In a series of posts on X Monday night, Musk said that he would not want to grow Tesla to become a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics without a compensation plan that would give him ownership of around 25% of the company’s stock. That would be about double the roughly 13% stake he currently owns.

Just casually asking for a roughly 80 Billion dollar pay raise. But at this point would Tesla be better off without him?

        • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          9 months ago

          Hard to say. Cars put out before the Model 3 were typically not sold at large quantities. So the lower runs were sold to rich people or fanboys at first and it’s hard to get an honest long term review about them.

          From what I’ve seen though, their earlier cars weren’t filled with tech like the newer ones which meant less points of failure so I’m betting the older ones were at least somewhat better.

        • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          9 months ago

          I can’t really speak for the early models but all the ones in recent years, so mostly the Model 3 I think, were plagued with issues.

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          9 months ago

          I’ve driven in a Model S from before the Model 3 came out (2015 or 2016, IIRC), and the build quality was worse than the Model 3.

          Significantly worse than the Skoda Fabia I bought almost new for £12k at around the same time. That thing isn’t flashy but man it’s put together solidly. Nothing rattles, nothing wobbles, all stitching is consistent, no glued-on materials are peeling off, the panels line up consistently everywhere, the paint is thick. None of that was true for the Tesla.

          Don’t get me wrong, part of me enjoyed driving in that Model S, the acceleration was insane, but the build quality was absolutely appalling.

          I thought it was just car reviewers who are used to high end Mercs, Bentleys, and BMWs, needlessly trashing Tesla, and that the build quality would be fine. But it wasn’t, if anything they go way too easy on Tesla.

      • AshMan85@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        47
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        9 months ago

        Well considering telsa isn’t even the #1 ev any more? I guess anything else.

          • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            9 months ago

            IMHO, Polestars have a MUCH nicer cabin than Telsa. Also, Android Automotive with CarPlay.

            • guacupado@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              9 months ago

              The console is obnoxiously large though. I rented one and it felt like being back in a HMMWV.

              • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                9 months ago

                Yeah, they should’ve taken a page out of the S60. That center console has some weird decisions.

                I’ll still gladly take the Volvo / Polestar interior over Telsa’s cheap minimalist interior.

        • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          9 months ago

          Just found out Volvo is owned by a Chinese investment group, not sure how I feel about supporting that either.

          Is it even possible to ethically buy a car in this day and age?

          • ski11erboi@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            9 months ago

            I felt the same way but ended up going with a volvo anyway because Chinese Investment or not, the company does at least try to make an effort to be more safe, ethical, and sustainable. Given the alternatives I made the decision that volvo was still the right car for me.

          • sir_reginald@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            9 months ago

            what’s the difference between a Chinese investment group and a US investment group? They are both terrible. There’s no ethical mega corp, I’m afraid.

      • jqubed@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        9 months ago

        I would buy from a company that knows how to build cars already so the difference is mostly a new power train, not an entirely new product. That’s not to say Tesla, Lucid, or Rivian can’t build a good product, but there are more unknowns with them. As with any car, be careful buying the first model year.

      • brick@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        9 months ago

        The Ford Mach-E is excellent. I have also heard great things about Kia/Hyundai, VW and Volvo EVs as well.

        In 2016 I drove a Tesla Model S P85D and I was surprised at how crappy the interior was considering it was a six figure car. And I don’t mean minimalist, I mean poor quality.

        Back then, Tesla was you only real option. Today, there’s a lot of great competition in the market.

        • DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          9 months ago

          VW and Volvo both make some pretty bad EV’s IME, they have a ton of software issues and the entire infotainment system is insanely slow and buggy, which is a big problem when thats the main interface to the car. The interior is also very low quality. But these are probably general issues for them though and not strictly their EVs.

        • jflorez@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          9 months ago

          I have a Hyundai Kona Electric and it is fantastic. My next car will be the next version on the Kona EV in a few years

      • Optional@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        9 months ago

        Exactly. At the moment we’re just watching the Tesla board grit their teeth and look worried. By the time they get around to Doing What Needs To Be Done, will it be too late?

