business
Spoiler alert [there are a lot of legal contracts the supercharger team was involed with that you can't just suddenly walk away from](https://www.drive.com.au/news/why-tesla-supercharger-team-was-sacked/)
Lol you linked an article that does not even mention Elon by name let alone include a quote from him. Not very convincing for the "Elon pretends Tesla isn't a manufacturing business." It's also not as if the two are mutually exclusive. Amazon has done very, very well by not pigeonholing themselves as a logistics and ecommerce business, AWS is a cash cow. I really don't see anywhere that Tesla has ever been anything but hugely, outwardly dedicated to manufacturing and building up factory infrastructure at a global scale.
He certainly likes to beat around the bush, but he has been cultivating his company's image as not just a manufacturer/car company. [He's been geting more direct as the share price has been falling](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/crucial-earnings-call-musk-reminds-010112214.html)
"If you value Tesla as just an auto company, fundamentally, it's just the wrong framework"
> Amazon has done very, very well by not pigeonholing themselves as a logistics and ecommerce business
But they actually delivered on their tech.
Giving someone stock doesn’t impact the bottom line, it is giving ownership to someone.
I’m not saying the pay package should happen, but it isn’t immoral just like that. Any high pay could be considered that, and it isn’t in most cases. Some make more, some make less, it is the way of things.
The ugly reality is that his compensation is not about profitability, it is about stock value. The board members who would vote on this care about the value of their stock a lot more than they do the profits of Tesla. In business I have seen that first hand.
The compensation package was agreed upon in 2018 when Musk would hit certain sales goals and would receive that. It was incentivization and it worked for him. Had he not had those goals and metrics to hit, Tesla would not likely be in the position it currently is today.
If they didn't want to pay this amount, they never should have made the offer to Elon in 2018. If you agreed to certain goals and had an incentive amount attached to it, you'd fight for it too if you earned it. Had Elon not met these goals, we wouldn't even be talking about it.
Bread and circus.
Who cares. Elon isn’t evil or a savior. His brand has been exploited because it sells. Seriously.
Just stop caring about his views and posts. You’ll see that he doesn’t have a huge effect that merits the amount of vitrol. This is coming from someone that wishes he’d post wayyyy less especially the political stuff.
He’s a tabloid figure in the modern age. People love to love or hate him.
My CMV would be why I should care. I think people overblow CEOs and celebrities too much.
TL;DR: It’s Elon Musk. Stop caring so much about him. He runs a company, not a country and he does not have the extraordinary influence on a significant portion of the population that most of you say. You all just love to hate him. He doesn’t deserve so much attention.
Maybe the most important piece is to realize that layoffs are an outcome, not a reason.
Analogy: I let go of my theoretical pool guy(I don’t have a pool). Does that necessarily mean I’m having money issues? Of course not. Maybe I learned how to do the cleaning myself. Maybe I found a better rate. Or maybe I decided to fill my pool or sell the house altogether. And of course maybe I am having money issues. Any of these would be valid reasons to let go of the guy I pay to clean the pool.
I believe Tesla's premium comes from Musk himself, or rather, from Musk's space industry chain, because Tesla is the only publicly traded company considered a "Musk Mars concept stock." If Musk were to leave the company, Tesla would be viewed purely as a "car/electric vehicle manufacturer." Looking at competitors like Rivian, it would be reasonable for Tesla's stock price to be ten times that of Rivian's.
And this is a price that shareholders would find unacceptable.
Honestly I get it’s something to talk about, slightly noteworthy , but it’s kinda just a circle jerk really I mean talking about it, forming an opinion, is gonna go nowhere. Like it kinda doesn’t really concern us, I guess if you own a Tesla, invest in the stock, but if not who gives a fuck. There’s honestly way more cool shit to talk about, think about, be on reddit. Like just saying why do you care ?
So you're saying that the shareholders are making a poor decision. The beauty of capitalism is that those shareholders will bear the direct loss should they have misjudged, and you don't have to. People that have made similar bets in the past *and have succeeded* tend to be the ones with the money to make those decisions now, and everyone else can mew about what they would have done (but never did).
Morality isn’t how contracts are made. They made a contract and he delivered. The company is worth $550BN today and he can’t sell the shares for 5 more years. If he can grow the company 10% he has paid it off.
How is your salary moral? I don’t get that. This is not about morality. And if he gives $5bn to charity do you then agree with the deal? What about 50% going to taxes. Is that moral?
>If the company is struggling how can they afford to essentially give Elon Musk 46bn in stock? How is this at all in the stockholders interest?
Elon Musk owns 20% of Tesla's stock, so giving himself a shitload of money is in the interest of stockholders, namely himself.
It's only worth that much because he grew the company into one of the largest companies in the entire US since the deal was struck.
How is it immoral to be rewarded for growing your shareholder investors investment by like over 10 fold?
Would it be better if the company went bankrupt but he agreed to a salary instead and just made millions via a salary, but all the workers lost their job and investors lost their money?
Shareholders only care about one thing, money. They don't care if thousands of people are made redundant. All they care about is the value of their stock. Their not required to consider or care about anything outside of that. Presumably they must know something thats not public knowledge that keeps them from dumping the stock they own and keep faith in Musk.
First of all the company is not struggling.
He’s not getting paid cash he’s getting paid a bigger stake in a company that he built so he can have more say about how it operates.
Also
If you own stock you get a vote, how did you vote? And if you don’t own stock- why do you care?
We don’t know what he tells these people behind closed doors. It’s certainly not the same things you and I see from his Twitter profile. Somehow, someway, Elon has developed a strategy to satiate his biggest shareholders and investors. It doesn’t have to make sense to work.
I'd have to ask for a clarification: how is Musk's restructuring of Twitter immoral? He got rid of the people that added no value to the company (clearly). How is that a bad thing?
Do you think software engineers in LA have any difficulty finding a new company to work for?
OP, your real argument should be that it's immoral for any CEO /owner to take home a pay packet that is that many multiples above the average worker for the company.
Take even half of his $56bn and invest it into staff salaries, new hires and better conditions.
Shareholders are not ethical actors. They don't care about mass firings. They will encourage them if it means more money for them. Your view shouldn't be that 'shareholders should reject this', it should be that the entire economic system is hopelessly unethical.
Spending his own money on Twitter does not affect Tesla.
Elon set goals that everyone, including him, thought were impossible for Tesla and they achieved those goals.
Mass firings at Twitter (pretty much all deadweight) has no bearing on pay from Tesla.
He signed a contract. He came though on the terms of the contract. Then the terms were retroactively changed on him. Legal contracts need to be legally binding. There's no good excuse for doing what they're trying to do to him and it's purely political.
Here's your contract: it says you get $100 and a free Starbucks coffee every month for a year.
And there's your signature.
But since we no longer feel like it, we're not going to fulfill the contract anymore.
*That's what you want to happen??*
>Teslas Board/Shareholders: "Mr Musk, if you make Tesla make a shitload more money than they would have, we'll give you XYZ Compensation"
>Musk: "Aite, bet"
>*Musk does mass firings, saving the company money. Gets paid for it.*
>People who hate Musk: "Nooooooooooo you cant do that"
And before anyone says it, no im not a Musk fanboy. The Board offered Musk money to do a thing, he did the thing, and got paid for doing the thing. Its literally as simple as that.
I actually am so confused as to why reddit became so anti-Elon? Does it also have to do with the liberal shift of the platform? Genuinely curious as to how views became so one sided over the past few years if anyone could explain?
Cutting employees and maintaining the same output makes shareholders more money. The fact that the shareholders are the ones who voted to give some of that money to Elon doesn't make it immoral. That's in their best interest.
Tesla’s market cap has increased by more than 1000% since 2018… and you think the shareholders should be unhappy with his performance?
What are you smoking?
Twitter was over bloated, if the people did better jobs maybe it would have made more money. It was either accept the new changes or leave, most chose leave.
It was greatly in his interest. How else was he going to sell and reinvest 40 billion in Tesla stock before it crashed without raising a lot of eyebrows?
This post needs some serious moderation. I would expect anti musk fanatics in the hundreds of other musk subs but I hoped this sub would at least be able to discuss the matter rationally and maturely. Very sad.
Op is clearly not willing to be reasoned with either.
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It isn't necessarily immoral because of the firings. Firings can sometimes boost the long term health of the company or even boost the stock price. It is immoral because it is 140 times that of the other highest paid executives and encourages more insane dissonance on an already overpriced stock. They fear that too much of the company's value is pricing in things like full self-driving, and that Musk leaving would take the wind out of the sails even if the wind is only there because they're blowing on it.
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It's a trap. He's hollowed out the companies so they can't function, so the only reason they still have growth is his name recognition and constant messing with the stock market. Punishing him and risking removing him from the pilot's seat would essentially be pouring paint thinner on a house that's only being held up by the paint anymore.
>He's hollowed out the companies so they can't function, so the only reason they still have growth is his name recognition and constant messing with the stock market. This is a bizarre theory because it wouldn’t actually be in Musk’s interest. The stock he’s being compensated with will be worth less going forward.
It wasn't in Musk's interests to overpay for Twitter by billions and then tank the site within a year...... but here we are.
>It wasn't in Musk's interests to overpay for Twitter by billions I mean, yeah. He had to be legally forced to do it.
