Elon's Pay Package

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[00:00:59] Hello everyone. Before we start, I was marveling in this episode that this episode was episode number 499.

[00:01:12] It's actually episode 500. We've done 500 episodes of this silly little podcast.

[00:01:21] So I just want to thank everybody for being a part of this and let's get to the show.

[00:01:25] Hello everyone and welcome to Kilowatt, a podcast about electric vehicles, renewable energy, autonomous driving and much, much more.

[00:01:53] My name is Bodhi and I am your host.

[00:01:55] And on today's episode we are going to cover news, EV news as well as Tesla news.

[00:02:03] If I sound really weird it's because I'm trying to remember what type we're, what password to type in so I can get access to my document for our show today.

[00:02:13] Hold on just a second. I got it. Nailed it.

[00:02:19] Alright, here we go.

[00:02:22] This is episode 499. Isn't that crazy? Like almost 500 episodes total.

[00:02:29] The first episode was actually released on August 5th, 2016.

[00:02:34] So nuts. We're also coming up on an eight year anniversary. So crazy stuff honestly. Crazy stuff.

[00:02:41] Alright, let's go ahead and jump into our EV news.

[00:02:45] We talked on our last news episode about Vinfast opening up pre-orders for the VF3, which is that really small SUV that they're selling.

[00:02:55] They secured in the first 72 hours, they secured 30,000 pre-orders.

[00:03:00] Not too shabby. Now this isn't available here in the United States or North America or even I think Europe yet.

[00:03:07] This is only in China but not too shabby for the Vinfast team.

[00:03:12] Now we have one more Vinfast story and it is sad news. Just be warned.

[00:03:18] On April 24th, a family driving a Vinfast VF8 somehow lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a tree and then the vehicle caught fire.

[00:03:29] There were four occupants in the vehicle and all four were killed. Mom, dad and two kids.

[00:03:34] This is absolutely an awful story.

[00:03:36] The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has launched a federal probe into the accident to find out what happened.

[00:03:46] The car did not belong to the family. It was loaned to them by a co-worker.

[00:03:51] But the owner of the vehicle did report that there was at least one instance where the Vinfast was operating in lane assist mode or whatever Vinfast calls it.

[00:04:02] And the feature jerked the vehicle to the right. Now how much it jerked it to the right? I don't know.

[00:04:08] We'll find out more after the investigation is done.

[00:04:12] Like I said, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is investigating this and in addition, the local police department is also investigating the accident.

[00:04:22] Nissan is planning on launching a new electric SUV.

[00:04:28] This is going to be similar to the Nissan Rogue. It'll be built in Canton, Mississippi.

[00:04:33] We don't have an official announcement. We don't have official spec.

[00:04:37] So there's really not a lot to say at this point on this article other than let's keep an eye on it.

[00:04:44] But also, Nissan's been delaying a lot of their future EVs and I don't have a good reason as to why.

[00:04:52] But based on this news, it does make sense that Nissan was interested in partnering with Fisker on licensing Fisker's technology because the Fisker Ocean and the Nissan Rogue are both mid-size crossover SUVs.

[00:05:08] It seems like that would have been a no-brainer, at least from the outside perspective. That's a no-brainer.

[00:05:14] I'm sure somebody inside of Nissan looked at what was going on in Fisker and said, hard no.

[00:05:20] But if you're Nissan and you're having all these problems getting production up and going, I don't think production was the problem with the Fisker Ocean.

[00:05:28] It was the deliveries, the software and some of the other things they didn't have done.

[00:05:32] But the production seemed to be fine. Like it had issues. Don't get me wrong.

[00:05:36] But those issues could have been fixed.

[00:05:38] Now, I knew I was going to talk about Fisker today and I had to drive my car for a little bit for reasons I'll get into shortly.

[00:05:46] So I drove up to the Fisker Delivery Center on McClintock and Curry Road, I think it is.

[00:05:53] It's just north of the 202 on McClintock.

[00:05:56] And there's a big old Fisker Delivery Center because I mentioned on last episode that I thought there were between 30 and 50 cars there.

[00:06:03] Well, I went there today in the daytime and I counted close to 70 Fisker Oceans.

[00:06:10] And there were more inside the building in the little garage area and there were more in the showroom area.

[00:06:16] So there's probably more than 70 oceans sitting on that lot at the moment.

[00:06:20] I looked at Fisker's website, I put all of my information in as far as where I was located,

[00:06:26] and I was given a number of listings of different cars that I could purchase.

[00:06:30] There was quite a few there.

[00:06:31] I don't know if they were quite 70, but there were a lot of cars on there that I could purchase and pick up in two days.

[00:06:36] There were two price points, $37,500 and just under $69,000.

[00:06:42] There was no variation in prices other than those two prices.