        Same for SpaceX. No one will ever give a shit about Twitter again already.

        • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          9 months ago

          we’re just watching the Tesla board grit their teeth and look worried.

          Bad strategy IMHO. Coupling their fate to one person’s ever declining mental health cannot bring anything else than their decline.

    • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      37
      ·
      9 months ago

      I’d argue we’re at the point where that would be a good business move too. It wouldn’t fix my main issue of but allowing 3rd party repairs so I wouldn’t buy one, but I know several people who have bought other brands due to Elon.

    • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 months ago

      Definitely. His ideology also seems to be taking a different route than what’s compatible with an EV company.

      • sir_reginald@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        9 months ago

        the only ideology compatible with any company is capitalism. Do you think companies that make EVs do it for the greater good of the planet? No, they do it for profit.

        If Tesla gets rids of Musk it will be because he’s making the other shareholders loose money.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      9 months ago

      I’m not one of those people who will say Musk has done nothing for Tesla. The entire market wouldn’t have gone as quickly towards EVs without his leadership. No other company would have been (or has been) as aggressive on self-driving technologies, and he has pushed the entire market to try to keep up. They wouldn’t be where they are today without him.

      But now he’s just a liability. He does just as much harm as he does good. Unless you see coal rollers out there buying Teslas to show fealty to new, alt-right Musk (and I don’t), I can’t see what he’s continuing to provide to Tesla.

  • Zellith@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    113
    ·
    9 months ago

    He sold 10% to buy twitter. Maybe he shouldn’t have made himself legally obligated to buy it?

    • Goodie@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      48
      ·
      9 months ago

      Ding ding ding. We have a winner.

      He sold the shares, why should Tesla reimburse him for his folly? If he wants to have those shares back, he can rebuy them on the open market, just like anybody else would do.

    • badaboomxx@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      You are correct, and to this day if he hasn’t his family’s money, i guess he wouldn’t be as successful, I mean all.those bad decisions would made a small business going into the red really fast.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        29
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        9 months ago

        Why haven’t shareholders elected new board members? Or does his sycophants have the majority in combined total?

        • Hypx@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          42
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          9 months ago

          There’s good reason to believe that Tesla is an Enron-esque style fraud. No one in charge has shown any business acumen, and no one can explain how it is actually profitable. But that requires only stooges and yes-men on the board. There cannot be any accountability.

          • No1@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            9 months ago

            Every time I leave my house, I see dozens of Teslas driving around. If they’re not profitable, then they’re horrifically bad at making money. They’re ubiquitous. Pretty impressive market penetration for a business run by people who don’t know what they’re doing.

            • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              21
              ·
              9 months ago

              Their single biggest revenue stream is selling carbon credits. They’re basically a regulatory arbitrage business with a side hustle in cars.

              • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                11
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                9 months ago

                Just like Amazon who is a cloud computing company with a side hustle in e-tail or Google which is an ad company with a side hustle in tech.

                In general most people don’t really understand this about big companies.

                • guacupado@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  9 months ago

                  Yeah but in their cases the “hustle” got them the funds to move into their current space. Musk just had so much money that Tesla outlasted all the red it was in. Same thing going on with Twitter.

                  We all know it’ll never fully go under, he has too much money for it too. It’ll last long enough to sooner or later come back up.

            • Hypx@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              6
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              9 months ago

              Enron was a huge business that had millions of customers. It just happened to lose money while doing so. The crime was that they hid that last part.

              • Optional@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                9 months ago

                Also they deliberately turned off people’s power for more money. Like, scum-of-the-earth.

            • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              9 months ago

              Might be area dependant. Lots of them where I work at not many at all where I live at about an hour away.

          • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            9 months ago

            and no one can explain how it is actually profitable.

            Hang on a sec, its publicly trade company. Its pretty easy to see how its profitable especially compared to other legacy automakers.