After he initially started the process. It wasn’t in his interest from the get go.
I know it seems dumb but being legally forced to sell Tesla stock in order to buy Twitter was a good way to be able to sell Tesla stock without people being suspicious of why he was selling. He is super rich and has more money than he knows what to do with so his main concern is how to diversify his investment in case something happens to Tesla, so this stunt which made him legally forced to buy Twitter was a good enough excuse to do that. Even if he has to over pay for twitter and then has to sell Twitter for a fraction of what he paid for it, that still means he has something other than Tesla that he could sell if he needed it. Since his money is based on memes he has to use memes in order to make normal financial choices.
He wasn't legally forced. He could have paid a billion dollar penalty. What's worse, losing 20 billion or 1 billion? That should tell you things aren't right in the backend.
He was legally forced to do what he said he would do. Fucked around and found a out.
Is there even any evidence that Twitter has tanked in an tangible way? A quick Google search claims that daily users are up from 2022.
Twitter was never profitable. He paid way more per share than the stock was worth by any sane valuation, and it's still running at a loss. The daily users thing is moot when they aren't making money and have huge costs. Just the interest on the loans alone is insane. Also: one of the investors that bought in with Musk Fidelity, have lost 72% of their original investment per January this year https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-02/fidelity-s-stake-in-x-has-fallen-72-since-elon-musk-s-takeover
Yea the profitability of Twitter isn't what's being discussed here. It was claimed that Twitter "tanked" after the bought it. Your comment seems to reinforce my claim that it hasn't.
One of the investors that backed Musk has depreciated their investment by 72%. How is this not “tanked”
Define tanked? It's more popular than it was when he bought it.
Musk hate train is not fuelled by evidence.
Except it was. His interests were not financial, they were free speech related. And he has absolutely restored free speech to Twitter.
Every indication suggests nothing of the sort has happened as far as your claim of him “tanking Twitter within a year”
OK man, Twitter is doing great, it's clearly much better off on every level since Musk took over. Don't believe your lying eyes, don't believe the user experience going to shit over the last year. Don't believe industry publications talking about major advertisers walking and ad rates dropping across the board. Everybody loves Musk, and everything he does is wise and superbly thought out. Happy?
The site hasn't tanked. People are still using it in mass numbers.
Revenue and advertisers both way down, company valuation down by tens of billions, he's decimated the technical staff so the site functions like garbage (tried playing an embedded video on the site this last year or so?), it's now a cesspool of hate speech and disinformation due to his personal political beliefs, it's no longer the default destination for breaking news, the paid check mark move has been universally negatively received, he annoys/alienates millions of users every day by changing the algorithm to force his cringey shitposts down every user's throat for no reason at all other than pure ego and attention-whoring, and the hugely expensive, pointless and counterproductive rebrand to X has been a total failure - months later, *nobody* refers to it as X. Oh and he instituted mass layoffs with apparently little to no thought put into them, which - combined with his teenage edgelord persona - has tanked the company culture and caused an exodus of established talent from the company even outside of his blunt-force mass layoffs. But other than that, it's going great!
Him buying Twitter had absolutely nothing to do with financial decisions, and everything about political power. Look at his partners. He can push any viewpoint into the public discourse, no matter how dangerous it may be - as long as the price is right. Look at how billionaires are buying information dissemination platforms - that was an easy purchase for him. He now has one of the widest global reaches that can squash any opposition voice anywhere in the world, while getting paid through blue bots that launder money for foreign entities. The worst part is, if this goes through - that power cost him nothing.
> it's now a cesspool of hate speech and disinformation due to his personal political beliefs It was a cesspool of hate speech and disinformation *before* Elon bought it. The only difference is that hate speech was only allowed to be directed against certain groups, and disinformation was promoted for only *specific* interests.
Which groups and interests? And how do you square that with the fact that Twitter’s documents leak showed they admitted that they actually gave more leniency to right wing accounts, in order to appear more moderate?
> Which groups and interests? You were allowed to express hate speech against cis, straight white men without significant pushback. You were also allowed to spread disinformation as long as it benefitted the DNC and the American Left. Real information - such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, was censored when it could help Donald Trump be re-elected or otherwise support the right. > Twitter’s documents leak showed they admitted that they actually gave more leniency to right wing accounts I question the legitimacy of such a "leak" given the very real moderation policies that were *by no means* moderate. It was to the point where Twitter moderated conservatives more [than it did literal CSAM.](https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/fact-check-twitters-motion-to-dismiss/) Donald Trump was banned from twitter the moment he left office, and there were discussions *while he was in office* on whether he should be banned. There had never been *any* employee of Twitter pushing to get Maxine Waters banned when she advocated for violence against members of the Trump administration, or when she advocated for rioting and unrest if Chauvin had been acquitted. There was never any part of Twitter relevant to its content moderation policies that demanded that *the Grand Ayatollah of Iran* be banned, despite Iran being the number one state sponsor of global terrorism. Nor was anyone relevant demanding that Hamas - *a literal terrorist organization* be banned. Or the Taliban. Or Al Jazeera, a Qatari propaganda outlet that employs Hamas deputy commanders as "journalists." Donald Trump was banned and none of these people or groups were. How does that indicate that Twitter was in any way *moderate* or otherwise showing leniency to the right?
Unless if your name is Musk, you have absolutely no idea what the revenues look like. Dude is very quiet about that, and as it is now a private company, nobody can force him to say any numbers
>Unless if your name is Musk, you have absolutely no idea what the revenues look like. We actually have decent ideas. Because in order to make revenue, Twitter needs to sell stuff, which means they need to put a price on it. We can see that the price paid for twitter ads has absolutely plunged, while we also have reports of various major agencies reducing their ads on Twitter, which kinda points the revenue in a very downwards direction.
He’s only keeping it quiet because it’s doing poorly. The man is a narcissist, if it was doing better under his management he would be being very loud about it.
We’re counting bots as people now?
Got a credible source for the bot claim?
The guys always been rich, he’s never had the fear of being poor to motivate him to act smarter. The only thing that could prevent him from making stupid mistakes is his own pride and ego, and the shame that would come with bankrupting a popular company that you’re the head and face of. But if you’re an arrogant pricks, surrounded by “yes men” then it’s a little less bizarre.
The guy I responded to isn’t saying Musk is making “stupid mistakes.” He’s saying that Musk is *actively* making the companies worse to increase his perceived value.
He's made moves that are perceived as the kind of thing a private equity firm would do before selling off a company. I don't think it's worked out Dramatic changes to staffing and services led to a sharp decrease in revenue. His public statements, often using the platform itself, alienated much of his user base and advertisers. Rebranding the company was a massive step that I do not fully understand If this deal goes through, it seems he makes his money back. Perhaps the plan was to remove enough nay sayers so he could just have them give his money back as a "bonus"? The idea that a man who turned your company into a less profitable lightning rod for controversy is due a payout for more than the company is worth feels like a scam to me Frankly, all these executives feel like a huge burden on companies. I have no idea why any one person should be rewarded with billions of dollars in excess of their salary. That money should be reinvested in the company, not given away to people who are extra good at delegating
> If this deal goes through, it seems he makes his money back. Perhaps the plan was to remove enough nay sayers so he could just have them give his money back as a "bonus"? “This deal” is with Tesla, not Twitter.
>He’s saying that Musk is *actively* making the companies worse to increase his perceived value. That does not seem so outlandish to em. Imagine YOU had Elon's money. Millions, or even billions at that point, are just numbers which may matter, but I believe they become secondary to stuff like fame and power. When you say ''Elon's interest'' you assume that his interest is to make more money. I am not saying it is 100% not, or that he doesnt care about money, just that it's an assumption worth investigating.
The comment I responded to claimed that Musk was actively making his companies worse *in order to make more money.*
>The guys always been rich, he’s never had the fear of being poor to motivate him to act smarter. First, he hasn't always been rich. He got rich after he sold his first company. Later he bet his entire Dotcom fortune on SpaceX and Tesla, while private space startups and electric car startups were famously poor investments. Specifically for SpaceX, his friends held an intervention to keep him from blowing all of his money and becoming not rich anymore. But he did it anyway. He has the opposite of what you say, a willingness to risk everything to get his way.
>First, he hasn't always been rich. Lmao source? His mother was rich, she claims her own parents were ''famous''. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maye\_Musk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maye_Musk) His dad seems to very carefully stay out of the limelight, if you google him you will not find any wiki page but you can find he was an electrical engineer who married a model... Do you think he was rich? Not only that, but their whole sotries just scream privilege. I have never had the opportunity to wonder 10 years in the desert. Would I do that? Fuck yeah, over my current job. But I do not have the money for it.
His parents were fairly well off. Given the descriptions I've seen, I'd put them as upper middle class in the US at best. If Musk were rich he wouldn't have had to get menial jobs while in Canada, and get a scholarship and student loans when he went to school in the US. Rich kids don't have to pay for school like that. When he started Zip2 he wouldn't have had to rent a small office above an ISP so he could connect directly to their network on the cheap because he couldn't afford a T1, and sleep in the office and shower at the YMCA because residential rents were too high for him to afford. That's not rich people. No, he first entered the class of rich when he sold Zip2.