[00:06:46] Lots of different colors you can get.

[00:06:48] The foundation series or founding members series or whatever Fisker calls it was the $70,000 one.

[00:06:55] Ford is asking its suppliers for ideas on how to cut EV costs and to remain competitive.

[00:07:05] Basically, they're asking their suppliers, sell us your parts cheaper so that we can continue buying them and make electric cars cheaper.

[00:07:13] Price reductions on models like the Mustang Mach-E did boost sales.

[00:07:18] We heard from Ford's CEO and CFO during their earnings call.

[00:07:25] They cut prices by 17% and sales went up by 141%.

[00:07:30] The issue is that cars like the Mach-E are not profitable.

[00:07:34] It's really difficult to cut prices even though sales are going up and still make money if your cars aren't profitable.

[00:07:43] That's a problem.

[00:07:44] Ford's Model E unit reported significant financial losses in Q1 2024 and expects further losses in the coming year.

[00:07:53] The company is trying to achieve cost efficiencies in their EV portfolio.

[00:07:58] Suppliers are encouraged to propose new vehicle cost reduction ideas for Ford's current and future EV models.

[00:08:06] That's a really nice way, but probably passive aggressive way of saying,

[00:08:11] hey lower your prices otherwise we're going to fail and it'll be your fault.

[00:08:15] Actually, I don't know if that's what they're saying.

[00:08:17] That's just me adding that little bit in there.

[00:08:19] Let's talk about GM.

[00:08:21] GM CEO Mary Barra said that they have overcome their battery issues and they plan to build EVs to demand.

[00:08:31] So this is great news, especially when you consider that the Chevy Equinox, the Silverado EV and the Blazer EV.

[00:08:39] All three of those are coming out this year, so they're going to need a lot of batteries.

[00:08:45] While we're on the topic of General Motors, GM is relaunching GM Cruise in the Phoenix area.

[00:08:53] But these will be supervised rides.

[00:08:56] So a person will be able to call a cruise vehicle, which is a Chevy Bolt and then use that service much like a cab or an Uber or a Waymo.

[00:09:08] Except for in the difference between Waymo and GM Cruise is there's actually a driver sitting in the front seat,

[00:09:14] supervising their autonomous driving efforts, which before this whole kerfuffle went down with the cruise actually hitting somebody in San Francisco

[00:09:26] and dragging them for some distance, which I think was about 20 feet.

[00:09:32] Before that whole thing happened, I said over and over and over again because there was just nothing but issues on GM side in terms of the GM Cruise service.

[00:09:42] Like people in San Francisco didn't like it. It just wasn't popular.

[00:09:46] I had said that it's probably not where it needs to be for driverless service,

[00:09:53] and they need to put a driver in those vehicles for no other reason just to take over when something weird happens because lots of weird things were happening with the GM Cruise service.

[00:10:04] And now they're taking me up on that advice, and they're also only testing in Phoenix at the moment.

[00:10:11] Right before recording, I checked to see if I could take a ride on GM Cruise because I do have access and I was not able to as of yet.

[00:10:21] What I can take a ride on is Waymo. Waymo now provides over 50,000 paid customer trips per week.

[00:10:29] The service is available in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

[00:10:34] Waymo has surpassed 1 million rider only trips. That means no driver, just the rider.

[00:10:40] They currently pick up about five passengers a minute and they pick up 300 passengers an hour.

[00:10:48] So not too shabby for the Waymo.

[00:10:51] The company does continue to face challenges when it comes to recouping its investment costs despite these high volume of trips.

[00:10:59] They're just not profitable, but they're also only operating in three cities.

[00:11:05] And these vehicles are very, very expensive. They have several tens if not hundreds of thousand dollars of equipment on board.

[00:11:13] So it does make a little bit of sense that they're not profitable, but Google's got a ton of money.

[00:11:18] If they want to continue sinking money into Waymo, they can.

[00:11:21] And then one of the biggest benefits, if Google never makes a dime on this and they just keep it as a public service,

[00:11:28] One of the biggest benefits is customers who have limited mobility, they can now get out, go visit their friends,

[00:11:36] go have dinner, go shopping, do things that enrich your life.

[00:11:41] And that is great. Now Google is a for-profit company.

[00:11:45] They're not going to continue doing this just as a favor,

[00:11:49] but it is nice that they're offering the service and people are getting something out of it.

[00:11:55] All right. Next story, I want to thank Bruce for tipping me off to this story.

[00:12:00] And I'm going to say a bunch of words and some of them I don't know what they mean.

[00:12:05] So I'd appreciate if you didn't come at me with any follow up questions because I will not have answers.

[00:12:12] Oak Ridge National Laboratory has licensed seven lithium recovery technologies to Element 3, a Texas based firm.