            Tesla vs Ford numbers:

            On the other hand, “let’s look at Tesla and the Model 3. Tesla is aiming for 25% gross margin on the Model 3 and mid-teens profit margin (let’s say 14%). The average price of the Model 3 is projected at around $42,000… [so] the average gross margin on a Model 3 would be $10,500 and profit margin would be $5,880. Compared to Ford’s average vehicle profit margin of $1,100, the Model 3 would be 5x as profitable.” source

            Disclaimer: the source is from March of 2023 and Tesla has cut prices (which means less profit) since then, but they had a lot of room to do so with so much profit per car.

            So one could say that Tesla has been able to charge a premium for a cheaper car, or they’ve been able to reduce manufacturing cost for a moderately priced car. Both result in high margin returns for the company.

            • Hypx@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              9 months ago

              They have a direct sales model which is more expensive to operate and exaggerates profit margin. There’s also reason to believe they are wildly understating warranty costs plus ignoring R&D costs. People who look closely have consistently concluded that Tesla cannot really be making money, or have very narrow profit margins at best.

              Huge price cuts will compound these problems dramatically.

              • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                9 months ago

                They have a direct sales model which is more expensive to operate and exaggerates profit margin.

                How would adding a middleman that also has to make profit make the company earn less? Wouldn’t direct sales allow Tesla to sell for a higher price because they can sell at retail instead of a “wholesale” cost normally sold to a dealership?

                People who look closely have consistently concluded that Tesla cannot really be making money, or have very narrow profit margins at best.

                I’d be interested in reading more on this assertion. Do you have a source you can point me to?

                • Hypx@kbin.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  9 months ago

                  You have to build the entire system out yourself. That costs a lot of money. The dealership model also costs the manufacturer basically zero dollars, because it really profits on used car sales and maintenance works. You don’t make anymore money by having your own dealerships. The whole argument that there’s some secret behind Tesla’s business smacks of gaslighting, not something that actually holds up to reason.

                  It’s been a long standing issue with Tesla’s accounting. No one can really explain how profits are actually being generated going back years, especially considering everyone in the West is losing money on EVs. It’s also being ran entirely by sycophants and people with minimal qualifications, with zero accountability anywhere. So it just seems, via Occam’s razor, that they’re cooking the books.

                • rsuri@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  9 months ago

                  Not OP but regarding sources, there’s a group referred to as “TSLAQ” (Q referring to a letter typically added to bankrupt stock symbols, but they’re not entirely free of conspiratorial thinking) that’s been critical of TSLA and others including David Einhorn who have criticized their accounting practices. I’ve not had time to look much into it myself but see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla,_Inc.#Accounting

      • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        9 months ago

        Are you certain? I’m certain James is the one who broke the story about the drug use since its also his family that runs the WSJ

    • cowpowered@lemm.eeOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      23
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      9 months ago

      Tesla’s lofty stock price is to some extent based on hype, and Musk being credited (far too much imo) for the company’s success. If he did leave the stock price would come down to something more sensible, which at least short-term would make shareholders unhappy. But yeah leaving him in charge after what he did to Twitter must also be causing sleepless nights.

  • _sideffect@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    103
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    9 months ago

    He brings ZERO value to tesla after all his FSD lies and others were exposed.

    Sure people still fall for tesla crap, but he himself is useless now.

    • nbafantest@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      9 months ago

      If they could get someone boring like Tim Apple Cook, that just runs the company very well and profitably… Tesla would be sitting pretty good with their dominant place in the Electric market. The only reason most people dont pick tesla for an EV is literally Elon.

      • demesisx@infosec.pub
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        19
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        9 months ago

        Unfortunately, idiot Elon gets his grubby fingers ALL OVER every last piece of tech in the Tesla. It’s ALL shoddily engineered because of him. Like simple, time tested engineering concepts like redundancy? Elon would fire you. He eliminated redundancy in their FSD, choosing to rely solely on computer vision and machine learning. He literally had a good design for the sensor modules and got rid of it. Tim Cook doesn’t sabotage Apple’s engineering team like that.

        • CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          9 months ago

          The lidar removal really pissed me off. At best, a Tesla can “see” as well as the human driver. It seems to me that half of the point of using a computer to drive a vehicle should be that it can easily access sensors that us meat bags don’t have access to.