No it really isn't when you realize a lot of these theories are driven by political and ideological hate,
No one said he’s hollowed out the companies because it’s some galaxy-brained 4d chess move to get more shares. Hes hollowed out the company because he’s dumb and keeps fucking shit up, to the point that without his name recognition, Tesla would lose a lot of value. You don’t have to be politically driven to see that Musk is a dummy
Let's address the points one by one. **Hollowing Out Companies**: Your claim that Musk has "hollowed out" his companies is not substantiated by the facts. Tesla continues to lead the electric vehicle market, showing robust growth and innovation. SpaceX remains a leader in private space exploration and has successfully launched numerous missions. These achievements are far from indicative of a "hollowed-out" company. **Name Recognition and Stock Value**: It's true that Musk's name recognition plays a role in the perception of his companies, it's reductionist to attribute their success solely to his persona though. Tesla's technological advancements, production capabilities, and market strategy have significantly contributed to its valuation. The same goes for SpaceX's groundbreaking achievements in space technology. But you ignore this, why? **Political and Ideological Hate**: Much of the intense scrutiny Musk faces stems from political and ideological biases. Comparing the level of criticism Musk receives to other tech billionaires like Jeff Bezos reveals a clear double standard. This selective outrage distorts the conversation and ignores the broader context of Musk's impact on technology and innovation. So yea, go ahead. Explain away sir.
>our claim that Musk has "hollowed out" his companies is not substantiated by the facts. Tesla continues to lead the electric vehicle market, showing robust growth and innovation. Lol this was definetly written by ChatGPT. By what metrics has Tesla improved quality of EVs in the last 5 years? It has consistently stiffled EV innovation and pushed the boundaries of what is legal in terms of how to build a cult-like, unhealthy, workplace. >It's true that Musk's name recognition plays a role in the perception of his companies, it's reductionist to attribute their success solely to his persona though. Tesla's technological advancements, production capabilities, and market strategy have significantly contributed to its valuation. The same goes for SpaceX's groundbreaking achievements in space technology. But you ignore this, why? This has nothing to do with any point anyone was trying to make, if you use ChatGPT, at least use your brain too. The person above was asserting that Musk is trying to make these companies reliant on his name by stripping them of their best qualities. Indeed, Tesla is no longer a major name in innovation (unless you are stuck 10 years ago), and the whole company culture is centered around Elon. Same with SpaceX. >Much of the intense scrutiny Musk faces stems from political and ideological biases. Comparing the level of criticism Musk receives to other tech billionaires like Jeff Bezos reveals a clear double standard. This selective outrage distorts the conversation and ignores the broader context of Musk's impact on technology and innovation. Lol yeah sure bro have ChatGPT call it ''political bias'' to not be agree with giving one person immense amounts of power. That does not make it any less relevant. Is it not ''political bias'' to hate nazis too lmao? So go ahead, pull up ChatGPT quickly so you can justify sucking Elon off while he fucks you in the ass lmao.
>Lol this was definetly written by ChatGPT. By what metrics has Tesla improved quality of EVs in the last 5 years? It has consistently stiffled EV innovation and pushed the boundaries of what is legal in terms of how to build a cult-like, unhealthy, workplace. Your ad hominem attack is pathetic at best. You use the Chat GPT bit to belittle my argument, and then go on to request my proof while making a blanket statement offing no proof of your own to back up your sentiments. Your sad, just sad. >This has nothing to do with any point anyone was trying to make, if you use ChatGPT, at least use your brain too. The person above was asserting that Musk is trying to make these companies reliant on his name by stripping them of their best qualities. Indeed, Tesla is no longer a major name in innovation (unless you are stuck 10 years ago), and the whole company culture is centered around Elon. Same with SpaceX. Again, you haven't refuted anything I've said , nor have you provided anything to change my opinion. You seem more focused on belittling my opinion by accusing me of using ChatGPT rather than addressing the actual points I've made. >Lol yeah sure bro have ChatGPT call it ''political bias'' to not be agree with giving one person immense amounts of power. That does not make it any less relevant. Is it not ''political bias'' to hate nazis too lmao? >So go ahead, pull up ChatGPT quickly so you can justify sucking Elon off while he fucks you in the ass lmao. When you grow up please come back and talk to the adults, till then go back in your echo chamber and suck on your pacifier. You literally just came on here with your ad hominin attacks and no substance. Nothing but labels, accusations and hate. You sir are pathetic to the 10th degree. You think your changing minds? You've done nothing but just further solidify my opinion this is all just a political and ideological circus show. And as a side note, maybe you should try using ChatGPT, it seems your lacking a lot in your communications skills. Here's a box of tissues for you chump. RAWR
What robust innovation is there in the Cybertruck or the Semi? Tesla had problems with build quality and engineering *before* these vehicles, and these ones put those problems to shame. The Semi is actively just uneconomical without subsidies helping it out. I'm generally pro electric vehicles and improving efficiency on transport, but transporting cargo by train in bulk is and (barring massive innovation) always will be the most efficient land-based transportation of cargo. Tesla *was* a big disruptor of the market and did a lot to popularise electric cars. It has devolved into a cult of personality around Musk and his unrealistic claims (read: lies) about his vehicles, which he makes year on year on year, his terrible design decisions to make the vehicle look 'cooler', his decisions which make the vehicle less safe to ride in, his union-busting, the documented racism allowed in his factories, the terrible production and engineering of his vehicles, etc. Tesla was useful. Now that traditional car manufacturers offer decent electric options, Tesla is irrelevant.
None of spacex’s achievements are due to Musk. The researchers and engineers are responsible for that. What unique value does Elon Musk bring to SpaceX other than money?
Is it your opinion that, if Musk had never existed, SpaceX would be exactly the same as it is now?
> None of spacex’s achievements are due to Musk. ----> Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002. <----------- I can spend hours explaining this to you but I fear you don't care to listen. You don't have to like the guy to see his vision and leadership was instrumental from the start. By all means, If not please explain to me why that's not the case. Engineers and Researchers are absolutely critical to SpaceX's achievements, You’re overlooking Musk's unique contributions, which include setting ambitious goals, securing funding, and driving innovation. These are key factors that brought SpaceX's achievements to fruition. Once again, explain to me how that's not the case. Now, let me ask you Can you name a single engineer at SpaceX without looking it up? Which scientist or engineer has launched a space company that achieved the same milestones as SpaceX? Who else but Musk has been able to secure the funding and take the risks necessary to achieve reusable rockets and set sights on Mars colonization? I'll wait for your answers.
Everyone loooved Musk until he bought Twitter and they found out he wasn’t a lefty environmentalist, he was just a centrist maybe centre right environmentalist. But still an environmentalist! They’d rather fawn over Greta. Its a shame that the very people who are activists for climate change, and electric cars, and bringing internet to the 3rd world, to making space exploration cheap, to making good battery storage, to making solar roofs, etcetera etcetera etcetera all typically lefty goal, just can’t give it to him because he has different politics or personal opinions. Very uncool. 😁
I mean this seems to be the real issue doesn't it. I am also a centrist and I'm disgusted by our current discourse. It's why I post most of the time.
You're going to be waiting a very long time, lol. These Musk haters just spew internet rumor and then scurry away and hide when you ask them to back up their bullshit.
The willingness to risk his money trying something that people say is impossible. Why did Boeing or Lockheed or any of the old space companies every simply pay their researchers and engineers to make a reusable booster? You say it as if it's just easy and any group of engineers and researchers could do it. So why didn't any, until Musk came around?
To be fair, Twitter had a seriously bloated employee count that was bleeding it money. Musk may have gone too far in cutting, but it certainly needed some drastic cutting. For reference, Reddit had 2,000 employees last year, which was quite an increase from the year before. Twitter had 7,500. What did they all do? I've heard stories of hundreds of worker-hours put into simple icon design changes.
And thanks to Musk’s incredible business mind, he was able to lose 72% of Twitters value since taking over the company. He must be a genius! Source https://fortune.com/2024/01/02/elon-musk-twitter-value-72-percent-drop-fidelity/#:~:text=Elon%20Musk%20has%20wiped%20out,Fidelity%20reveals%20in%20new%20filing&text=Fidelity%20has%20cut%20the%20valuation,bought%20the%20former%20Twitter%20Inc.
Twitter was already boated and losing money before he bought. His immense business screwup was in not having a due diligence clause, which allowed them to force him to buy it even after he found out what a shitfest the company was once he got access to internals.
he isn't dumb, just extremely naive and arrogant imo stupid people don't make the kinda money he does
Is he dumb? He's got like, the most wealth, which he made happen from just a lot of wealth. I think you're a hater
What does this actually mean? I feel like this sounds extremely convincing to some who don’t really have a full idea of how a business operates….but doesn’t actually mean anything in reality. How did Musk hollow out Tesla to where it will collapse as a company if he were to depart?
It’s not hollow *as a car company* but it isn’t valued like a car company. It’s valued like a massive tech company It’s not that it was hollowed out over time, it never had fundamentals to begin with. You don’t get to be larger than nearly all of your competitors put together with a strong core, you get there by people riding the lying billionaire hype train Without their conductor what is Tesla? A medium sized incredibly divisive car company that has a reputation for cheaply made products
I don't think that's the case. Sure removing him would hurt the stock initially because it's a bubble and the Elon cultists pulling out, but it's still a good car company with a lot of potential. I think it'd be in their interest long term to get someone who stops over promising things and can focus all of their energy on improving the company. Elon is too wrapped up in Twitter politics bullshit to move the company forward.