[00:12:21] These technologies are the goal is to extract lithium from wastewater produced by oil and gas corporations.

[00:12:30] These technologies were developed through the Critical Materials Innovation Hub at ORNL.

[00:12:39] They include membrane extraction techniques and new separation methods.

[00:12:45] This partnership addresses the growing demand for lithium,

[00:12:50] which is essential for electric vehicle batteries and energy storage.

[00:12:54] I mean, we all kind of know that right?

[00:12:56] Less than 2% of lithium comes from the US and Canada, which I actually thought was a bigger number.

[00:13:02] I knew it wasn't a very high number, but I thought it was bigger than that.

[00:13:05] So it makes sense why they would want to recapture as much of this as humanly possible

[00:13:10] because in our topsy-turvy world that we're living in right now, the more we can be resource independent, the better.

[00:13:19] Which doesn't just go for the United States, it goes for all countries just at the moment.

[00:13:24] I'm sure that will change in the not too distant future.

[00:13:29] But the overall goal of these technologies is to ensure a stable domestic lithium supply,

[00:13:34] which is critical for US economic and national security.

[00:13:38] And no follow up questions. We're moving on to our next and final story in our EV segment.

[00:13:44] President Biden increased tariffs on Chinese EVs from 25% to 100% last week

[00:13:50] with the goal of protecting US EV manufacturers from cheaper Chinese imports.

[00:13:57] The tariffs don't only apply to EVs, they also apply to batteries, battery minerals, steel, aluminum, computer chips,

[00:14:06] solar panels and medical goods. And the tariffs aren't all 100%.

[00:14:12] They didn't all jump to 100%. The tariff increases vary depending on which sector we're talking about.

[00:14:18] Currently, as far as I know, we only have two EVs in the US that are made by Chinese companies.

[00:14:25] And that is Polestar, the Polestar 2, which is a Gili company.

[00:14:31] And the Volvo S90 Recharge.

[00:14:34] And Volvo is a Swedish company, but is owned by a Chinese company, which is also Gili.

[00:14:43] So Volvo is headquartered in Sweden, but Gili is the owner of Volvo.

[00:14:51] And honestly, I don't know if the tariffs, the way that the tariffs are worded,

[00:14:56] if this will have any effect on those two companies or not.

[00:15:01] The Volvo EX30 is also supposed to be released here in the United States very soon,

[00:15:06] and that's a $35,000 EV. Who knows what that price is going to be if the tariffs do affect that?

[00:15:12] So there's a lot going into this.

[00:15:15] And it does seem to be, in a small way, against President Biden's edict that most all vehicles should be electric vehicles going forward.

[00:15:29] I don't remember exactly how that was worded, but basically he wants more EVs.

[00:15:35] And these two companies are the only Chinese-owned companies in the United States, again, as far as I know.

[00:15:43] Rather than Volvo, I'm not sure Polestar is a household name.

[00:15:48] This decision was received with mixed reactions.

[00:15:51] There was support from domestic manufacturers, which, you know, shocker.

[00:15:55] And then there was criticism from economists and foreign manufacturers saying,

[00:16:00] Nah, not so good. I have an idea.

[00:16:03] And before we close this out, loopholes are an American tradition,

[00:16:08] There seem to be some loopholes in the tariffs, or maybe there are some loopholes in the tariffs.

[00:16:13] Like, sure, if the vehicle is built in China, it makes sense that you're probably going to have to pay a tariff on that vehicle.

[00:16:22] But what about if the vehicle is like built in a partner of ours, like Mexico?

[00:16:28] BYD is building a plant in Mexico for electric vehicles and hybrids,

[00:16:33] And their shark plug-in hybrid pickup truck will be built at that plant.

[00:16:39] So if BYD obtains the proper licenses and meets all the regulations and is able to sell the shark here in the United States,

[00:16:49] Will they be subject to that tariff? Because technically it was built in Mexico.

[00:16:53] Mexico is one of our trade partners.

[00:16:56] Does that qualify as being a Chinese-built vehicle, or is that qualified for being a Mexican-built vehicle?

[00:17:05] The answer is I have no idea.

[00:17:07] The Polestar 4, which is the replacement of the Polestar 2 in the next couple of years,

[00:17:16] That's supposed to be built in South Korea.

[00:17:19] And I believe the Polestar 2, don't quote me on this, is also built in South Korea.

[00:17:23] So does that qualify for a tariff?

[00:17:26] Right now we don't know, but I'm sure there will be loopholes in this somewhere.

[00:17:33] Alright everybody, that is it for our EV news.

[00:17:36] Just want to say real quick, if you want to support the show, go to patreon.com forward slash kilowatt and sign up.

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[00:18:51] Millions of people have lost weight with personalized plans from Noom.

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[00:18:59] Salads generally for most people are the easy button, right?