          Plus the stupid central instrument cluster in Model 3s and Model Ys is beyond idiotic.

      • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        The problem with Tesla is the problem Apple had for many years: Your CEO is the reason for the stock price. Apple had a plan for succession that saved them in the end, and they’ve never been better. Tesla has nothing. They are basically a carbon credit company run by a sycophant, and without Elon, they are nothing but a carbon credit company. If he departs, the stock price will crater/adjust.

        Last time we had a CEO get fired because they were bad was the OpenAI fiasco and that proved that we no longer live in reality, because Sam was back in a week.

        • nbafantest@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          9 months ago

          Apple had a plan, but Apple also had the iPhone and the MacBook. Literally the best smartphones and laptops you can buy.

          Tesla does have the best EVs and, in the US, charging network. I think saying “tesla has nothing” is a bit disingenuous. Outside of China, no company is even close to Tesla.

        • Taldan@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          9 months ago

          Sam was fired because the board stated he withheld information and misinformed them, not because he was a bad CEO

        • lefaucet@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          9 months ago

          Tesla has the following:

          Custom AI silicon designed by the designer of Apple’s M1 chip. It’s designed for training. They are about to scale it massively to create the Dojo supercomputer. They look to be on par with NVidia on performance/$. No small feat, and means they arent reliant on NVidia

          They have custom inferrence chips used in all of their cars and their android robot. It gets fantastic performance per watt. My 5 year old car has first-gen inferrence chips and it’s still getting better with software… meaning it hasnt reached its potential. The latest chip design is probably much better, but I dont know much about it

          They have possibly the best humanoid hands and arms that will work with this AI goodness.

          Their walking and navigation is looking to be top notch… We’ll see

          FSD really is incredible. I drive with it and it improves every year.

          Tesla solar is still a thing. The model 3 kinda derailed development a while back and it never really recovered. I think competitors are doing well and Tesla sees better returns on their other projects. Tesla needs to bring down their Solar prices which they just dont seem to be doing. Im guessing they dont want to scale manufacturing yet.

          They have some of the largest casting machines on the planet and press out the frames of their cars for far cheaper than their competition can stamp and weld theirs. Stellantis and Toyota are adopting this manufactiring strategy as fast as they can, but they are a year or maybe 2 behind. I suspect Ford, VW and GM are adopting this too.

          Tesla factory floors are much more efficient at iterating and improving. Their in-house software for managing workers and workflow development are unique to Tesla. Just look at the efficient packaging of their HVAC system after dozens of iterations every year for a couple years. It’s by far the best HVAC in the car world.

          They have developed a lithium clay extraction process that vastly reduces chemical waste and water usage. They’re still 5 or so years out from implementing this in even a small capacity and clay extraction isnt guaranteed to be superior to spodumene. I expect the efforts they’re putting to this will pay off in 15 years.

          They own lithium clay rights in Nevada where some of the richest Lithium clay deposits are. I think theyre doing permitting for mining, which will probably take to the end of the decade. Mining’s crazy

          They offer the best price for grid-scale batteries and are growing that business faster than their cars grew. Hawaii just replaced their last coal peaker plant with Tesla batteries. California and Australia are saving a lot of money with them. The batteries pay for themselves when used to replace peaker plants and stuff to maency.

          They are a very quickly growing so-called virtual power plants and have been doing extremely well in a few test locationthis Texas, Australia and Puerto Rico. I think the UK too?

          After funding and working with the inventor of the lithium battery’s team they’ve been getting first looks with new battery chemistry. The thick walls of their 4680 is designed with adding silicon in mind. I suspect theyre testing this out at Kato road production facility.

          They’ve collected a bunch of battery manufacturing patents over the years and their dry-electrode process is providing very good economics. Getting them to scale has been excruciatingly slow, but they’re about to triple capacity this year in Texas and I think are starting development of another iteration of their 4680 battery production process at their Kato road facility right now.

          They are on track for becoming a top-three battery manufacturer by the end of the decade.

          GM and Ford’s battery packs are like 5 years behind tesla’s. Tesla packs more battery in less volume using less weight with better thermals and ridgidity. Their packs are a lot cheaper to produce too.