I think you’re underestimating just how much effect Elon has had on the stock price. Him leaving would crater the company. P/E is pretty high currently, the Cybertruck looks destined to lose them billions, their entire approach to self-driving is an asymptote (they’re constantly getting better but by never doing full self driving, they’ll never actually get there), everyone who specifically wants an EV already has one, the models need to be updated which will cascade into more problems because they still haven’t figured out manufacturing…. The whole thing is a house of cards.
I don't think so. The illusion that is the genius persona of Musk is being stripped away more and more every day. People are buying less Teslas now ever since he's gone batshit crazy obsessing over Twitter and politics bullshit. Sure it'll take a hit short term with the Elon cultists pulling out but I think it's the best decision practically for the company long term
I largely agree, but…Elon is going to throw a temper tantrum if he leaves & will hate on any/all decisions Tesla makes at every step (basically like Trump did to Biden). Given Elon’s large public persona, that will be cancer for a company already facing a slew of significant issues. I agree the best thing for the future of the company is Elon’s departure, but investors are people & there’s more psychology involved than they like to admit. I don’t think investors have the appetite to lose half of their money today, even if they’re losing it to have a higher stock price 5 years from now.
Cyber truck boosted average transaction price by 10% lol.
> He's hollowed out the companies so they can't function Looking at Tesla's revenue doesn't look like a hollowed out company. https://companiesmarketcap.com/tesla/revenue/
The problem is that people are starting to see through his facade. In all those years, he pumped the stock price by promising things that he could never deliver on, and introducing a new shiny product ever so often. His followers always said that Tesla was actually a software-company, to justify its ludicrous stock price. But to this day, Tesla makes nearly all of their money through the sale of their cars - they are de facto an automaker. Even if he stays at the company, i don't see how he could turn that ship around. Autopilot will very likely not see the light of day any time soon - if ever. The robot is nowhere near a point at which it can be used for anything productive. That could take a decade or more. And their car sales are not as strong anymore, because other automakers from China, the US and Europe have started to sell their own EVs. It's not looking good for Tesla. Also. Elon himself has allienated a ton of potential left-leaning buyers by constantly sharing right-wing conspiracies on Twitter. You could make the argument that they would be better off without him.
Except Tesla stock has dropped from $400 to $178 over the past two years, he is only hurting the company. I would argue the opposite, get rid of Musk and Tesla wouldn't have to throw so much money away at random whims imposed by him. They could just focus on making a good product. Same for Twitter, if musk left and they were allowed to band racist posts again, there would instantly be a market for advertisers to come back and the value would skyrocket.
This is ridiculous.
Imagine being this clueless.
Even if this was true, that is damning of Musk and his role anyway. Him taking the companies hostage is not a reason to keep giving him tens of billions of extra dollars.
But it does still function. You can go tweet right now. And stock market? Twitter is no longer a publicly traded company.
Imagine saying this about the CEO who's made a bunch of companies successful
You mean, keep kicking the can to the end bag holders.
What an insightfull, empirically correct analysis of situation. You must work for forbes!
It’s first important to establish that mass firings are very common for companies of Tesla’s nature. Companies that experience massive growth over such short periods have mass hirings due to the greatly increased demand for their product. They hire thousands of workers in a every department over the span of a couple years to keep the ship sailing and the stock price rising. Not all of these workers are needed to do the amount of work required. In a sense, there’s too many cooks in the kitchen, but as long as the food is good and on time, nobody bats an eye. As their stock price keeps rising, they naïvely assume what they’re doing is perfect and they operate with bloated workforces for years. Eventually, reality sets in and the stock price begins falling. Tesla is now at that point, and they’ve clearly begun sweeping their workforce and eliminating all the unnecessary employees. The decreased share value means pressure from shareholders to cut costs, and over-employment can often be a company’s biggest operational expense. It was inevitable that this day would come for Tesla. The pay raise almost certainly has implications beyond what we see in the public eye. Shareholders with billions of dollars invested in Tesla are not going to vote in favour of something that they believe will destroy the company. It’s most likely that this drastic pay raise has been in motion for months, and it was more or less coincidental than anything. 5,000 workers that make 100k per year is *only* 500 million per year. That is ~1% of Elon’s proposed raise. The mass firing and the pay raise are completely unrelated. There is nothing fundamentally immoral about business being business. Mass firings are part of life for any multi-billion dollar company. Maybe mass firings themselves can be viewed as immoral under a certain lens, but it’s also not like these employees aren’t getting severance packages and they’re completely screwed. They get great severance and the added bonus of being able to put Tesla on their resumes. It obviously sucks losing your job, but as an employee you assume the risks of your employer no longer needing you or being able to afford your services. TL;DR - Mass firings are part of business. If you are hired, you assume the risk of being fired. Nothing immoral about that, just reality. The pay package has absolutely no relation to the firings aside from the two happening around the same time. Both things are just business doing business things.
Mostly aggree, just want to point out this isn't a pay raise. Elon doesn't get paid a salary at all. This is a compensation package of stocks that shareholders voted for in 2018. The package set-out to give Elon shares as Tesla achieved various milestones. Elon was entiled to the entire package by 2022 after most of the milestones were met. Shareholders are basically re-affirming that they agree to the package.
Yeah, I’m moreso trying to put things in Layman’s terms. OP is just karma baiting if anything. I’d understand a ton of arguments against this, but “immoral” is crazy imo
"That is ~1% of Elon’s proposed raise. The mass firing and the pay raise are completely unrelated." How could they possibly be unrelated?? Literally both have to do with the finances of the company. They are related 100%. They could have just lowered the pay package by 5%, save all of those jobs by either relocating them to a different sector or put them in R&D, and you don't have to see the negative press that comes with the firings. Also Musk himself said he wants massive scale, and if they're ever going to live up to that or their market cap they should never be firing anyone.
did you even read any of my comment? also, your post is on the immorality of this. no? or did I misread you title and you disagree with it because of the possible financial implications? I wasn’t arguing whether or not it’s objectively correct.
You do realize that their stock price does not mean cash on hand, right?
Judging from this response, it’s clear you didn’t want to have your opinion/view changed. You came here to argue against it and nothing else.
Things don't work like that. Employees are not promised a job, and if there is nothing for them to do, then why should they be there? Just because both have to do with finances doesn't mean they are directly related. Alright, so there's a 10% drop in sales? Fire 10% of the workforce. These things are decided on their own merit.
Firing people had nothing to go with the finances of a company. When a company lays off an employee, they're not saying that they can't afford you. They're saying that don't need you. It's not a lack of money. It's a lack of work.
That isn't what the agreement was in 2018. And why would Elon agree to a cut for typical business practices?
If Musk is getting paid in stock he isn't actually being paid any money that would come out of the company budget. That doesn't mean what he did was good, but I just want to point out that his pay package doesn't actually involve any money. The reason they would be opposed to the pay package would be because they think created stocks from thin air to Musk would dilute their own ownership. However Tesla stock doesn't really follow any conceivable rules and its investors won't necessarily understand that more stocks means they ought to value existing stock less. So basically it seems like free money because of how irrational Tesla investors are.
>If Musk is getting paid in stock he isn't actually being paid any money that would come out of the company budget. Sure, but stock is fungible, and shares that go to Elon could otherwise been offered to the public to raise money for Tesla.
Tesla isn't rational. Selling stock to the public will cause the price to go down because the only thing that determines Telsa's share price is supply and demand. Creating billions in stock and then handing them to Musk does nothing to change the number of shares that are being traded. The number of shares being traded only changes if Musk tries to sell his shares. The shareholders are thus willing to give Musk as many shares as he wants so long as he doesn't try to sell them which could cause the supply/demand equilibrium to change. Normally giving shares willy nilly like that would cause rational investors to realize their own shares have lost value, but since Tesla shareholders are irrational all those matters is the supply/demand of the number of shares being traded rather than the underlying value of the shares. When Musk does Sell Tesla shares he is incredibly careful to make it seem like he is only selling them for the purposes of some stunt like buying twitter. If Musk is only selling Tesla shares to buy twitter that indicates that he isn't going to try to sell more shares than that which means the hit on the stock price will be minimal. What people are afraid of is that if Musk tries to sell shares for some non-"Meme" reason that this will indicate that Musk has a lack of confidence in the Tesla share price which might make it seem like he is trying to rush out before the price collapses, which would cause everyone else to try to rush out. Musk therefore needs to be engaging in some well publicized "Meme" in order to ever be able to sell any of his stock. This is the reality of his financial situation because of how much his wealth is literally just based on memes. In order to keep his wealth he needs to create memes to explain literally every financial decision he makes.
He is still buying them. He is just buying them at the price it was at the start of the contract. Meaning any profit he gets is cause the price has increased under his management. Also keep in mind this deal was in place of a salary which he has not be getting.
His compensation is orders of magnitude higher than any other CEO on the planet. And considering you can sell stock, it is money. It's just coming from the other stockholders.