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[00:20:12] All right. Let's go ahead and move on to our Tesla news.

[00:20:19] Tesla is or is going to remove steam support from new Model S and Model X vehicles.

[00:20:27] If you don't know what steam is, it's basically an app store for video game.

[00:20:31] And you can buy like just really small independent games or you could buy AAA games on steam.

[00:20:39] And it's fantastic. I love steam. I'm a steam user.

[00:20:43] I highly encourage people if you're into video games and you don't know anything about this service,

[00:20:48] which I find that hard to believe if you're into video games, go check it out.

[00:20:52] So a couple of years ago when Tesla was announcing the update to the new Model Y or Model S, excuse me,

[00:21:01] Elon showed off Cyberpunk 2077 being played on a Tesla like natively on the Tesla.

[00:21:11] So they said steam's coming to Tesla.

[00:21:13] You're going to be able to play these really high end AAA games.

[00:21:17] Well, now Tesla has said, man, we're not going to include that in new Model S and X vehicles anymore.

[00:21:26] Now, if you currently own a Model S and X vehicle, then your service is still going to work.

[00:21:31] You're good to go. I happen to be emailing back and forth with Delvey today.

[00:21:37] And he mentioned that because he said he had a long range Model S.

[00:21:42] Then I said, do you have steam on it?

[00:21:44] And if you do, have you ever used it?

[00:21:46] And he said he's opened it up once, but he doesn't typically supercharge his car.

[00:21:52] So he had said that people that go to superchargers on a regular basis might use it more.

[00:21:58] And that actually makes a lot of sense. Let's move on to EVGO.

[00:22:03] EVGO will begin installing NACS connectors on some of their DC fast chargers in 2024.

[00:22:11] So these EVGO stations will have connectors for CCS and NACS enabled vehicles, which is great.

[00:22:20] And I didn't know this little fact here, but did you know that 40 percent of EVGO's fast chargers are 350 kilowatt chargers?

[00:22:29] I didn't know that. That's pretty good.

[00:22:32] I kind of always just think of EVGO in my head as being slightly better than level two charging.

[00:22:38] So that kind of they kind of surprised me.

[00:22:43] And honestly, me thinking that is just a total bias on my part.

[00:22:48] Let's move on to full self-driving.

[00:22:51] Full self-driving 12.4 is rolling out to employees and it removes the steering wheel nag.

[00:22:57] Now, if you don't know what this is, is if you don't have enough torque on the steering wheel,

[00:23:03] the car doesn't think you're paying attention.

[00:23:05] So you either got to fiddle with one of the scroll wheels on the steering wheel or you got to apply a little bit of torque and then the nag goes away.

[00:23:14] It's not actually necessary because in most Teslas there's a camera, a cabin facing camera, and they can see if you are paying attention or you're not.

[00:23:24] Now, I mentioned on our last episode about my full self-driving experience and Gene wrote in and recommended that I clear the calibration on my cameras to see if my experience got any better.

[00:23:38] So I did this this morning.

[00:23:41] I had to drive around to recalibrate the cameras before full self-driving would work again.

[00:23:47] So I drove to the bank. I went to the Fisker delivery place.

[00:23:52] I actually went to McClintock in the 202 where I was talking about how the car wanted to turn left onto the freeway, but I wasn't actually in a turning lane.

[00:24:02] I went back to look at that area in the daylight and I was not in fact in a turning lane.

[00:24:08] So the car was going to do something illegal.

[00:24:12] Thankfully, I was supervising it and I stopped it.

[00:24:15] Now, I haven't had an opportunity yet to really explore how full self-driving is acting now that the camera calibration has been complete.

[00:24:26] But I will tell you that it's doing much better on the speed bumps in my neighborhood before it was taking them, in my opinion, way too fast.

[00:24:36] And now it is taking them much slower and I feel like safer.

[00:24:42] And also I don't want it to damage my car.

[00:24:45] So that was nice.

[00:24:47] Zachary Shea Han from Clean Technica and David Havassi drove around in a YouTube video around the Bay Area with full self-driving on for 45 minutes and recorded their experience.

[00:25:02] Now, I listened to this this morning before I got out of bed or watched it.

[00:25:07] I guess I didn't listen to it.

[00:25:09] And I will say that their experiences were very similar to my experiences, not entirely, but they were close enough.

[00:25:18] So if you're interested in seeing the kind of things that I'm experiencing with full self-driving, go watch that video.

[00:25:25] Again, it's 45 minutes, but really you can just kind of listen to it in the background.

[00:25:29] I'll put a link to it in the show notes.

[00:25:34] Did you know that there's a company out there called the Moo Moo Technologies and Moo Moo Technologies owns a company called Yipit Data?

[00:25:43] I did not know this.

