TJ Walker breaks down Elon Musk's trillion-dollar compensation demand and the pressure he put on shareholders. Tesla's profits fell 37%, Musk called proxy advisors 'corporate terrorists', and the deal would raise his stake from 13% to nearly 30%.
Questions this video answers
37%.
'corporate terrorists'.
From 13% to nearly 30%.
One trillion dollars.
TJ Walker.
Chapters
Elon Musk's trillion dollar ultimatum. Tesla's profits plunged 37%. But Elon Musk didn't apologize. According to Dealbook, he used the quarterly earnings call to pressure shareholders into approving a trillion dollar compensation package, calling proxy advisors corporate terrorists for opposing him. The plan could raise Musk Tesla control from 13% to nearly 30%. His justification, only he can deliver the future of robo taxis, humanoid bots and AI driven factories. Musk says he needs, quote, more control to execute his vision. Critics call it a hostage. Note to investors, reward me or risk losing me. Look, Elon Musk, by all accounts when it comes to business, not necessarily running governments or managing a smooth family life, but when it comes to creating businesses, has had a remarkable string of successes. Not one or two, but numerous successes. So I'm not here telling you Elon Musk is a moron and he should work for free. That's not my message at all. But at some point people have to point out the Emperor's wearing no clothes at least some of the time. Elon Musk is running, you know, at one point half a dozen companies, plus the entire federal government. Thankfully, he's no longer running the US Federal government. Government. But he doesn't really seem to be giving full attention to Tesla. I mean, I remember seeing when Tesla's first came out, wow, this is like the space age. But when I get into a Tesla today, it feels no different, it looks no different. Its sense of luxury is no different than cars from a dozen years ago. Meanwhile, there are companies that have spun off from his former employees of his have started car companies and their cars are much more luxurious. At some point, I think the market is going to have a moment of reckoning on the stock price for Tesla because it is. This is not my unique observation, it's an observation by a lot of people that it's essentially a meme stock at this point. There's absolutely no correlation with its revenues and its profits and its earnings to its market cap and its stock price. It's all crazy, out of whack because so many people buy into this idea of, oh, Elon, you're Tony Stark, you're larger than life, you're this brilliant character, you can do no wrong. Okay, he's done a lot, but he also lies all the time. He also says, you know, in two years we'll have robo taxis, you know, a billion of them everywhere. That's a slight exaggeration, but only slightly. And he was saying that for the last dozen years he's constantly over promising and under delivering it. Now, there certainly was a time when Tesla was unique. They were the real trailblazer, there's no doubt about it. But these days, everybody's making electric cars. And here's the dirty little secret Tesla doesn't want you to know. A huge percentage of them are making better cars than Tesla. They have surpassed the engineering capabilities of Tesla. So look, does Elon Musk deserve a lot of money from creating something from almost nothing? Let's not forget he didn't found Tesla. A lot of people think that, but he certainly turned it into a big player. Does he deserve a lot of money? Sure. I am not one of those, like Bernie Sanders who says there should be no billionaires in America. I don't think that we should put a cap on what someone earns if they're going to do tremendously risky things. And he is by all accounts someone who has risked his entire net worth tons of times, especially for Tesla, willing to risk it all. If you're willing to risk everything you own, yeah, I think you deserve some upside if things work out, and they have worked out for Tesla. But the idea that his board of directors is going to think, wow, we better give him a trillion or he won't be adequately compensated, he won't be motivated to work hard, that just seems incredulous. That just seems bizarre to me that any actual independent board would come to that conclusion. Of course it's not an independent board. The problem with so many tech companies, this one included, is the board is stacked with cronies. The board is stacked with henchmen and yes men. And the structure already is he. Musk owns so much, he basically gets what he wants. So he's got to appeal to the board, but he also has to appeal to courts in Delaware to get this payment. And I think at some point, I'm not saying he wears no clothes, he is an emperor, but I would say the emperor is scantily clad quite often, especially when he has to spend seemingly 20 hours a day doing nonsensical tweets, attacking anyone who doesn't agree with him and attacking everyone as a part of a far radical left if they don't instantly agree with him. He really seems like someone who has jumped the shark. He's just gone too far. He's been surrounded by so many people for so long now, saying, hey boss, you're the biggest genius in the world, you're the richest man in the world, you're the smartest man in the world, you can do no wrong. Anyone who opposes you is an idiot. That is essentially where we are today with Elon Musk. And, yeah, is he a smart guy? Sure. Is he smarter than I am? Okay, sure. But he's not infallible. And he doesn't deserve all the money and all the profits and all the ownership of every single company. He. That is the bottom line there.