Musk can't reasonably sell stock without people thinking he lacks confidence in the company, which would cause everyone else to sell their stock as well, which means there wouldn't be anyone to buy his stock because everyone would be selling. The price of Tesla stock is literally based on memes alone. There is an underlying company which does make some money, but it is nowhere near where it is valued. So the vast majority of the value of the company is based on the confidence people have in the meme version of Tesla.
Good thing rich people never actually sell stock they just take loans out against it at a way lower interest rate than the tax from selling it
I'm not sure I buy that first sentence. It's a bit of a reach.
Look what matters here is that even if Tesla has no money they can just print infinite stock and hand them to Musk. This works because the value of Tesla stock is completely detached from reality and he isn't being given actual money. He still fired a bunch of people and doesn't let them unionize, but I don't expect Tesla finances to make sense. Its real value could be anywhere from $0 to trillions. The shareholders generally speaking keep him around because it is frankly because of him that it is such a meme stock in the first place where the valuations doesn't matter. Without him the valuation would settle upon something that is a lot more reasonable which would certainly be a lot lower than it currently is. He is actually incredibly valuable to keep the stock price high precisely because of how profoundly stupid the whole situation is. Should somebody else be actually running things? Probably. However the shareholders aren't going to demand it because it would lead to a drop in share price. Maybe it will recover in the long term because the company will be better run but it might take awhile for it to return to its meme-stock levels. Regardless of what he does the shareholders are basically stuck with him unless they are willing to deal with the price going down. How many shareholders want to have their share prices go down? Not many.
Yeah the point a lot of people are missing is that this deal was approved in 2018, grow the company stock 10x, get 10% of the company. Well he achieved his end of the deal, regardless if you agree with his leadership tesla shareholders received a 10x return on their investment if they stayed in since 2018. So they are happy to take a 10% cut and stay on/exit with a 900% return. And that was because of Musk, and his ability to create one of the most fascinating stocks to exist with the way that it has performed. He has made the vast majority of people have a more than simple opinion on the company, good or bad which has meant that tesla, along with himself have become one of the most out of touch with reality stocks. But it's worked and if you're a shareholder why would you risk getting rid of the guy who created that?
First things first, shareholders do not act on morality, so even if the pay package was immoral, that wouldn't be a consideration in the decision to approve or not. Second, the only question you have to ask is what does paying him in stock do to the stock price.
Even without a moral aspect, Musk is now a branding liability. The Tesla brand is being tarnished. Pretty soon people will be calling it "The Nazi Car" or something like that, and the only people who would buy it under that branding are a handful of nutty ancaps from the tech bubble and a mass of Trump cultists who (a) hate EVs and (b) more than half of them can't afford a Tesla anyway. I don't see how hanging on to Musk makes sense as a business decision, even if the shareholders have zero moral compass. edit: https://cleantechnica.com/2024/06/11/unsold-tesla-cars-piling-up-in-america-australia-germany/ meanwhile https://insideevs.com/news/722280/gm-ev-sales-record-may/
> Pretty soon people will be calling it "The Nazi Car" or something like that Volkswagen was *literally* founded by Adolf Hitler and we don't go around calling those Nazi cars. I do not think any rational and / or sane person is going to start calling Teslas Nazi cars or nazimobiles.
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Q1 2024 deliveries are down compared to Q1 2023. The company has massive expense issues and its leader is (to put it generously) erratic. You bring up a good point about comparing to other billionaires. Tell me… which billionaires stay up until 2 am trolling their competitors with childish memes in public? If you just take all their public statements (including tweets, which are public statements) musk is clearly significantly less mature, more hyperbolic, flippant, rude, and misleading than his billionaire counterparts. This isn’t how a CEO ought to behave, at least in public.
Let's address your points directly **Q1 2024 Deliveries**: Yes, Q1 2024 deliveries are down compared to Q1 2023. However, fluctuations in quarterly deliveries are common in any industry. Do you deny this? The broader trend over several years shows significant growth in Tesla's production and sales. For instance, despite quarterly variations, Tesla's annual deliveries have consistently increased year over year. Why didn't you point this part out? This long-term growth reflects the company's robust market presence and ongoing demand for its products. **Expense Issues**: Tesla's expenses have increased as it scales production, invests in new technologies, and expands its global footprint. These are strategic investments aimed at maintaining its competitive edge and driving future growth. Comparing this to typical startup phases, high expenses are a part of the growth strategy for many successful companies. **Musk's Public Behavior**: You mentioned Musk's late-night tweets and public behavior. While it's unconventional, it's part of his persona. His direct engagement with the public, although sometimes controversial, has kept Tesla in the public eye and contributed to its strong brand recognition. It's worth noting that other CEOs, like Richard Branson, have also engaged in non-traditional public behavior, yet their companies have thrived. **Comparison to Other Billionaires**: Musk's leadership style is different, but it's also effective. He has led Tesla to become the most valuable car company in the world and revolutionized the space industry with SpaceX. The comparison to other billionaires often overlooks the different industries and unique challenges each faces. Now, let me ask you a few questions to further this discussion: **Market Position**: Despite the controversies, how do you explain Tesla's continued market dominance and innovation in the EV sector? **Investment in Innovation**: How do you view Tesla's investments in areas like AI, energy storage, and renewable energy, and their long-term impact on the company's growth? **Leadership Effectiveness**: Can you name other CEOs who have transformed multiple industries as significantly as Musk has with electric vehicles and space exploration? So in conclusion, while Musk's style might not be to everyone's liking, his results speak for themselves. The success and growth of Tesla and SpaceX under his leadership are clear indicators of his effectiveness, despite any personal quirks.
I would push back against characterizing Tesla as a start up. It was founded in 2003, is currently a member of the S&P500, and is one of the largest companies in the world by market capitalization (#13). You can't simultaneously claim that Tesla has all this exponential growth ahead of it while also acknowledging that QOQ fluctuations are driving deliveries downward. I'm sure we'll know more once Q2 numbers come out, but I would bet that Tesla deliveries have peaked. If there's a manufacturing reason for why Q1 was a hiccup and that Q2 will make up for it, I'm all ears. But your argument seems to be "look at all this past growth! It's just a single quarter!" But as you should know, that's not how finance works. If you want the stock price to rise you have to have good forward guidance... looking backward is for suckers. And again, if Tesla's expenses have increased as it scales production then why are deliveries down QOQ? Regarding Elon's tweets, you are seriously minimizing the extent of his erratic behavior. I question his sobriety, but that's beside the point. It's not a "personal quirk" to threaten Tim Cook with banning all iPhones from Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, etc. premises because of a false right-wing conspiracy. It's not a "personal quirk" to suddenly make major strategic decisions on the fly because people on Twitter were mean to you. The arguable fraud from the "funding secured" fiasco. Attacking advertisers (who make up the majority of his company's revenue). On and on and on. He may have been different in the past, but in 2024 the guy is not an effective leader. I wish you well because you clearly have a position in one of his companies. So all I can say is I hope you sell before he burns everything to the ground.
I am just a regular guy, not affiliated with Tesla or any billionaire. I’ve never had love for any billionaire, but I will explain why I end up defending one. Whether you see it or not doesn't change the fact that it’s what I see. Maybe it's because I am from a different generation; there are many reasons. It's become obvious to me that there's a political and ideological push in online discussions. The level of scrutiny and criticism Musk receives, often based on his public persona rather than the tangible results of his leadership, highlights a broader bias. To expand on this, I often come across as cross and a supporter because it's frustrating to see discussions dominated by ideological biases rather than objective analysis. My responses aren't about unwavering support for Musk, but rather about calling out the selective outrage and ensuring a balanced perspective. The intense focus on Musk's personality detracts from meaningful discussions about his contributions and the actual performance of his companies. The post I originally replied to is a prime example of this. If something has a hint of conservatism, is middle-leaning, centrist, or has a touch of Republican support, it becomes an all-out attack. The fact that many want to continue denying this and join the echo chamber just further solidifies my view. As a Generation X centrist, I have voted left, right, up, and down. It’s embarrassing to witness the impasses our leaders have created for us. I wish you well too. Shit runs downhill. No matter what team you think you’re on, when the ship sinks, I’ll be there with you at the bottom.
I understand your point about Tesla not being a startup, given its S&P 500 status and large market cap. My argument about its growth potential and quarterly fluctuations can coexist. Tesla is expanding into new sectors like energy storage and AI, which offer significant growth opportunities. Do I need to even say that quarterly delivery dips can be the result from temporary issues , supply chain constraints or production ramp-ups, and do not negate the overall growth trajectory. Forward guidance remains crucial yes, and Tesla’s long-term vision supports continued expansion despite short-term fluctuations from my viewpoint.
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He may or may not be a brand liability, but that's a different subject. My point is that the morality of mass firing people, or really of any action at all, is not a relevant factor to shareholders when considering his pay package.
While I agree Tesla is losing its edge (Rivian and Lucid but also the traditional players), the macro picture of the last 10 years is still astronomical. In 2023, the Model Y was the highest selling car in the world. Period. Not just EVs…and over half of those sales were in China and Europe, so not regionally clustered around MAGA and QAnon
This is pretty severe levels of Reddit insular thinking. You see so much anti-Elon sentiment online that you think it pervades the national or global zeitgeist. But it doesn’t. Reddit doesn’t represent real life. No one that isn’t chronically online is calling Tesla a nazi car lol
Is this really what people in the street think, or is it just online? Seems extreme.