[00:25:45] Now, I found this out because I was reading an article that said that Yipit Data is suggesting that full self the full self-driving trial has only yielded a 2% take rate according to their analysis of credit card data.

[00:25:59] So they tracked 3500 Tesla owners who had the trial only 50 subscribed.

[00:26:06] Now, if this is true, one, that's a very small sample size.

[00:26:11] But two, when you say subscribed, are you saying they paid eight thousand dollars for the service or they subscribed to the monthly subscription?

[00:26:20] I do have questions.

[00:26:23] Elon did say on Twitter that that number was inaccurate and the actual number was much higher.

[00:26:29] He didn't say how much higher. So if it was 4%, that's twice as much higher.

[00:26:33] That's a lot higher, but he didn't say how much higher.

[00:26:37] Let's see. Moo Moo Technologies or Yipit Data did say that 3500 people is not a is not a significant statistical insight.

[00:26:48] So I'd be interested in to see what the actual data actually says.

[00:26:54] Like this is a good jumping off point, but there needs to be more more research done to really get an accurate number.

[00:27:03] And honestly, if the number was phenomenal, I feel like Tesla would say it because Elon wants his money.

[00:27:09] And we're going to talk about that here in a little bit. His pay package to be approved.

[00:27:13] So I don't think the number is phenomenal.

[00:27:16] It's probably bigger than 2%, but it's it's probably not where they want it to be for sure.

[00:27:22] All right, we have a little bit more information on Elon laying off the entire supercharger team.

[00:27:28] This story comes from Reuters and it's according to four former Tesla supercharging network staffers.

[00:27:37] All right, that's that's a mouthful.

[00:27:40] So this is according to the article, Elon fired the supercharger team after meeting with team lead Rebecca Tannucci.

[00:27:49] She's like vice president of something, something, something.

[00:27:52] The four staffers that Reuters spoke to were not in that meeting.

[00:27:56] That was an Elon and Rebecca meeting only.

[00:27:59] But Tannucci actually went into that meeting with a little bit of hope

[00:28:07] that Elon would approve a massive supercharger expansion because she had already cut 15 to 20 percent of the supercharger team.

[00:28:16] Elon wanted deeper cuts.

[00:28:18] Tannucci pushed back.

[00:28:20] The meeting ended.

[00:28:23] But Tannucci actually argued that more cuts would actually undermine the supercharger team.

[00:28:30] And after that meeting, Elon laid off the entire team, which is like cutting off your nose to spite your face for sure.

[00:28:37] This caused unknown issues with partners, vendors, contractors, other employees that are worried that they're going to lose their job for some random reason.

[00:28:47] I almost said it was a swear word.

[00:28:50] We read a letter that Tesla sent out to contractors and suppliers that was sent by Tesla's global supermanager, supply manager, not super manager.

[00:29:01] As for which division in the company is handling supercharger expansions, that is now held by the energy team.

[00:29:11] Now, from what I understand, the energy team is very busy.

[00:29:17] They're already overworked.

[00:29:19] I don't know if Tesla's planning on expanding that team, hiring some of those supercharger folks back to help manage that.

[00:29:26] I genuinely don't know.

[00:29:27] But the energy team is now taking care of that.

[00:29:30] They're also taking care of solar battery installations for home and commercial businesses.

[00:29:35] So it's probably very busy if you're in that team for sure.

[00:29:41] All right. And I have, I will say I have heard stories in the past from former Tesla employees who did work in and around Elon,

[00:29:50] maybe not necessarily for Elon, where he would just come in and not be happy that something wasn't done and fired entire teams for which are full of really,

[00:30:01] really smart people and maybe not the best way to handle problem solving.

[00:30:06] But this is this is I've heard this in the past.

[00:30:10] Let's put it there and leave it there.

[00:30:14] Let's move on to Elon's big pay package.

[00:30:18] It's not a payday because it needs to be approved.

[00:30:21] But we're going to talk a little bit about Elon's pay package.

[00:30:25] Now, Tesla is going out of its way to make sure that Elon gets paid this massive multi-billion dollar pay package.

[00:30:32] At one point in time, it was worth fifty six billion dollars in twenty twenty three.

[00:30:38] Tesla made something like ninety six billion dollars.

[00:30:41] So it's half of what Tesla made more than half of what Tesla made in twenty twenty three.

[00:30:46] This fifty six billion dollar pay package.

[00:30:50] Now, if you're not familiar initially shareholders voted on this pay package.

[00:30:54] It was approved a single Tesla shareholder like one person.

[00:30:59] And I think they only owned one share of Tesla sued because they thought the pay package wasn't properly approved by shareholders.

[00:31:08] It went to court. The judge looked it over.

[00:31:10] They ruled in favor of the shareholder that it was not properly approved by shareholders.