          Tesla claims they have a ferro magnet motor in development. We’ll see. If so, watch out for very cheap electric cars with no rare-earths or cobalt

          They just signed deals with BP and an another conglomerate to sell chargers for the other business’ charging infrastructure. More volume means cheaper manufacturing for their own charging stations too.

          Battery prices keep falling. Gas cars are going to have to compete with cheaper electric by the end of the decade. Tesla isnt cpeting with other electric car makers so much as it’s competing with fossil fuels

          Elon has contributed to these only in a “we’re gonna fund these wild ideas!” Way. Like Edison. He’s smart and avoided bad projects and embraced fast failing to great success… Things are maturing and I dont think there’s much value to get from Elon…

          Tesla will be fine without Elon. I’d argue better.

          The only fear of Elon leaving would be big oil investors buying control and derailing things… I dont think that’ll happen though. I think enough investors are in it specifically to eliminate fossil fuel dependency.

          The fear of Elon staying is he drags Tesla into his edgelord bullshit and uses it to dick over the world as hard as he and some dictator/billionaire friends can… Which seems more likely

          After he derailed the CA bullet train with his hyperloop hyperbole and joked on twitter abould the Bolivian coup, I dont trust his ass one bit.

      • Tja@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        9 months ago

        Not the only reason… I’m happy with my model 3, but it’s not for everyone based on objective properties.

    • EmergMemeHologram@startrek.website
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 months ago

      Much like the PT cruiser, there’s a due hard group of people in love with cyber truck, he made that happen.

      Personally I think it looks stupid as hell, but since people are very into it.

      • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        9 months ago

        He created a massive failure with a cult following? Because that’s what the PT cruiser was. The difference with the cybertruck being that it won’t sell to rental companies on account of the price.

        “It was a novelty car, and like all novelty items the enthusiasm faded,” says Keenan Mayo, associate editor at Bloomberg Businessweek, who wrote an obituary of sorts for the Cruiser. “The only people who were really buying it for much of the last decade were the rental car companies because it was cheap.”

        https://www.marketplace.org/2013/03/04/goodbye-pt-cruiser-will-anyone-miss-it/

        • commandar@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          9 months ago

          The PT Cruiser was more or less a Dodge Neon with a funny looking body shell on top, meaning engineering cost to bring it to market was pretty minimal.

          The Cybertruck is… pretty much the opposite of that. Tesla has spent literally years trying to get the thing to market meaning it’s failure will be far more painful than PT Cruiser sales tapering off was for Chrysler.

      • Mamertine@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        46
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        9 months ago

        I’m literally not buying a Tesla because he’s a douchbag.

        When I see a Tesla on the road I assume they are a Musk fan boy. There’s no prestige in that brand. There are a lot of us that assume that.

        • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          23
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          9 months ago

          I would be more likely to buy a Tesla if Musk was gone. He is poisonous to the brand.

          • Daze@feddit.de
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            9 months ago

            I would be more likely to buy a Tesla if the cars weren’t engineered like garbage.

          • someguy7734206@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            9 months ago

            Tesla cars also have notoriously poor build quality, especially for the price; if you must buy an electric car, at this point, as far as I can tell, Hyundai cars are much better built. (Of course, we do need to remember that electric cars do not solve the problem of car dependency.)

        • not_again@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          9 months ago

          I bought my Tesla 4 years ago before EM went full douche mode. I actually quite like the car but would not buy one these days on account of him.

  • zbyte64@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    82
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    Guy is probably getting scared of his board members and is wanting to secure himself from being outed. There’s a reason why we are now hearing about his drug problem, and those stories are likely coming from his board members.

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    70
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    I’m sure Tesla’s investors have a constant fear the stock market will figure out Tesla is a car company and start to value it as such (instead of valuing it more like Google or Apple). He’s basically saying, “If you don’t want to loose 2/3rds of what you have locked up in the company when the market corrects, you’ll give me 12% to continue the pivot.”

    Sadly, I’m guessing it’ll work.