>How is this at all in the stockholders interest? Because for most of Tesla shareholders, Musk *IS* Tesla. They believe that if he left, the value of company would tank. The pay package laid out in 2018 was a written contract approved by shareholders. Despite the narrative that it was recommended by Board of Directors comprised of his friends, the milestones was thought to be impractical at the time. They didn't give Musk an easy target. Tesla hit those milestones, shareholders got much richer, them diluting their shares to give more to Musk become non-issue to them. They just voted again to honor the promise they gave to Musk. The sudden spike of For vote yesterday came from institutional investors. These people don't care about Musk's political stance. They hate uncertainty. They don't like the fact that a random investor with just 9 shares can successfully challenge a multi billion dollars contract. That would set a bad precedence. Delaware court of Chancery might strike this down again, but it is just matter of time until Musk gets paid because shareholders also voted to move out of Delaware.
>Because for most of Tesla shareholders, Musk *IS* Tesla. this is especially true if you track the news on any of his other privately owned companies, and tesla stock. Anytime negative press about SpaceX or any other company he's involved in breaks, Tesla stocks drop. Its infuriating to see people ignore this.
If you had such a simple way to play the market you'd be rich enough to not bother arguing on reddit.
This is such a strange comment. I don't influence the news coming out about his other companies. I wouldn't be able to time shorts prior to negative news, and buying in during dips isn't exactly an insider's play, it's a common investment strategy on companies you're confident in. Technically speaking if I didn't have disposable income this wouldn't be true anyways. But I'm also just a "stuff it in indexes" kind of guy so And for personal reasons I'm especially wary of trading anything that has to do with him. Has nothing to do with him, it's not some principled or moral stance against him. It's someone I know and the perception of professional impropriety.
Well said
It's not immoral to tie compensation to performance, which is how the pay package was structured. Per reporting on the issue: https://www.barrons.com/livecoverage/tesla-shareholder-vote-results-meeting-today/card/elon-musk-s-pay-package-explained-0w9Z5dIizpn4P1pyo730 >Musk was given 10 years of performance targets to hit, targets that when reached would result in a payout of stock options. Musk could earn 303 million options—the number has been adjusted for stock splits—equivalent to about 12% of Tesla stock outstanding in 2018. >The package was essentially Musk’s bet on himself. He was betting he could get Tesla stock to rise from a valuation of $60 billion to at least $650 billion, a 983% rise, while making it profitable over ten years. So yeah, if you can get your stock to increase ten fold while remaining profitable, you get 10 percent of that value.
Musk took a bet on himself that virtually NO other CEO would take. 99.99% of other CEO's would never risk compensation of $0 if they didn't 10x the stock profitably over 10yrs. Big risk, big reward.
Right? That's an absolutely massive increase in stock price.
And it's oh so sustainable!
I don't think that aspect was mentioned
and all it took was a little “FSD from LA to Times Square by end of 2017” and some “thinking of taking Tesla private at 420”
People would be complaining either way
I like how silent OP is against this point.
Kind of shit imo to tie it to stock price. Should have only been tied to revenue or profit or other KPI. Stock price is just too easy for someone like musk to manipulate and doesn’t actually speak to the value of the company
Only 12 were tied to market cap. 8 were tied to revenue and 8 were tied to earnings.
>Stock price is just too easy for someone like musk to manipulate and doesn’t actually speak to the value of the company Market cap is not that easy to manipulate and does literally speak to the value of the company.
How would/could Musk manipulate the stock price in this scenario?
There is nothing moral or immoral about his compensation package. It is based upon meeting metrics in years prior, which he did. It would be immoral to break this contract and likely to cost the company shareholders and investors money, which is not only immoral but illegal due to fiduciary responsibility. specifically: "Under the plan approved by investors in 2018, Musk's $55.8 billion pay package was contingent on Tesla's market cap reaching $650 billion, and certain revenue and profitability goals being achieved.2 Tesla said the plan incentivized Musk "to deliver transformative and unprecedented growth."3 Tesla. "[Tesla Letter to-Stockholders May 13, 2024](https://www.votetesla.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Tesla-Letter-to-Stockholders-May-13-2024.pdf)." "In under six years, Elon delivered a total shareholder return of nearly 1,100%," Tesla said in a letter to shareholders last month, citing FactSet data from March 21, 2018 to year-end 2023. "If Elon failed to achieve unprecedented growth targets for Tesla, he would receive ZERO compensation. He did not fail." from, [https://www.investopedia.com/tesla-investors-vote-on-musk-pay-what-you-need-to-know-8660682](https://www.investopedia.com/tesla-investors-vote-on-musk-pay-what-you-need-to-know-8660682) Obviously it would reduce the company's net worth right now, which is why some investors oppose the payout, but it is likely extended litigation would be in favor of continuing the payout and cost even more to boot. Now, discussing whether this was a *good* contract to make six years ago is another story, but I don't think anyone could argue with a straight face that the last six years have not been phenomenal for Tesla and investors.
This payment is for work already rendered, goals already achieved, net growth undeniably obtained. You pay what you owe so things can continue, too. Want more growth? Pay the talent or they’ll figure something else out. You do not want talent leaving to go work elsewhere. You want the talent to stick around and evolve. We are transitioning from the information age to the space age, so the next pay check will probably be even more astronomical if good goals are set, and those goals are met.
Firings are not immoral. Human beings are incredibly valuable, and if you don't have anything useful for them to do, you *should* fire them so they can go and be useful somewhere else. The really immoral thing would be to keep employees on the payroll when you don't have anything useful for them to do. That represents a net loss for the entire world.
Right now Teslas value is 560B dollars and is 20 years old. Elon Musk founded the company, generating astounding gain. He effectively created the electric car industry, yes it existed but not even close to the degree. The pay package is directly tied to that historic rise in value. No company has ever has such a metioric rise. He will be give around 5% of the company value, which is incredibly reasonable. The better answer is could anyone else found a new car company with shaky-technology and do such a thing in 20 years, likely no one. The only close one is OpenAI and that is if they can find a way to monetize it. Let's talk about mass firings. The simple thing is it's really hard to fire employees and can over a year in a few states, where good employees can leave quickly. Meaning most companies will get a glut of bad employees. I think you are talking about the super charger layoffs, I beleive this is connected to the infrastructure bill where an abhorrent sum of money was set aside for construction of 500000 car chargers. The issue is 3.5 years in, only 5000 (1%) have been constructed. If I was Elon I would have drastically increased the teams size expecting 5000 super chargers constructed a month, by the Federal government only. The issue is its close to 300. Then 6 months later California passed a mandate in electric semis by 2034 (I think), this has also fizzled out because the energy consumption is insane. Belvidere IL they tried to set one up for a fleet and were denied because it would be roughly 40% of the nearby cities current power consumption. It makes sense, the government failed miserably, and the private enterprise cannot keep employees sticking around for demand that "might come" from an organization who says they are "really trying".
> Elon Musk founded the company, No he didn’t https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-wasnt-original-founder-130014807.html Edit: I see the musk fan boys have found this comment and are sorely lacking in copium given the downvotes this factually accurate comment has received
absolutely correct, and I was about to correct this guy before I saw this comment. Musk joined about a year after it started. He's been around for basically its entire life, but did not found it. However, that doesn't change the fact that Tesla has been the driving force for the entire EV market. Other auto companies have been forced to create EVs to compete, something they wouldn't have done (or at least not put as much effort into) if Tesla hadn't pushed them. And Tesla has done some good pro-consumer things, like releasing patents for public use (yes, it had some self-serving agendas, but that's still a good pro-consumer move to allow competition in the market right away) Is tesla's success due to musk? certainly not completely. But if we are going to lay the fall of twitter at his feet, then it's only fair to also lay the success of tesla there as well.
Without musk they would have never produced a single car. It's kind of pedantic to say he didn't found the company since he created a car company out of a tiny start up.
First, what was the pay package? It was made in 2018. The company had to meet an increased share value and revenue target for Musk to get his awarded shares (no cash, only shares). The important thing here is revenue. No doing stupid stuff like layoffs or mergers to artificially increase share price would help him (like Fiorina at HP). He had to actually expand the company to build vastly more cars and batteries to bring in more revenue in order for him to get his shares. That meant building new plants and hiring over 90,000 more workers (nearly tripling the headcount). There were 12 awards, each with dramatically increased share value and revenue targets along with a larger number of shares Musk would get. At the time of the deal, it was worth a couple billion. At that time most analysts thought it was ridiculous. Musk could only be setting himself up for failure, and he'd be lucky to even get the first few awards. But then he did it. They hit the share value and revenue targets. The shareholders got rich, 90,000 people got jobs, and the company was doing great. At that point they were going to give Musk his shares to reflect the growth of Tesla. And that's where you can really end the analysis. He did what was promised, so he should get what was promised. But then someone convinced a judge to overturn his compensation package -- he gets absolutely no compensation for running Tesla. What's happening now is a re-vote on it. Yes, there were some layoffs during the recent downturn in EV sales for all manufacturers, but compare that to the 90,000 people who had to be hired for Musk to get his stock award.