[00:31:16] And after that ruling, the pay package value dropped from fifty six billion dollars to around forty three billion dollars.

[00:31:22] So you know how much Elon makes is roughly based on the actual stock price and probably some other things that I'm not familiar with.

[00:31:32] But if you see Elon's getting a fifty six billion dollar pay increase or a pay package, that's that's not necessarily true.

[00:31:41] It was worth that much money at one point in time.

[00:31:44] If it's worth today, I have no idea what it will be worth when Elon actually gets it.

[00:31:48] If he actually gets it, I also have no idea.

[00:31:50] It could be worth twenty billion dollars.

[00:31:52] Which how can you survive on twenty billion dollars?

[00:31:54] I have no idea. He'll try to figure out a way, I guess.

[00:31:59] But my point is after Elon laying off a bunch of employees, they're slowing sales.

[00:32:06] You know, a few key Tesla executives are leaving.

[00:32:09] And if this is, you know, in part or fully tied to the stock price, it's, you know,

[00:32:16] Elon's likely going to get less than the fifty six billion dollars you see in the headline.

[00:32:22] Now that pay package that we just talked about is up for a revote.

[00:32:27] And Tesla has hired an outside firm, a strategic advisor, and is using certain board members to lobby shareholders,

[00:32:36] specific shareholders to vote for Elon's pay package.

[00:32:41] So this strategic advisor is, you know, targeting retail investors.

[00:32:47] You have board members who are who are targeting specific investors like, hey, you've got to vote for this.

[00:32:53] And then you have the Tesla fanboys.

[00:32:56] Now, retail investors make up 42 percent of Tesla.

[00:33:01] I genuinely have no idea how many or what the percentage of those retail shareholders are Tesla fanboys or Elon fanboys.

[00:33:12] I don't know. I would imagine the number is probably still pretty small.

[00:33:16] But even still, Tesla is like I said, is really working hard to get Elon his money.

[00:33:23] And they even put up a website for reasons why you should vote for Elon.

[00:33:28] It's called VoteTesla.com or vote for Elon's pay package.

[00:33:32] And by the way, if you're curious, Elon and his brother Kimball are abstaining from the vote.

[00:33:37] So they put up this website.

[00:33:40] If you go there, you can vote online.

[00:33:43] You can vote your shares through a QR code, through a phone call or through mail.

[00:33:48] Another proposal that Tesla is trying to get approved is moving from being a Delaware corporation to being a Texas corporation

[00:33:58] because they were sued by the shareholder in Delaware and it was a Delaware judge that said, no, you didn't do it right.

[00:34:05] And denied Elon's pay package.

[00:34:08] So Elon said, well, fine. We're moving to Texas, which does seem a little juvenile if you ask me.

[00:34:14] Now on this website is a video from Tesla chair Robin Denholm.

[00:34:20] So let's go ahead and listen to that video.

[00:34:38] These proposals are absolutely critical to fuel Tesla's future growth and the value of your investment.

[00:34:50] The first proposal relates to a decision you collectively have already made in 2018.

[00:34:56] Stockholders overwhelmingly approved a CEO performance award that incentivized Elon to lead Tesla

[00:35:04] and hit ambitious financial and operational targets in 10 years.

[00:35:10] Back then, these targets seemed so far-fetched, so extraordinarily ambitious that the skeptics called them laughingly impossible.

[00:35:20] If he failed, Elon was entitled to receive no salary, no cash bonuses and no equity

[00:35:28] that would vest simply by the passage of time under the award.

[00:35:33] But if Elon was able to make it happen, you and all other stockholders would reap the benefits.

[00:35:40] The award worked. Elon cut the timeline in half and led Tesla to hit those jaw-dropping key targets.

[00:35:49] We grew revenues from $11.8 billion to $96.8 billion.

[00:35:55] Turned around profitability from $2.2 billion loss to a $15 billion profit.

[00:36:02] Increased the value of the company from $53.7 billion to more than $790 billion.

[00:36:10] And oversaw groundbreaking innovations in artificial intelligence and sustainable energy.

[00:36:18] His success is shared by all stockholders.

[00:36:22] You saw the value of your investments increase nearly 1,100%.

[00:36:28] Importantly, the award also aligns Elon's incentives with yours.

[00:36:33] Over the long term, Elon is required to hold any shares acquired through the award for five additional years after the option is exercised.

[00:36:44] At this time, none of those stock options have been exercised.

[00:36:49] The five-year clock has not even started yet, which means Elon is incentivised to drive the same growth

[00:36:56] that we've seen over the past five years for many years to come.

[00:37:01] Earlier this year, in an unprecedented decision, a Delaware court ordered the cancellation of the 2018 CEO Performance Award,

[00:37:16] which our stockholders had already approved by a large margin.