    • Ross_audio@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      34
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      9 months ago

      They value Tesla as a battery manufacturer. I’m not saying that’s right but they’re hoping other manufacturers will end up using their batteries just like every phone uses Samsung’s screens.

      I think Tesla has a small lead but is going to be quickly out-developed.

      The self driving stuff has always been fluff. The gigafactory not so much.

      • dragontamer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        61
        ·
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        They value Tesla as a battery manufacturer.

        Which is funny, because Tesla has no chemistry chops at all. Tesla buys Panasonic cells and CATL cells.

        Yes, Tesla is technically a battery manufacturer because they take individual cells from CATL and then add electronics to them. (A package of cells is called a “battery” in the Electrical Engineering world). But its not the battery people “care” about when talking about this subject.

        The “cell” (aka: the chemical package of size 18650 or 4680 or whatever) is Panasonic or CATL. Almost no Tesla involvement at all. This is what “common people” call the battery pack, not the giant computer system + wires that connect the cells together (which is what Electrical Engineers call the battery).

        In effect, Tesla / Elon Musk is taking advantage of investor’s ignorance and its hilarious. Its been like 15 years and the investors still haven’t figured out that Tesla has no “cell manufacturing” and has basically been misleading their investors this whole time.


        In Electrical Engineering terms: its a AA cell and a 9V battery (9V requires 6x AAAA cells, so wiring them up together makes a “Battery”, a collection of cells). Since AA is just one cell, its a cell. Similarly, its an 18650 cell or 4680 cell. And cells are made by Panasonic or CATL, not Tesla.

        This means that as other EVs come up, Tesla barely has any moat. All Ford or GM has to do is build a battery (aka: buy Panasonic cells and wire them together) and bam, there goes Tesla’s 15 year advantage. That’s all Tesla ever has accomplished. Its a laughably sad moat and is why so many companies can pivot into EVs faster than Tesla ever did.

        • guacupado@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          9 months ago

          At this point Tesla is just a brand name. Mercedes is even doing better Level 3 than they are and they’re not even known for that shit.

      • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        edit-2
        9 months ago

        Tesla’s battery business is also entirely dependent on licenses from Phillips. Tesla’s main value there is in scope of their production, the parts of which could be sold or spun out the way Ford eventually got divested from their gas production/stations. Though, for Ford, it was a long (30+ year) process - that’s a lot of extra buffer to carry Tesla through if history repeats itself.

      • Aztechnology@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 months ago

        Which is going to bite them in the ass in 3-5 years when Toyota, VW and a few others roll out the solid state batteries

        • Wrench@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          9 months ago

          Yep. It’s a very transparent extortion. “I will intentionally (illegally) manipulate the stock to tank it if you do not give into my demands”

          Obviously, being forced to buy Twitter wasn’t enough punishment for him to stop him from blatantly manipulating stocks.

  • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    50
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    As opposed to dunking on him, I am going to outline why he can’t do anything but cry about it:

    • Once you IPO in Delaware like Tesla did, you can’t issue a second class stock
    • At least not without liquidating your assets and re-incorporating, which means all shareholders have to agree and this certainly means shareholders will hold a smaller bag, this will go to court (probably in Delaware, a state Elon has little chance of winning given how Twitter/X turned out), and the process will be impeded. This is not an overnight process.

    This is compounded by the fact that Tesla’s stock value pretty much comes from Elon’s manipulation and grandstanding, so anything that reveals this will cause the boat to rock, so anything he does will impact the stock price, which impacts his wealth.

    Nobody will loan him money to buy more stock. If he could, he wouldn’t be crying about it. Or, more than likely, he could get it, but it means coming from MBS or similarly questionable sources and he’s on such good footing with them over how Twitter/X is going. This will increase the scrutiny he’s getting from the DOJ or the people at CIA who may drop a sword on his head.

    He has at least two loyalists on his board: Kimbal Musk and JB Straubel. James Murdoch can no longer be considered one since its his other publication, the Wall Street Journal, that went to press about his drug issues.

    Long and short, Elon has been reduced to begging. We could be watching the end of his tenure at Tesla, but this fucker is full of surprises.