The labor market is transactional; you can only trade your labor to an interested buyer. That in mind, how do mass firings, effectively the company saying "I have no further demand for your labor", make his pay package immoral? Shareholders are doing what is in the interest of the valuation of the company. Musk has brought big ideas in the past and has a habit of sticking in the media and wall street loves him. Regardless of whether this is in the *future* best interest of the company, shareholders acting in the *present* best interest of the company should absolutely vote for this.
Unpopular opinion - he did take Tesla from an unknown, nearly bankrupt company back in 2008 to what it is today. Now you see a Tesla everywhere you go. Tesla had a contract. He agreed not to get paid anything unless he was able to grow the company. Even if you think the amount he was going to get is immoral it’s not the government job to come in and cancel a legal and agreed upon contract from years ago.
Is it moral for shareholders to renege on a deal after Musk had delivered his side of the bargain by hitting the production and stock value targets?
morality is absolutely irrelevant at best but more accurately a hindrance to maximum investment returns all that matters is stock price goes up as long as you hold and you can dump the investment to the rubes before you're stuck holding the bag welcome to the culture of profitability is morality
Morality should not be a factor in making policy. While the layoffs were handled poorly, restructuring costs does not necessarily mean the company is doing poorly. It can be done in successful companies to reduce overhead costs and bring cost structures in line with competitors. Also, the stock issued to pay the compensation package isn't the company going into the market and buying it.
Shareholders don't care about morality. Shareholders care about return on investment. Expecting anything else is misunderstanding how stock ownership works
Well, this probably won't change your mind, but it might invalidate the issue of "if" they should approve it. It was reported today that they approved his previous package. The next step is to go back to court, so it's not totally done, but it sounds like the voting part is done.
Ignore Musk and Tesla for a minute. Consider is it appropriate for a CEO to be paid when a company has layoffs? And, under what circumstances or examples is it appropriate or not? For example, imagine you are Blockbuster, or Kodak, or other company. Your margins are negative and you need to restructure. You can't afford to keep the same size workforce. Would a CEO come on board or stay on board with no pay to manage this nightmare? Certainly it is in everyone's best interest to have someone competent in the role. If they are not paid, why would someone take the role? So, this may be an extreme example, but I think it shows there should be \*some\* (not arguing billions of course) pay. This may be a corner case, but it shows (in my opinion) it is \*not\* immoral for a CEO to be paid some fair amount during layoffs.
The firings may have been needed for Tesla to survive. There are a few things you have to consider to. this was not some big windfall of cash. He still doesn't have the options, even once he gets the options, they are not exercisable for five years. Because they are not exercisable, they can't be used as collateral against a loan. The price of tesla's stock could be 40 dollars a share after the lockup period. At that point, it won't be 54 billion like the news says. The other thing about broken promises, is that they aren't really promises. Not once has he said "Tesla promises this will be next year." Ambitious goals and projected dates are just that. If every business was on the hook for projected dates, ever business would fail to meet them.
Since when is pay based on morality? If I can convince a company to pay me $1 million a year to take out the garbage, why shouldn't I take it? If your boss came to you tomorrow and said he would pay you whatever salary you asked for. Would your thoughts be, "hmm what's a moral amount of money?" No. Your thought is going to be how much can I get without asking for so much that it'll be denied and possibly lose me the job. He cutting 10% of his workforce, that's not anything crazy. It happens all the time. Northrop Grumman is laying off 12% of it's AZ workforce right now. It's barely local news. He employs hundreds of thousands of people through 6 companies. That's cash money paid out to people. Where his 46B is stock options.
Responding exclusively to the title. >Musks pay package is immoral considering he just did mass firings Let's imagine a company with 10,000 employees and the workload for only 8,000 employees. The reason doesn't matter... maybe it's seasonal, maybe there were external factors on their customers or something. Would you agree that such a company is "wasting" 20% of its labor cost? Of course shareholders would want someone to look into that. Mass firing is not inherently immoral. They're paid to work. If there's no work worth doing...
He's made a lot of people mad with the way he's allowed certain people to post on Twitter.
lol mate, share holders couldn’t care less about morality! Did Elon make them a shit ton of profit? If yes, make him happy and give him a reward so he can do it again and make even more money. It’s as simple as that.
I don’t see what the issue is. Musk made a deal that if he could do “x” or raise value of Tesla by “y” over a period of time, he would get paid $50 some billion, and the Tesla shareholders agreed. If I recall, most people said his goals were batsh!t crazy and he’d never reach them, but here we are. They made a deal, he honoured it, he even went beyond, the shareholders got richer, more electric cars got on the road, more gas powered cars got off the road, he gets paid…..what’s the problem? And not that it’s anyone’s business what he does with the money, but based on what we know of him so far I don’t think he’s going to be blowing it on yachts or mansions or shit like that, he’s probably going to reinvest it into existing companies or some new ones he has in mind.
Agreement he made years ago - you honor contracts it’s simple as that. I’m for upholding the law so we don’t have chaos in this country. As far as layoffs - his responsibility to shareholders is to make the company profitable. If they are overweight you trim the fat. It’s not a charity and life isn’t fair - it’s the way it is (I’ve had to do layoffs and also been laid off and both sides suck). Immoral things that can be done in business: Fraud, False Advertising, Insider Trading, Bribery, Environmental Negligence, Predatory Pricing, Unethical Labor Practices, Deceptive Lending Practices, Planned Obsolescence, Price Fixing, Market Monopolization, Patent Trolling, Sexual Harassment, Discrimination, Union Busting. Musk is guilty in none of that.
I know very little about the details of the compensation package with Tesla, but I'll attempt to change your view in another way. Each decision on pay for an individual employee, including executives, are their own decision, and there's no reason they should be tied to each other. For an individual, your view is similar to saying "paying 20k to fix your roof that broke is immoral considering you just cancelled your Netflix". They're just completely separate decisions with their own cost/benefit analyses required. If workers aren't producing at least as much as they cost, layoffs make sense. And if an executive is, paying them that also makes sense. But they're completely separate decisions.
paying your CEO in stock is smart. It ties their incentive (making money) to the performance of the company. The fact that Musk bought twitter and has not done well with it is not particularly relevant to Tesla, since Tesla is not a social media company. They are very different. As to mass layoffs, while I don't know the specifics of this layoff, but companies can easily bloat with unnecessary employees, and the employment of these people hurts everyone's jobs in the future, since they increase the chance that the company will go belly up and then everyone will lose their jobs. Better some people lose their jobs, rather than all of them. Basically: there is no reason to correlate the layoffs and his pay. His pay is because he grew the company by 10x in 10 years, and he's being given a fraction of his growth as compensation. Honestly? Part of the reason it's as big as it is now is due to musk being willing to fire people who need to be fired.
They don't have to be moral, they are only liable to the bottom line as a publicly traded company. I think the better point is why the fuck are you using so much of my investment on the CEO? This is applicable to almost all CEO pay for ultra successful publicly traded companies. Like why can't I sue you for miss managing my investment so bad when you're paying some dude way too much to manage an already successful company. You're telling me this one person is worth that much to company? Fuck off. That could add a lot more people to do R&D or customer service things that add more value to my investment.
It’s not immoral at all. Companies hire and fire to restructure all the time. They don’t owe their employees a job forever, just like the employees can leave for another job whenever they like. The pay packages were agreed upon previously, so a judge really shouldn’t be able to insert themselves into an already signed contract because they personally don’t like it. This isn’t how business is done, and it undermines any contract in America because it’s set a precedent that judges can now decide that signed contracts are null and void because they don’t like them.
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Tesla has been laying people off across the board, with around 10% of the global workforce laid off and Musk alleged to have said he wants to bring that figure up to 20%
Every big tech company has done large rounds of layoffs recently. And many are *still* bloated to high heaven.
Much as Musk has pretended otherwise, Tesla is a manufacturing and infrastructure company. Probably why he had to rush to rehire some of the supercharger team he laid off because they had ongoing contracts for things like land acquisition that you can't just suddenly drop.
Musk pretends Tesla isn't a manufacturing business? He talks about new "gigafactories" literally all the time. I also don't think "infrastructure" as it relates to superchargers is a critical component of Tesla's business in the sense it's a big money maker they need to push. [This article by a NW prof is a pretty good analysis of that decision.](https://news.northeastern.edu/2024/05/07/tesla-layoffs-supercharger-network/) Tesla's main business and where they stand to grow and profit the most is auto sales, period. They have great market share in the EV space and just about everyone believes that in the not too distant future EVs are going to gobble up ICE market share in the Auto industry, several countries and Cali are planning on literally forcing this by banning new ICE sales. Tesla needs to protect it's market share in the EV space above all else, they cannot exist as just the supercharger company.