[00:37:21] As a result, Elon has not received any compensation for the past six years of service to Tesla,

[00:37:28] despite the astonishing growth and value creation he has overseen.

[00:37:34] We don't believe one judge's opinion should void the will of millions of votes cast by all of the owners of the company, and that's you.

[00:37:45] So once again, we are asking you to make your voices heard by voting for the ratification of the 2018 Performance Award.

[00:37:55] The Tesla of today is utterly transformed from the Tesla it was in 2018, thanks in large part to Elon's leadership and vision.

[00:38:05] We are on the cut of our next great growth wave.

[00:38:08] You have seen for yourself what five years under the leadership of an incentivised Elon can do to the value of your investment.

[00:38:18] Protect that same value creation potential for the future.

[00:38:23] The second proposal we are asking for your support on would incorporate Tesla in Texas, our home state.

[00:38:36] Tesla is currently incorporated in Delaware, but Texas is our home.

[00:38:41] In 2021, we moved our corporate headquarters to Texas and our largest manufacturing facility, Giga Texas, is also located in the state.

[00:38:52] Further, the board and I are also increasingly troubled by the growing uncertainty of Delaware corporate law.

[00:39:00] We believe the Texas legal system is strong and fair and more appropriate to our vision.

[00:39:07] We've received letters from thousands of Tesla stockholders, large and small, supporting a move.

[00:39:14] And we have heard you. We believe in your rights. We believe your votes matter.

[00:39:20] Delaware took away those rights and voided the outcome of your vote.

[00:39:26] So let your voice be heard and vote in favour of making Tesla's business home our legal home.

[00:39:33] These two proposals are incredibly important to the future of our company.

[00:39:42] We are asking you to make your voice be heard and your vote heard by voting for these two proposals.

[00:39:51] For more information, including how to vote your shares, please visit vote tesla.com.

[00:39:58] All right. I'm only going to say one thing that's snarky about this is the way that this is presented.

[00:40:04] You would almost think that Elon was a starving child somewhere in the world that needed your help.

[00:40:09] Elon's not a starving child in somewhere in the world that needs your help.

[00:40:13] He's a billionaire who has plenty of money.

[00:40:16] Now, whether he deserves we'll call it the pay package, whether he deserves that much money.

[00:40:22] That's not for me to say. I'm not a shareholder.

[00:40:24] I have zero skin in the game like if the shareholders vote for this, that's fantastic.

[00:40:30] Give him the man and give the man his money.

[00:40:32] Like that's that's not for me to say whether he deserves the money or not.

[00:40:35] That's for the shareholders to say.

[00:40:37] But the thing the thing that's a little irritating is up until this point,

[00:40:42] I seem to have enjoyed all of the protections that incorporating in Delaware afforded them.

[00:40:48] Now, I don't know what all those protections are.

[00:40:50] I'm not a business person, but I didn't hear a lot of complaining about it up until Elon got his pay package tonight.

[00:40:58] And we have courts in this country and other countries for a reason.

[00:41:03] And that's to settle disputes.

[00:41:04] One person had a dispute and the judge looked at it and said, yeah, you're right.

[00:41:09] So that part irritates me just a little bit.

[00:41:12] But as far as Elon receiving fifty six billion dollars or whatever the number is, does he deserve it?

[00:41:17] I have no idea.

[00:41:19] I do know I do remember that when this pay package was set up for him,

[00:41:26] I do remember that if he didn't hit the targets, he got zero and the targets were lofty.

[00:41:33] She is correct on that.

[00:41:35] So if he if you're a shareholder and you vote for that, then absolutely, he should get the money.

[00:41:42] However, if one shareholder or many shareholders get together and they're like, you know what?

[00:41:46] Something about this didn't seem fair.

[00:41:48] And the judge looks into it and says, you're right.

[00:41:50] It wasn't or it wasn't done properly.

[00:41:54] Then just do it again.

[00:41:56] It's not not not a big deal.

[00:41:58] I don't know. This seems like it's getting blown out of proportion on Tesla's side, if I'm being honest.

[00:42:05] So that kind of leads us to the next thing.

[00:42:08] So in the past and in just recent, just this week,

[00:42:14] Elon has said that if he can't obtain 25 percent equity stake in Tesla,

[00:42:20] then he's going to stop developing A.I. in Tesla and robotics.

[00:42:25] And he is going to move that to a company that he controls,

[00:42:30] which this is very awkward because on the last couple of earnings calls,

[00:42:34] Elon has said very loudly with his chest.

[00:42:37] He has said people don't realize that Tesla is an A.I. company.

[00:42:42] So if for some reason,

[00:42:45] Elon doesn't get his pay package and he doesn't obtain 25 percent of the company,

[00:42:54] what's he going to do?

[00:42:55] He's going to gut the company for the sake of his pride because he said we're building something.

