Tesla news! WHEEEEEE!

[thewayne]

As expected, in light of the Delaware Chancery Court shooting down The Muskbrat's compensation plan, he's following through on his threat to put reincorporating Tesla in Texas up to a vote. Tesla is having its annual shareholders meeting, where such things are voted on, in mid-June, so such things are filed and announced now. Also up for vote - his pay package of $56 billion! YAY!

Now, the amusing bit was that the reincorporation and pay package were decided by a "Special Committee" which consisted of ... drum roll please ... one person. An attorney who joined the board late December 2018, Kathleen Wilson-Thompson. She is a qualified attorney, at least in terms of degrees and such, and she received over $7,000,000 in stock and compensation the following year for serving on the board.

The Chancery Judge threw out The Muskbrat's compensation package because the Board, in the Judge's words, 'were beholden' to him. How is receiving seven mill in pay and stock not beholden?

It'll be interesting to see if the votes pass. While lots of stockholders are fan bois, there are also large blocks owned by institutional investors, and they're a lot more conservative about things.

And one other thing. He's PO'd about the Chancery Judge shooting down his compensation, also about the Chancery Court forcing him to buy Twitter after he promised to. Those are the main forces behind reincorporating in Texas. But here's the thing: Texas is creating a system very much modeled on the Delaware Chancery Court system! Aside from travel costs, is he going to be gaining very much?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/tesla-asks-shareholders-to-approve-texas-move-and-restore-elon-musks-56b-pay/

A second article on the incorporation move has some very interesting information about Egon's, err, Elon's companies dealings with each other, and this interesting paragraph:

Over eight weeks, Wilson-Thompson’s committee met 16 times for more than 26 hours, and Tesla says she personally spent “more than 200 hours” working on the matter. The Sidley lawyers spent “more than 600 hours each” on the matter and were supported by “more than 40 other Sidley lawyers.” Through this process, seven board directors and five members of Tesla’s management were interviewed.

THAT is a LOT of billable hours!

A paragraph preceding stated that they found that most corporations incorporate where they're located or in Delaware. Geez, pay me $100k and I'll tell you that! Look at how much money you'd save!

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/17/tesla-x-advertising-musk-stock-package-delware-texas/


Tesla CyberTruck owners: manufacturing has been suspended while Tesla deals with problems regarding the accelerator peddle. There have been reports of the peddle coming loose, including parts of it jamming itself under trim panels and unintended acceleration, including one owner slamming into a light pole! Tesla's taking some time off to implement fixes.

Honestly, they have LOTS of fixes to implement with people complaining about fit and finish, not to mention the rust problem of stainless steel that doesn't have a clear coat applied.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/04/tesla-stops-cybertruck-deliveries-accelerator-pedal-may-be-to-blame/


And finally, Tesla is getting ready to axe TEN PERCENT of its workforce! Now, when numbers like that are about to get the RIF, I think you're at the point that the Feds are involved as that's a major labor market disruption, we'll see what happens.

Tesla's stock has been underperforming of late. While it's up over 600% since 2018, it's down over a third this year to date, and we're only a third into the year. The CyberTruck (AKA the Incel Camino, not my creation) has been a major thorn in its side, the constant price-cutting has really hurt its margins, and now the Model 2 has been axed in favor of a 'Robo Taxi' that hasn't been seen - and with the amazing success of its Auto Pilot, may never be. The Model 2 was supposed to be an actual low-cost model, but rumor has it would not be sold in the USA.

Let's see. CyberTruck: ugly design and bad manufacturing, own goal. Constant price-cutting to prop up market share, own-goal. Dropping a product line in favor of what seems to be vaporware that will run on vaporware, own-goal.

I think I see a trend here.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/04/tesla-to-lay-off-more-than-10-percent-of-its-workers-as-sales-slow/


Oh, and Egon says he'll debut the RoboTaxi on August 8. Set your sundial!

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/05/elon-musk-says-hell-unveil-a-tesla-robotaxi-on-august-8/


In other news, for which I don't have a link handy, Tesla is trying to push sales of Autopilot by giving every Tesla owner a free 30 day trial every time you take your car in for service with a requirement that a salesman shows you how utterly spiffy it is! I'm just wondering if it will automatically charge your credit card X thousands of dollars if you don't cancel it before your month is up.

Comments

[dewline]

He's in the process of having another bout of "Finding Out", is he?

[armiphlage]

He's going to find out when he gets his first Texas tax bill. Instead of paying 0% on his intellectual property income, he'll now pay 0.75% of the gross (not net) income in taxes.

Still far less than a person would pay in taxes, of course.

[thewayne]

We shall see if he wants some cheese with that whine. ;-)

[dewline]

Yep.

[thewayne]

The question is whether he is sufficiently self-aware to realize that 'celebrity' and 'CEO' is not a good combination.

[disneydream06]

Who in their right mind would buy a Tesla?
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

Now would be a terrible time!  Also witness what happened to Hertz with them entering into a purchasing contract with Tesla then him slashing car prices!  But one that I particularly love: let's say you have an older Tesla made back when they actually had radar, and you take it in for a service unrelated to the radar - they've been removing the radars!  They went to cameras for their adaptive cruise control, and they're using a really lousy grade of cameras!