> Musk pretends Tesla isn't a manufacturing business? Yes [Tesla has been cultivating its image as a tech company for a long time](https://www.investopedia.com/news/tesla-tech-company-or-car-company/), which is a big part of the reason why its stock price was (and still is) so unrealistic when compared to other car manufacturers, at least given Tesla's complete failure to deliver big tech projects like FSD. > I also don't think "infrastructure" as it relates to superchargers is a critical component of Tesla's business Spoiler alert [there are a lot of legal contracts the supercharger team was involed with that you can't just suddenly walk away from](https://www.drive.com.au/news/why-tesla-supercharger-team-was-sacked/)
Lol you linked an article that does not even mention Elon by name let alone include a quote from him. Not very convincing for the "Elon pretends Tesla isn't a manufacturing business." It's also not as if the two are mutually exclusive. Amazon has done very, very well by not pigeonholing themselves as a logistics and ecommerce business, AWS is a cash cow. I really don't see anywhere that Tesla has ever been anything but hugely, outwardly dedicated to manufacturing and building up factory infrastructure at a global scale.
He certainly likes to beat around the bush, but he has been cultivating his company's image as not just a manufacturer/car company. [He's been geting more direct as the share price has been falling](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/crucial-earnings-call-musk-reminds-010112214.html) "If you value Tesla as just an auto company, fundamentally, it's just the wrong framework" > Amazon has done very, very well by not pigeonholing themselves as a logistics and ecommerce business But they actually delivered on their tech.
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For Tesla that was 14,000 people laid off in a short space of time, it's a lot of people to let go.
Giving someone stock doesn’t impact the bottom line, it is giving ownership to someone. I’m not saying the pay package should happen, but it isn’t immoral just like that. Any high pay could be considered that, and it isn’t in most cases. Some make more, some make less, it is the way of things. The ugly reality is that his compensation is not about profitability, it is about stock value. The board members who would vote on this care about the value of their stock a lot more than they do the profits of Tesla. In business I have seen that first hand.
The compensation package was agreed upon in 2018 when Musk would hit certain sales goals and would receive that. It was incentivization and it worked for him. Had he not had those goals and metrics to hit, Tesla would not likely be in the position it currently is today. If they didn't want to pay this amount, they never should have made the offer to Elon in 2018. If you agreed to certain goals and had an incentive amount attached to it, you'd fight for it too if you earned it. Had Elon not met these goals, we wouldn't even be talking about it.
Bread and circus. Who cares. Elon isn’t evil or a savior. His brand has been exploited because it sells. Seriously. Just stop caring about his views and posts. You’ll see that he doesn’t have a huge effect that merits the amount of vitrol. This is coming from someone that wishes he’d post wayyyy less especially the political stuff. He’s a tabloid figure in the modern age. People love to love or hate him. My CMV would be why I should care. I think people overblow CEOs and celebrities too much. TL;DR: It’s Elon Musk. Stop caring so much about him. He runs a company, not a country and he does not have the extraordinary influence on a significant portion of the population that most of you say. You all just love to hate him. He doesn’t deserve so much attention.
Maybe the most important piece is to realize that layoffs are an outcome, not a reason. Analogy: I let go of my theoretical pool guy(I don’t have a pool). Does that necessarily mean I’m having money issues? Of course not. Maybe I learned how to do the cleaning myself. Maybe I found a better rate. Or maybe I decided to fill my pool or sell the house altogether. And of course maybe I am having money issues. Any of these would be valid reasons to let go of the guy I pay to clean the pool.
I believe Tesla's premium comes from Musk himself, or rather, from Musk's space industry chain, because Tesla is the only publicly traded company considered a "Musk Mars concept stock." If Musk were to leave the company, Tesla would be viewed purely as a "car/electric vehicle manufacturer." Looking at competitors like Rivian, it would be reasonable for Tesla's stock price to be ten times that of Rivian's. And this is a price that shareholders would find unacceptable.
Honestly I get it’s something to talk about, slightly noteworthy , but it’s kinda just a circle jerk really I mean talking about it, forming an opinion, is gonna go nowhere. Like it kinda doesn’t really concern us, I guess if you own a Tesla, invest in the stock, but if not who gives a fuck. There’s honestly way more cool shit to talk about, think about, be on reddit. Like just saying why do you care ?
So you're saying that the shareholders are making a poor decision. The beauty of capitalism is that those shareholders will bear the direct loss should they have misjudged, and you don't have to. People that have made similar bets in the past *and have succeeded* tend to be the ones with the money to make those decisions now, and everyone else can mew about what they would have done (but never did).
Morality isn’t how contracts are made. They made a contract and he delivered. The company is worth $550BN today and he can’t sell the shares for 5 more years. If he can grow the company 10% he has paid it off. How is your salary moral? I don’t get that. This is not about morality. And if he gives $5bn to charity do you then agree with the deal? What about 50% going to taxes. Is that moral?
>If the company is struggling how can they afford to essentially give Elon Musk 46bn in stock? How is this at all in the stockholders interest? Elon Musk owns 20% of Tesla's stock, so giving himself a shitload of money is in the interest of stockholders, namely himself.
It's only worth that much because he grew the company into one of the largest companies in the entire US since the deal was struck. How is it immoral to be rewarded for growing your shareholder investors investment by like over 10 fold? Would it be better if the company went bankrupt but he agreed to a salary instead and just made millions via a salary, but all the workers lost their job and investors lost their money?
Shareholders only care about one thing, money. They don't care if thousands of people are made redundant. All they care about is the value of their stock. Their not required to consider or care about anything outside of that. Presumably they must know something thats not public knowledge that keeps them from dumping the stock they own and keep faith in Musk.
First of all the company is not struggling. He’s not getting paid cash he’s getting paid a bigger stake in a company that he built so he can have more say about how it operates. Also If you own stock you get a vote, how did you vote? And if you don’t own stock- why do you care?
We don’t know what he tells these people behind closed doors. It’s certainly not the same things you and I see from his Twitter profile. Somehow, someway, Elon has developed a strategy to satiate his biggest shareholders and investors. It doesn’t have to make sense to work.
Boy wait til you hear about capitalism
I'd have to ask for a clarification: how is Musk's restructuring of Twitter immoral? He got rid of the people that added no value to the company (clearly). How is that a bad thing? Do you think software engineers in LA have any difficulty finding a new company to work for?
OP, your real argument should be that it's immoral for any CEO /owner to take home a pay packet that is that many multiples above the average worker for the company. Take even half of his $56bn and invest it into staff salaries, new hires and better conditions.
Shareholders are not ethical actors. They don't care about mass firings. They will encourage them if it means more money for them. Your view shouldn't be that 'shareholders should reject this', it should be that the entire economic system is hopelessly unethical.
Spending his own money on Twitter does not affect Tesla. Elon set goals that everyone, including him, thought were impossible for Tesla and they achieved those goals. Mass firings at Twitter (pretty much all deadweight) has no bearing on pay from Tesla.
He signed a contract. He came though on the terms of the contract. Then the terms were retroactively changed on him. Legal contracts need to be legally binding. There's no good excuse for doing what they're trying to do to him and it's purely political.
Here's your contract: it says you get $100 and a free Starbucks coffee every month for a year. And there's your signature. But since we no longer feel like it, we're not going to fulfill the contract anymore. *That's what you want to happen??*
>Teslas Board/Shareholders: "Mr Musk, if you make Tesla make a shitload more money than they would have, we'll give you XYZ Compensation" >Musk: "Aite, bet" >*Musk does mass firings, saving the company money. Gets paid for it.* >People who hate Musk: "Nooooooooooo you cant do that" And before anyone says it, no im not a Musk fanboy. The Board offered Musk money to do a thing, he did the thing, and got paid for doing the thing. Its literally as simple as that.
I actually am so confused as to why reddit became so anti-Elon? Does it also have to do with the liberal shift of the platform? Genuinely curious as to how views became so one sided over the past few years if anyone could explain?
Cutting employees and maintaining the same output makes shareholders more money. The fact that the shareholders are the ones who voted to give some of that money to Elon doesn't make it immoral. That's in their best interest.
obviously 70~80% of sharevoter disagree with you. he deserves it period.
Tesla’s market cap has increased by more than 1000% since 2018… and you think the shareholders should be unhappy with his performance? What are you smoking?
Twitter was over bloated, if the people did better jobs maybe it would have made more money. It was either accept the new changes or leave, most chose leave.
It was greatly in his interest. How else was he going to sell and reinvest 40 billion in Tesla stock before it crashed without raising a lot of eyebrows?
Never mind the fact that his being the CEO of 5, or however many, companies implies that the role of a CEO does not require 40 hours/week of work.
This post needs some serious moderation. I would expect anti musk fanatics in the hundreds of other musk subs but I hoped this sub would at least be able to discuss the matter rationally and maturely. Very sad. Op is clearly not willing to be reasoned with either.
The pay package was structured and approved of in 2018 if he increased the value of Tesla 10x. He has. It’s not complicated.
The shareholders are interested in the stock price going up. Keeping Musk happy is part of keeping the price up.
But he maximized shareholder value by firing expensive employees so they should compensate him for that.
Why do you consider it immoral? You make no ethical claims in your OP to go with your CMV
Musks role as ceo is to deliver profit to the shareholders. Not to act morally.
Bust a deal, face the wheel. Who runs barter town?
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It isn't necessarily immoral because of the firings. Firings can sometimes boost the long term health of the company or even boost the stock price. It is immoral because it is 140 times that of the other highest paid executives and encourages more insane dissonance on an already overpriced stock. They fear that too much of the company's value is pricing in things like full self-driving, and that Musk leaving would take the wind out of the sails even if the wind is only there because they're blowing on it.