[00:43:03] It's A.I. This company is an A.I. company.

[00:43:07] And now you don't get 25 percent.

[00:43:09] And he says, well, yeah, now I'm going to move this all of this stuff into a separate company.

[00:43:16] So effectively, you're saying the car company is not useless, but it's it's just a car company.

[00:43:23] It's not an A.I. company anymore.

[00:43:25] I don't know.

[00:43:26] I'm not really sure how they would do that.

[00:43:29] So right now, as far as I can tell.

[00:43:32] Right. And there's a lot of different data out there.

[00:43:35] But Electrek just wrote an article and I'm going to use Electrek's numbers because I tend to believe that they do a good job in reporting.

[00:43:43] Right now, Elon owns about 13 percent of Tesla because he sold a bunch of shares so that he could buy Twitter.

[00:43:51] So I don't know how much he owned before he sold all these shares, but he sold a bunch of shares.

[00:43:56] The stock price tanked so that he could go and buy Twitter.

[00:44:01] So, you know, that's his right to do.

[00:44:05] But he now owns 13 percent.

[00:44:08] If this pay package passes, then he will own up to or right around 18 percent.

[00:44:17] So he's still quite a bit further away from that 25 percent number.

[00:44:23] So in that case, is he expecting another seven percent of the company to be given to him?

[00:44:30] And if the company is worth seven hundred billion dollars, I'm going to do math on the fly here.

[00:44:36] Hold on one second. Calculator.

[00:44:40] If the company is worth seven hundred billion dollars, make sure I put enough zeros in this.

[00:44:44] That's seven hundred thousand. That's seven million. That's seven hundred million.

[00:44:48] I got to turn my phone sideways. All right.

[00:44:52] One, two, three. OK. Times.

[00:44:58] Seven percent. This is riveting.

[00:45:03] I don't know where the percent sign is on my. Oh, there it is right there.

[00:45:09] So that's 49 billion dollars.

[00:45:11] So in order for Elon to get 25 percent of the company, he's going to ask for another 49 billion dollars of the company.

[00:45:21] That kind of seems insane, doesn't it?

[00:45:25] It seems insane to me.

[00:45:28] Again, whether Elon gets this money or doesn't get this money, that is up to the shareholders.

[00:45:32] It's not my business.

[00:45:34] But for goodness sakes, that's that's a big ask for for another, you know, 50 billion dollars of the company so that you can own 25 percent.

[00:45:46] And then there becomes an issue of Elon's fiduciary responsibility.

[00:45:52] So if he removes AI from Tesla, which is an AI company by his words, is he.

[00:46:00] Violating his fiduciary responsibilities.

[00:46:03] I genuinely don't know.

[00:46:06] So just some things to think about.

[00:46:09] Also, I'm going to give you one bugaboo here that kind of irritates me on this whole thing again, whether or not Elon gets his money or not,

[00:46:16] does that doesn't really irritate me or bother me one way or the other, because that's for the shareholders to decide.

[00:46:22] But what does is Elon's laying off.

[00:46:26] Thousands, tens of thousands of people, seemingly from the outside without a care as to what the company is going to do about those whole positions like the supercharger team.

[00:46:37] He's laying off all these people.

[00:46:40] He's saying we need to be hardcore at cutting expenses.

[00:46:43] But Tesla's hired a company to make sure that an advisory company to make sure that Elon's getting his money.

[00:46:53] Like, if you're going to be hardcore, you have you are the most followed person on X.

[00:46:59] You you have a platform.

[00:47:01] Why do you need to hire somebody to appeal to?

[00:47:07] Your retail shareholders, you could literally just send it out with a tweet and there's probably some law against Elon tweeting about this specifically now that I'm thinking about it.

[00:47:19] But like you just laid off a bunch of people, 20 plus thousand people don't have a job.

[00:47:25] Maybe this isn't the time when you complain about not having your money.

[00:47:31] That's that's that's the part that bugs me.

[00:47:35] All right, everybody, I'm going to jump off my soapbox and we're going to call this episode good.

[00:47:40] It's a long episode.

[00:47:41] I hope you all enjoyed it.

[00:47:43] If you want to email me, it's Bodie B O D I E at 9 1 8 digital dot com.

[00:47:49] I know we talked about a lot of stuff today, so I'm happy to hear your feedback and get your opinions.

[00:47:55] And then you can find me on X at 9 1 8 digital.

[00:48:00] And yeah, hope you hope you all have a wonderful couple of weeks.

[00:48:05] I have like I said, I've got planned content for the next two weeks.

[00:48:09] Now I got to finish editing that content and getting it out to you.

[00:48:13] So I hope you all have a wonderful week and I will talk to you on Friday where we're going to talk about Rivian's Q1 2024 earnings call.

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