    • CashewNut 🏴󠁢󠁥󠁧󠁿@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      9 months ago

      You think he’d bother with legal and responsible methods of getting his way?

      My first thought is he’d threaten to tank Tesla stock by using Twitter to screw it over and sink the price. It fucks him but why would he care when he still owns SpaceX and Twitter?

      He’s been using Twitter to manipulate shares and crypto for years. He now owns Twitter and can manipulate even more so will use it to bully Tesla’s board for more equity.

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      9 months ago

      I mean he “can do nothing but cry about it” in the same way anyone can do nothing about a request for a raise. He can say he will quit if they don’t give it to him.

  • Furbag@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    46
    ·
    9 months ago

    Well, so much for the altruist Elon Musk who uses his genius intellect to make the world a better place out of the goodness of his heart and the shared benefit of humanity. if he actually gave a shit, he wouldn’t care if his compensation package was $1. He would supposedly be doing the work he is the most passionate about and cares the most about.

    Nah. Richest man in the world says it’s more important that he gets paid first. He’s always been a fraud.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      If you only read the headline (and maybe even this specific article) you miss the point.

      He’s saying he doesn’t trust Tesla to develop AI/Robotics if he doesn’t have enough control (shares), as he’s afraid what they’ll do with AI otherwise, and without another compensation package that would give him that control, he’s going to hold Tesla back on the AI front and do it in a company he has control of (him saying this is probably breaking numerous laws as well, especially given he has an AI company)

      It’s his same AI is going to doom the world if it’s not done right, and only I can protect us, though this isn’t really something new.

      But as to your point, it isn’t actually about the money, it’s about more control of Tesla. He doesn’t actually care about the money and if there was a way to give him more voting control without giving him more shares, he’d be okay with that too, but that in itself isn’t a simple feat or necessarily possible.

      But FUCK HIM, he gave up that control to piss it away on Twitter. If keeping control of Tesla was so important, you shouldn’t have fucked up, and fucked over all the shareholders in the process with Twitter.

      Edit: Also - Even though he met every tranche of his existing compensation plan, it was a 10 year plan. It hasn’t been 10 years yet, so again, FUCK OFF, until those 10 years are up.

  • cowpowered@lemm.eeOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    9 months ago

    As someone who still drives a Tesla vehicle I bought years ago, well before Musk totally went off the rails, can he please just leave?

    • XeroxCool@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      56
      ·
      9 months ago

      There’s a model X near me with a bumper sticker that says “we bought this before we knew Elon was crazy”

    • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      30
      ·
      edit-2
      9 months ago

      You could always trade it in.

      I hate to be that guy, but no one is forcing you to keep owning it and keep dumping money in Musk’s pockets every time you need it serviced.

      You want him to go away but you keep handing him money. Curious.

      • cowpowered@lemm.eeOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        9 months ago

        In the 5 years I’ve owned my Model 3 it’s never needed any service. Only new tires. They are not even remotely as bad of a car as clickbait sites make them out to be. Yeah yeah Teslas aren’t perfect, but no car is. Be realistic.

        It being associated with Musk and his crazy rants is annoying though. Almost annoying enough to trade it in, but I don’t particularly want to spend a bunch of money and getting rid of an almost like-new working car.

        • Optomistic@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          9 months ago

          With all due respect my 2021 Model 3 is a gargantuan piece of shit. Every interior joint and connection squeaks, the range is and has always been far below stated range, both seats rattle, the wood trim has basically disintegrated, and my car only has 21k in it. I’d trade however my interest rate is 2.5%. I hate the car, the company, and Musk, but until interest rates drop I’m not trading. But hey it’s never needed service so yay for me. My 2012 Prius was a better built car than the Tesla Model 3, by miles.

          • cowpowered@lemm.eeOP
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            9 months ago

            Yeah if I could buy a similar car with the same features at the same price from a manufacturer like Toyota, the choice for better build quality is obvious. However up until basically this year that has not been the case. My only real complaint with my M3 is the terrible paint they use. But I can live with it.