[disneydream06]

WOW... It just keeps getting better. :o

[kathmandu]

One thing I learned from hanging out on investment forums is that when a company moves its headquarters to a new area (like to be near the CEO's new luxurious country house), the stock usually goes down afterward.

That's because the skilled and valuable upper-level employees don't want to move away from their homes, families, friends, etc. So they all quit, and the company is left with less-experienced replacements.

[thewayne]

Tesla has a storied history.  Musk was not involved in the founding of the company.  The Tesla Roadster, their first car (a friend of mine had one and loved it) was created by two guys and apparently was really cool.  Musk was a major first round investor and was involved in taking the company public.  Then he kept investing, became a majority holder, and eventually managed to turf out the two inventors.  In a snit, he moved the HQ from California to Texas, but they'd incorporated in DE (I think it was the TechCrunch article that said it) as most corporations do.  I don't know if they lost a lot of people in that HQ move, but apparently a lot of talent is getting the axe in this 10% RIF.  Comments indicate that a lot of talent from previous firings have been replaced by Yes Men over truly talented engineers, which have resulted in slow progress, crap products, and recalls. The Muskbrat is not an engineer, he's a money-man.  He does have some ideas, but I don't know how much he can contribute aside from telling someone 'Make it happen!'

[viridian5]

I've watched a few YouTube videos about problems with the Cybertruck. One owner whose accelerator pedal jammed down said that the top piece on it, the piece with the traction so your foot is less likely to slip, is not bolted or even glued to the pedal but is instead clipped to it and can easily come off. Also, that piece is thin and looks cheap as hell.

Other stories are that the rear-view camera is useless at night, while the rear-view mirror Elon was forced by law to put in is also useless because it's hard to see anything through the backpiece of the truck. All the dashboard instruments are only on a touchscreen iPad kind of thing, and one guy's iPad thing stopped working not long after he bought the truck. The only thing he did differently was rinsing some sand out of the exterior back of the truck with water, the part you're supposed to be able to put things in. The Cybertruck is supposed to be able to travel easily through deep puddles, but parts of the exterior often come off when you do. The exterior edges are sharp, and those edges don't always meet properly. In one video, the YouTuber grated some carrots on a door edge and decapitated some other carrots by closing the front trunk. The US is one of the few places you can own and drive a Cybertuck because most of the rest of the world has more stringent pedestrian safety laws. And, you know, how you're supposed to constantly clean the exterior or it immediately rusts.

[thewayne]

A lot of people think Stainless Steel is rust-proof, and certain types are.  But definitely not this one!  And you'd think that with the maker knowing this, they'd do a free clear coat.  But hey!  Chance to bilk people out of $5,000!  The whole thing is insane.  I read about one person whose truck died after running it through a car wash.  It's just nuts.

[viridian5]

I hear that some people are getting their Cybertruck stainless steel exterior panels wrapped to avoid the cleaning and rust issues. Musketeers were all "Getting it wrapped isn't that much money!" You already paid $80,000 to $100,000 for this glitchy, badly-imagined, cheaply-made piece of crap, dudes.

I have a stainless steel exterior on my refrigerator because my landlord bought it, and it's the bane of my existence. I'm constantly cleaning it.

[thewayne]

I'm surprised fridges like that aren't pre-clearcoated, I didn't know.  Yeah, that would be a major PITB.  I've always thought they were nice, to a point, but not something I'd particularly want.

[viridian5]

The fridge’s stainless steel may not rust but just touching it with your hands leaves obvious fingerprint smears, and I had to buy a special cleaner for it that leaves a kind of greasy film that runs a bit if you later get it wet.

[thewayne]

EWW!  Yeah, definitely don't want!  I have a hard enough time keeping our glass-top electric stove clean!

[murakozi]

It's a pity there wasn't a car made in the past that was made with stainless steel panels** One that they could go back (to the future) to learn about the pros and cons of using the stuff.

**actually, I think DeLoreans were stainless steel on fiberglass panels

[thewayne]

I don't know.  I think maybe DeLoreans were clear-coated at the factory.  Not certain, though.

[thewayne]

I just Googled it, and DeLoreans had a different SS mix, 3:04, which didn't rust.  The frame could have problems if not properly cared for, but the body panels were fine.  I wonder how they were for impact structural deformation.

[moonhare]

So, no Tesla in your future?

[thewayne]

Hey!  I have asthma!  Have a little compassion there! ;-)

[silveradept]

Bah. CEO is having a tantrum, and finding out that the only people who are still on his side are his fanboys, and that's not enough to keep a company like Tesla going. And that's before we get into the issues about how the cars themselves do not seem to be well or sensibly designed.

Plus, y'know, he owns Twitter and has run that into the ground, too.

Certainly the kind of person that I would, as a shareholder, want in charge of the company and receiving ridiculous amounts of executive compensation.