            • rooster_butt@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              edit-2
              9 months ago

              Point to me to a similarly specced ev for a comparable price in the US taking into consideration federal tax rebate and dealership bullshit fees. There still ain’t anything this year. It will happen but we aren’t there yet.

          • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            9 months ago

            Once the other care companies started making electrics, I wondered why anyone was still going with Tesla. Car companies have so many more decades of taking care of build issues.

            • cowpowered@lemm.eeOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              9 months ago

              At least in the US the charging network has been a huge differentiator. I’ve heard from a few people doing road-trips in non-Teslas and having trouble with the multitude of charging networks. Superchargers can get busy but I’ve never had a problem with them or gotten stranded. Hopefully NACS will improve this situation for all brands.

        • Rookeh@startrek.website
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          9 months ago

          Same. Coming up to 4 years owning my Model 3 with no major issues and no work needed other than normal serviceable items common to all cars (tyres, wiper blades, cabin filters, etc).

          On the flip side, one of my old coworkers who got his Model 3 at the same time as me had a litany of problems from day one. We used to joke that his car had been built by an intern on a Friday night before a major holiday.

          I don’t do enough miles these days to justify getting rid of a perfectly good, functional, almost brand new car and buying a new one - I plan to just run it into the ground instead.

          I don’t think I’d buy another Tesla in the future, though. Not necessarily because I care what people think of the car I drive, but because Tesla has made some astonishingly stupid decisions with their new/refreshed cars. No physical drive selector? No TURN SIGNAL STALK? Yes, because I love having critical vehicle controls on a movable surface. Come on now.

        • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          16
          ·
          9 months ago

          I’m being realistic. You’re embarrassed by it and association with Musk.

          Musk is genuinely a bad person who is pushing bogus race science and other horrible unequivocal bullshit.

          It’s great that it hasn’t needed service, but my point stands: once it needs service, you will be handing money to Elon Musk.

          If you want him to go away that badly, there are things you could do. Like trading in your vehicle for another EV. There’s other brands, who are not run by a racist, misogynist, ableist, megalomaniacs.

          You can complain on the internet all you want, but if you’re unwilling to find a way to not give him money, you’re just one more person with Elon’s foot stuck up your ass.

      • gramathy@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        9 months ago

        Interest rates and depreciation make that a losing bargain, better to get the utility out of it now that the trade in is low and interest rates are high

      • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        9 months ago

        As much as I hate Musk, I don’t have $10k+ to burn on making a statement.

        Sure, if the car market was flush with used EVs, swapping one used car for another might not hurt as much. But right now it’s slim pickings if you want a used EV that isn’t a Telsa, that is similarly spec’ed to a Tesla.

        Just run the thing into the ground and charge on non-Tesla infrastructure as much as reasonably possible.

      • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        9 months ago

        If I made a threat like this as CEO when I also work two other jobs with a now clearly defined conflict of interest, I would ABSOLUTELY be fired by the board!

        If the board wasn’t made up of asskissers.

    • OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      9 months ago

      Can’t really tell what he WANTS to do since he also wanted out of the X CEO role.

      Maybe just ketamine.

      • TheHarpyEagle@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 months ago

        If I were him I’d simply retire and enjoy my magnitudes of lifetimes worth of wealth. But I guess that’s not the billionaire mindset.

    • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      9 months ago

      He’s already out with 12.9% of stocks, we wants in for free claiming he’ll walk out with other parts of the company and people if they don’t oblige. If you are thinking that this behavior is not legal you’d be right and I can’t wait for trade commission to step on him.

  • MeanEYE@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    9 months ago

    Explained nicely by Common Sense Skeptic in their video on the subject. TLDW is that Musk is low on stocks, around 12%, and he’s demanding to be given more (total 25%) or he walks. Reason he wants 25% is so that he can still be in charge of company with other people who proxy his power.

  • thejml@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    9 months ago

    If I was a shareholder or board member and heard “I don’t want to grow the company in ways you want with out a raise” I’d hear it as “he’s no longer doing the job we hired him for. Publicly going against our wishes.” Which is a short cut to getting fired in any other job on the planet.